July 2010 Archives

A Misunderstander of Islam, eh? No. Everything this Muslim cleric says is based on the Qur'an and Islamic law. "Friday Sermon in Gaza: Muslims Should Wage Jihad to Liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the Filth of the Jews, the Brothers of Apes and Pigs," from MEMRITV, July 16 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Following are excerpts from a Gaza Friday sermon, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on July 16, 2010:

Preacher: Dearly beloved, the Al-Aqsa Mosque is subjected to a vicious campaign of Judaization and defilement, at the hands of the filthiest creatures made by Allah - the Jews.

"O ye who believe! Truly the Pagans are unclean..." -- Qur'an 9:28. The word translated "pagans" here is mushrikun, those who commit shirk, or the association of partners with Allah. The Jews are guilty of this according to Qur'an 9:30, which claims (falsely) that they say that Ezra is the Son of God. And according to Al-Islam.org: "As regards the people of the Book (i.e. the Jews and the Christians) who do not accept the Prophethood of Prophet Muhammad bin Abdullah (Peace be upon him and his progeny), they are commonly considered najis [unclean], but it is not improbable that they are Pak [pure]. However, it is better to avoid them."

[...] Today, we see the brothers of apes and pigs destroying homes with their occupants still in them, uprooting trees from their land, and killing women, children, and the elderly. [...]

The Qur'an three times recounts that Allah transformed disobedient Jews into apes and pigs (2:62-65; 5:59-60; 7:166). "When in their insolence they transgressed (all) prohibitions, We said to them: 'Be ye apes, despised and rejected'" (7:166).

A levy of blood will be paid for the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Our people will never relinquish the Al-Aqsa Mosque or Palestine. We will redeem it with our souls, with our blood, with our sons, with what is most dear to us - regardless of the sacrifices we will have to make - until it is liberated, with the grace of Allah, and until this holy land is purified from the filth of the Jews.

[...]

Brothers in faith, the Al-Aqsa Mosque remains under oppressive occupation. The Jews continue to defile it with their filth. The only way to liberate it is through Jihad for the sake of Allah.

[...]

Jihad today is an individual duty, incumbent upon each and every Muslim man and woman. According to the Islamic legal principle, when an enemy invades a Muslim country, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Muslim man and woman. A son should set out on Jihad even without the permission of his father, a wife should set out even without the permission of her husband, and a slave should set out even without the permission of his master. [...]

All the schools of Islamic jurisprudence agree that when a non-Muslim force enters a Muslim land, jihad becomes the individual obligation of every Muslim (fard 'ayn) rather than a collective obligation of the entire umma, from which one is released if others are taking it up (fard kifaya). Bulghah al-Salik li-Aqrab al-Masalik fi madhhab al-Imam Malik ("The Sufficiency of the Traveller on the Best Path in the School of Imam Malik,") says this:

Jihad in the Path of Allah, to raise the word of Allah, is fard kifayah [obligatory on the community] once a year, so that if some perform it, the obligation falls from the rest. It becomes fard `ayn [obligatory on every Muslim individually], like salah and fasting, if the legitimate Muslim Imam declares it so, or if there is an attack by the enemy on an area of people.

The Hanafi, Maliki, and Shafi'i schools of Sunni jurisprudence further declare that jihad, once it is fard 'ayn, is no different from prayer and fasting -- in other words, to engage in warfare with non-Muslims in that case is a religious devotion that cannot lawfully be evaded. Hashiyah Ibn `Abidin, an authoritative text of the Hanafi school, says that jihad is "fard 'ayn if the enemy has attacked part of the Islamic homeland. It thus becomes an obligation like salah [prayer] and fasting which cannot be abandoned."

Surprising? Not at all, but newsworthy nonetheless. It is but one more example in the broader pattern of disturbing conduct by the Obama administration in its drive to gain the approval of the Muslim world at seemingly any cost.

It will not make us safer. It will not make us, or anyone else, freer.

An update on this story. "Stop preaching or get out: The king is unamused by Christians who proselytise," from The Economist, July 29 (thanks to Twostellas):

Evangelical Christians in the poor world are rarely accused of undermining public order. All the more surprising, then, that in recent months around a hundred have been deported from Morocco for just that. The Christians, mostly from the United States and Europe, have been accused of trying to convert Muslims to Christianity, a crime punishable by imprisonment under Moroccan law, which protects the freedom to practise one's faith but forbids any attempt to convert others.

In accordance with Sharia.

Rules against proselytising are quite common in Muslim countries but Morocco has long enjoyed a reputation as a bastion of religious tolerance in the region. Almost all the country's 32m citizens are Sunni Muslims but churches and synagogues exist, alongside mosques, to cater for the 1% of the people who are Christian or Jewish.

Such open-mindedness presumably appealed to the Christian missionaries who ran the "Village of Hope" home for children 80km (50 miles) south of Fez, a former capital known for religion and scholarship. The 16 aid-workers had cared for abandoned children for over a decade when, in March, the Moroccan authorities sent inspectors to the orphanage, then gave the workers a few days' notice to leave the country. Witnesses reported distraught farewells between the Moroccan children and the foreigners who had acted as foster parents.

Morocco's communications minister, Khaled Naciri, said the missionaries "took advantage of the poverty of some families and targeted their young children". The aid-workers deny pumping the children with Christianity. But sympathisers say that even if they did, a few hours of preaching was a small price to pay for education and pastoral care. There have been further expulsions since then, most recently of an evangelical Spanish teacher.

"Moral rape," and "religious terrorism," the Moroccan officials called the alleged evangelization activities in the prior story linked above.

Local residents are quick to point out that it is not only Christians who have been targets; last year a similar campaign was waged against Morocco's even smaller population of Shia Muslims. But the motivation for the crackdowns is probably political more than religious. Morocco's constitution is based on the hereditary position of the king as "commander of the faithful". Any drift of Muhammad VI's subjects away from the dominant stream of moderate Sunni Islam might, his advisers fear, diminish his authority.

A false dichotomy of politics and religion, where there is clearly no such distinction here, with Islam active in its capacity as a political system claiming divine sanction.

The American branch of an evangelical organisation, Open Doors, which speaks up for persecuted Christians across the world, is backing a campaign by a Republican congressman, Frank Wolf, to press the Moroccans to be kinder to the evangelicals. Seeing that Morocco is one of America's closest Arab allies, the American administration has been notably silent.

The answer is, simply: Muhammad. Per Qur'an 33:21, he is the supreme example of conduct for Muslims. Muhammad's involvement in stonings is recorded in Sunni ahadith, and the tradition has clearly survived among Shi'ites as well. It doesn't matter that stoning doesn't appear in the Qur'an, because the notion of Islam as a sola scriptura faith is a far-fetched tool of apologists to make the Qur'an appear uncreated, and less dependent on the time and place in which it appeared. But the Qur'an-only movement is actually a minority view at variance with the prominent sects of Islam.

And then there's this:

'Umar said, "I am afraid that after a long time has passed, people may say, "We do not find the Verses of the Rajam (stoning to death) in the Holy Book," and consequently they may go astray by leaving an obligation that Allah has revealed. Lo! I confirm that the penalty of Rajam be inflicted on him who commits illegal sexual intercourse, if he is already married and the crime is proved by witnesses or pregnancy or confession." Sufyan added, "I have memorized this narration in this way." 'Umar added, "Surely Allah's Apostle carried out the penalty of Rajam, and so did we after him" (Sahih Bukhari 8.82.816).

So the answer, again, is: Muhammad. "Iranian woman facing stoning: 'I'm afraid of dying'," from CNN, July 30:

London, England (CNN) -- In a room thousands of miles from her prison cell in northeastern Iran, the fear that has gripped Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani for years was clear and almost palpable.

"The day I was given the stoning sentence, it was as if I fell into a deep hole and I lost consciousness," said a human rights advocate, reading aloud from a letter attributed to Ashtiani. "Many nights, before sleeping, I think to myself how can anybody be prepared to throw stones at me; to aim at my face and hands? Why?"

And we're told Islam "elevates" women -- except usually, in Iran, that's done with a noose and a crane. And Ashtiani may yet face that fate instead of stoning.

Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother of two, was set to be stoned to death for allegedly committing adultery in Iran. Members of the International Committee Against Executions, who have launched a public campaign for her freedom, held a news conference Friday to share a letter they said was from Ashtiani, who is being held in a Tabriz prison, and court documents from her case.

"I thank all of you from Tabriz prison," the letter said. Referring to advocate Mina Ahadi, Ashtiani wrote, "Mrs. Ahadi, tell everyone that I'm afraid of dying. Help me stay alive and hug my children."...

Qur'an 4:34, the verse in which Allah green-lights beating one's wife, has far-reaching consequences in letter and spirit. It makes the Muslim family a microcosm of the Qur'anic deity's ordering of the universe and society, where submission is paramount, and the one who feels entitled to be in charge -- whether Muhammad's deity or the man of the house -- can do as he pleases, and is free to resort to brutality to ensure submission... while demanding to be called compassionate and merciful, of course. To do otherwise might hurt his feelings, and the rage that ensues would be your fault, naturally.

Thus, even in an ostensibly secular Muslim society, the idea that it is okay to beat your wife persists. And there is only one way it can be passed off as "culture": recognizing that the culture is informed and suffused with the priorities, issues and hangups of Muhammad's own culture (and of Muhammad himself), which upholding him as a prophet make sacrosanct.

"Domestic abuse still a taboo in Turkey," by Ivan Watson and Yesim Comert for CNN, July 30:

...Video footage filmed in September of 2009 shows Sidika outside of the hospital in the provincial capital of Van. Her face was horribly bruised; her head encased in bandages. Part of Sidika's right ear had been sliced off. The woman could barely walk and leaned on her brother for support, as she hobbled a few short steps into the hospital.

After the incident, Turkish authorities separated Sidika Platin and her children from her husband and placed them in a state-run women's shelter. But barely two months later, a local criminal court asked that Sidika and her children be handed back to Faruk Platin. He had not served any jail time for beating his wife.

"At that time, because he showed regret and because his [criminal] record was clean, his sentence was postponed," said Meral Demirbas, the governor of Saray district where Kapikoy is located.

"Also, the wife withdrew her complaint."

Sidika Platin is an ethnic Kurd who speaks no Turkish. According to eyewitnesses, when she appeared in court, she could not understand the judge or prosecutor, and relied on her husband to translate legal proceedings.

On a snowy day last December, local women's rights activists like Hamide Yeni could do little more then watch helplessly, as Faruk Platin led his mutilated wife away from the courtyard, back to the village where they lived.

"This kind of thing happens in every village," says Yeni, one of the founders of a grassroots local family protection association in the Saray district of southeastern Turkey. "There are thousands of women like Sidika out here."

In fact, according to a 2009 Turkish government report, 42 percent of women surveyed said they had been the victims of either physical or sexual abuse by their husband or partner. The report concluded that one in four married Turkish women had been injured by partner violence. Meanwhile, one in 10 Turkish women were injured by such violence while pregnant.

Some Turkish activists fear the real statistics for violence against women may actually be much higher.

"In all domestic surveys there are 'shadow figures.' That is because women are not willing to tell about the violence, it's a very sensitive issue," says Pinar Ilkkaracan, a co-founder of the Istanbul-based group Women for Women's Human Rights.

"We think it's much higher then 42 percent."

Domestic violence against women is not confined to economically-depressed, rural regions of eastern Turkey. According to the Turkish government survey, the statistics for physical and sexual assault were roughly the same in the countryside as in the most developed, fast-growing cities in the western part of the country.

Over the past 15 years, Turkey has adopted several progressive pieces of legislation to protect women, including a 1998 Protection Order against Domestic Violence. Reform of Turkey's Civil Code in 2001 gave women legal equal status to men in the family.

Meanwhile, changes to the country's Penal Code in 2004 criminalized marital rape. But critics argue that the Turkish state has lapsed far behind in implementing these laws....

We always hear in the West that women who choose to don the veil are doing so of their own free will, and are perfectly free not to wear it. Yet the leader of the students' union at Aliah University is willing to put this kind of pressure on Sirin Middya, and he is by no means alone in this. "Woman not allowed to teach after burqa refusal," from Sify News, July 30 (thanks to all who sent this in):

A lady teacher in West Bengal's first Muslim university, the Aliah University, was not allowed to teach after she refused to wear the burqa (veil) inside the varsity premises.

Sirin Middya, a guest lecturer of the university, along with eight other lady teachers got a 'diktat' from the leaders of the students' union to wear burqa and attend the college.

'I was asked by the leaders of the student's union to wear burqa and attend the college and if I don't abide by the diktat, they won't allow me to attend the college. Then after a few days as we were entering the university campus, they started shouting slogans 'those who are against purdah system should go to hell',' Middya told IANS.

Middya was appointed in March this year and got the union's 'diktat' in the second week of April. From April-end, she has been unable to go to the Aliah University's Calcutta Madrasah Campus.

A notice issued by the university clearly stated that 'university has no dress code, any pressure from any corner will not be allowed regarding the use of burqa inside the university campus. If anybody creates pressure on female teachers to use the burqa, necessary steps will be taken by the university authorities', she said.

'The University Grants Commission and the university itself do not prescribe any such dress code. Who are they to dictate us what we should wear and what we should not. The most unfortunate part is that the students and leaders of students union are forcing us to wear burqa. A few of the teachers gave into their demand but I didn't,' Middya said.

According to her, she has no issues with wearing a burqa - but if she dons one, it would be of her own free will.

'Most of the teachers do not like the diktat of the students to wear burqa. But they have no option but to accept it. This is Talibanisation of educational premises and there is no one to our rescue,' she said....

Of course, that would just be the shape of things to come in an Islamic state: Bark at the uppity kuffar to put them back in their place.

"Key Jewish Group Rejects Ground Zero Mosque," from the Associated Press, July 30:

The nation's leading Jewish civil rights group has come out against the planned mosque and Islamic community center near ground zero, saying more information is needed about funding for the project and the location is "counterproductive to the healing process."

The Anti-Defamation League said it rejects any opposition to the center based on bigotry and acknowledged that the group behind the plan, the Cordoba Initiative, has the legal right to build at the site. But the ADL said "some legitimate questions have been raised" about funding and possible ties with "groups whose ideologies stand in contradiction to our shared values."

"Ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right," the ADL said in a statement. "In our judgment, building an Islamic center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain -- unnecessarily -- and that is not right."

The Cordoba Initiative did not comment Friday.

Here, the AP stringer uncritically regurgitates the mosque proponents' claims about themselves:

Based in New York, Cordoba aims to improve relations between Islam and the West by hosting leadership conferences for young American Muslims, and organizing programs on Arab-Jewish relations, building civil society in the Muslim world and empowering Muslim women.

The mosque and community center would be located two blocks from the lower Manhattan site of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Cordoba purchased the property for $4 million and planned to build a 13-story, $100 million Islamic center, of which the mosque would be a part.

Cordoba's director, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, has not disclosed the funding sources for the project. But Sharif El-Gamal, the CEO of the company that owns the property, has said the project's backers were committed to transparency and would work with the attorney general's watchdog Charities Bureau.

... and disclose the funding sources? Or just line up some photo ops?

A city community board voted overwhelmingly last spring to back the project even as it drew emotional opposition from some local residents and relatives of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg supports the mosque's construction. Disagreement over the project has become a national issue, drawing opposition from former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin, among others.

The ADL, one of the most prominent groups in American Jewish life, is known for its advocacy of religious freedom and interfaith harmony. Its position on the mosque was met with shock and condemnation by several groups.

Time to dust off the "I, for one, welcome our new overlords" meme:

Jeremy Ben-Ami, head of J Street, the dovish, pro-Israel group, said he would hope ADL would be at the forefront in defending the freedom of a religious minority, "rather than casting aspersions on its funders and giving in to the fear-mongerers."

The Rev. Welton Gaddy, head of the Interfaith Alliance, a Washington advocacy group, said he read the ADL statement "with a great deal of sorrow."

"As an organization that for nearly 100 years has helped set the standard for fighting defamation and securing justice and fair treatment for all, it is disappointing to see the ADL arrived at this conclusion," Gaddy said.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations urged ADL to retract its statement.

Abraham Foxman, national director of the ADL, defended his position.

In a phone interview, he compared the idea of a mosque near ground zero to the Roman Catholic Carmelite nuns who had a convent at the Auschwitz death camp. In 1993, Pope John Paul II responded to Jewish protests by ordering the nuns to move.

"We're saying if your purpose is to heal differences, it's the wrong place," Foxman said of the mosque. "Don't do it. The symbolism is wrong."

It sure is wrong. On so many levels. And the symbolism is just the start of what's wrong.

Putting nuclear materials in cigarettes! So thaaaaat's why they're so unhealthy! "Iranian Official: Marlboro Tainted with Pig Blood & Nuclear Matter," from Iran's PressTV, July 30 (thanks to Jeff):

(TEHRAN PRESS TV) - An Iranian official says some of the most popular cigarette brands are contaminated with nuclear substances when smuggled into the country.

The article linked above, via the Salem News, included the bit about pigs' blood in their headline. It's unclear where that came from -- and where it went.

"Some of the most famous cigarette brands worldwide including Marlboro, which accounts for the bulk of smuggled cigarettes [into the Islamic Republic] are tainted with [hazardous] nuclear materials," Mehr News Agency quoted Mohammad-Reza Madani from the Society for Fighting Smoking as saying on Friday.

What happens if you smoke them while consuming Pop Rocks and Coca-Cola? I mean, while we're dealing in urban legends and all...

"The largest tobacco companies in the world use various tricks in order to keep their markets and increase their sales," Madani added.

He went on to add that the company responsible for the production of the tainted cigarettes is the "Philip Morris International, which is led by Zionists (Israelis)," and sells Marlboro outside the US.

The Iranian official also referred to a confidential report released a few years ago, in which the contamination of the "Philip Morris" cigarettes was confirmed.

He called on the Iranian Tobacco Company to adopt better supervisory measures regarding the distribution of cigarettes in the country.

"Philip Morris" is an international tobacco company with market demand in over 160 countries.

Its main brands include Marlboro, L&M, Longbeach, Philip Morris, Bond Street and Chesterfield.

There is a virtually unlimited need, and an unlimited demand for health care the world over. It is a perpetually scarce and costly resource. So, what better way to spend it than in submission to Islamic mores?

Not that the taxpayer-funded virginity "Mulligan" is new to the U.K. This has been going on for a number of years now.

But along with the matter of resources, this practice enables the non-engagement of the issues of honor killing and penalties enshrined in Islamic law. Indeed, for all parties involved in the transaction, there is much to be swept under the rug.

"NHS pays for Muslim virginity operations," by Tim Stewart and David Pilditch for the Express, July 30 (thanks to Twostellas):

AN INCREASING number of Muslim brides are having controversial pre-marriage "virginity repair" operations.

Taxpayers funded 116 hymen replacements on the NHS between 2005 and 2009, official figures revealed.

There were 30 operations in 2009 - up 25 per cent from 24 in 2005, it emerged yesterday.

You'll want to read this next part sitting down:

Private clinics report a huge surge in demand for the procedure, costing between £1,800 and £4,000. It means the taxpayer has forked out up to £400,000 over the four years to fund the half-hour operation.

Doctors say the trend is driven by young Muslim women under pressure from future husbands or relatives who insist they should be virgins.

Gynaecologist Dr Magdy Hend charges £1,850 for hymenoplasty at his Regency Clinic in Harley Street. He said: "In the past, we would do one or two a week. Sometimes now we get two or three a day. Demand has tripled."

Imam Dr Taj Hargey, chairman of the Muslim Educational Centre in Oxford, said it was "disappointing" that Muslim women in this country felt the need to resort "to subterfuge surgery".

The NHS says it does the operation only for "clinical need".

Dear NHS: I've decided I want my tonsils back. Can you hook that up, too?

Of course, given Pakistan's ongoing double game, there is always the question of whether the groups are banned as in "banned," or banned as in "just lay low for a bit or consider changing your name."

"Suspected Islamists Shoot Five Christians to Death in Pakistan," from Compass Direct News, July 29 (thanks to Twostellas):

SUKKUR, Pakistan, July 29 (CDN) -- A dozen masked men shot five Christians to death as they came out of their church building here on July 15, two months after a banned Islamic extremist group sent church leaders a threatening letter, relatives said.

Pastor Aaron John and church members Rohail Bhatti, Salman John, Abid Gill and Shamin Mall of Full Gospel Church were leaving the church building after meeting to discuss security in light of the threats they had received, said the pastor's son, Shahid John.

"As we came out of the church, a group of a dozen armed gunmen came and opened fire at us," said Shahid John, who survived a bullet in his arm. "Fear struck the area. The police arrived 45 minutes after the incident, and we waited for over 45 minutes for the ambulance to arrive."

Besides Shahid John, five others were wounded in the attack.

In May church leaders received a letter from Islamic extremist group Sip-e-Sahaba (formerly Sipah-e-Sahaba until it was banned) warning the Christians to leave the area, said Kiran Rohail, wife of the slain Rohail Bhatti.

"It said to vacate the land, Christians are not welcomed here, they are polluting our land," Kiran Rohail said.

The Sip-e-Sahaba and Sunni Tehrik extremist groups are both linked with an area madrassa (Islamic school) whose students had been threatening the church since 2008, Christian sources said.

"In 2008 a group of Muslim students started making threats for the church to vacate the land, as there are only 55 Christian families living in the area," said the pastor's widow, Naila John, who also lost her son Salman John in the attack.

The masked gunmen of July 15 had young physiques like those of students, Christian sources said, and their manner of attack indicated they were trained extremists....

An update on this story. The nature of the interaction with mosque officials is entirely too typical: When approached about specifics, respond with lofty generalities; repeat as necessary, and people who still won't back down are automatically Islamophobes, naturally. "Sheriff's office to probe Islamic burial," by Mark Bell for DNJ.com, July 30 (thanks to Twostellas):

Rutherford County's Sheriff's Office will investigate questions regarding a burial at the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro's new site on Veals Road.

Maj. Chuck Thomas told The Daily News Journal on Thursday that the office will "look into some concerns that were brought to our attention."

A group of about two dozen people requested an investigation in a letter and petition presented to Sheriff Truman Jones earlier this week.

"Who is it that's buried here?" group spokesperson Laurie Cardoza-Moore said in a press conference Thursday. "Is it a child? Is it an adult? Is it male or female? There are environmental issues. Was there a casket used?"

The group is also concerned about the burial permit that was issued by the Rutherford County Planning Department.

Cardoza-Moore said the permit was approved for one person to be buried on the site, notarized and dated May 18. But, the group claims the body was buried before that permit was even approved.

"It's our understanding the burial took place on the 17th," said Cardoza-Moore.

Murfreesboro Police have said they gave a funeral escort to the site on May 19, the day after the permit was issued.

Thomas said the sheriff's office will look into the matter.

"We will make sure that the death certificate was obtained and ... that all the laws and rules were followed," Thomas said.

The leader of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, Imam Ossama Bahloul, didn't talk to a WSMV reporter on camera about the issue, but reacted by saying: "We want to be a good neighbor and want to reside in peace."

Body dumps don't build good neighborly relations.

He went on to say, "We wish everyone in the city the very best."

That's swell, but again, how 'bout that burial issue?

Islamic leaders had applied for a conditional use permit for a full cemetery on site, but later withdrew that request....

So is it just kind of a cemetery? Half a cemetery? A hemi-demi-semi-cemetery?

Which is not to say that they ought not to leave. What did they hope to accomplish there in the first place? With no clear mission or goal, and no understanding of the jihad doctrine or Sharia, the whole thing was foredoomed. "Taliban 'greet' Dutch on Afghan pullout," from AFP, July 30 (thanks to Twostellas):

THE HAGUE: The Taliban has congratulated the Netherlands government for the imminent pullout of their troops from Afghanistan, according to a newspaper interview with a spokesman from the group.

"We hope that other countries with troops stationed in Afghanistan will follow the Netherlands example and withdraw their troops," said Qari Yusuf Ahmadij, who was described as the Taliban's spokesman for west and south Afghanistan. This was said in an interview given to the Dutch daily Volkskrant.

The deployment of about 1,950 Dutch troops in Afghanistan ends after four years on Sunday amid concerns about the void it will leave....

"Once again we call on European countries that have soldiers in Afghanistan to leave the country. Because it is not your war, but a war of the United States, which aims to reach their imperialistic objectives in the world and especially in this region," he said.

Right. Because for them, Islamic imperialism is the only acceptable kind.

Not surprising. "Obama behind Cameron's attack on Israel, by Pamela Geller in the Daily Caller, July 29:

Speaking in Turkey on Tuesday, British Prime Minister David Cameron slammed Israel and called Gaza a "prison camp." (Apparently Gaza is the first prison camp with luxury shopping malls.) The British Foreign Office has been taking the blame for this betrayal of Israel, but they're claiming they were as surprised as anyone. Now, a high-placed and knowledgeable source has informed me that it was Obama's people who put the slamming of Israel into Cameron's speech.

Cameron also said that "the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable." He didn't mention the ties of the Turkish-backed IHH "activists" on the flotilla to global jihad terror groups. He didn't mention that the "activists" on the Turkish flotilla, the Mavi Marmara, were chanting, "Khaibar, Khaibar, O Jews, the army of Muhammad will return" - a chant that refers to Muhammad's massacre of the Jews at the Arabian oasis of Khaibar.

And now we learn that it was the Obama camp that put Cameron up to this. It comes as no surprise. Obama himself termed Israel's defensive action against the jihad flotilla "tragic."

Just as Blair was Bush's "puppy," Cameron is Obama's lapdog.

Obama's use of Cameron as his sock puppet points once again to Obama's obsession with destroying the Jewish state. Obama is doing nothing less than warring against Israel. When Sean Hannity asked me on his show Tuesday night if I thought Obama was an anti-semite, I said yes. He is. It sounds harsh. But the evidence is clear and extensive: it's all meticulously researched and set out in my book The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War On America, which is just out this week.

In the book I profile Obama's many, many anti-Israel playmates: not just Jeremiah Wright, but also Rashid Khalidi (who is also tied to the jihad flotillas and just named a new one after Obama's book The Audacity of Hope) and William Ayers: in the book also I expose the blatant Judeophobia of the terrorist couple Bill Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn in their book Prairie Fire.

It is increasingly clear that the Islamic anti-Semitism taught in the Koranic classes of Obama's youth in Indonesia and the subsequent adult years he spent with the likes of demagogues and Jew-haters like Wright, Ayers, and Louis Farrakhan have made him the man he is....

The evidence is there. Read it all.

No doubt it was all nuclear material of peace. "Canada jails man for nuclear exports to Iran," from al-Arabiya, July 30:

A Canadian man convicted of trying to send nuclear technology to his native Iran has been sentenced to 20 months in prison.

In addition to his 20 months in jail, the Ontario Court of Justice sentenced Mahmoud Yadegar to another 15.5 months of pre-sentence custody, Canada's public prosecution service said in a statement.

"Because the court granted double credit for pre-sentence custody, this amounts to a four-year, three-month sentence," the statement read.

He was found guilty on July 6 of nine out of 10 charges, including offences under the Customs Act, the United Nations Act, and the Criminal Code

Prosecutors were seeking 6.5 years prison for Yadegari, 37, who was born in Iran but has been living in Canada since 1988.

On March 4, 2009, Yadegari "attempted to export controlled material to Iran" via Dubai, read the statement.

"The goods, known as pressure transducers, are subject to a United Nations embargo on nuclear-related exports to Iran."

The items, it said, "are also on Canada's Export Control List."...

One would think that murdering thirteen Americans in the name of Islamic jihad would at least get you suspended without pay, but no such luck. "Banks won't take Fort Hood shooting suspect's paychecks, by Jeremy Schwartz for the American-Statesman, July 29 (thanks to Roger):

As he sits in the Bell County Jail, accused of the Nov. 5 Fort Hood shooting that left 13 dead, Maj. Nidal Hasan continues to receive his monthly U.S. Army paycheck, which based on his rank and experience is probably more than $6,000.

That's standard procedure for soldiers who are confined before military trial, according to Army officials.

But Hasan, charged with a shooting spree that shocked the country, is not a standard defendant. And he's having a hard time finding a bank to take his money.

According to his civilian attorney John Galligan , Bank of America notified Hasan last month that it was closing his account and no area bank so far has agreed to open an account for the Army psychiatrist. Military regulations require soldiers to be paid through direct deposit, making a bank account indispensable.

"I think it's just another example of the prejudice that he's been exposed to," Galligan said. "It's money that he's entitled to, that he has a right to."...

A right to? For reporting his patients for war crimes? For murdering Americans? For jihad?

The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War On America by Pamela Geller with Robert Spencer

"...The stealth form believes in using cultural, intellectual, and political [means]. But their end goal is exactly the same."

While the emphasis on "radical Islamists" sidesteps the fundamental ideological cause of Islamic jihad -- the teachings of the Qur'an and the sayings and example of Muhammad -- there are several promising moments in this six-minute segment. Most of all:

"One of the things I am going to suggest today is a federal law which says no court anywhere in the United States under any circumstance is allowed to consider Sharia as a replacement for American law."

Of course, Oklahoma was mocked for attempting this at the state level. But on the other hand, it would come too late for the New Jersey woman in whose case a judge sided with the husband who raped her because Islam forbids wives to refuse their husbands' sexual demands.

Another American against the Ground Zero mega-mosque. "If We Were Really Who They Say We are, We Would All be Liberals," transcript of the Rush Limbaugh Show, July 27 (thanks to Anne Crockett):

Let's take, at face value, the template that the partisan political hacks spew at me. I am, according to them, anti-women's rights. Equal rights for women is no concern of mine, right? I'm the guy that came up with the name "feminazi." I'm not a friend of women's rights, they say. If that were true, I would be pushing for the mosque at Ground Zero. If I were anti-women's rights, I would be all for Sharia law. Sharia law is a not-so-stealth way to undermine women's rights in this country. It would be a perfect cause if I was who they say I am.

Anti-women's rights is a cause of the left. That's who's pushing Sharia in this country: The left. It's the left that wants a mosque at Ground Zero. It's left who thinks "America's chickensssss came home to roost" on 9/11. It's the American left that thinks we got what we deserved on 9/11. It's the American left that wants the mosque at Ground Zero. No one can be pro-women's rights and remain silent about the metastasizing cancer that Sharia law is on women's rights.

Aziz Poonawalla, who is the kind of man who posts obscene photoshops about his ideological opponents, and who once fooled a whole passel of rubes at spitblogger Dean Esmay's site by claiming that my use of the standard and ordinary Arabic transliteration of my name was a ludicrous error, has now published a supposedly frank, open, and honest discussion of the plans for the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero with Sharif El-Gamal (pictured above at Tuesday's hearing of Manhattan's Community Board 1), the multimillionaire who owns the property. As might be expected, El-Gamal's answers fall significantly short of actually being frank, open, and honest.

"Q&A with Sharif el-Gamal about Park 51, NYC," by Aziz Poonawalla at BeliefNet, July 24:

As promised earlier in the week, here are the interview questions and answers from Sharif el-Gamal, CEO of SoHo Properties and lead developer of the Park 51 project. I am sincerely grateful to Sharif for taking the time to answer these questions and speak directly to the broader Muslim community.

1. How will you use this center to promote good citizenship and American values? What are the specific American values you seek to promote?

Park51 will be a community center promoting tolerance and understanding through three types of programs: arts and culture, education and recreation. We'll offer all New Yorkers valuable services, world-class facilities and empowering opportunities to learn more about the world around us and about each other. What's more American than serving others?

Swell! But self-consciously over-the-top in its swellness. After all the anger and pain that the plan for this mega-mosque has aroused in 9/11 families and others, for El-Gamal to be nattering blandly about "serving others" as if he and the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf just got back from a meeting of their Boy Scout Troop is disingenuous, to say the least. If this initiative is really all about serving others, what about serving those who oppose it by showing even the tiniest modicum of good will toward them, instead of vilifying and smearing them and dismissing their legitimate objections as "hatred" and "bigotry"? Is Sharif El-Gamal capable of even the smallest acknowledgment that he understands the pain that this mega-mosque is causing, and is willing to accommodate it in some way? Or is he only interested in "serving" his own constituency?

Because New York City is a global city, and New Yorkers come from all parts of the world, we need the kind of community center that our economy and cultural diversity demand. It's about fulfilling a need, meeting demand and looking to the future. I think that's a very American attitude. I know it's something I believe in very much. If we do something, we want to be the best at it, and we're always looking ahead.

If you look at a map of Manhattan, most of our major cultural and community centers are north of Houston. For the past two decades, New York City has become an increasingly attractive place to live. That's a great thing for the city. But, for more people to move into lower Manhattan, they have to have the right services. That's our contribution to Manhattan and the city. By serving all types of New Yorkers, we're doing our part as Americans to make our city and country stronger and safer.

Again, that all sounds really swell. But recall that Poonawalla asked El-Gamal how the mosque would promote "good citizenship and American values," and asked him which "specific American values" the mosque would promote. In response, "serving others" was about as specific as El-Gamal could get.

He had an opportunity to say that the Ground Zero mosque would institute programs to teach Muslims the virtues of American principles that contradict Sharia, such as the freedom of speech and the equality of rights of all people before the law. He could have said that the mosque would teach Muslims the virtues of the Constitutional principle of the non-establishment of religion, as opposed to the theocratic autocracy prescribed by Sharia. He could have said that the mosque would teach that apostates from Islam should not be killed, but should be allowed to exercise their conscience without interference.

He could have said all that and more. Instead, he murmured sweet nothings about "serving others."

2. Why must the project necessarily include a mosque? Wouldn't a general prayer area, which could be reserved in advance by any religious group, be more appropriate and compatible with the community-centric interfaith mission of the project?

We will include a September 11th memorial and quiet reflection space where people of different faith traditions and beliefs, sacred and secular, can find quiet time and solace. Park51 will also include general spaces and world-class facilities for all New Yorkers to benefit from, whether that's a Hebrew class meeting weekly or a yoga studio looking for space on a regular basis. We'll have an auditorium to engage large audiences, and sophisticated classroom space as well.

With respect to the mosque, which will take up only a small portion of the final space, it's a question of meeting a need. This mosque will be open to all. There are probably one million Muslims in the tri-state area and several hundred thousand in New York City. We should understand that Muslim New Yorkers are part of the city and have been for a very long time. Just a few days ago, I stopped to pray at a midtown mosque, and the congregation was led by a New York City Police Officer. He was a Muslim serving our city, keeping us safe.

There's hundreds of thousands of Muslim New Yorkers like him. We're doctors, lawyers, businessmen, cab drivers, teachers and students. That's what people need to know.

Yes, but the question was why must the project necessarily include a mosque? There is no other available real estate in Manhattan to meet this need? The mosque organizers veer back and forth from claiming that they just happened upon this property and their initiative has nothing to do with 9/11, and is several blocks (actually, just around a corner) from Ground Zero, to assuming that it has everything to do with 9/11 and that they're trying to send a "positive message" that "reverses" that of the attacks. But they can't have it both ways.

3. Some of Imam Feisal's past statements [1,2] have been used by critics to undermine the project's credibility. Can Imam Feisal clarify his views on terrorism to reassure New Yorkers he understands the moral weight of the tragedy of 9-11?

Imam Feisal has been a champion of pluralism and tolerance. He fully understands the enormity of 9-11. In fact his own congregation was only blocks away from Ground Zero. He works very hard, day in and day out, to fight extremism and radicalism.

Actually, Rauf is an opening proponent of Sharia who actually calls for restrictions on the freedom of speech in his book, What's Right with Islam Is What's Right with America.

More to the point, this is going to be a community center. Park51 is not a political organization. We do not have a political agenda, and we will be open to all New Yorkers. What we do not have room for are extremist views and opinions. Radical and hateful agendas will have no place in our community center or in the mosque. We are building this center for New York City, because we're New Yorkers. We're Americans. We have families here and futures here.

Define "radical" and "hateful." Is advocating for the rule of Islamic law "radical" and "hateful"? Given Rauf's writings, this is a very important question.

On September 11, 2001, I went down to the site of the attacks and spent two days handing out water to first responders and other victims. Hundreds of Muslims died on that day. New Yorkers of all faiths and no faiths died together. There are also hundreds of Muslims in our police force and fire department and many Muslims who volunteered to help the injured and the hurt. One of my close friends, a Muslim and a New Yorker, headed down to Ground Zero after the attacks, and helped set up a triage.

She was buried in the rubble when the towers collapsed, but she was dug out, thank God, and went right back to work. We understand the horror of that day because we lived it. Terrorists attacked our city and our country, and terrorists have continued to threaten our city and our country. We're proud of the many Muslims who have worked with our fellow Americans to keep our city and country safe.

Does anyone know who he might be talking about? The story doesn't ring true to me, which many will no doubt take as evidence of my inveterate "Islamophobia," but I do this all the time, all day every day, and I've heard thousands of stories of people who were in and around the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and I've never heard anyone tell the story of a Muslim woman who was working to save people and who was buried in the rubble, was dug out, and went back to work. Given the politically correct avidity to find "moderate Muslims" on the part of both government and media since 9/11, I seriously doubt that if such a woman existed, her story would not have been repeatedly trumpeted far and wide. But I am not saying El-Gamal is necessarily lying; if anyone (including you, Mr. El-Gamal, or even the shifty Aziz Poonawalla) can give evidence to establish this woman's existence and substantiate these claims, I will publish the material here.

[UPDATE: El-Gamal may have been referring to Ruby Ramadan. I have no idea of the veracity of the account here (thanks to Peter), but it does roughly match up with El-Gamal's words.]

4. What are Imam Feisal's specific roles and responsibilities in the project? If he is not in a leadership/executive position, then who is really "in charge" and making the decisions?

Imam Feisal Abdul-Rauf is as an interfaith leader and a visionary in this project. He has served the lower Manhattan community faithfully for over 27 years. He is supported by political and religious leaders across New York City for his commitment to moderation and tolerance and his years of work in bringing people together.

Besides being an open advocate for Sharia, Rauf has (like CAIR) refused to denounce Hamas. He has lied about his commitment to religious dialogue. He has lied about whether the Islamic center planned for the Ground Zero site will contain a mosque or not. And he has lied about whether or not the project is getting foreign funding. He is involved with a group that helped fund the jihad flotilla against Israel.

Park51 is an independent project led by Muslim Americans. This project will be separate from The Cordoba Initiative and ASMA. The next step is forming a non-profit and applying for tax-exempt status. Imam Feisal and I are serving as the project managers until then. This non-profit will be run by an Executive Director, yet to be selected, support staff, and a 23-member Board of Directors. Imam Feisal will be one of the Directors, and will oversee the Cordoba House, which will direct the interfaith programming within Park51.. We have not yet selected the other members of the Board of Directors, but we will be picking people very carefully, based on their record of leadership, relevant experience and positive contribution to New York City and the country. The board will not be limited by religion.

The mosque will be run by a separate non-profit whose Board of Directors will reflect a broad range of experience. While the mosque will be located in the planned final structure of Park51, it will be a distinct non-profit. Neither Park51 nor the mosque, which hasn't been named yet, will tolerate any kind of illegal or un-American activity and rhetoric.

Here again, precise definitions are needed. Does El-Gamal believe it would be "illegal or un-American" to teach Sharia supremacism in lower Manhattan? And of course Aziz Poonawalla doesn't follow up with specific clarifying questions.

5. Will you pledge make all funding sources fully transparent? What are your criteria for accepting funding from a foreign source, to assuage concerns about extremist influences?

We have not yet launched our fundraising campaign. Park51 will incorporate as a non-profit and seek federal tax-exempt status. We are pledging to pursue this fundraising campaign in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations. We have hired legal counsel and top-notch auditors to oversee this process from start to finish.

We will hire security consultants to assist us in the process of reviewing potential financiers and philanthropists as we begin to establish our fundraising strategy. We will refuse assistance, financial or otherwise, from any persons or institutions who are flagged by our security consultants or any government agencies.

The Muslim Brotherhood is not "flagged." But it is dedicated, in its own words, to "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within." Will the Ground Zero mega-mosque organizers deal with Brotherhood individuals and groups? If so, how will they keep the Brotherhood's perspective on Sharia and Islamic supremacism out of the mosque? Are they even interested in doing so?

6. Why was the site's proximity to Ground Zero considered a "selling point" [3] ? What other locations in lower Manhattan, if any, were considered that could serve the same purpose?

We are not at Ground Zero. In fact we're as close to City Hall as we are to Ground Zero. Lower Manhattan is pretty small. You can't see Ground Zero from our current building and on completion of our planned building some years from now, there won't be any views of the Ground Zero memorial from the building. To honor those who were killed on September 11th, we have planned for a public memorial within our future facility as well as reflection space open to all.

Of course, a September 11 memorial could be in Des Moines, it could be anywhere. When he talks about how Ground Zero can't be seen from the current building, El-Gamal is in "Ground Zero? What Ground Zero?" mode, as explained above. Rauf's wife Daisy Khan played the other side of this game here, emphasizing the property's symbolic closeness to Ground Zero.

Let me tell you a little bit about the history of this project. We'd been looking for at least seven years to find a space to accommodate the growing population of Muslims in lower Manhattan. We found this site in January of 2006 and getting to the finish line and acquiring the real estate was proof that persistence pays off. We had also been eager to contribute to the revitalization of lower Manhattan, in part because this is our area of business and also because as New Yorkers we wanted to give back to our city and help make it a better place to live.

Prior to purchasing our current facility at 45 Park Place, there were two mosques in lower Manhattan - although Park51 is not affiliated with either of these mosques. One was Masjid Farah, which could fit a maximum of approximately 65 people, and had to hold three or four separate prayer services on Fridays just to fit the crowds.

The second mosque, at Warren St., accommodated about 1,500 worshippers during Friday prayers - people had been praying on sidewalks because they had no room. They lost their space around May 2009. We made the move to buy 45 Park Place in July 2009 in part to offset the loss of this space. Currently, our space at 45 Park Place, accommodates around 450 people every Friday. We are also easily accessible from many different parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Staten Island, which was an important consideration.

At the same time, we thought, why not give back to lower Manhattan and fulfill a pressing need? We looked for a building that could grow into a community center. In Lower Manhattan, the biggest community center is at Bowery and Houston and it's in a basement. There are new residential towers going up in lower Manhattan as we speak. Four Seasons is planning the tallest residential tower in the city a block away from our site. If you think of all of the community centers in Manhattan, they are further north. Residents need services, investment in the neighborhood, activities and opportunities. Community Board 1, which represents the residents of lower Manhattan, acknowledged the needs we were fulfilling when they gave us their clear support on two separate occasions.

Again -- no mention of Ground Zero in any of that windy explanation. It's a far cry from Daisy Khan's words: "I think the building came to us, which goes to show that there is a symbolism there, and that there's a divine hand in it. That it's so close to the tragedy, that its close proximity is very symbolic for the fact that we really want to reverse what happened on 9/11."

7. Do you concede there are genuine, valid concerns about this project which are not derived from Islamophobia or racism? What do you think those concerns are and how would you respond to them?

In a recent poll, even New Yorkers with a favorable opinion of Islam had reservations about the project. People have real questions and we need to work hard to make sure we get them answers, and that's not going to happen overnight. We're going to make sure our fundraising and planning involves people from across the city and we're going to make sure we do so in a way that hears concerns and responds to them.

Unfortunately, the public meetings we had with Community Board 1 and the Landmarks Committee were overtaken by a minority who prevented people from expressing their real concerns. The meetings turned into public spectacles. We're now looking for ways to engage our fellow New Yorkers and fellow Americans and have extended an open invitation to anyone concerned to come visit our space. They'll see we have a warm community that reflects the diversity of this country, and they'll see that we want to build Park51 so it has something for everyone.

I can't say this often enough. We work in lower Manhattan, we care about lower Manhattan and we're here to provide services to lower Manhattan.

The problem with this is that El-Gamal and Rauf and Daisy Khan and all their allies have consistently demonized all the opposition to the mega-mosque. There is nothing "Islamophobic" (a manipulative, trumped-up word in any case) or "racist" about pointing out that throughout history Muslims have built triumphal mosques on the cherished sites of conquered peoples, or that Rauf has not been honest, or that the mosque would be an insult to the people killed by Islamic supremacists on 9/11. I have seen people at Community Board meetings and elsewhere painstakingly and cogently explain why their opposition to the mega-mosque had nothing whatsoever to do with "bigotry" or "intolerance," only to be rudely ignored and again vilified as bigots by mosque proponents.

8. How do you respond to a recent Quinnipiac poll [4] showing a majority (52%) of New Yorkers actively oppose the project? What would you say to the 17% undecided New Yorkers to try and persuade them?

The same poll shows that a majority of Manhattan is behind us. Community Board 1 is overwhelmingly behind us, and they represent the people of lower Manhattan who are closest to Park51 and would be most relevant to our vision. They are the people of lower Manhattan. They've studied our project closely, they learned about who we are and they live in the area we hope to serve. They were clear in their support for us, and we're tremendously grateful for that.

The Board recognized the value in jobs, programs and services we are bringing to the city, and they know that this project is very important for lower Manhattan. That's a major reason why Borough President Scott Stringer, Mayor Bloomberg, Councilwoman Chin and Councilman Jackson, City Comptroller Liu, Attorney General Cuomo, State Senator Squadron, U.S. Congressman Nadler, Governor Paterson a number of key officials and institutions are supporting us. We're also pleased to have the support of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. These leaders and organizations know Imam Feisal has served Lower Manhattan for a long time, and that he has been a positive force in this city and country.

But we need to do more to reach out to the undecided New Yorkers, the New Yorkers who have only heard misrepresentations about Park51, and other Americans in other parts of our country. I think that as more information comes out about the project, and more people learn about who we are and how we want to help New York City, we'll see these numbers change.

I want people in New York who are undecided to know we're a part of this city, and we want to make it a better place to live and work. We want to help stimulate our economy, and enhance New York's position as a global hub of ideas and culture.

Then address our real concerns, instead of setting up straw men and engaging in the basest forms of character assassination.

9. How do you make the case for supporting Park 51 to the local Muslim American community? Doesn't Park 51 undermine support for (and even actively harm) more pragmatic mosque projects in Sheepshead Bay and Staten Island?

We're not affiliated with either of those projects, but we do recognize that this project affects people from all over the world. New York City is the capital city of the world. I'm pretty sure New York City also has the largest Muslim population of any city in the United States. Muslim New Yorkers need to do more to become part of the institutions and organizations that serve and contribute to this city. We believe Park51 will be a positive step in this direction.

I believe that our model represents the best of American and Muslim values. More people need to know the truth about Islam, and that's that Islam is a peaceful religion, a compassionate religion, which preaches service to all. Unfortunately, there is some opposition to Muslim projects which is driven by hate and negativity, and we should be concerned by this.

Because hate for one minority can become hate for anyone who's different, and New Yorkers, like Americans, understand the value of diversity and the importance of protecting difference. That's what makes America so dynamic and so unique.

Here again, opposition to the mosque has nothing to do with "hate." No one would ever take the time to "hate" Muslims or think about them at all were it not for the ongoing threat of jihad terrorism and the increasing arrogance and demands of the Muslim community in the U.S. And the mega-mosque is just another example of it.

10. The controversy has alienated many Americans and New Yorkers who are tolerant of Islam per se but viscerally react to the project with offense. In hindsight, what could you have done differently to avoid this reaction?

My heart goes out to the families who lost loved ones. We were all attacked that day, no matter what our color or our religion. I understand that people are offended, but we cannot lose sight of why we are doing this. And we cannot forget that we are a part of this city, a major part of this city, and we need to work together as Americans and as New Yorkers.

Moving forward, I hope and pray the dialogue reaches more New Yorkers and Americans. People have concerns and questions, and we want to answer them in a meaningful way, in a way that lets people know who we really are, what we want to do for the city and how they can be a part of Park51.

We have to appeal to the undecided, and change the conversation about Muslims in America. Because of that, we're offering an open door. You know, I'd love it if Sarah Palin came to Park51 to see our community.

She'd see that we're just as American as she is. She'd get the chance to meet some of her fellow citizens who happen to be Muslims. Consider that an open invitation, Mrs. Palin. We'd love to see you. We want to welcome everybody who cares about this city and about this country.

Fine, let's dialogue. Let's continue this discussion. I've raised what I believe to be legitimate concerns here. I invite Sharif El-Gamal to respond, and we will have a dialogue. I'm ready when he is.

In "New York Times: Not Just Anti-Israel But Pro-Islamist," July 21, Barry Rubin skewers the Leftist pseudo-journalism of the Paper Of Record:

The New York Times--with the exception of some honorable reporters in the field (you know who you are)--never ceases to amaze one in the spectacularly biased writings of those back at headquarters. Here's one that's particularly remarkable, a real piece of advocacy in which the reporter does everything possible to justify flotilla ships trying to run the blockade of the Gaza Strip.

He also selectively discusses the IHH sponsor of the previous flotilla, leaving out all the evidence (presented in my articles and elsewhere) of its radical and terrorist connections, including U.S. court documents. I explained this for the Times more than five weeks ago but they paid no attention and they still cannot find any of this evidence!

The article even includes a pro-IHH video without any balancing video, of which a number are easily available. There is virtually no hint that the militants on board had earlier shouted slogans advocating genocide for Jews, declared their intention to be Jihad martyrs, or attacked and kidnapped the arriving soldiers....

Read it all.

What shall we make of David Cameron? What can we learn from his little speech in Ankara? What does it tell us about his mental makeup, his grasp of history, his powers of understanding, his ability to make sense of things, his hierarchy of values, his appreciation and knowledge of the country of which he is now, almost accidentally, the Prime Minister, his experience of men and events, his everything?

Let's start with how the speech itself starts:

Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you for that very warm welcome. I can tell from your enthusiasm and the enthusiasm of the entrepreneurs that I met outside this incredible building that there is an enormous spirit of enterprise and entrepreneurialism and industry and business and trade here in Turkey, and that is one of the reasons that I want our two countries to build this incredibly strong relationship that I will be speaking about this morning.

I have come to Ankara to establish a new partnership between Britain and Turkey. I think this is a vital strategic relationship for our country. As Prime Minister, I first visited our two largest European Union partners, then Afghanistan, then North America and now, I come to Turkey. People ask me, 'Why Turkey?' and, 'Why so soon?' Well, I can tell you why: because Turkey is vital for our economy, vital for our security and vital for our politics and our diplomacy.

Let me explain. First, our economy.

So: The Economy.

That's really the main point of Cameron's speech. It is that Great Britain wants economic ties, wants to make money, from the Turkish market. That's it. And he comes not as the representative of a country that is equal to, much less conceivably superior to, that of the country and regime he is visiting, but as a supplicant, kowtowing rhetorically to Erdogan.

Cliff May asks common-sensical and thought-provoking questions. They'll be ignored, of course. "Dear Mayor Bloomberg: A few questions you might want to ask before approving a mosque for Ground Zero," by Cliff May, July 29:

Your Honor:

In regard to the proposal to build an Islamic center at the site of the 9/11 terrorist attack in Manhattan, I commend you for saying: "Everything the United States stands for and New York stands for is tolerance and openness, and I think it's a great message for the world. . . . " But I would urge you to question whether this project truly represents that idea -- or whether it undermines it.

Start with this: Before this project is approved, surely New Yorkers and other Americans should know who will be picking up the more than $100 million tab. Would you not be distressed were it later to be revealed that funds had been contributed by people who also finance terrorism?

You'll recall that, after the 9/11 attacks, your predecessor Rudy Giuliani turned down a $10 million check from a Saudi prince who had said that America shares blame for the atrocity. Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam behind the Islamic center project, has said that U.S. policies "were an accessory to the crime that happened." How is that different?

By the way, the Saudi royal family embraces Wahhabism, an interpretation of Islam that cannot be said to value "tolerance and openness." Among other things, in Saudi Arabia non-Muslim houses of worship are prohibited and "infidels" -- people like you and me -- may not set foot in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina upon pain of death. Newt Gingrich has called on Abdul Rauf to state clearly that he disagrees with such policies. Is that not a reasonable request?

I have an additional suggestion: If this project -- also called the "Cordoba Initiative"-- is really to "symbolize interfaith cooperation," if it's really to be an "inter-religious center," a 13-story home for "multi-faith collaboration," should it not contain a synagogue and a church as well as a mosque?

I would recommend putting each on a different floor. On the highest floor, let's put the church -- since Christians founded this great nation of ours. One floor down, let's put a synagogue, since Jews were among the earliest immigrants to find religious freedom in America. And one floor farther down, we'd have the mosque, a place for a newer generation of immigrants to gather and worship freely.

Here's my guess: If you propose this to Abdul Rauf, emphasizing, as you have in the past, the First Amendment rule that the government "shouldn't be in the business of picking" one religion over another, he will nonetheless refuse. He will offer all sorts of explanations, but the truth, I suspect, is that he believes that Islam is not "one of the world's great religions" but rather the only true religion, that others are false and wicked. He will find it blasphemous that you want this center to give equal status to Christianity and Judaism. And he will see putting a church and synagogue on higher floors as symbolizing more than equality....

Read it all.

But of course, the learned analysts all know that Shi'ites and Sunnis will never work together! "Reports Bolster Suspicion of Iranian Ties to Extremists," by Siobhan Gorman and Jay Solomon in the Wall Street Journal, July 27 (thanks to Moishe):

WASHINGTON--Cooperation among Iran, al Qaeda and other Sunni extremist groups is more extensive than previously known to the public, according to details buried in the tens of thousands of military intelligence documents released by an independent group Sunday.

U.S. officials and Middle East analysts said some of the most explosive information contained in the WikiLeaks documents detail Iran's alleged ties to the Taliban and al Qaeda, and the facilitating role Tehran may have played in providing arms from sources as varied as North Korea and Algeria.

The officials have for years received reports of Iran smuggling arms to the Taliban. The WikiLeaks documents, however, appear to give new evidence of direct contacts between Iranian officials and the Taliban's and al Qaeda's senior leadership. It also outlines Iran's alleged role in brokering arms deals between North Korea and Pakistan-based militants, particularly militant leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and al Qaeda.

WikiLeaks released a cache of intelligence documents Sunday that detail raw intelligence reports over a five-year period. The information is fragmentary, and its not known how many reports were corroborated by other sources. "Some parts are more believable than others, but this sort of raw stuff could be gold or a dud," said a senior U.S. official working on both Pakistan and Iran.

The apparent links are striking because Iran has historically been a foe of the Taliban, who generally view the followers of Shiite Islam--Iran's predominant faith--as heretics.

The Iranian mission to the United Nations condemned the allegations of ties to extremists. "Any allegation about any collaboration or relation between Taliban and al Qaeda is absolutely false and baseless," a spokesman said....

Several reports describe Iran as a hub of planning activity for attacks on the Afghan government. A May 2006 report describes an al Qaeda-Hekmatyar plot to equip suicide bombers and car bombs to attack Afghan government and international targets--using cars and equipment obtained in Iran and Pakistan.

By April 2007, the reports show what appears to be even closer collaboration. A report that month describes an effort two months earlier in which al Qaeda, "helped by Iran," bought 72 air-to-air missiles from Algeria and hid them in Zahedan, Iran, in order to later smuggle them into Afghanistan....

Some time ago, my SIOA colleague Pamela Geller and I applied for a trademark registration for the name Stop Islamization Of America. It was rejected: the trademark office stated that "Islamization" meant "Islamic," and that thus to say that Islamization must be stopped disparaged Muslims in general and linked them to terrorism. This is a common canard against my work, but coming from the Trademark Office we couldn't allow it to stand, so we engaged the great lawyers David Yerushalmi and Robert Muise of the Thomas More Law Center to pursue the matter. Once again, these warriors for freedom unhesitatingly took the case pro bono, and have filed a brilliant response to the Trademark Office's claims.

Pamela has more details here, and you can read the entire document in this pdf. Here is a key section:

I am legal counsel to the applicant, Pamela Geller, regarding the trademark application referenced above. Please consider this letter and its exhibits as evidentiary support of my client's Response to Office Action Trademark Application Refusal filed via TEAS. Specifically, my client objects to USPTO's Office Action refusal to register ("Office Action") the trademark "Stop the Islamisation of America" ("SIOA") on the grounds that it violates 15 U.S.C. § 1052(a), and specifically that the trademark "includes matter which may disparage or bring into contempt or disrepute persons, institutions, beliefs or national symbols."1 Even more particularly, my client objects and responds to the Office Action refusal to register the trademark on the grounds that the trademark "consists of matter which may disparage or bring into contempt or disrepute Muslims and the Islamic religion."

I. INTRODUCTION.

The Office Action refusal to register my client's trademark predicates its ruling on two grounds: (1) that the meaning of the word 'Islamisation' combined with the word 'Stop' refers to Muslims in a disparaging manner because by definition it implies that conversion or conformity to Islam is something that needs to be stopped or caused to cease; and (2) that my client's trademark, which identifies informational services (i.e., "providing information regarding understanding and preventing terrorism"), "implies that Islam is associated with violence and threats."

My client objects to these two grounds for the following reasons: (1) the Office Action improperly and too generally defines 'Islamisation' as referring to Muslims and Islam; (2) the Office Action fails to identify what specific group of Muslims would be disparaged by the trademark; (3) there is no showing that terrorism is not in fact associated with 'Islamisation'; and (4) refusal to grant the trademark is a violation of my client's right to Free Speech guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

II. THE OFFICE ACTION IMPROPERLY AND TOO GENERALLY DEFINES 'ISLAMISATION' AS REFERRING TO MUSLIMS AND ISLAM.

The Office Action premises its refusal to register based upon the following faulty polysyllogism:

Premise 1: 'Islamisation' refers to converting to Islam or becoming more Islamic.
Premise 2: 'Islam' and 'Islamic' refer to Muslims.
Premise 3: 'Stop' disparages that which it seeks to render inactive.
Proposition: 'Stop the Islamisation of America' ("SIOA") disparages Muslims.

The Office Action then applies the proposition of its syllogism to draw the conclusion that because (a) SIOA provides services relating to information of and about terrorism, then (b) SIOA links Muslims qua Muslims to terrorism.

First, the Office Action's proposition that SIOA disparages Muslims, and its further conclusion that SIOA links Muslims qua Muslims to terrorism, both flow from the first premise which is patently false. 'Islamisation' does not refer to an individual or even a society simply converting to the faith of Islam or even becoming more Islamic. The Office Action, in defining 'Islamisation' as merely the conversion to Islam or becoming more Islamic, has improperly relied upon an online dictionary called Dictionary.com (see Office Action Attachments 1-3). The problem with using this online dictionary definition is twofold: (1) the Dictionary.com definition does not properly characterize how Muslims themselves use the word 'Islamisation,' nor does it describe how professional and academics in the relevant disciplines use the word; and (2) The Office Action ignores the dominant and prevailing meaning of the term, which is actually provided by Dictionary.com as a second meaning. This alternative definition is closer to how Muslims use the word and how relevant professionals and academics apply the word in the literature of their respective disciplines. Thus, Dictionary.com recognizes that the word can mean "To cause to conform to Islamic law2 or precepts." (emphasis added.) (See Office Action Attachment 2.) But even this definition is woefully inadequate because 'Islamisation' does not just mean "to cause to conform to [Shariah]," but includes the entire politicalization of Shariah so that it controls all aspects of political, social, economic, and religious life.

Formally, the proper and widely understood definition of 'Islamisation' (alternatively spelled 'Islamization') is the political movement prevalent in a society or societal unit which seeks to embrace a political doctrine that calls for the application of Shariah (i.e., Islamic law) as the supreme law of the society. While Islamisation and the call to create a Shariah-adherent political order does include the call to convert non-Muslims, that is not what marks Islamisation as a political and social order, and it is not how Muslims themselves understand the word, nor is it how professionals and academics in the relevant disciplines use the word.

Rather, Islamisation is specifically the politicization of a Muslim's religious faith in that Shariah, in its classic and extant form, demands that a society's laws must all be predicated upon and subservient to Shariah and its legal jurisprudence called fiqh. Islamisation even in its "moderate" form demands that no secular law may contradict any Shariah dictate. The prototypical examples of this form of Islamisation are the constitutional or legal provisions in Muslim-dominated countries that include a "Shariah-supremacy" clause providing that no secular law passed by the political branches may contradict Shariah.

In short, the Islamisation of a society is the conversion to a theocratic political order organized and enforced by the dictates of Shariah. Per Shariah, there is no possibility of "separation of mosque and state." Shariah applies to all political, social, religious, and military institutions within a society that has undergone Islamisation.

[...]

For the foregoing reasons, we ask that you reverse the Office Action's refusal to register the trademark and to take any and all steps to register the trademark immediately.

Respectfully submitted,
David Yerushalmi, Esq.

Mind you, Hussam Fawzi Jabar is an Islamic cleric. He has devoted his life to studying the Qur'an and Sunnah. And he doesn't seem to have come across anything in that extensive study to make him reconsider his vile and genocidal anti-Semitism.

Yet the myth persists that Islamic anti-Semitism is an import from Christianity or Nazism or both, and that Islam in its pure form is tolerant and friendly to Jews. Journalist Lawrence Wright writes in this vein in The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11:

Until the end of World War II ... Jews lived safely--although submissively--under Muslim rule for 1,200 years, enjoying full religious freedom; but in the 1930s, Nazi propaganda on Arabic-language shortwave radio, coupled with slanders by Christian missionaries in the region, infected the area with this ancient Western prejudice [anti-Semitism]. After the war, Cairo became a sanctuary for Nazis, who advised the military and the government. The rise of the Islamist movement coincided with the decline of fascism, but they overlapped in Egypt, and the germ passed into a new carrier.

This is a common view, but in reality there is a strong native strain of anti-Semitism in Islam, which is rooted in the Qur'an. The Muslim holy book contains a great deal of material that forms the foundation for a hatred of Jews that has perdured throughout Islamic history. It is virulent and hard to eradicate. The Qur'an portrays the Jews as the craftiest, most persistent, and most implacable enemies of the Muslims -- and there is no Islamic authority that has moved to mitigate the most destructive interpretations of all this. The Qur'anic material on the Jews remains the prism through which far too many Muslims see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict--and Jews in general--to this day.

A vivid illustration of this came in 2004 from Islam Online, a website founded by, among others, the internationally influential Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi in 1997. Although al-Qaradawi has won praise from Islamic scholar John Esposito for engaging in a "reformist interpretation of Islam and its relationship to democracy, pluralism, and human rights," that "reformist" impulse doesn't seem to carry over to his view of Jews (he has justified suicide bombings against Israeli civilians), or the view of them he has allowed to be published on Islam Online.

In 2004 the site posted an article titled "Jews as Depicted in the Qur'an," in which Sheikh 'Atiyyah Saqr, the former head of the Fatwa Committee at the most respected institution in Sunni Islam, Al-Azhar University in Cairo, depicts Jews in a chillingly negative light, illustrated with abundant quotations from the Qur'an. Among other charges he levels at the Jews, Saqr says that they "used to fabricate things and falsely ascribe them to Allah"; they "love to listen to lies"; they disobey Allah and ignore his commands; they wish "evil for people" and try to "mislead them"; and they "feel pain to see others in happiness and are gleeful when others are afflicted with a calamity." He adds that "it is easy for them to slay people and kill innocents," for "they are merciless and heartless." And each charge he follows with Qur'anic citations (including, among others, 3:75; 5:64; 3:181; 5:41; 5:13; 2:109; 3:120; 2:61; 2:74; 2:100; 59:13-14; 2:96; and 2:79).

Though he offers many examples of the alleged evil traits of the Jews supported by the Qur'an, Saqr doesn't mention the notorious Qur'anic passages that depict an angry Allah transforming Jews into apes and pigs: 2:63-66; 5:59-60; and 7:166. The first of those passages depicts Allah telling the Jews who "profaned the Sabbath": "Be as apes despicable!" It goes on to say that these accursed ones serve "as a warning example for their time and for all times to come." The second has Allah directing Muhammad to remind the "People of the Book" about "those who incurred the curse of Allah and His wrath, those of whom some He transformed into apes and swine, those who worshipped evil." The third essentially repeats this, saying of the Sabbath-breaking Jews that when "in their insolence they transgressed (all) prohibitions," Allah said to them, "Be ye apes, despised and rejected."

In traditional Islamic theology these passages have not been considered to apply to all Jews. The classic Qur'anic commentator Ibn Kathir, whose commentary is widely distributed and respected among Muslims today, quotes earlier authorities saying that "those who violated the sanctity of the Sabbath were turned into monkeys, then they perished without offspring," and that they "only lived on the earth for three days, for no transformed person ever lives more than three days." While parts of the Qur'an are hostile to the Jews, Muhammad's curse, in this case, was limited to these Sabbath-breakers, not to all Jews.

However, that hasn't stopped contemporary jihadists from frequently referring to Jews as the "descendants of apes and swine." The implication is that today's Jews are bestial in character and are the enemies of Allah, just as the Sabbath-breakers were. The recently deceased grand sheikh of Al-Azhar, Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, who was the most respected cleric in the world among Sunni Muslims, called Jews "the enemies of Allah, descendants of apes and pigs." Saudi sheikh Abd al-Rahman al-Sudayyis, imam of the principal mosque in the holiest city in Islam, Mecca, said in a sermon that Jews are "the scum of the human race, the rats of the world, the violators of pacts and agreements, the murderers of the prophets, and the offspring of apes and pigs."

Another Saudi sheikh, Ba'd bin Abdallah al-Ajameh al-Ghamidi, made the connection explicit: "The current behavior of the brothers of apes and pigs, their treachery, violation of agreements, and defiling of holy places ... is connected with the deeds of their forefathers during the early period of Islam--which proves the great similarity between all the Jews living today and the Jews who lived at the dawn of Islam." A 1996 Hamas publication says that today's Jews are bestial in spirit, and this is a manifestation of the punishment of their forefathers. In January 2007, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas stated, "The sons of Israel are mentioned as those who are corrupting humanity on earth," referring to Qur'an 5:64.

All this shows that leading Muslim authorities approach the Qur'an not as a document rooted in history, but as a blueprint for understanding the world today. Likewise, Sheikh 'Atiyyah Saqr describes the Qur'anic teachings that because Jews "revolted against the Divine ordinances ... they found no warm reception in all countries where they tried to reside. Rather, they would either be driven out or live in isolation." Moreover, "Almighty Allah told us that He'd send to them people who'd pour on them rain of severe punishment that would last till the Day of Resurrection." Then comes a threat: "All this gives us glad tidings of the coming victory of Muslims over them once Muslims stick to strong faith and belief in Allah and adopt the modern means of technology."

The classic Qur'anic commentators not do not mitigate the Qur'an's words against Jews, but only add fuel to the fire. Ibn Kathir explained Qur'an 2:61 ("They were covered with humiliation and misery; they drew on themselves the wrath of Allah") this way: "This Ayah [verse] indicates that the Children of Israel were plagued with humiliation, and that this will continue, meaning that it will never cease. They will continue to suffer humiliation at the hands of all who interact with them, along with the disgrace that they feel inwardly." Another Middle Ages commentator of lingering influence, 'Abdallah ibn 'Umar al-Baidawi, explains the same verse this way: "The Jews are mostly humiliated and wretched either of their own accord, or out of coercion of the fear of having their jizya [punitive tax] doubled."

Ibn Kathir notes Islamic traditions that predict that at the end of the world, "the Jews will support the Dajjal (False Messiah), and the Muslims, along with 'Isa [Jesus], son of Mary, will kill the Jews." The idea in Islam that the end times will be marked by Muslims killing Jews comes from the prophet Muhammad himself, who said, "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. 'O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.'" This is, not unexpectedly, a favorite motif among contemporary jihadists. On March 30, 2007, a spokesman for Hamas, Dr. Ismail Radwan, said on Palestinian Authority television:

The Hour [Resurrection] will not take place until the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims kill them, and the rock and the tree will say: "Oh, Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, kill him!"

We must remind our Arab and Muslim nation, its leaders and people, its scholars and students, remind them that Palestine and the Al Aqsa mosque will not be liberated through summits nor by international resolutions, but it will be liberated through the rifle. It will not be liberated through negotiations, but through the rifle, since this occupation knows no language but the language of force.... O Allah, strengthen Islam and Muslims, and bring victory to your Jihad-fighting worshipers, in Palestine and everywhere.... Allah take the oppressor Jews and Americans and their supporters!

The history of Jews who lived under Muslim rule is a more or less unbroken record of theologically sanctioned humiliation and wretchedness. Like the Christians, Jews were allowed to practice their religion within restrictions, but they were seldom allowed to forget their humiliation. Although the strictness with which the laws of dhimmitude (the subservient status of Jews and Christians) were enforced varied, they were never abolished, and during times of relaxation the subject populations always lived in fear that they would be enforced with new stringency. Muslim rulers did not forget that the Qur'an mandates that both Jews and Christians must "feel themselves subdued." One notable instance is recounted by the Arab historian Phillip Hitti: "The caliph al-Mutawakkil in 850 and 854 decreed that Christians and Jews should affix wooden images of devils to their houses, level their graves even with the ground, wear outer garments of honey color, i.e. yellow, put two honey-colored patches on the clothes of their slaves, ... and ride only on mules and asses with wooden saddles marked by two pomegranate-like balls on the cantle." A millennium later, in 1888, little had changed. A Tunisian Jew noted:

The Jew is prohibited in this country to wear the same clothes as a Muslim and may not wear a red tarbush. He can be seen to bow down with his whole body to a Muslim child and permit him the traditional privilege of striking him in the face, a gesture that can prove to be of the gravest consequence. Indeed, the present writer has received such blows. In such matters the offenders act with complete impunity, for this has been the custom from time immemorial.

In 1291 Isaac ben Samuel, a noted Kabbalist and Palestinian Jew, sought refuge in a Christian-controlled area of Spain after the collapse of the last Crusader kingdom in the Levant. He explained, "For, in the eyes of the Muslims, the children of Israel are as open to abuse as an unprotected field. Even in their law and statutes they rule that the testimony of a Muslim is always to be believed against that of a Jew. For this reason our rabbis of blessed memory have said, 'Rather beneath the yoke of Edom [Christendom] than that of Ishmael [Islam]. They [the rabbis] plead for mercy before the Holy One, Blessed be He, saying, 'Master of the World, either let us live beneath Thy shadow or else beneath that of the children of Edom' (Talmud, Gittin 17a)."

Ben Samuel's choice of Christian Spain is paradoxical, as Muslim Spain was supposed to have been a famous exception to the oppression of Jews that prevailed elsewhere among both Muslims and Christians. Islamic apologist Karen Armstrong enunciates the common wisdom when she says that "until 1492, Jews and Christians lived peaceably and productively together in Muslim Spain--a coexistence that was impossible elsewhere in Europe." Even the U.S. State Department has proclaimed that "during the Islamic period in Spain, Jews, Christians, and Muslims lived together in peace and mutual respect, creating a diverse society in which vibrant exchanges of ideas took place."

Yet the philosopher Maimonides, a Jew who lived for a time in Muslim Spain and then fled that supposedly tolerant and pluralistic land, remarked, "You know, my brethren, that on account of our sins God has cast us into the midst of this people, the nation of Ishmael, who persecute us severely, and who devise ways to harm us and to debase us....No nation has ever done more harm to Israel. None has matched it in debasing and humiliating us. None has been able to reduce us as they have....We have borne their imposed degradation, their lies, and absurdities, which are beyond human power to bear."

Notably, Maimonides directed that Jews could teach rabbinic law to Christians, but not to Muslims. For Muslims, he said, will interpret what they are taught "according to their erroneous principles and they will oppress us. [F]or this reason ... they hate all [non-Muslims] who live among them." But the Christians, he said, "admit that the text of the Torah, such as we have it, is intact"--as opposed to the Islamic view that the Jews and Christians have corrupted their scriptures. Christians, continued Maimonides, "do not find in their religious law any contradiction with ours."

Even María Rosa Menocal, in her romantic and fantastic hagiography of Muslim Spain, The Ornament of the World, acknowledges the second-class status to which Jews and Christians were relegated there. "In return for this freedom of religious conscience the Peoples of the Book (pagans had no such privilege) were required to pay a special tax--no Muslims paid taxes--and to observe a number of restrictive regulations: Christians and Jews were prohibited from attempting to proselytize Muslims, from building new places of worship, from displaying crosses or ringing bells. In sum, they were forbidden most public displays of their religious rituals."

According to historian Richard Fletcher, "Moorish Spain was not a tolerant and enlightened society even in its most cultivated epoch." On December 30, 1066, about four thousand Jews in Granada were murdered by rioting Muslim mobs--more than would be killed in the Crusaders' infamous Rhineland pogroms of the mid-twelfth century. What enraged the Granadan Muslims was the political power of the Jewish vizier Samuel ibn Naghrila and his son Joseph: the mob resented the fact that these men had authority over Muslims, which they saw as a "breach of sharia." The mob was incited to kill the Jews by a poem composed by Muslim jurist Abu Ishaq: "I myself arrived in Granada and saw that these Jews were meddling in its affairs. ... So hasten to slaughter them as a good work whereby you will earn God's favor, and offer them up in sacrifice, a well-fattened ram."

The mob heeded his call. A Muslim chronicler (and later sultan of Granada), 'Abd Allah, said that "both the common people and the nobles were disgusted by the cunning of the Jews, the notorious changes they had brought in the order of things, and the positions they occupied in violation of their pact [of second-class status]." He recounted that the mob "put every Jew in the city to the sword and took vast quantities of their property."

"Strongest among men in enmity to the believers wilt thou find the Jews..." -- Qur'an 5:82.

"Egyptian Cleric Hussam Fawzi Jabar: Hitler Was Right to Do What He Did to the Jews," from MEMRITV, July 11 (thanks to Inexion):

Following are excerpts from a religious program hosted by Egyptian cleric Hussam Fawzi Jabar, which aired on Al-Nas TV on July 11, 2010:

Hussam Fawzi Jabar: This is the nature of the Jews. By nature, they abhor keeping their commitments. By nature, they hate peace. By nature, they love treachery, betrayal, deception, killing, and blood. This is their nature.

[...]

It is very sad to see some of our own people, who speak our own tongue, try to convince their peoples that the Jews are peace-loving, that a solution to the satisfaction of both parties can be reached with them. I say that whoever says this and tries to convince others should either deny what is said in the Koran and the Sunna, and accept what the Jews say as truth, or else deny what the Jews say and accept what is said in the Koran and the Sunna. There is no third alternative....

[...]

One of the most amazing things I have read is that Hitler said: "I could have annihilated all the Jews of the world, but I left some of them, so that you would understand why I did this to them." Hitler was right to say what he said and to do what he did to the Jews....

[...]

In Communist and atheist Russia, they would put the Muslims into meat grinders, and they would come out from the other side as minced meat or cold cuts. All this because [the Russians] believe in a religion other than Islam.

Yes, that all happened, and that was why. Of course.

The Ahmadis are considered heretics, and thus are fair game for this kind of persecution by mainstream Muslims. "Hundreds attack mosque," from AFP, July 29 (thanks to Twostellas):

JAKARTA - INDONESIAN police clashed with about 200 people on Thursday as the mob tried to attack a mosque in West Java belonging to a minority Islamic sect.

The crowd hurled stones at an Ahmadiyah mosque in Manislor village in Kuningan district, leading to an hour-long conflict with police, said local general secretary of the Ahmadiyah sect, Nurahim.

'About 200 people pelted stones at our mosque and clashed with the police for about an hour. It's not clear yet who was the organiser of the mob,' Mr Nurahim, who goes by one name, told AFP....

'We had a similar experience before in 2007, in which our mosque and houses were attacked. A house was burned and several were damaged at the time,' Mr Nurahim said.

Despite all the evidence establishing that elements within the Pakistani government have aided Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the U.S. is going to continue giving money to Pakistan and pretending that they're fighting against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. After all, the money will never run out, right? "US backs Pak's effort on war against terror," from the Press Trust Of India, July 29 (thanks to Slothy):

Washington: Notwithstanding the concerns, [sic] the US has about the continued links that some elements of ISI has with terrorist outfits like the al-Qaeda and Taliban, the Obama Administration has said that Islamabad in the last one year has made strategic shift in the war against terrorism.

"Pakistan has, in our view, made a strategic shift in the last year or more. It has taken aggressive action at considerable expense to Pakistan," State Department spokesman PJ Crowley, told reporters at his daily news conference.

"The Pakistani people are suffering as much if not more than any other people in the world from terrorism. But there is clearly more to be done," he said.

"Our joint concern here is to eliminate the safe havens that exist in the region and to prevent the emergence of new safe havens from which there can be the export of terrorism that can threaten US, Europe, or other parts of the world," Crowley said.

When asked about the comment made by British Prime Minister David Cameroon [sic], that his country would not tolerate export of terrorism by Pakistan, the State Department spokesman said US does not want to see the export of terror by any country.

"We are concerned about and have said many times that extremist element within the borders of Pakistan, in the tribal areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan, first and foremost, it represents a threat to Pakistan, it represents a threat to Afghanistan," Crowley said.

"As we have seen, extremists with links to these areas have made their way to Europe, have made their way to the United States. This is an important component of our relationship and our strategic dialogue with Pakistan, and we are both satisfied with the aggressive steps that Pakistan has taken in recent months at considerable expense to Pakistan," he said.

"As we've made clear, we want to see Pakistan stay on the offensive in combating these extremist elements. I know Pakistani officials in recent days have publicly stated their commitment to continue to do that," Crowley said....

The prime minister who has overreached in his fanciful definition of the "real Islam," and fallen in line with jihadist propaganda by calling Gaza a "prison camp," continues his losing streak in comments on Islamic jihad and foreign policy.

Evidence of Pakistan's double game far predates the WikiLeaks affair, which makes Cameron's response dismally understated in light of the severity of Pakistan's long-standing pattern of conduct.

And even what Cameron does say is verbally bubble-wrapped with the usual assurances that "our interests are your [Pakistan's] interests," and of course, his prior insistence that this has nothing to do with Islam. "Cameron: We won't tolerate 'export of terror' by Pakistan," from CNN, July 28:

New Delhi, India (CNN) -- Britain's prime minister delivered a sober message Wednesday to Pakistan: Don't export terror.

"We want to see a strong and a stable and a democratic Pakistan," David Cameron said in Bangalore, India, "but we cannot tolerate in any sense the idea that this country is allowed to look both ways and is able in any way to promote the export of terror, whether to India or whether to Afghanistan, or anywhere else in the world."

Cameron made several remarks in a speech and a question and answer session. A transcript of his comments were posted on the prime minister's website.

"The relationship is important, but it should be a relationship based on a very clear message that it is not right ... to have any relationship with groups that are promoting terror. Democratic states that want to be part of the developed world cannot do that, and the message to Pakistan from the U.S. and from the U.K. is very clear on that point," he said.

His remarks come as the military documents divulged by WikiLeaks include indications that Pakistan's spy service, the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, or the ISI, may have been helping militants in Afghanistan, an assertion strongly disputed by Pakistani officials.

The United States has been working to help bolster the Pakistani government's efforts to battle Taliban and al Qaeda elements in the country. The NATO-led command has been focused on insurgents operating along the Afghan and Pakistani border, and India has long been concerned about militancy in India that comes from Pakistan.

He said that when it comes to protecting their mutual citizenry, developments in Afghanistan and Pakistan can't be "overlooked."

"Let me state clearly: your relations with those two countries are a matter for you and you alone. But let me also say we, like you, want a Pakistan that is stable, democratic and free from terror. We, like you, want an Afghanistan that is secure, free from interference from its neighbors and not a threat to our security. We, like you, are determined that groups like the Taliban, the Haqqani network or Lashkar-e-Tayyiba should not be allowed to launch attacks on Indian and British citizens in India or in Britain. Neither should they be able to do so against our people, whether soldiers or civilians, from both our countries who are working for peace in Afghanistan. Our interests are your interests, so let us work together to realize them."

When asked about Cameron's remarks, a spokesman for Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Britain and Pakistan "have a robust and comprehensive partnership, including on counter-terrorism."

"Terrorists have no religion, no humanity, no specific ethnicity or geography. Terrorists' networks, as the U.K. knows full well mutate and operate in different regions and cities. The genesis of terrorism as a global phenomenon warrants close attention. Pakistan is as much a victim of terrorism as are Afghanistan, India or other countries," the statement said.

"Pakistan has done much more than any other country in combating terrorism. Our people and security forces have rendered innumerable sacrifices. We hope that our friends will be able to persuade India to view this issue objectively and the value of 'cooperation' in counter-terrorism."...

"Pakistan has done much more than any other country in combating terrorism." Given the behavior of the ISI, that's a little like lauding an arsonist for trying to put out his own fires.

Shock horror! The FBI spends more time on surveillance of Muslims than on surveillance of Amish! It's racism! It's "Islamophobia"! Tim McVeigh! Profiling!

If only the facts weren't so inconvenient, and Islamic jihadists weren't still so active around the world. Not that the facts matter to these "civil liberties groups."

"FBI defends surveillance guidelines allegedly targeting Muslims," by Pete Yost for AP, July 28 (thanks to all who sent this in):

WASHINGTON: Under fire from US civil liberties groups, the FBI is defending domestic surveillance guidelines that critics fear could unfairly target innocent Muslims in terrorism and other criminal investigations.

"It's quite an invasive data collection system," said Farhana Khera, executive director of the nonprofit group Muslim Advocates. "It's based on generalized suspicion and fear on the part of law enforcement, not on individualized evidence of criminal activity."

Khera spoke in an interview on the eve of a Capitol Hill appearance by FBI Director Robert Mueller, who was scheduled to testify Wednesday to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In a statement, the bureau said its procedures are designed to ensure that FBI probes don't zero in on anyone on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion or the exercise of any other constitutional right....

Khera said the FBI has lowered the bar for sending undercover agents or informants into mosques and has enabled the gathering of data about Muslims' charitable giving practices, financial transactions and jobs....

Yet another claim of victim status that turned out to be just the opposite. The fake hate crimes are, of course, a tactic for which the motivation is clear, and this incident is closely akin to those. "Claim of 'Islamic veil bus ban' thrown out," by Ross Lydall in the Evening Standard, July 28 (thanks to Block Ness):

A bus driver accused by two students of banning them because of their Islamic dress has been cleared after CCTV showed he had actually barred them for their abusive behaviour.

An investigation by Metroline - which operates the No7 bus - found the driver, who could have faced the sack over the allegation, was justified in not allowing the women on his vehicle.

The 22-year-olds, Yasmin and Atoofa, from Slough, told the BBC that they had been refused access to the bus at Russell Square because of their dress. Yasmin was wearing a hijab and her face was uncovered while Atoofa was wearing a niqab, which covers the face.

But the Standard has learned that the students, who asked for their full names not to be revealed, were denied entry "due to abusive behaviour towards bus driver and other passengers".

On-board CCTV of the incident, on Monday last week, showed the women banging on the front doors and attempting to board the bus when it had come to the end of its run. They then get on through the rear doors and begin arguing with the driver. They get off and wait for the bus to start its journey back to Paddington - but another exchange follows, and the driver refuses to set off unless they disembark.

Metroline said: "We have now reviewed the CCTV and interviewed the bus driver. The circumstances of this incident are not as represented by the bus passengers."

What a shock!

But freedom-lovers once again showed up in force and made their voices heard. Above is video of remarks by my SIOA colleague Pamela Geller and by me. (Video courtesy the magnificent Pamela Hall.)

The SIOA high command (Photo by longtime Jihad Watch commenter Awake -- it was great to meet you!)

Sharif El-Gamal (R), owner of the property, and his lawyer Shelly Friedman (L)

Mark Jacobson of New York Magazine, who interviewed me for two hours Tuesday about the Ground Zero mega-mosque

Hindu activists

Free people were and are against the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque

Pamela Geller has many photos and more info over at Atlas Shrugs.

Activist Barbara Paolucci kindly sent me this summary report of the night's proceedings:

First, Bill thanks for attending, 555 you too - nice to finally meet you, Bay People, what a group you are, I know you will win your battle too - so nice to see you again. Ilya from www.citizensmagazine was there and I'm sure will do a fantastic job of reporting on the event as usual - very nice to meet you too. So proud to see Staten Island and Brooklyn so well represented.

The press was present, but not to the degree expected. As many of us as possible gave interviews - they make me nervous but it has to be done. Pamela Geller is on Hannity tonight along with Andrew McCarthy, repeats at midnight - try to tape it, it's a good discussion on ground zero and the jihad threat against all Americans. [It was last night; you can watch it here.]

Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller were at the top of their game, as usual. They are so good at speaking for a limited amount of time and getting everything they want to say said.

I tried to yield some of my time to them when I spoke so they could explain to everyone the differences in Imam Rauf's book as published for Americans and the version that's far more sinister and published under the same title for Muslims in Arabic. The Chairwoman wasn't going to let me have the full 2 minutes I should have had to speak. I did submit the 5 page statement outlining all of the reasons to landmark and stating that all testimony about building the mosque must be disregarded as irrelevant - and I submitted the copy of the request for a 9/11 historic district to be created that would include the Burlington Building. While it was accepted, they vote tonight, I doubt it will make a bit of difference.

John Press, the leader of the Brooklyn Tea Party spoke and did a fantastic job too.

Brett Joshpe, an attorney who along with Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law & Justice are representing a 9/11 fireman, (and a group of others) in the fight to stop the mosque at ground zero. He had the crowd cheering too. Check out his website www.brettjoshpe.com and the ACLJ - http://www.aclj.org - both are extremely good.

So many people were there on our side. It was more than obvious though that the Community Board was not on our side - in fact I was told by 2 women on the Board that they want the mosque. So much for objectivity and doing what they know the community wants, what the majority of New Yorkers want and what the majority of Americans across the country wants - they've heard from people from all over America who are against this mosque.

While the focus should have been the building, it was the damn mosque.

Gamal, the owner, was there and after introducing himself he said he was there as a resource. No one was interested in him - he saw the anger New Yorkers voiced and couldn't care less. I couldn't help staring him down and didn't let up until he bowed his head.

Maybe 3 people spoke in favor of the mosque - all of them were shouted down until they left the microphone.

Every speaker on our side did well.

I have to tell you what I was told. It's more than likely that the Landmark Committee will vote against landmark status for the building. The next step in the process after the vote is to submit the Committee's recommendations to the Landmarks Preservation Commission - which usually does what the Committee recommends.

Those who know far more than I do told me that it's believed that Obama let Bloomberg know he wants the mosque and Bloomberg, being the fame and power hungry person that he is (remember he wanted the vice presidential spot on Obama's ticket & didn't get it) is doing what Obama wants. Also explains why Schumer, Gillibrand and Mahoney aren't saying a word. So the expectation is that we will lose this battle at this level - but - The ACLJ is ready to take them to court over this, and they believe they should win. Give these guys as much support as possible.

After they cut off speakers and turned to their normal business we started to leave. We went back into the room when we heard they were discussing the original landmark vote that took place. Believe it or not, members of the board were questioning the panel (the Board's leadership) as to how they arrived at the vote against landmark status. They were going over the points in the resolution and insisting on answers. A good sign, but....

We had to leave, we'll know in the morning how this turned out. While I was encouraged by the questioning, I could tell by the look on this panel's faces when we spoke and how they cut off our side that this panel would need a gun held to their heads in order to vote for preservation.

I hope I'm wrong.

Tomorrow I'll contact some of the people I've listed above and see how we can help each other. Meantime, pass this along to everyone possible. And remember,

We still need to pray.

In the West, Islamic spokesmen always insist that Islam supports the freedom of conscience, and the freedom to change one's religion. These people must be reading that notorious Misunderstood Qur'an. Islamic Tolerance Alert from modern, moderate Indonesia: "Missionary trio leave Aceh after anger at baptisms," by Toni O'Loughlin in the Sydney Morning Herald, July 24 (thanks to Stewart):

JAKARTA: A US family accused of converting Muslims by giving them Christian baptisms has been forced to leave the Islamic Indonesian territory of Aceh.

Three Indonesians have also been arrested for assisting and the three alleged converts have been sent to a pesantran, an Islamic school, for re-education.

Robin Kay Jordan, his wife, Kelly Green Jordan, and their daughter, Claire, arrived in Indonesia on July 14, sponsored by the Baptist Church, to work for 10 months in West Aceh where Islamic law is strictly enforced.

But after locals pelted their residence with stones, immigration officials became alarmed and told the Jordans to leave.

''I suggested to them that they go somewhere else if they still wanted to do their job, as long as it's not in Aceh,'' said Iyung Gunawan, the head of immigration for West Aceh.

''This is an area known for its fanatics. West Aceh regency has a reputation as the most fanatical. Even men can't wear shorts in public and swimming areas on the beach are separate,'' he said.

The Jordan family could not be contacted but immigration officials said they had been helped by Yanis Lengaong, an immigration agent who regularly assists the Association of Indonesian Baptist Churches in bringing missionaries to Indonesia. Sharia - Islamic law - has governed Aceh for the past eight years. Adultery and gambling are punishable by public caning. This year women were banned from wearing tight clothing such as jeans.

The spokesman for the West Aceh municipality, Mulya Agus, said locals began questioning the Jordans' activities after three people in the nearby area of Samatiga converted to Christianity. Sharia authorities conducted an investigation and confirmed the baptisms had taken place, Mr Agus said.

''We even have a tape showing them being baptised ... They claimed they were baptised under the influence of hypnosis,'' he said....

The Qur'an has been around for 1,400 years, and so has jihad violence, but now the Indonesian government has discovered the key: it's all because of a faulty translation, doncha know! And now I am very happy to announce that I too have come into the possession of the Secret Decoder Ring hitherto solely in the possession of Muslim moderates, and have used it to produce a brand new Qur'an of my own, now with 70% less "potential to breed radicalism"!

Here are some sample verses of my marvelous new Qur'an (Reduced Radicalism Edition):

Qur'an 98:6:

OLD: The unbelievers "are the most vile of created beings"
NEW: The unbelievers "are the most cuddly of created beings"

Qur'an 9:5:

OLD: "Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush..."
NEW: "Then, when the sacred months have passed, hug the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (to dinner), and be sweet to them, and prepare for them a bubble bath..."

Qur'an 9:29:

OLD: "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."
NEW: "Establish interfaith dialogue with those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they accept the principles of multiculturalism with willing open-mindedness, and feel themselves tolerant."

"New translation of the Koran to reduce radicalism: Govt," from The Jakarta Post, July 28 (thanks to Twostellas):

The Religious Affairs Ministry has released a new translation of the Koran in an effort to reduce Islamic radicalism. However, the ministry refused to consider the new translation as state product.

"It is a joint product, between the state and the Indonesian people," director general of guidance to Islam community Nasaruddin Umar said Wednesday during a national forum on radicalism and terrorism in Jakarta, as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

Nasaruddin said the newest translation of the Koran aimed to better communicate the Islamic teachings to Indonesian Muslims.

"The [previous] Koran translation has the potential to breed radicalism. That is because the Indonesian vocabulary is very limited," he said.

Nasaruddin took "love" in Arabic as an example.

"In Indonesian, there is only one word for 'love'. Yet, the Koran has 14 different words for varying degrees of love," he added....

Fourteen degrees of love!

I loved her to the twelfth degree
Or maybe the thirteenth,
But she loved me just to degree three
and knocked out my front teeth...

Anyway, yes, the Qur'an is so famously a book of love. It is full of knights and damsels and high romance and Song of Songs-like mysticism. And just as Swedish is alleged to have over a hundred words for snow, so the Qur'an is so deeply concerned with the nuances and finer gradations of love that it has fourteen different words for it. That's why we see those who are most steeped in its teachings, and most dedicated to carrying them out, so indefatigably generous and loving.

Of course, I'm referring to the Reduced Radicalism Version.

This Bloomberg News article says matter-of-factly that there has been "a rise this year in the number of hate crimes against Muslims," and that's why these extra police patrols are needed at New York City mosques during Ramadan.

And certainly if there is any actual threat against these mosques, they warrant the extra police protection, quite aside from questions of whether or not Islamic supremacism and hatred are being taught inside them. This is a nation of laws, not vigilantes, and the principle of innocent until proven guilty still holds and must hold.

At the same time, the police should investigate the question of whether or not the hate crimes that have made it appear that this extra police protection was necessary were faked. This is a legitimate and reasonable question given the fact that the thuggish Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has actually trumpeted fake anti-Muslim hate crimes in the past, in order to use them to score political points. They did this again just weeks ago in Georgia.

CAIR, an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas funding case, has claimed that "anti-Muslim hate crimes" have risen sharply in the U.S. since 9/11. In fact, the rate of such crimes has actually dropped. CAIR knows well that victimhood is big business: insofar as they can claim protected victim status for Muslims in the U.S., they can deflect unwanted scrutiny and any critical examination of how jihadists use Islamic texts and teachings to justify violence and supremacism.

That's most likely why CAIR and others have not hesitated to stoop even to fabricating "hate crimes." They want and need hate crimes against Muslims, because they can use them as weapons to intimidate people into remaining silent about the jihad threat.

So it must be asked: on the basis of what evidence was the decision made to increase police protection of New York mosques during Ramadan? How was that evidence evaluated? What consideration was made for the recurring phenomenon of Muslims faking anti-Muslim hate crimes?

If there were any real reporters in New York, they would be asking Bloomberg questions like those.

"New York City mosques get extra protection during Ramadan," from Bloomberg News, July 28:

The New York Police Department will increase foot patrols at mosques during Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting that begins in August, amid a rise this year in the number of hate crimes against Muslims.

"I know this is the most sacred time of the year for the Muslim faith," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Tuesday at a news conference attended by about 400 people, including leaders of the Muslim community. "Our goal at the department is that you are able to experience it in safety and in peace."

New York City has more than 100 mosques, compared with 10 in 1970, said Philip Banks III, chief of the department's Community Affairs Bureau. Ramadan starts Aug. 11 and ends Sept. 9.

Translated as "holy warrior" in this AP piece. "Al-Qaida No. 2 slams France's push to ban veils," by Maggie Michael for Associated Press, July 28 (thanks to Maxwell):

CAIRO - Al-Qaida's No. 2 has slammed France's push to ban the Islamic full-face veil and urged Muslim women to be "holy warriors" in the defense of their headdress against the "secular Western crusade" in a new audio message released Wednesday on militant websites.

In the 47-minute recording, Ayman al-Zawahri said the drive by France and other European nations to ban the veil amounted to discrimination against Muslim women.

"Every single woman who defends her veil is a holy warrior ... in the face of the secular Western crusade," he said.

"France, with all its power and clout, can't touch the head-cover of a nun, but it can assault any face-veiled woman."

Al-Zawahri also urged Muslims in Europe to support their women in resisting the Western ban on the veil.

"We must call upon our girls, our sisters and our mothers to put on the veil. We must support them and defend them."

France, Belgium and Spain are debating legislation that would ban the veil. Other nations in Europe too have struggled to balance national identities with growing Muslim populations with cultural practices that clash with their own. [...]

And about Iraq he said:

"The Americans are leaving and the Mujahedden ... are the ones staying," he said....

And regarding the jihad attacks in the U.S. recently, he said:

"Leave our land and enjoy security in your countries," al-Zawahri said....

However, it is more likely that if Americans did leave Islamic lands, al-Zawahiri and others would find a new pretext and continue the jihad.

And he called for jihad in Yemen:

Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh, he said, was "ready to do anything to appease America."

"Are you waiting for American soldiers to tour the streets of San'a in their tanks before you wage holy war against them?" He asked....

I had the great pleasure of meeting Rene Stadtkewitz when I spoke for Pax Europa in Berlin last year. He is a measured, intelligent, well-spoken politician who is deeply aware of the nature of Sharia and the threat of the global jihad. But when he has tried to raise awareness of those things among his fellow citizens by bringing in Wilders to speak, he has been targeted by the slaves who are choosing slavery. "Berlin Politician in Trouble for Inviting Dutch Populist Wilders," from Spiegel, July 27 (thanks to all who sent this in):

CDU politician Rene Stadtkewitz is in trouble with his party for a provocative invitation.

A local Berlin politician from Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives is under fire for inviting Dutch populist Geert Wilders to a meeting on Islam on October 2. Rene Stadtkewitz, who is known for his anti-Islamic views, has refused to cancel the invitation, and now faces eviction from his party's parliamentary group in the city assembly.

A local Berlin politician is in trouble for inviting Dutch right-wing populist Geert Wilders, who is known for his provocative positions on Islam and immigration, to a political event in Berlin.

Rene Stadtkewitz, 45, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), looks set to be excluded from the CDU's parliamentary group in the Berlin city assembly after inviting Wilders to Berlin on October 2 to discuss integration and Islam. He had also discussed founding a branch of Wilders' Freedom Party in Germany.

Frank Henkel, the CDU's regional parliamentary group leader, gave Stadtkewitz an ultimatum: Withdraw the invitation by July 26 or face the consequences.

Stadtkewitz refused in an open letter in which he also suggested that the CDU should be doing more to combat Islam politically. Up until now, public debate about the Islamic faith had been "too timid" in Germany, Stadtkewitz wrote. He added that the debate should focus on the defense of freedom and of Christian values, including concerns about "countless young women, who are forced into arranged marriages, enslaved and who sometimes become victims of so-called honor killings."

'No Place in Our Party'

Henkel responded Monday by saying that he would propose a motion to exclude Stadtkewitz from the parliamentary group because he had distanced himself from "the goals of the conservatives."...

What are those goals? Islamization? Sharia? Dhimmitude?

This is worth the price of admission right away: "David Cameron was in Turkey yesterday endorsing Turkish membership of the EU, as blogger Laban Tall says, 'doubtless driven by that grass-roots Tory pressure for a few million Turks to come to the UK.'"

But all of it is worth reading. Cameron has just joined the very long line of Western politicians who assume that Islam and the Qur'an are fundamentally peaceful, ignoring the huge chasm of cognitive dissonance that opens up between their statements to that effect and the repeated, consistent, and theologically detailed statements of the mujahedin explaining and justifying their actions in Islamic terms, with copious Qur'an references.

So on the one hand we have pious Muslims, including many Islamic clerics, insisting and explaining that Islam mandates warfare against and the subjugation of unbelievers; on the other hand, we have non-Muslim politicians who have probably never opened a Qur'an, and maybe even never seen one up close, insisting without explanation that Islam mandates peaceful coexistence with unbelievers and mutual respect. Behind them are a small number of high profile Muslim spokesmen, ranging from smooth deceivers with Brotherhood ties who talk peace out of one side of their mouths and jihad out of the other, and some sincere reformers with eccentric theologies and minuscule followings among Muslims.

And in the middle we have a large number of Muslims who are not actively aiding the jihad but aren't doing anything to stop it. Which side will they come down on if it comes down to a choice they have to make? I don't think that is in doubt, given how much group loyalty is inculcated into this particular group. But no one in authority seems to care about the implications of that, either.

"Who is David Cameron to say what the 'real Islam' is?" -- Ed West asks that splendid and apposite question in the Telegraph, July 28:

David Cameron was in Turkey yesterday endorsing Turkish membership of the EU, as blogger Laban Tall says, "doubtless driven by that grass-roots Tory pressure for a few million Turks to come to the UK".

Personally I'm quite happy for Turkey to have our EU place, if they really want it; or to be a fellow member of a new free trade area along EFTA lines, with restrictions on free movement until some point when its median income reach western European levels.

But until that happens membership of the EU is a non-starter, and everyone knows it.

And as well as being disingenuous about the EU, Cameron is also playing the disingenuous theologian. Rod Liddle points out that he criticises opponents of a Muslim country joining the EU by claiming:

"They see no difference between real Islam and the distorted version of the extremists. They think the values of Islam can never be compatible with the values of other religions, societies or cultures."

Cameron is falling into exactly the same trap as his predecessors, by trying to play the theologian. Tony Blair called the Koran a "progressive" book, while Jacqui Smith called Islamic terrorism "anti-Islamic" activities, while the phrase "religion of peace" has been used so much by well-meaning politicians that it is now used, exclusively, in an ironic sense by cynics.

Who on earth is Cameron to say what is the real Islam? If a fresh-faced politician from the Islamic world told us that the fundamentalist Christians who funded settlements in the West Bank because they believed in some crazy end times were not "real Christians", I'd be flattered that he recognised differences within a large and wide ranging religion, but I'd also think "Who are you to say?"

When politicians start claiming to have theological insight into Islam, it usually signals a ham-fisted, expensive and counter-productive attempt to deal with radical Islam. I pray not in this case. As Douglas Murray said last month, on the Government's disastrous "Prevent" agenda: "Government can't do many things very well... but the thing it definitely can't do very well is theology, in particular a theology it knows very little about, or is only starting to learn about."

The real problem, as no western politician will admit, is that Islam has no experience of secularism. I don't mean secularism in the secondary sense used by the National Secular Society, which aims to drive religion out of all public life as it was in the Soviet Union - that's Bolshevism, not secularism - but of a separation of church and state....

That headline should have read this way: "UK: Prison governor tells Muslim inmates complaining about non-halal meat that they should have respected British laws and thus not ended up in prison in the first place, but now that they're there they should expect to be treated with the same respect they accorded the victims of their crimes."

Naah. That would have been far too long a headline.

"Prison governor apologises for non-halal food," by Ushma Mistry for the BBC, July 27 (thanks to Benedict):

A prison governor has apologised to Muslim inmates after they were served non-halal burgers.

A number of Muslim inmates at HMP Ford, an open prison in West Sussex, are claiming they were served pork burgers by prison staff on Saturday evening.

A prison service spokesman said: "On Saturday a problem in the kitchens resulted in Muslim prisoners being mistakenly served non-halal food."

It is still not clear exactly what meat was used.

The spokesman added: "The governor is apologising to the prisoners affected and an investigation is under way. The prison is working closely with the Muslim chaplain on this matter."

Muslim inmates are forbidden from eating pork as it is considered a sin but there are differences of opinion on non-halal meat....

Is breaking kuffar laws considered a sin? Opinions differ.

Here again we see that those in authority had no mechanism for and/or no interest in distinguishing "moderates" who merited being given powerful positions in post-Taliban Afghanistan from Islamic supremacists and jihadists. And even they had cared to make such a distinction and tried to do so, how could they have gone about it? "Wikileaks Afghanistan: police chief doubled as Iranian spy," by John Bingham in the Telegraph, July 27:

A powerful Afghan police chief doubled as an Iranian spy and drugs lord, a leaked US report claims.

The man, described as a "notorious criminal" is said to have secured his position through the influence of Iran's Revolutionary Guard over local warlords in southern Afghanistan....

It recounts how the man, named in redacted versions only as X, is said to have had links with Iran stretching back to the time of the war against the invading Soviet forces the 1980s.

"It was reported that [X] is a notorious criminal in Afghanistan and a spy for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)," the report alleges.

"During the time of the jihad in Afghanistan against the Russians, [X] did not participate in the jihad, but went into Iran and became a spy for the IRGC.

"By order of the IRGC, the jihadi commanders in western Afghanistan were to protect [X] and help him attain a government job.

"In this way, [X] became [a] chief of police."

While he was chief of police, says the report, he "encouraged the farmers of Bala Bluk, Khaki Safeed, and Bagwa districts, Farah province, to start to cultivate poppies"....

Winning hearts and minds. None could have gone to the jihad, you say? And why not, exactly? What effective safeguards were in place to ensure that those who received money in Iraq had no sympathies for the jihad? With the U.S. government in massive denial about the nature of the jihad doctrine and Islamic supremacism itself, it is nothing short of inconceivable that any such safeguards were in place. "Audit: US cannot account for $8.7B in Iraqi funds," by Tarek El-tablawy for AP, July 28:

BAGHDAD - A U.S. audit has found that the Pentagon cannot account for over 95 percent of $9.1 billion in Iraq reconstruction money, spotlighting Iraqi complaints that there is little to show for the massive funds pumped into their cash-strapped, war-ravaged nation.

The $8.7 billion in question was Iraqi money managed by the Pentagon, not part of the $53 billion that Congress has allocated for rebuilding. It's cash that Iraq, which relies on volatile oil revenues to fuel its spending, can ill afford to lose.

"Iraq should take legal action to get back this huge amount of money," said Sabah al-Saedi, chairman of the Parliamentary Integrity Committee. The money "should be spent for rebuilding the country and providing services for this poor nation."

The report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction accused the Defense Department of lax oversight and weak controls, though not fraud.

"The breakdown in controls left the funds vulnerable to inappropriate uses and undetected loss," the audit said....

Yep.

Here again we see that those whom Obama, John Brennan, and so many others insist have nothing to do with Islam explicitly take upon themselves the mantle of Islamic purity and authenticity. This is a cognitive dissonance that no one in authority is showing any signs of addressing, and yet it undercuts their entire strategy in Afghanistan and elsewhere, including in regard to many domestic policies. "Taliban says will continue 'jihad' against ANP," from the Daily Times, July 28:

MIRANSHAH: The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) said on Tuesday that it was the duty of the mujahideen to annihilate the Awami National Party (ANP), as it was "not only the enemy of the Taliban, but Islam as well". Talking to reporters over telephone from an undisclosed location about the recent attacks on the ANP, TTP spokesman Azam Tariq said Pakhtuns could not tolerate the existence of the ANP in the region, as the party was an enemy of Islam. The spokesman added that it was the need of the hour to exterminate the ANP and the Taliban would continue jihad against the party.

Duuuude. The blase attitude toward the crackdown that the partiers show in this article would likely come to an end with a few lashes. Sharia Alert from modern, moderate Malaysia: "Muslims party on despite religious crackdown," from AFP, July 26 (thanks to Block Ness):

...A morality crackdown has seen Malaysian Islamic authorities hand out caning and jail sentences for illicit drinking and sex, and launch raids on homes and clubs in the glare of media flashlights.

But for Asyikin, a petite and attractive business executive dressed in a knee-length skirt and strappy high heels, the campaign hasn't dampened her party mood.

"I couldn't care less, I'm partying. Religion to me is a personal thing," she says as she sips a glass of whisky and greets other regulars at the bars and restaurants that line the narrow streets.

Malays, who make up 60 percent of the population, are forbidden to have sex out of wedlock or drink alcohol under the Sharia legal system which runs in parallel to the civil courts in Malaysia.

In an unprecedented case that grabbed world headlines last year, Muslim model Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, 33, was sentenced to six lashes of the cane for drinking beer.

Kartika's sentence was commuted to community service after an uproar from rights groups, but three other women were quietly caned under Islamic laws in February for having sex out of wedlock.

Despite the highly publicised cases, every weekend Kuala Lumpur's top clubs are packed with fashionably dressed youngsters including Muslim Malays -- many offspring of the nation's elite -- socialising and drinking openly.

"I'm a bit more wary after all these cases but it doesn't really affect my mood to go out and party," says Muaz Omar, a civil servant who goes to pubs with friends to watch live band performances.

"People who drink still do go out because even private parties at home are subjected to raids, there is no longer a safe haven," says the 35-year-old, who adds that he does not drink himself.

"The religious authorities should not be a moral police. In the religion, if it's a private matter, then it should be a private thing. There must be a rethinking of the way they act."

The crackdown has fuelled debate over rising "Islamisation" of the multi-ethnic nation, and rights groups have urged religious authorities to stop acting as morality police.

"We don't agree with the way they go on, Islam is not about snooping around catching people committing sin," says Ratna Osman, legal manager from leading civil society group Sisters In Islam (SIS).

Ratna blasted the raids as a form of rights violation and an intrusion into people's privacy.

"Unless that person is a drunkard and started going around committing crime or causing accidents, then yes, you can punish them because they endanger people and their own life," she says.

"But if the person commits a sin in a private domain then it is between him and God. If as a Muslim you feel compelled to tell him, it should be done in a compassionate way or to educate them."

Religious authorities defend their actions, saying they are merely carrying out their duty to ensure fellow Muslims stay away from sin.

"We don't accept any behaviour that is not condoned by Islam," Che Mat Che Ali, the head of the Islamic affairs department in Kuala Lumpur, tells AFP.

"Drinking is a big sin. If you are drunk, you are not in the right state of mind, you yourself will suffer and others may suffer too."

"It's not just something between the person and God, we have a duty to advise them."...

And what better advice can anyone give than a few lashes with a cane?

From the looks of these and other pictures that have come out of Gaza lately, this looks like a prison camp that people might start trying to break into, rather than out of. More dhimmitude from the wretched Cameron in Turkey: "Cameron calls Gaza 'prison camp,'" from AFP, July 27 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday urged Israel to lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip, slamming the current state of the Palestinian enclave as a "prison camp."

"Let me be clear that the situation in Gaza has to change... Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp," he said in a speech to a business association during a visit to Turkey.

Speaking later after talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Cameron defended his harsh description, saying that "even though some progress has been made we're still in a situation where it's very difficult to get in, it's very difficult to get out...

"We've long supported lifting the blockade of Gaza," he said.

Cameron however acknowledged Israel's security concerns, pointing to rocket attacks from Gaza, run by the radical Palestinian group Hamas, on Israel.

"We both share the view that direct talks (between Israel and the Palestinians) is the right answer," he said, referring to Erdogan....

And Erdogan no doubt smiled knowingly.

A week in jail, a few fines. "This will become a political issue for the country's minorities" -- that is, the non-Muslims -- "and further reinforce their unhappiness." "Malaysia fines Muslims for Hindu temple protest," by Razak Ahmad for Reuters, July 27 (thanks to Twostellas):

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A Malaysian court sentenced a Muslim to a week in jail on Tuesday and fined 11 others for a brandishing a cow's head during a protest against the construction of a Hindu temple.

Critics said the light sentences may further strain race relations between Muslims, who make up the majority of the country's 28 million population, and minority Hindus and Christians who complain of discrimination.

"Going ahead, this will become a political issue for the country's minorities and further reinforce their unhappiness," said James Chin, a politics professor at Monash University in Kuala Lumpur.

The 12 were from a group who had marched in August last year with the head of a cow to protest a plan to build a Hindu temple in their mainly Muslim neighbourhood. Hindus, who consider the cow to be a sacred animal, were angered.

Non-Muslims, who together constitute 40 percent of the population, handed the country's ruling coalition its worst defeat in the polls in 2008 due to growing alienation.

Since taking office in April last year, Prime Minister Najib Najib Razak has tried to reach out to minorities with an inclusive "1Malaysia" policy.

But ethnic and religious tensions remain high after a number of religiously charged disputes including the "cow head protest" and an ongoing row over the use of the word Allah by Christians which saw houses of worship being attacked early this year.

That is, churches attacked, by Islamic supremacists.

Aggressive and potentially lethal dhimmitude. These police officers have evidently bought into the Muslim line that they are routinely victims of hate crimes, without bothering to note the fact that many of those hate crimes are fabricated by Muslims themselves. Find links establishing that in this post. "EDL members arrested over Bournemouth mosque bomb plot fears," by Jim Durkin in the Bournemouth Daily Echo, July 27 (thanks to Twostellas):

ARMED police opened fire during an operation to arrest members of the controversial far-right English Defence League, who were feared to be masterminding an attack at a Bournemouth mosque.

Marksmen shot the tyres out on a van belonging to John Broomfield, who describes himself as Dorset EDL head, as he drove alone through Corfe Castle.

He and six others were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause an explosion at a Bournemouth mosque.

All seven, including at least six EDL members, have since been released without charge.

Armed officers pounced from an unmarked car close to the Norden roundabout as 27-year-old Mr Broomfield, from Swanage, drove home from work around 5pm.

They used special rapid tyre deflation rounds, fired from a shotgun, to disable his vehicle.

Officers, including specialised forensic experts, then swooped on his Bell Street home, removing clothes, computer equipment, mobile phones and passports.

The suspects were held at Poole police station and a police station in Southampton, following last Thursday's arrests.

The English Defence League is a contentious group that has been leading "anti-Muslim extremism" demonstrations around England since 2009.

Thousands of people have attended its protests - many of which have involved racist and Islamophobic chanting.

However, organisers insist it is not a racist organisation.

A number of violent clashes have also taken place at EDL demonstrations since the group first emerged in Luton last year.

In a statement to the Daily Echo, Mr Broomfield said: "While travelling home from work I was stopped and arrested by armed police. I was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause an explosion at a Bournemouth mosque.

"Five other members of the EDL were also arrested and held for 24 hours for questioning while searches of their homes took place. Then all of us were released without charge.

"There has been no conspiracy.

"There has never been any conspiracy. The EDL is not a terrorist organisation."

A spokesman for Dorset Police said: "Dorset Police can confirm that as part of an investigation surrounding threats to a Bournemouth mosque a total of seven people were arrested for conspiracy to cause an explosion.

"Following an investigation police can now confirm these people have been released without charge....

"We've been working very closely with the Muslim community since last Thursday and our local safer neighbourhood teams have been providing advice and reassurance throughout.

"At this stage there is no indication whatsoever that any of the mosques in Dorset are under threat of attack."

It's a funny thing in Western countries: when non-Muslims are (falsely) suspected of plotting to harm Muslims, non-Muslim authorities work to reassure the Muslim community. When Muslims kill non-Muslims, non-Muslim authorities work to reassure the Muslim community.

Cameron's entire argument here rests on the proposition that Islam is a Religion of Peace that has been Hijacked by a Tiny Minority of Extremists. If that is false, then he is taking a course of extraordinary folly. "Turkey must join EU, says Cameron: 'Those who are against are playing on fears of Islam,'" by Jason Groves in the Daily Mail, July 27 (thanks to all who sent this in):

David Cameron today accused critics of Turkey's membership of the EU of playing on fears of Islam - as he pledged to 'pave the road from Ankara to Brussels'.

In a speech in the Turkish capital the Prime Minister promised to 'fight' to help the Islamic state achieve its 50-year goal of EU membership.

He said that, by embracing the moderate Muslim nation, the EU can improve relations with the rest of the Islamic world.

And he hit out at those who 'wilfully misunderstand Islam' in order to oppose Turkey's membership.

He said: 'They see no difference between real Islam and the distorted version of the extremists.

'They think the values of Islam can never be compatible with the values of other religions, societies or cultures.

'All these arguments are just plain wrong. I want us to be at the forefront of an international effort to defeat them.'...

At long last, The Post-American Presidency by Pamela Geller with Robert Spencer is now available! Order your copy now here. And visit the official Post-American Presidency website.

"Sheer brilliance! Sharp, well-written and to-the-point. The ultimate patriot's handbook. Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer lay bare Barack Hussein Obama's radical agenda and how to stop it. No true American's library will be complete without this book."

--Brad Thor, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Foreign Influence

"This book is a chilling analysis of how the policy of President Barack Obama is chipping away at the very foundation of America's leading role in the world. It exposes his philosophy of near universal 'moral equivalency': a philosophy that is a dead ringer for the cultural relativism that has been poisoning Europe for the past decades. America is the last man standing and it is vital that the people of Europe adopt the attitude of proud American citizens and learn that it is not shameful to be proud of one's heritage. This book is incredibly fascinating and at the same time holds a deeply disturbing message we should all take to heart."

--Geert Wilders, Dutch MP

"Barack Obama is the most radical individual ever to occupy the White House. This excellent book by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer explains exactly what that means and why its implications are fraught with such dangers for this great Republic."

--David Horowitz, author of Radical Son

"Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer are two of the most incisive analysts of events at home and abroad, and you could not ask for better guides to where 'hope,' 'change' and czars are taking us -- and what Americans can do about it."

--Mark Steyn, New York Times bestselling author of  America Alone

"In The Post-American Presidency, Pamela Geller shines her laser on President Barack Obama -- his life, his values, his friends and his perceptions of the country he leads. What she reports will disturb not only every American who believes in that America is the Shining City on the Hill and that the American people are what Abraham Lincoln referred to as 'the almost chosen people.' It should also disturb people around the world who recognize that the international system stops working when the American Atlas shirks the burden of its uniqueness."

--Caroline Glick, author of The Shackled Warrior

"With their characteristic attention to detail, clarity and fearlessness, Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer assay the wreckage. The Post-American Presidency is must reading for every concerned American who needs to know why we're in this perilous moment, and where we're headed if we don't take our exceptional country back."

--Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review legal affairs editor, author of Willful Blindness and Grand Jihad

Indonesia the Model of Modern Islam continues to show a very different face, at least for the Christians there. "Attacks on Christian Churches in Indonesia Rising: Activists," from Agence France-Presse, July 26 (thanks to Twostellas):

Jakarta. Indonesian human rights activists on Monday urged President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to investigate attacks on Christian churches, which they say have increased in the last two years.

From January to July, there were 28 cases of religious freedom violations by "intolerant groups targeting Christians," up from 17 for the whole of 2008 and 18 in 2009, the Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace said in a report.

Based on reports by churches and the media, the violations -- mostly by radical Muslim groups -- include forced closure of churches, revocation and delays in issuing building permits, and attacks such as torching and damaging churches, the institute said.

"These incidents are a breach of law and human rights. The President and the government have been very silent on this matter and have not provided enough protection to citizens," Setara's deputy chief Bonar Tigor Naipospos said.

"The attackers have become bolder as law enforcement is weak. We can't let the incidents continue as peace in the country will be jeopardized," he added....

Leftist/Islamic Supremacist Alliance Update: on May 3, Robert Dreyfuss wrote this in The Nation:

It may be that the Pakistan-based Taliban, the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has quietly established a Connecticut franchise while we weren't looking. That's possible. But it seems far more likely to me that the perpetrator of the bungled Times Square bomb plot was either a lone wolf or a member of some squirrely branch of the Tea Party, anti-government far right. Which actually exists in Connecticut, where, it seems, the car's licence plates were stolen.

Of course, the Pakistan Taliban was indeed behind the Times Square bombing attempt, not the far right at all.

You'd think Robert Dreyfuss would be too embarrassed after committing such an ideologically-driven error ever to write about any aspect of the jihad threat again, but some people have no shame. Retract? Apologize? Not the noble Dreyfuss! Instead, he has just dug himself in even deeper, echoing the talking points of Hamas-linked CAIR in complaining about my recent seminars for the FBI and JTTF: "Anti-Muslim Bigot and Fanatic Explains Islam to the FBI and the Tidewater Joint Terrorism Task Force," by Robert Dreyfuss in The Nation, July 26 (thanks to James):

The Council on American Islamic Relations is making noise about the fact that an extremist, right-wing anti-Muslim rabble rouser was "invited to offer training to state and federal law enforcement officers." It sounds like something that might have happened under the administration of President Bush, but no - this happened on Obama's watch. Robert Spencer, co-founder of the group Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA), is the culprit.

Even over at the Nation, however, a few of Dreyfuss's commenters were on to him. Some of the remarks were especially apposite:

It's not "fanatical" or "bigoted" to tell the truth. Anyone who can read knows that the Koran sanctions the violent murder of all non-Moslems, especially Jews (even those who deny it). There's no point in maintaining a commitment to evade reality. Spencer is not anti-Moslem or bigoted. He is a man who has devoted his life to studying Islamic theology. He simply doesn't tell lies.

The only reason you defend Islam is because you want it to be peaceful, not because you have any rational reason to believe that it is.

And:

So you rely on a Muslim Brotherhood front group for proof of Spencer being "right wing." How about asking Mr. Spencer yourself? Is "tea partiers" the new incantation to forget about the reality of Obama and the world?

SIOA's response to the CAIR/Dreyfuss screed is here.

This Misunderstander of Islam claims that "Islamic scriptures have predicted a victory over 'non-believers'" for the Muslims. How can he say such a thing about the Religion Of Peace™? Can we get Honest Ibe Hooper and the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf to go over to Pakistan and explain to Azam Tariq about the Qur'an's true teachings of tolerance and peaceful coexistence with non-believers?

"3,000 terrorists for India battle: Pak Taliban," from Rediff News, July 26 (thanks to Arjun):

Pakistan's Taliban claims it has organised 3,000 terrorists for its declared battle against India, the Taliban spokesperson tells Tahir Ali in Islamabad.

The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has declared it is training terrorists to launch an attack on India.

The TTP is the Pakistan counterpart of Afghanistan's Taliban and has been blamed for several terror attacks in that country.

TTP spokesperson Azam Tariq told this correspondent in a telephone interview that the TTP has vowed to capture "Hindustan".

"India is our jageer (domain)," Tariq said, "and we will attack to take possession of it. We are training lots of fighters and suicide bombers who will be used for this purpose."

He added the Taliban would fight a "decisive' battle" in India before proceeding towards the Middle East, presumably to evict Israel from that region.

After taking control of Pakistan and Afghanistan, the TTP spokesperson said the Taliban would move towards India.

Tariq said Islamic scriptures have predicted a victory over "non-believers".

"For us, whether they are Hindus or Jews, they all are the same. Soon, we will teach India a lesson. India's defeat at the hands of the mujahedeen is written in our religious books," he boasted.

Criticising relations between Pakistan and the United States, Tariq said, "We are not against Pakistan, but we don't like its pro-American policies; we will target their security forces, the secular leaders and other sensitive installations until the government does not change its anti-Islamic policies."

"What has Pakistan gained from American friendship? Despite Pakistan's role as a frontline ally in the war against terror, India is closer to the US. The Americans are not interested in solving the Kashmir issue and have shown their inclination towards India in this regard. Pakistani rulers should remember that only the mujahideen would come to their rescue in case of Indian aggression against their country."

"If Pakistan changes its anti-Taliban policies, not only can the mujahedeen free Kashmir from India, but can also capture India itself," Tariq declared.

When asked how the TTP is preparing for its declared onslaught against India, Tariq claimed, "We are preparing fighters to attack India. Sooner or later, when there is no tussle between the Pakistani forces and us, or after we defeat the Pakistani forces, the mujahideen will move towards Hindustan."

"There are around 3,000 trained suicide bombers with the TTP. Others are undergoing training. We are not preparing them for Pakistan, but for our real target -- the occupation of India," Tariq said.

Asked if the Pakistani Taliban was involved in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, Tariq added, "We don't have any connection with those attackers or their backers, but we appreciate their struggle and sacrifices."

Jihad Watch reader Christine kindly sent me this photo she snapped only minutes ago in Manhattan, where our SIOA freedom cabs have just started running. Thanks, Christine!

Ramdas Lamb was a "Hindu monk in India from 1969-1978." He is now a professor at the University of Hawai'i. He engages here in a bit of moral equivalence that fails to take into account the huge difference in content between the Christian and Islamic Scriptures, but otherwise makes many sound points.

"Islam needs more tolerance, not more mosques," from the Washington Post's On Faith blog, July 26:

One has to wonder how long the U.S. will continue to tip toe around its relationship with Islam and Muslims. There seems to be so many situations in which anything to do with Islam is treated with kid gloves by politicians and the politically correct in fear of offending its members. If it had been Jewish terrorists who had attacked the twin Towers, would the building of a synagogue at the site even be in anyone's fantasy? I strongly doubt it. Yet, when Muslims are involved in terrorism, so many of our politicians want to pretend Islam had nothing to do with it. They need to wake up and listen to what the terrorists and their hate filled [followers] are saying. [...]

Religious tolerance in the U.S. has increased a great deal over the decades, but as long as Islam continues to be treated differently than other religions, and fundamentalists are given a pass, most Americans will want to have little or nothing to do with the religion or its members. There are those who say that we are the ones at fault, we need to better understand Muslims and Islam, and the planned center and mosque near Ground Zero will help in that process. Actually, our politicians need to stop making excuses for the violence fundamentalist Islam supports, and its perpetrators need to start making room for the rest of the world in their currently narrow and hate filled version of reality. Those who say Americans need to better understand Islam need to rethink the problem. They should direct their efforts instead to attempting to teach fundamentalist Muslims the concept of tolerance of others first, since they are the source of the problem. That would be the best way to begin to inspire non-Muslims in the U.S. and the rest of the world to change their view of the tradition and to see beyond its violence for the good it can hopefully offer the rest of the world.

The Islamic cleric whom John Esposito has praised as a "reformist" shows his non-reformist bent yet again. "Top Muslim Cleric Qaradawi Urges Western Muslims to 'Liberalize': Outwardly, Anyway," by Raymond Ibrahim at Pajamas Media (via Raymond's site), July 23:

A recent episode of the popular Arabic show al-Sharia wa al-Haya (Law and Life), which airs weekly on Al Jazeera and features renowned Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, addressed the important yet little known Muslim concept of taysir (pronounced "tey-seer").

Qaradawi, who is touted by the likes of John Esposito and CAIR as a "moderate" -- even as he legitimizes suicide attacks against Israel (including by women) and death for apostates -- explained that, according to fiqh al-taysir (the "jurisprudence of ease"), Islam (not unlike Catholicism) offers Muslims dispensations, whenever needed: "For Allah desires ease for you, not hardship" (Koran 2:185; see also 5:6, 4:26-28, 2:286). For instance, Muslims traveling during the month of Ramadan or engaged in jihad need not observe the obligatory fast.

Qaradawi stressed that no one advocated taking the "easy way" as much as Muhammad himself. He offered several examples, including how Muhammad would be angry with prayer leaders who tired the people with long prayers. (Other less flattering though applicable anecdotes concerning Muhammad's "leniency" come to mind, such as when his followers thought they had to practice coitus interruptus while raping their captive women so as not to impregnate them, only to be told by the prophet that "There is no harm if you do not practice it, for it [the birth of the child] is something ordained [by Allah]").

Lest it be abused, Qaradawi warned that taysir should only be used as needed, based on the vicissitudes of time and chance. In other words, Muslims should not actively seek the easy way, but rather, when uncontrollable circumstances create hardships, Muslims are free to opt for the easy way -- as long as they recognize that the "hard way" (i.e., total implementation of Sharia) is the ideal way.

Qaradawi proudly contrasted taysir with the practices of Jews and Christians who "took things to the extreme, and thus were treated extremely." After quoting the verse, "Ask not about matters which, if made known to you, may make things difficult for you" (Koran 5:105), Qaradawi said Allah made things difficult for the "anal" Jews because they always insisted on receiving specific details for his otherwise simple commandments. As for Christians, Qaradawi, in dismay, pointed to monks and anchorites, who, by shunning all female contact, and living in absolute solitude and austerity, also went to the extreme.

The most significant point of the program came when Qaradawi said that taysir is especially needed in "this era" and "especially for those Muslim minorities living in Europe and America."

Now, why is that? For starters, by migrating to the West of their own free will, Muslims themselves -- not "uncontrollable circumstances" -- create this apparent need for taysir. Moreover, Western religious freedom allows Muslims to uphold Islam's fundamental Five Pillars: Muslims can proclaim the shahada (profession of faith), pray, fast, give zakat (except to terrorists), and go on the hajj. So what, exactly, is Sheikh Qaradawi referring to that makes living in the West especially hard on Muslims?

The answer is obvious: Qaradawi is referring to those other aspects of Sharia law -- you know, subjugation of non-Muslim infidels, absolute authority over women, jihad, draconian punishments, and all the rest --that do create "hardships" for Muslims who try to implement them in the West, for instance, by getting them arrested and imprisoned.

In other words, far from "liberalizing" Muslim life, taysir allows only for insincere conformity. As Qaradawi made clear, to practice taysir is not to renounce Sharia's otherwise harsh obligations; it is to put them on hold till circumstances are more accommodating....

Read it all.

Lucy, you got a lot of 'splainin' to do

Yet another There Is No Fun In Islam* Alert from the Islamic guardians of Somalia. "Somali Islamic group cracks down on TV sets," from Reuters, July 26 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

MOGADISHU, July 26 (Reuters) - Somali Islamist rebels have ordered residents in areas they control to hand over televisions and satellite dishes, warning that anyone who did not would be considered a spy, residents said on Monday.

The affected region is largely controlled by the al Shabaab group, a rebel militia linked to al Qaeda which enforces a harsh version of sharia law that includes banning school bells, ringtones on cell phones and music on radios.

Members of the militia group, which has also banned watching football and films, have warned residents through loud speakers mounted on vehicles in towns across southern and central Somalia to give up their TV sets before the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan starts in mid-August.

"Families were told to surrender their television sets and satellite dishes. They are afraid some of us may use them as private channels for communication," Abshir, a resident of Buula-barde, told Reuters.

"In the past, we could not watch games or films as we wanted. Now, we cannot have TV sets at all," he said, declining to give his second name for safety reasons....

* The Ayatollah Khomeini said that.

"It is not a cruelty to kill blasphemers." Got that?

"Muslim cleric accuses Pakistani Christian minister of committing blasphemy," from the ASSIST News Service, July 26 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Allama Ahmed Mian Hammadi, a Pakistani Muslim cleric, has claimed that Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's Federal Minister for Minorities has himself committed blasphemy by branding the recently murdered Christian brothers as victims of Pakistan blasphemy laws.

Bhatti had spoken out about the murder last week of Rashid Emmanuel, 30, and his brother Sajid, 27, by unidentified masked gunmen inside a courthouse in Faisalabad. The brothers had been accused of blaspheming the Prophet Muhammad earlier this month, a charge they had both denied.

According to Mr Hammadi's statement, published in Daily Jasarat, a Pakistani Urdu daily newspaper, the Muslim cleric said that Muslims cannot tolerate blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad.

"It is not a cruelty to kill blasphemers, rather blasphemy itself is such an enormous brutality that the one who commits it neither has got a right to live in this world nor is there any pardon for the blasphemer," Daily Jasarat quoted Mr Hammadi as saying.

"Muslims won't tolerate even a slightest blasphemy against Prophet Muhammad. If Shahbaz Bhatti committed blasphemy he would be beheaded."

He maintained: "A Muslim loves [the] Prophet Muhammad more than anyone else."
The newspaper quoted Mr Hammadi as saying that the incident of killing of the Christian brothers due to non implementation of the blasphemy laws in Pakistan.

According to the newspaper, the Muslim cleric criticized Mr. Bhatti for stating that the law had been abused vis-à-vis the case of the Christian brothers.

"No law has been implemented in this case. Court implements the law not people," Daily Jasarat quoted Mr. Hammadi as saying. "Christian brothers were killed after Muslims became angry."...

Oh, well, then, in that case...

The logical outcome of continuing to finance Pakistan's double game. "US paying Pakistan to kill American troops?," by Chidanand Rajghatta in the Times of India, July 27 (thanks to Regumrex):

WASHINGTON: A treasure trove of US documents implicating Pakistan in its support for terrorism exploded in the public domain on Sunday, sending officials in both countries scurrying to defend a dubious alliance and straining a phony partnership based on a misreading of the ground sentiment and situation.

WikiLeaks, a whistleblower organization that publishes sensitive government leaks from anonymous sources, put a staggering 91,000 documents, mainly ground reports from US military personnel, in public domain on Sunday. Many of the documents exposed Pakistan's double-faced policy of fuelling terrorism in Afghanistan while claiming to be fighting it as an US ally.

In effect, the chronicles suggested that Washington was blindly paying Pakistan massive amounts of money for access to Afghanistan even as Islamabad uses its spy agency, ISI, to plot the death of American and Nato troops, allied Indian personnel, and undermines US policy. The most devastating leaks showed that Pakistan allows representatives of its spy service, ISI, to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize attacks against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders, including President Hamid Karzai....

"Americans fighting the war in Afghanistan have long harboured strong suspicions that Pakistan's military spy service has guided the Afghan insurgency with a hidden hand, even as Pakistan receives more than $1 billion a year from Washington for its help combating the militants," the New York Times said in its assessment of the report. "The records also contain firsthand accounts of American anger at Pakistan's unwillingness to confront insurgents who launched attacks near Pakistani border posts, moved openly by the truckload across the frontier and retreated to Pakistani territory for safety," it continued.

"The behind-the-scenes frustrations of soldiers on the ground and glimpses of what appear to be Pakistani skullduggery contrast sharply with the frequently rosy public pronouncements of Islamabad as an ally by American officials looking to sustain a drone campaign over parts of Pakistani territory to strike at Qaida havens," it added.

That policy of ambivalence and appeasement continued even into the hours after the WikiLeaks expose, as US and Pakistani officials rushed to control the damage. US national security advisor James Jones condemned the "disclosure of classified documents by individuals and organizations", which, he said, "could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security", when, in effect, the documents suggest it is Washington's appeasement of Pakistan which is doing that....

Indeed.

Please join SIOA and FDI in our solemn protest against the 9/11 mega-mosque at Ground Zero on September 11. It will be held in the afternoon, after the memorial services -- the exact time and date are to be determined and will be announced here.

World leaders, prominent politicians and 911 family members will be speaking.

This is a solemn protest. Please do not bring any inflammatory signs. "Ground Zero is sacred ground." "Ground Zero is a war Memorial." "Ground Zero Mosque is Radically Insensitive."

We will begin with interfaith prayer and the playing of "Taps" for the 911 victims.

Please mark your calenders. Come to New York City on September 11. If you believe that the construction of this Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero is an insult to those Americans who lost their lives in the largest attack on American soil in history, now is the time to make your voice heard.

After the SIOA/FDI rally against the mega-mosque, you may wish to head to Washington for the 912 rally. Those who looking for rides to the protest or from the Ground Zero protest to the 912 rally in DC on Sunday can connect here. You can easily catch the train to Washington from Penn Station in New York.

Also, if you are in Manhattan tomorrow evening, please come to the next Community Board 1 meeting concerning the Ground Zero mosque site, at 6:00 PM at Dance New Amsterdam, 280 Broadway, 2nd Floor (entrance on Chambers and Elk Streets). We need to be there.

The blockade-running jihadis recognize that they have an ally in Obama. "'The Audacity of Hope' to set sail," by Adam Chandler in the Jerusalem Post, July 26 (thanks to Choi):

An initiative is under way to add an American ship to the effort to break the IDF blockade of Gaza.

The vessel, to be named The Audacity of Hope after US President Barack Obama's best-selling book, is being organized by an American group called "US Boat to Gaza." It is expected to sail in the fall.

The links to Obama do not end there. Prof. Rashid Khalidi, director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, and a friend from Obama's time in Chicago, is among the supporters of an appeal launched by the group last week.

"We must raise at least $370,000 in the next month," a statement on US Boat to Gaza's Web site read.

"These funds will be used to purchase a boat large enough for 40-60 people, secure a crew, and cover the licensing and registering of the boat...

together we will contribute to the great effort to end the blockade of Gaza and the illegal occupation of Palestine."

The Lebanese-Saudi Arabian- Palestinian-American Khalidi, an outspoken critic of Israel, garnered attention in 2008 when his friendship with Obama became a point of controversy during the US presidential campaign. Sen.

John McCain, Obama's opponent, portrayed Khalidi as a Hamas sympathizer.

Khalidi's involvement in this new project is already a popular topic among rightwing bloggers and media personalities in America.

"Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestinian arm.

Rashid Khalidi has now signed an appeal for funds to outfit another ship like the peace flotilla that would try to break Israeli's blockage of Gaza, the territory controlled by Hamas," American pundit Glenn Beck said on his syndicated radio show last week.

"Rashid Khalidi, a good friend of the president. The name of the ship: The Audacity of Hope."

Others supporters of US Boat to Gaza include author Alice Walker, activist Angela Davis, and Cindy and Craig Corrie, the parents of International Solidarity Movement activist Rachel Corrie, who was killed by an IDF bulldozer in Rafah in 2003....

For background, see this post and CAIR's defamatory press release. Honest Ibe Hooper and his henchmen have been churning out sleazy propaganda like that press release for years, and have gone unchallenged. But now a group has arisen that is unafraid to tell the truth about CAIR and to call Hooper on his fascist intimidation tactics: SIOA!

From Yahoo News:

NEW YORK, July 26 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The human rights group Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) today called on the FBI and Virginia's Tidewater Joint Terrorism Task Force to resist efforts by an Islamic supremacist hate group to intimidate state and federal law enforcement officers and dictate how they are to be trained about the Islamic jihad threat.

On Saturday the Hamas-linked Islamic supremacist hate group Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called on the FBI and Virginia's Tidewater Joint Terrorism Task Force to explain why they invited Islam expert Robert Spencer to offer training to state and federal law enforcement officers. SIOA respectfully requests that the FBI and the Tidewater JTTF repudiate this attempt by CAIR to interfere with these agencies and impede counterterrorism training.

The Associate Director of SIOA, Robert Spencer is a highly acclaimed expert on Islam and Sharia, the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the author of ten books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Truth About Muhammad and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). Spencer is a weekly columnist for Human Events and FrontPage Magazine, and has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army's Asymmetric Warfare Group, and the U.S. intelligence community - as well as the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force on previous occasions.

Spencer is the coauthor of Pamela Geller's The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War On America, which is set to be released this week by Simon & Schuster Publishers.

Bat Ye'or, the pioneering historian of dhimmitude, the institutionalized mistreatment of non-Muslims in Islamic societies, said: "Robert Spencer incarnates intellectual courage when, all over the world, governments, intellectuals, churches, universities and media crawl under a hegemonic Universal Caliphate's New Order. His achievement in the battle for the survival of free speech and dignity of man will remain as a fundamental monument to the love of, and the self-sacrifice for, liberty."

Former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy, a Senior Fellow at National Review Institute, called Spencer "America's most informed, fearless, and compelling voice on modern jihadism." The New York Times noted that Spencer's work is "widely read in conservative foreign policy circles."

CAIR, by contrast, is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case -- so named by the Justice Department during the trial of the Islamic charity known as the Holy Land Foundation.

CAIR has previously attempted to intimidate numerous government agencies and citizens' groups into dropping events featuring foes of international jihad activity, including SIOA's Executive Director Pamela Geller, ACT for America's Brigitte Gabriel, and others. In the summer of 2010 it has embarked upon a concerted campaign of intimidation and defamation to silence public figures who speak out against jihad and Islamic terrorism, including Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), the Rev. Franklin Graham, Florida Congressional candidate Dan Fanelli, and Connecticut Congressional candidate Rick Torres.

CAIR's attempt to intimidate the FBI and JTTF and dictate their choice of speakers contained numerous false charges, defamation, distortions, and outright lies about Spencer, SIOA, and Geller.

CAIR has a long record of duplicity and deception. Although it has received millions of dollars in donations from foreign Islamic entities, it has not registered as a foreign agent as required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), despite spreading Islamic supremacist propaganda within the United States.

Although it presents itself as a civil rights group, CAIR actually has numerous links to Islamic supremacist and jihad groups. CAIR founders Omar Ahmad and Niwad Awad (who still serves as CAIR's executive director) were present at a Hamas planning meeting in Philadelphia in 1993 where they and other Hamas operatives conspired to raise funds for Hamas and to promote jihad in the Middle East. CAIR has steadfastly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups.

Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror:

* Ghassan Elashi, founder of CAIR's Texas chapter, in 2009 received a 65-year prison sentence for funneling over $12 million from the Islamic charity known as the Holy Land Foundation to the jihad terrorist group Hamas, which is responsible for murdering hundreds of Israeli civilians
* Mousa Abu Marzook, a former CAIR official, was in 1995 designated by the U.S. government in 1995 as a "terrorist and Hamas leader." He now is a Hamas leader in Syria.
* Randall Royer, CAIR's former civil rights coordinator, in 2004 began serving a 20-year prison sentence for aiding al-Qaida and the Taliban against American troops in Afghanistan and recruiting for Lashkar e-Taiba, the jihadist group responsible for the 2008 Mumbai jihad massacres.
* Bassem Khafagi, CAIR's former community relations director, was arrested for involvement with the Islamic Assembly of North America, which was linked to al-Qaida. After pleading guilty to visa and bank fraud charges, Khafagi was deported.
* Rabih Haddad, a former CAIR fundraiser, was deported for his work with the Global Relief Foundation (which he co-founded), a terror-financing organization.

In 1998 Omar Ahmad, CAIR's co-founder and longtime Board Chairman, said: "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."

After he received unwelcome publicity as a result of this statement, Ahmad denied saying it, several years after the fact. However, the original reporter, Lisa Gardiner of the Fremont Argus, stands by her story.

CAIR's spokesman Ibrahim Hooper once said: "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future."

SIOA is one of America's foremost organizations defending human rights, religious liberty, and the freedom of speech against Islamic supremacist intimidation and attempts to bring elements of Sharia to the United States.

In FrontPage this morning I discuss the curious new revelations about Obama's stance toward the release of the Lockerbie jihadist:

[...] And so the key question that should be posed to Barack Obama today is why he believed that "compassionate" release was preferable for this remorseless mass murderer than time in a Libyan jail. And if his administration approved of al-Megrahi's "compassionate" release, or at least had green-lighted it as a possibility before it occurred, why were U.S. officials "surprised, disappointed and angry" when it actually happened? Were any quid pro quos involved, either from Libya, whose strongman Muammar Gaddafi has lavishly praised Obama, or from Great Britain?

Obama should also be asked, if the White House press corps were not so anxious to further the President's agenda, why this monster deserved any kind of compassion whatsoever, even if the reports about his terminal cancer had been true. Why should Abdelbeset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi, of all people, not die in prison for his pitiless crime of blowing an airplane out of the sky four days before Christmas and killing everyone on board? Isn't even the contemplation of "compassionate release" for such a man a miscarriage of justice for those who were killed, and an indication of a moral myopia staggering in its severity on the part of British authorities and Obama?

Given Obama's oft-repeated desire to establish relations with the Islamic world on the basis of a "mutual respect" that remains ever-elusive from the Islamic side, as shown in the new book I have written with Pamela Geller, The Post-American Presidency, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that he directed U.S. officials to approve of al-Megrahi's "compassionate release" as yet another gesture of good will toward the Islamic world. Yet these gestures of good will remain unreciprocated. Al-Megrahi is free, his crime unpunished. Will anyone ask Barack Obama why?

Read it all.

In Human Events this morning, I discuss the looming succession crisis in Egypt:

The Islamic supremacist group known as the Muslim Brotherhood, which is dedicated--according to a captured internal document--to "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within," has its best chance in years to take power in Egypt, with implications for the Middle East and beyond.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has terminal stomach cancer, and is not expected to survive beyond another year. Mubarak has anointed his son Gamal as his successor; however, the Brotherhood, from which sprang both Hamas and al Qaeda, could attempt to seize power upon the elder Mubarak's death, and is maneuvering now to ensure that once Hosni Mubarak is gone from the scene, the Muslim Brothers will be more powerful than ever.

The Brotherhood is banned in Egypt, but often runs candidates in Egyptian elections as independents. In this way it won one-fifth of the seats in the 2005 parliamentary elections. Since the days of President Gamel Abdel Nasser (1956-1970), the Egyptian government has looked the other way as the group terrorized Coptic Christians and enforced Islamic strictures upon the Egyptian populace, but cracked down when the Brotherhood showed signs of growing powerful enough actually to seize the reins of the Egyptian government.

Shortly before he was assassinated, Nasser's successor Anwar Sadat released all the Brotherhood political prisoners who had been languishing in Egyptian prisons, and even promised the Brotherhood that Islamic law would be fully implemented in Egypt.

The Islamization of Egypt has been proceeding steadily for decades. The Brotherhood's societal and cultural influence has long outstripped its direct political reach, and shows no sign of abating. Nonetheless, nearly 30 years after Sadat's promise, the Brotherhood is still pressing for that full implementation of sharia law.

Read it all.

Malmö is, of course, the city from which Jews are already fleeing because of antisemitic attacks from the Muslims there. "Attack Against the Synagogue in Malmö Revives Threat Concerns for the Jewish Community," from Sweden Israel and the Jews, July 25 (thanks to Joseph):

In the early morning hours on Friday a large explosion was reported outside Malmö's synagogue. The explosion is suspected to have been caused by a substantial firecracker and is seen as an attack on the synagogue. The attack can also be seen as a resurgence of the threat against the Malmö Jewish community.

Some minutes before 2am the night between July 22nd and the 23rd a big explosion was reported outside the synagogue in Malmö. Residents living close to the synagogue reported that an explosion was heard and there was also a very bright flash. Spokesperson for the police, Göran Billberg commented that the explosion most probably was due to "some kind of firecracker", and did not characterize the explosive as a bomb.

The local newspaper Sydsvenskan reported incorrectly that no damage was done to the synagogue; in fact the explosion was so strong that several of the synagogue windows were blown out by the blast. [...]

The local police force feels that it is not necessary to enforce security around the synagogue although it is evident that the Jewish Community remains in a state of constant threat....

In 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down on Islamic grounds a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. Al-Jazeera reported that "Islamists and conservatives said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values."

"Jordanian shoots dead sex victim niece as 'honour killing,'" from Sapa, July 24 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):

A Jordanian man confessed to killing his 16-year-old niece to save his family's "honour" after she was sexually assaulted, a judicial official said today.

The 43-year-old fired 30 machine-gun rounds in the direction of the girl yesterday, killing her instantly, at Deir Alla, west of the capital Amman, said the official who requested anonymity.

The man confessed to the murder, saying he did it to "cleanse the family honour" over suspicions of "bad behaviour" after the girl "lost her virginity a month ago in a sexual assault by a young man aged 17," said the same source.

The girl's family later married her off to a cousin "to conceal the facts," the official added, stressing that the suspect in the sexual assault was being tried.

Prosecutors have charged the uncle with "premeditated murder." Murder is punishable by death in Jordan but in so-called "honour killings" courts can commute or reduce sentences, particularly if the victim's family asks for leniency.

Between 15 and 20 women are murdered in honour killings each year in the kingdom, despite government efforts to curb such crimes.

Government efforts to curb such crimes? By setting only light punishments for them?

Inexorable? Really? In an Obama administration? I doubt it. "Ex-CIA chief: Strike on Iran seems more likely now," from AP, July 25 (thanks to JCB):

WASHINGTON - A former CIA director says military action against Iran now seems more likely because no matter what the U.S. does diplomatically, Tehran keeps pushing ahead with its suspected nuclear program.

Michael Hayden, a CIA chief under President George W. Bush, says that during his tenure a strike was "way down the list" of options. But he tells CNN's "State of the Union" that such action now "seems inexorable."...

Sharia Alert from Michigan: apparently the First Amendment only applies to Muslims at this point in Dearborn, Michigan. More on this here and here.

The "Muslim rapper" is a smooth and persistent deceiver, and consequently this is largely a dialogue of the deaf, but Pamela Geller manages to impart a great deal of information despite his attempts to impede her from doing so.

Over at Atlas Shrugs Pamela has posted some background information to demonstrate the truth of her assertions here:

Pipes/Chadha: CAIR's Hate Crimes Nonsense:

http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=8559

Other anti-Muslim hate crimes that turned out to have been fabricated by
Muslims:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/07/hamas-linked-cair-trumpets-another-anti-muslim-hate-crime-that-was-faked-by-a-muslim.html

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2008/10/dayton-mosque-attack-hoax-update-can-of-pepper-spray-was-found-inside-the-mosque.html

There is more. Read it all.

Georgie Anne Geyer, known for decades for her anti-Israel and pro-Arab views, has come out with an article on the New York mosque that is not, as one might have expected it would be, a defense of the Ground Zero mosque as an inoffensive and innocent "free exercise of religion," but, she rightly senses, a depiction of the mosque as something more suspect and more worrisome.

She shows en passant that she continues to believe, or at least pays lip service to, the myth of Cordoba, that is, the myth of an Islamic Spain where Christians and Jews lived under benign Muslim overlords, a splendid example of "Convivencia" - and one presumably with implications for the brave-new-world we are allowing to be created, if we do nothing to halt it, in Western Europe.

But is this "convivencia" stuff true? Was Montgomery Watt, the Anglican clergyman who was, as his former student Ibn Warraq testifies, philo-Islamic because he had a horror mainly of atheism, correct in his depiction of Islamic Spain? And what about Maria Rosa Menocal, with her Ornament of the World? You can read about her at this site. Was Cordoba, was Islamic Spain itself, a place where "Muslims, Christians, and Jews" all lived in splendid harmony? Apparently the Christians didn't feel so, because otherwise why would they have spent 500 years in attempting to throw back the Muslim invaders? And what about the Jews, who had no army? Well, consider the most famous of those Jews -- there is a statute of him, by the way, in Cordoba, in the Juderia. What did Maimonides think of Cordoba, where he lived, as a place where under Muslim rule Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived in "harmony"? In his "Epistle to Yemen," Maimonides described his experience. The Jews were treated so well? If so, why did Maimonides denounce the hideous treatment of Jews by Muslims in Spain, and why did Christians tirelessly engage in the Reconquista over 500 years?

Find out why this is completely unsurprising in The Post-American Presidency. "White House backed release of Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi," by Jason Allardyce and Tony Allen-Mills in The Australian, July 26 (thanks to all who sent this in):

THE US government secretly advised Scottish ministers it would be "far preferable" to free the Lockerbie bomber than jail him in Libya.

Correspondence obtained by The Sunday Times reveals the Obama administration considered compassionate release more palatable than locking up Abdel Baset al-Megrahi in a Libyan prison.

What about compassion for the 270 people al-Megrahi murdered in the name of Islamic jihad?

The intervention, which has angered US relatives of those who died in the attack, was made by Richard LeBaron, deputy head of the US embassy in London, a week before Megrahi was freed in August last year on grounds that he had terminal cancer.

The document, acquired by a well-placed US source, threatens to undermine US President Barack Obama's claim last week that all Americans were "surprised, disappointed and angry" to learn of Megrahi's release.

Scottish ministers viewed the level of US resistance to compassionate release as "half-hearted" and a sign it would be accepted.

The US has tried to keep the letter secret, refusing to give permission to the Scottish authorities to publish it on the grounds it would prevent future "frank and open communications" with other governments.

In the letter, sent on August 12 last year to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond and justice officials, Mr LeBaron wrote that the US wanted Megrahi to remain imprisoned in view of the nature of the crime.

The note added: "Nevertheless, if Scottish authorities come to the conclusion that Megrahi must be released from Scottish custody, the US position is that conditional release on compassionate grounds would be a far preferable alternative to prisoner transfer, which we strongly oppose."....

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile - hoping it will eat him last." -- Winston Churchill

Speaking of "safety valves," the British government hoping for some of its own here, attempting to mollify the "extremist" Muslims in the U.K. enough to head off acts of violent jihad.

It will backfire. "Hizb ut Tahrir is not a gateway to terrorism, claims Whitehall report," by Andrew Gilligan for the Telegraph, July 25 (thanks to the aptly pseudonymed Thomas Pellow):

The Government has opened the way for official links with Muslim extremists after civil servants said radical groups could be a "safety valve" for those tempted by terrorism.

The groups specifically named - in documents leaked to The Sunday Telegraph - include al-Muhajiroun, which has praised 9/11 as "magnificent" and Hizb ut Tahrir, which wants to turn Britain into an Islamic dictatorship under sharia law.

See here and here for our archives on these two groups.

In addition, al-Muhajiroun's spinoff group Islam4UK was banned in January after planning a march through Wootton Bassett, a town known for honoring fallen soldiers upon their return to Britain. Is this supposed to be a "safety valve?"

In the classified papers, presented last week to Coalition ministers on the Cabinet's home affairs committee, officials say a "clear assessment" has been made that individuals "do not progress" to violence through such groups.

One paper, classified "Restricted" and entitled "Government strategy towards extremism", says: "It is sometimes argued that violent extremists have progressed to terrorism by way of a passing commitment to non-violent Islamist extremism, for example of a kind associated with al-Muhajiroun or Hizb ut Tahrir ... We do not believe that it is accurate to regard radicalisation in this country as a linear 'conveyor belt' moving from grievance, through radicalisation, to violence ... This thesis seems to both misread the radicalisation process and to give undue weight to ideological factors."

In fact, at least 19 terrorists convicted in Britain have had links with al-Muhajiroun, including Omar Khayam, sentenced to life imprisonment as leader of the "fertiliser bomb" plot, and Abdullah Ahmed Ali, the ringleader of the airliner "liquid bomb" plot, who is also serving life.

Al-Muhajiroun provided backing to Abu Hamza, the extremist cleric, whose Finsbury Park mosque was a forming-ground for other terrorists. Advertising a conference held in the mosque in 2002, al-Muhajiroun leaflets described the 9/11 hijackers as the "magnificent 19".

The organisation was banned under Labour, but ex-members have regrouped under different banners. Former al-Muhajiroun activists demonstrated against a parade by British troops through Luton and threatened to do the same against the coffins of dead soldiers passing through the Wiltshire town of Wootton Bassett.

Hizb ut Tahrir says it opposes terrorism and condemned the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks. However, it regards integration as "dangerous," orders all Muslims to keep apart from non-believers and says that "those [Muslims] who believe in democracy are Kafir", or apostates. A British would-be suicide bomber, Omar Sharif, was radicalised partly by Hizb activists at his London university.

Before he became Prime Minister, David Cameron repeatedly called for Hizb to be outlawed, and criticised Labour for failing to introduce a ban. In March he said in an interview that he wanted to keep foreign preachers of hate out of Britain and "ban those extremist groups like Hizb ut Tahrir who are already here".

The Whitehall documents admit that a "minority" of terrorists have been involved with non-violent extremist groups such as al-Muhajiroun, and state that such groups "can foster a sense of Muslim isolationism from wider UK society, which may increase vulnerability to radicalisation".

But in a "restricted" memorandum to Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, written on July 15, Robert Mason, one of his senior officials, says the papers present "a clear assessment that individuals do not progress through non-violent extremist groups to violent groups ... Extreme groups may also provide a legal 'safety valve' for extreme views."...

... What?

From the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs:

In late June in Tel Aviv, senior Israeli Defense Forces officials briefed JINSA members on the security situation confronting Israel. They provided the group with the following video about the "Flotilla" incident that took place on the morning of May 31, 2010. The most disturbing part of this video comes at around the 2:32 mark when the Israeli Navy attempts to contact the ships in the flotilla by radio. It is not clear from which flotilla vessel the disturbing responses emanated. Perhaps more disturbing is the fact that that videos like this one that reveal the true nature of the flotilla incident are buried and overlooked by the media and public alike.

Indeed. But not here.

Around 5,000 girls have gone missing in the Indian state of Kerala, and Pakistan's nefarious governmental jihad arm, the ISI, appears to be involved. Yet the Kerala police remains silent. "Love jihad cases: Mahila Morcha for NIA probe," from the Express News Service, July 25:

THIRUVANATHAPURAM: Bharatiya Janata Mahila Morcha state president Sobha Surendran has urged the authorities to order a probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) into the 'love jihad' cases.

She told a news conference here on Saturday that over the past five years, around 5,000 girls had gone missing in the State. Many of them were recruited by terrorist outfits sponsored by the ISI and sent to Pakistan. But the Home Department told the High Court in an affidavit that no such activities were noticed in the State, she said.

The Police had seized some CDs during the raids conducted as part of the investigation into the chopping of the hand of Newman College teacher T J Joseph. These CDs had visuals of girls sent to red streets in Pakistan. But the Kerala Police is maintaining silence over this development, despite having registered over 1,000 cases related to 'love jihad'. Sobha Surendran said that 'love jihad' was a planned move to recruit girls for terrorist activities. She said that as the Home Department was functioning under a tacit understanding with the Popular Front of India (PFI), the Union Home Department should take up the cases. The raids on the houses of PFI workers were a farce.

Crores of rupees were spent by the PFI activists to sabotage the investigation. She alleged that Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan had a tacit understanding with the PFI leaders and hence allowed to organise freedom parades.

In "The Man Who Would Stop the Ground Zero Mosque" at the American Thinker today, Pamela Geller profiles Carl Paladino, a candidate for Governor of New York who has the courage to stand up against the politically correct obfuscation about the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero:

When was the last time you heard a politician talking like Carl Paladino?

Carl Paladino, a Republican candidate for Governor of New York, has come out against the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero.

"As Governor," Paladino said Wednesday in a radio ad, "I will use the power of eminent domain to stop this mosque and make the site a war memorial instead of a monument to those who attacked our country."

I like this guy. I really like this guy. If the Supreme Court could rule, in the notorious 2005 decision Kelo v. City of New London, that the government could seize private property for a private developer and then never develop the property, surely Americans should be able to use eminent domain to designate the Burlington Coat Factory building a war memorial.

That building is a war memorial since part of one of the 9/11 airplanes crashed into it, causing severe damage. That makes the building a war memorial, no less than Gettysburg or Pearl Harbor. There should be no mosque there, and nothing there but a memorial to the people that America lost to that heinous Islamic jihad attack on September 11, 2001.

Read it all.

Georgie Anne Geyer doesn't know that Cordoba was actually a place where Jews and Christians lived as dhimmis, under all the institutionalized oppression of the Sharia, and so the fact that the group behind the mega-mosque has taken the name "Cordoba Initiative" is not a good sign -- which is probably why they have now dropped that name. But she makes some good points about the arrogance and unilateralism of the Muslims involved in this project.

"Ground Zero Mosque is a bad idea," by Georgie Anne Geyer for Universal Press Syndicate, July 24:

[...] First, the wrenching context: We all know what happened on 9/11, of course, and we are well informed about the perpetrators of the massacre. But who exactly are the Muslims who blithely want to build so close and so high that they can look down on this tragic American cemetery?

One organization is the Cordoba Initiative, which has a good reputation as an Islamic group that wants to meet with Christians in an atmosphere reminiscent of an Islamic "Y." (It is named after the liberal Islamic caliphate in Cordoba, Spain, ruling from the eighth to the 15th centuries, which respected Christians and Jews -- a good sign.)

But no one has revealed where the $100 million for the mosque has come from, who is behind the idea, or who are the people leading the entire project. [...]

The so-named "spokesman" and "founder" for the Ground Zero Mosque initiative, interviewed on CNN, was far from courteously trying to convince other Americans of his group's good intentions. He was arrogant, smug and derisive of non-Muslim Americans. One came away from his interview feeling that he really wanted to, as the kids rather eloquently say, stick it to us.

Given these chasms of information -- and the attitude of the Muslims involved -- one can only be against this Ground Zero Mosque. The unequivocal fact is that the grounds where so many died so terribly is no place at this moment of history for any mosque....

Of course Pakistan's blasphemy laws should be repealed. But that is unlikely to happen. More likely is that similar laws will be adopted by dhimmi Western governments, at the urging of the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the United Nations, under the guise of "hate speech" laws. "Deaths of Pakistani Christian Brothers Fuel Call for 'Blasphemy' Repeal," by Aaron J. Leichman in the Christian Post, July 23 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The leader of the World Council of Churches is urging Pakistan's president and prime minister to initiate measures toward the repeal of their controversial blasphemy laws, which critics say are often abused by extremists.

In his letter to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, the Rev. Dr. Olav Fykse Tveit recalled his organization's past calls of concern over Pakistan's blasphemy laws, which he said are "fraught with danger that can be abused by extremist groups when dealing with religious minorities."

"It has been proven in the past that the charges of Blasphemy law appear to be arbitrarily applied and at times founded on malicious accusations against individuals and groups," Tveit wrote in his letter, dated Friday.

"The WCC has expressed its concern in the past and many others stated the same that the introduction of Blasphemy Law in Pakistan is inimical to and destructive of the harmony and well-being of people who live together in a religiously plural society," the WCC general secretary continued.

Under Pakistan's blasphemy laws, violators can be sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment for insulting another's religious feelings; life imprisonment for defiling, damaging, or desecrating the Qur'an; and death for defiling Islam or its prophets.

Notably, however, some individuals have brought charges under these laws to settle personal scores or to intimidate vulnerable Muslims, sectarian opponents, and religious minorities. Furthermore, those accused of blasphemy and their families or religious communities are occasionally attacked and threatened with death by religious extremists - even after they are acquitted of blasphemy charges.

"The misuse of the Blasphemy Law in Pakistan has led to physical violence, damage, destruction of properties and loss of life within the innocent Christian minority over the years," Tveit noted in his letter. "This is a violation of the fundamental rights guaranteed by Article 36 of the Constitution of Pakistan."

Tveit's letter comes four days after two Christians accused of blasphemy in Pakistan were killed as they left a courthouse.

On Monday, masked gunmen opened fire on Pastor Rashid Emmanuel and his brother, Sajid Emmanuel, as police were transporting them from the court in Faisalabad to jail.

According to Compass Direct News, the brothers were expected to be exonerated soon after handwriting experts on July 14 notified police that signatures on papers denigrating Islam's Prophet Muhammad did not match those of the accused.

Reports said that police had brought the accused to the court of law to obtain their remand....

Exactly what kind of message is that expected to send to Britons in general, and to the Vast Majority of Moderate Muslims who probably ought to be outraged at this sort of thing?

You may want to read this one sitting down -- especially the part about the Muslim Safety Forum sharing offices with the Islamic Forum of Europe. An update on this story. "Police Muslim forum headed by Islamic extremist," by Andrew Gilligan for the Telegraph, July 24 (thanks to Twostellas):

An Islamic extremist who has described al-Qaeda as a "myth" and justified the killing of British troops in Iraq has been chosen as the main link between the Metropolitan Police and the Muslim community.

Scotland Yard will now face pressure to renounce Azad Ali, the new chair of the Muslim Safety Forum, which is recognised by the Met under a formal written agreement as "the principal body in relation to Muslim community safety and security".

The deal says that the Met will "use the MSF as a consultation body to help formulate policy or practice". Mr Ali was the founding chair of the MSF in 2006, but left that job in 2008 and resigned entirely from the group last year after publicity over his extremist comments. Last week, he was quietly reappointed as its chairman.

Reappointed by whom?

Mr Ali is a senior official of the fundamentalist Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE), which works, in its own words, to create an Islamic state under sharia law in Europe. The IFE and the MSF share the same offices.

He has previously praised a key mentor of Osama bin Laden. Earlier this year, he was filmed by an undercover reporter from Channel 4's Dispatches stating: "Democracy, if it means not implementing the sharia, of course nobody agrees with that."

When the documentary was aired, Mr Ali attacked the reporter on the IFE's official radio station, saying: "We've got a picture of you and a lot more than you thought we had. We've tracked you down to different places. And if people are gonna turn what I've just said into a threat, that's their fault, innit?"

Mr Ali's comments about terrorism were made on his official blog on the IFE website. Earlier this year, he lost a libel action against a newspaper which reported them. The judge, Mr Justice Eady, said that Mr Ali "was indeed taking the position that the killing of American and British troops in Iraq would be justified", describing his claim as "bound to fail" and having an "absence of reality".

Patrick Mercer, a Conservative MP and counterterrorism expert, said: "It beats me why the police should want to take the advice of this man. They should have nothing to do with him. I know for a fact that there are just as knowledgeable members of the Muslim community who do not share his subversive views."

Muhammad said: "If a husband calls his wife to his bed [i.e. to have sexual relation] and she refuses and causes him to sleep in anger, the angels will curse her till morning" (Bukhari 4.54.460).

He also said: "By him in Whose Hand lies my life, a woman can not carry out the right of her Lord, till she carries out the right of her husband. And if he asks her to surrender herself [to him for sexual intercourse] she should not refuse him even if she is on a camel's saddle" (Ibn Majah 1854).

And now a New Jersey judge sees no evidence that a Muslim committed sexual assault of his wife -- not because he didn't do it, but because he was acting on his Islamic beliefs: "This court does not feel that, under the circumstances, that this defendant had a criminal desire to or intent to sexually assault or to sexually contact the plaintiff when he did. The court believes that he was operating under his belief that it is, as the husband, his desire to have sex when and whether he wanted to, was something that was consistent with his practices and it was something that was not prohibited."

Luckily, the appellate court overturned this decision, and a Sharia ruling by an American court has not been allowed to stand. This time.

"Cultural Defense Accepted as to Nonconsensual Sex in New Jersey Trial Court, Rejected on Appeal," by Eugene Volokh in The Volokh Conspiracy, July 23 (thanks to CameoRed):

From today's opinion in S.D. v. M.J.R. (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div.), a domestic restraining order case:

The record reflects that plaintiff, S.D., and defendant, M.J.R., are citizens of Morocco and adherents to the Muslim faith. They were wed in Morocco in an arranged marriage on July 31, 2008, when plaintiff was seventeen years old. [FN1] The parties did not know each other prior to the marriage. On August 29, 2008, they came to New Jersey as the result of defendant's employment in this country as an accountant....

[Long discussion of the wife's allegations of abuse, which included several instances of nonconsensual sex as well as other abuse, omitted for space reasons. -EV]

Upon their return to the apartment, defendant forced plaintiff to have sex with him while she cried. Plaintiff testified that defendant always told her

this is according to our religion. You are my wife, I c[an] do anything to you. The woman, she should submit and do anything I ask her to do.

After having sex, defendant took plaintiff to a travel agency to buy a ticket for her return to Morocco. However the ticket was not purchased, and the couple returned to the apartment. Once there, defendant threatened divorce, but nonetheless again engaged in nonconsensual sex while plaintiff cried. Later that day, defendant and his mother took plaintiff to the home of the Imam and, in the presence of the Imam, his wife, and defendant's mother, defendant verbally divorced plaintiff....[...]

While recognizing that defendant had engaged in sexual relations with plaintiff against her expressed wishes in November 2008 and on the night of January 15 to 16, 2009, the judge did not find sexual assault or criminal sexual conduct to have been proven. He stated:

This court does not feel that, under the circumstances, that this defendant had a criminal desire to or intent to sexually assault or to sexually contact the plaintiff when he did. The court believes that he was operating under his belief that it is, as the husband, his desire to have sex when and whether he wanted to, was something that was consistent with his practices and it was something that was not prohibited.

After acknowledging that this was a case in which religious custom clashed with the law, and that under the law, plaintiff had a right to refuse defendant's advances, the judge found that defendant did not act with a criminal intent when he repeatedly insisted upon intercourse, despite plaintiff's contrary wishes.

Having found acts of domestic violence consisting of assault and harassment to have occurred, the judge turned to the issue of whether a final restraining order should be entered. He found such an order unnecessary, vacated the temporary restraints previously entered in the matter and dismissed plaintiff's domestic violence action....

The appellate court reversed this absurd decision, saying:

As the judge recognized, the case thus presents a conflict between the criminal law and religious precepts. In resolving this conflict, the judge determined to except defendant from the operation of the State's statutes as the result of his religious beliefs. In doing so, the judge was mistaken.

A close call. But no doubt more of this is to come.

Last Wednesday I gave two two-hour seminars on the belief-system of Islamic jihadists to the Tidewater Joint Terrorism Task Force, and once it was all over, I stopped by Virginia Beach to greet Neptune, god of the sea.

It was a good and encouraging day, on which I met many conscientious agents determined to understand the jihad threat and resist it in all its forms.

Here are some of the things Daisy Khan, the wife of Ground Zero mega-mosque leader Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, says on this Washington Post video (thanks to Pamela Geller).

She first mentions the fact that the Burlington Coat Factory building was hit by part of one of the hijacked planes on 9/11 as if it were a random accident involving a random plane:

So just to meet the needs of the people's, you know, worship needs, we decided to look for a larger building. And actually, the building found us, because it's been abandoned for the last nine years. Just sort of sitting vacant. It was struck by a plane, a piece of the fuselage fell into the building, and it was shut down since then. And it's been vacant for nine years.

Then, after being asked if the building had been chosen deliberately because of its proximity to the World Trade Center site, Khan says that she sees a divine hand in how the building "came to us" -- so apparently Allah knocked down the World Trade Center towers and flew a bit of one of the planes into the Burlington Coat Factory building so that this mosque could be built:

I think the building came to us, which goes to show that there is a symbolism there, and that there's a divine hand in it. That it's so close to the tragedy, that its close proximity is very symbolic for the fact that we really want to reverse what happened on 9/11.

Also:

We were expecting some sort of, um, you know, resistance, but not an organized resistance. We were expecting that some families might need some hand-holding, we might want to speak to them. But what we did not expect is a national coalition of people coming together, the majority of them coming from outside New York. Pamela Geller is a lady, and Robert Spencer -- together the two of them have formed something called Stop Islamization of America, and that is the group that is leading this.

Yes, it is. And we are not giving up.

Dhimmis in the Islamic state "are forbidden to build new churches" ('Umdat al-Salik O11.5(7))

"Indonesian police tears down house church," from Asia News, July 23 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

Jakarta (AsiaNews/Agencies) - Police demolished a residential building in Bogor (West Java) that regularly hosted a house church. Police also detained, interrogated and released ten people, Compass Direct News (CDN) reported.

Last Monday, police raided a house used for worship by Narogong Pentecostal Church in the village of Limusnunggal, Cileungsi sub-district. The action was followed by clashes between agents and worshippers. The building was eventually torn down and ten people arrested.

"Local residents, including non-Christians, had accepted the presence of the church," said local Block Captain Junaedi Syamsudin, "but a group called the Forum of the Muslim Brotherhood of Limusnunggal has worked since 2008 to have the church eliminated."

"Three months ago members of the forum went to Cileungsi offices to object to the church's presence," Syamsudin added, "and the regent promised to demolish the house."

Bogor Police Chief Eddy Hidayat said that the house "lacked a use permit", but Pentecostal Church coordinator Hotlan P. Silaen retorted that police were not neutral in the dispute.

"The clash with citizens could have been avoided if the police had been neutral and not been goaded into a situation that caused bodily harm," Silaen said....

"It has never yielded any dividends, of course, but repeated failure only prompts the architects of the policy to redouble their efforts."

Indeed. And that goes also for Pakistan, and so many, many other venues.

"ICJ Ruling: Blow to Serbia, Boon to Tadić & Jeremić," by Srdja Trifkovic at the Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies, July 22 (thanks to George):

[...] Aiding and abetting Muslim designs in the Balkans, in the hope that this will earn some credit for the United States in the Islamic world, has been a major motive of American policy in the region since at least 1992. It has never yielded any dividends, of course, but repeated failure only prompts the architects of the policy to redouble their efforts.

It is virtually certain that Washington will be equally supportive of an independent Sanjak that would connect Kosovo with Bosnia, or of any putative Islamistan, from western Macedonia to southern Bulgaria to northern Caucasus. The late Tom Lantos must be smiling approvingly wherever he is now, having called, three years ago, on "Jihadists of all color and hue" to take note of "yet another example that the United States leads the way for the creation of a predominantly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe."

In the region, the ICJ verdict will encourage two distinct but interconnected trends: greater-Albanian aspirations against Macedonia, Montenegro, Greece, and rump-Serbia (Preševo), and pan-Islamic agitation for the completion of the Green Corridor - an Islamic belt anchored in Asia Minor and extending north-westward across the Balkans into the heart of Central Europe.

Beyond the Balkans, it will breed instability in each and every potential or actual separatist hotspot, from Galilee to Kashmir, from the Caucasus to Sinkiang....

A welcome show of spine. "France and Mauritania raid Al-Qaeda kidnap gang," from AFP, July 23 (thanks to Maxwell):

NOUAKCHOTT -- French-backed Mauritanian forces attacked and killed six members of an Al-Qaeda affiliated gang allegedly holding a French hostage in the North African desert, officials said Friday.

The French defence ministry said the group was refusing to negotiate the release of a 78-year-old French aid worker kidnapped four months ago, and had been responsible for the murder of a British hostage last year.

Asked about the raid -- which some French and Spanish media portrayed as a failed hostage rescue bid -- President Nicolas Sarkozy refused to comment.

There was no word on the fate of the French captive, who does not appear to have been present when Thursday's pre-dawn assault was launched, and Mauritania said that the operation was not intended as a rescue....

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is the North African affiliate of Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden's loose network of Islamist groups.

In Paris, the defence ministry confirmed "that the French military provided technical and logistical support to a Mauritanian operation designed to thwart an attack on Mauritania by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb."....

She was never put on trial. More on the abuse of Pakistan's blasphemy law: "Mentally-ill Pakistan 'blasphemer' is released," by M. Ilyas Khan for BBC News, July 23 (thanks to Davida):

A court in Pakistan has ordered the release of a mentally-ill woman who was charged with desecrating the Koran, the Muslim holy book, in 1996.

Zaibun Nisa, 60, was never put on trial and her relatives did not contest her arrest, her lawyer said.

Pakistan's blasphemy law prescribes the death sentence for anyone found guilty of insulting the Prophet Muhammad or the Koran.

Note once again the standard mainstream media assumption that we are all Muslims now, revering Muhammad as a prophet.

Human rights groups have been campaigning for its repeal.

They say that the legal procedures involved are weighed against those accused of blasphemy.

On Monday, unidentified gunmen killed two brothers accused of blasphemy in the premises of a Pakistani court.

Public backlash

"Zaibun Nisa was declared mentally ill by a medical board soon after her arrest in 1996, but she was still sent to jail," her lawyer, Aftab Ahmad Bajwa, told the media after the court orders on Thursday.

"There was no evidence linking her to the crime," he said.

A police official, requesting anonymity, said she was arrested to defuse the tension - but everyone forgot about her when she was sent to jail.

Her family did not pursue the case probably due to fear of a public backlash, he said.

In Pakistan, people accused of blasphemy and their family members have often been lynched or killed by mobs.

The complainant in the case was Qari Hafeez, a cleric from Lahore who reported to the police that he had found torn pages of the Koran thrown in a drain.

The police lodged a complaint against unknown offenders....

Qari Hafeez told the media in Lahore on Thursday he did not name Zaibun Nisa as an offender in the case.

"Police acted on their own initiative to arrest the woman," he said....

Attempting to attack U.S. bases -- showing yet again the smashing success of Obama's policy of conciliation toward Iran. Read more about that in The Post-American Presidency. "Iran supports three insurgent groups in Iraq: US general," from AFP, July 22 (thanks to Mackie):

WASHINGTON -- Iran is supporting three Shiite extremist groups in Iraq that have been attempting to attack US bases, General Ray Odierno, the top US commander in Iraq, said Wednesday.

For the past four years the US military has blamed Iran for supporting violent anti-US groups operating in Iraq, but has been unable to establish a clear link with the government in Tehran.

"The Iranians... continue to fund, train and provide weapons and ammunition to Shiite extremist groups," Odierno told reporters here.

The Iranians have "gone to a more sophisticated program with a smaller set of extremists" and are now focusing on three groups, which he identified as Ketaib Hezbollah, Asaib Ahl al-Haq (League of the Righteous), and the Promise Day Brigade....

Hezbollah -- party of Allah? League of the Righteous? Why is it that Misunderstanders of Islam are always so explicit about the identification of their actions with Islam? A point to ponder for the learned analysts.

Pre-emptive dhimmitude! "Paintings with Pigs Removed from Hospitals," from NISNews, July 23 (thanks to all who sent this in):

LEERDAM, 23/07/10 - Three paintings depicting pigs have been pre-emptively removed from a hospital in Leerdam because they might offend Muslims.

One patient, not actually himself a Muslim, made a complaint about the paintings because he wanted to avoid Muslims having confrontations with the pigs. The leadership of the healthcare institution, the Linge Polyclinic, thereupon decided to remove the paintings immediately, Algemeen Dagblad newspaper reports....

The Linge Polyclinic has stated that the pictures were removed because "all visitors must feel comfortable in the institution".

Recently I had an interesting exchange with the self-described "liberal Muslim" Mustafa Akyol, after he declared his support for the jihad flotilla that Turkey sent against Israel. And so I read this piece by the Turkish columnist Burak Bekdil with great interest: he characterizes the "liberal" Akyol as a pro-Sharia, pro-Erdogan Islamic supremacist. But undoubtedly a sly one.

Bekdil even says that Akyol is working to further "Islamists' global ambition to play the modern day, Muslim Trojan Horse at the gates of western civilization."

What? An Islamic supremacist posing as a moderate to fool gullible Westerners? It's unheard of!

"Where Islamists and post-modern Islamists come together," by Burak Bekdil in the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review, July 20:

I regret for having to devote this space to a reply to my column neighbor Mustafa Akyol's "reply to my reply to his reply to an op-ed I wrote" last week ("Would Mr. Erdoğan kindly care for this Muslim woman?," July 8, 2010).

When I wrote that piece, I was hoping that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan could perhaps explain the distasteful discrepancy between his selective caring for Muslims and Turks who suffer all around the world and his muteness on the tragedy of an Iranian woman of Turkish descent who was awaiting execution by stoning under a Sharia ruling.

Instead, Mr. Akyol appeared on the scene in defense of the Islamic cause with the generously common rhetoric Islamists and post-modern Islamists share to, borrowing Mr. Akyol's description, 'whitewash Islam' i.e., the Islamist's reflexive habit of going for a literalist interpretation of the Koran when in question are commandments like abstinence from pork and alcohol and his apologetic inclination toward a figurative interpretation when he thinks 'the cause' needs to look pretty to western friends.

Islamist Muslims (Muslims with a political agenda for the advancement of Islam both regionally and globally) have that bad habit: The perpetual feeling of fear that the western powers they need as tactical (not strategic) allies may view them with suspicion because a Muslim with a literalist interpretation of most verses of Islam's holy book may do the same with other verses - verses that, for instance, command amputations, lashes, two women equal one man jurisprudence, sexually discriminative inheritance laws and, most importantly, hostility against other monotheistic religions, especially Judaism.

In his weekend piece, Mr. Akyol accused me for having an ad hominem attack on him probably because I asked him a few theological questions on subjects the Islamists prefer to bury deep under ground - and wrote that I did not believe Mr. Akyol was a jihadist. I was wrong to expect a more powerful text from him since his comrades have been 'spinning better' - an essential effort in Islamists' global ambition to play the modern day, Muslim Trojan Horse at the gates of western civilization.

To maintain the fine ethos of our intellectual debate I would rather expect Mr. Akyol to answer my questions without dancing around them or distracting from the essential ideas and behaving too prickly and fabricating friendships between myself and people like Geert Wilders with whom I have never met or exchanged a word, electronically or verbally. But I don't take that as an ad hominem attack. I am merely sorry for the shallow run-away demagoguery in which Mr. Akyol claimed I labeled his logic as "anti-Semitic," something I never thought or claimed.

But Mr. Akyol did not disappoint me with his (OK, non-anti-Semitic) logic when he commented on some of the verses I mentioned (5:13, 5:14, 5:51 and 5:82). This is 5:51: "O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for friends. They are friends one to another. He among you who taketh them for friends is (one) of them. Lo! Allah guideth not wrongdoing folk." Mr. Akyol hoped to 'whitewash' 5:51 with 60:9: "God merely forbids you from taking as friends those who have fought you in religion, and driven you from your homes and who supported your expulsion."

I am not going to ask Mr. Akyol why does 5:51 exist in such plain language if its real intention was what is commanded in 60:9. But since he recommends me to "get a fair sense of Islam," I am going to ask him a couple of other questions, hoping that he might perhaps help:

This 60:9 reminds me of some episodes in recent political history! Why did the majority of the 'devout' Justice and Development Party, or AKP, parliamentary deputies vote in 2003 for the opening of a northern front (and later for the opening of Turkey's airspace for U.S. bomber aircraft) in George W. Bush's war on Iraq and ally with their 'Christian' American friends "who fought Muslim Iraqis, killed them, driven them from their homes and supported their expulsion?"

Why are Muslim Turkish soldiers part of a Christian alliance fighting, killing and driving Muslim Afghans from their homes? Is that halal? Does 60:9 command that Muslims can ally with Christians against other Muslims if these other Muslims chose to terrorize? Is 60:9 one of the verses that is not applicable to 21st century politics?

I am so sorry, Mr. Akyol, that Mustafa Kemal Atatürk destroyed your dreams of having an Ottoman Caliph in the year 2010 - which, as I understand, you blame on 'anti-Islamists.' You are right to think that the Caliphate was the political authority in the Muslim world. But I am not going to ask you how would the concept of Caliphate fit into Koranic teachings which strictly forbid associating God with anyone/anything. Nor am I going to remind you of the beauty of a faith with no clergy, or ask you how, in Islam, could a mortal - even a Caliph - speak on God's behalf....

But do not give up, Mr. Akyol. Mr. Erdogan does not drink alcohol or sport any Hedonistic weakness. He can be your ideal revivalist Caliph in the 21st century. Alternatively, you can always have a post-modern Caliph reign the Muslim world from a predominantly Christian country where he resides.

The jihad flotilla group has been exposed as having clear, long-standing ties to terrorism and jihad, but that doesn't stop these predatory "activists" from claiming victim status and trying to demonize Israel yet again. "Spanish activists sue Israel over Gaza flotilla raid," from Deutsche Presse Agentur, July 23 (thanks to Twostellas):

Two Spanish activists who were on board the aid flotilla raided by Israeli troops on May 31 on Friday sued Israel for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Nine Turkish activists were killed in the attack.

Manuel Tapial and Laura Arau -- two of the three Spaniards who were on board the ships -- lodged a complaint against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, six members of his cabinet and a senior military officer at Spain's National Court.

Mr. Tapial said his aid association would send two Spanish--flagged ships to Gaza in an attempt to break Israel's blockade....

The Taliban don't even hesitate to set off a bomb inside a mosque. As far as they are concerned, those within it are heretics, apostates, for dealing with the elections, and so they're fair game.

"Mosque bomb injures 20 in Afghanistan: general," from AFP, July 23 (thanks to Twostellas):

KHOST, Afghanistan (AFP) - At least 20 people, including a candidate in upcoming parliamentary elections, were injured Friday when a bomb exploded at a mosque in eastern Afghanistan, a general said.

The blast seriously injured the candidate, Sayedullah Sayed, who was campaigning at the time.

The incident took place in Bahramkhail, a village in Khost province's Ismailkhail district, on the eastern border with Pakistan, said General Nawab Khan, commander of the coordination body for Afghan and NATO forces in Khost.

"Twenty people have been wounded in the bomb blast inside the mosque," Khan told AFP.

He said no one had claimed responsibility for the bombing, but blamed it on "enemies of Afghanistan," a euphemism for the Taliban....

Here, from a lengthy and fascinating discussion featuring Paul Berman, Judith Miller, Fred Siegel, Lee Smith, Ibn Warraq, is my friend Ibn Warraq's take on a question that has been much discussed here and elsewhere, and is often obscured and confused: the distinction between Islam and "Islamism," and that between the teachings of Islam and Muslims as individuals. "Modernity and the Muslims: A transcript of a discussion at St. Francis College," at City Journal, July 15 (thanks to John):

QUESTIONER: You talk about the difference between Islam and Islamism. Mr. Smith, you said that you don't want to deal with it. We have the Islamic Conference, which Ibn Warraq mentioned, and 56 nations are promoting the so-called Cairo Declaration of 1992, which is basically an Islamic replacement for the United Nations' 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So is the Islamic version of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Islam or Islamism? What's the difference?

IBN WARRAQ: I often think that this is a way of skirting the question. I prefer to bring in the nuances of history. I like to make a distinction that I actually owe to Bernard Lewis; oddly enough, Lewis, to my knowledge, has never made use of it. It's a very useful distinction that he made between Islam One, Two, and Three. Islam One is what's in the Koran, what the Prophet Mohammed did and enjoyed. Islam Two is the sharia and the theological construct that we call Islam, as developed by the theologians over the centuries. Islam Three is Islamic civilization, which is what Muslims actually did do as opposed to what they should have done, what actually happened in Islamic history. Often Islam Three--that is, Islamic civilization--was far more tolerant than what Islam One and Two demanded. For example, until very recently, Islamic society (Islam Three) was far more tolerant about homosexuality than the West was, whereas Islam One and Islam Two more firmly condemned it. There are several ambiguous passages in the Koran, but certainly Islam Two, the sharia, condemns homosexuality.

Islamic history has never been a relentless series of theocratic governments; it has varied from century to century, ruler to ruler. Sometimes it has been very intolerant, and sometimes it has been very tolerant. Just look at some of the poets who were given free rein--for example, al-Mahawi, an Iraqi who was certainly an agnostic and very probably an atheist, but he was very critical. He was left alone; no one bothered him, so this is witness to the period of tolerance. This is, for me, the best way to approach the situation. For example, some of the terrorists are taking literally what is in the Koran. There are all sorts of intolerant passages in the Koran about killing infidels and not taking Jews and Christians as friends. It's undeniably there, and you can't get away from it. Chapter four in the Koran: you can't get away from the fact that it gives men the power to beat women. It's no good pretending that somehow the real Islam is tolerant, the real Islam is feminist, and so on. There is a great deal of confusion because people do not want to tarnish with the same brush a billion believers. We don't want to be too crude in our defamation. We don't want to call all Muslims terrorists, so the best way is this distinction between Islam One, Two, Three.

It looks as if Islamic supremacists have abducted her, while law enforcement officials look the other way -- a sadly recurring pattern. "Disappearance of Priest's Wife Leads to Coptic Demonstrations in Egypt," by Mary Abdelmassih in AINA, July 23:

(AINA) -- The unexplained disappearance of a Coptic priest's wife in Upper Egypt has led today a sit-in staged by thousands of Copts at the Coptic Patriarchate in Cairo, to protest what they consider "collusion by the state security services." There are rumors that Islamists have abducted her. They promised to continue with their sit-in until the state security divulges her whereabouts.

Nearly three thousand demonstrators, joined by clergy, protested the lack of protection for Copts by state security, chanting "They abducted the wife of our priest, tomorrow they will abduct us" and "Where are our abducted girls or is it because they are Christians?" (video)

Police surrounded the Cathedral to prevent the demonstrators from going out to the streets.

On Monday, July 19, Father Tedaos Samaan, priest at St. Georges Church in Deir Mawas, Minya Governorate, returned home to find that his wife was missing from the previous night. He said that he was on a short visit to his parents with his toddler son, as his teacher wife Kamila Shehata was on a short placement to another school.

According to Father Tedaos (aged 30), the last times he spoke to his wife (24) was at 9.15 PM when she told him that she was at home, and was on her way to overnight at her parent's home, 100 meters away. She never arrived there.

Anba Agapios, Bishop of the dioceses of Delga and Deir Mawas, deplored the treatment by officials of the state security apparatus in Minya. They told him that they have the priest's wife with them and promised to deliver her to her family within hours and then they came back and retracted their statements and their promises to him. Consequently he asked his congregations to go to Cairo and stage a sit-in at St. Mark's Cathedral, until state security acts. He appealed to Copts in all the Egyptian governorates to stand together alongside their brethren during their sit-in.

In an aired interview on July 21 with the newly launched US-based Coptic Hope TV, Father Tedaos said that nearly 3000 of Deir Mawas youths and the neighboring villages "have hired buses to go to the Cairo for the sit-in, however, state security intercepted and detained them on the roads. "Where is the freedom? Are we not allowed to go to our father's house [the Pope] and speak out of what is ailing us?" he said. "But their brothers in Cairo and the other areas will make their voice heard," he assured.

The priest complained of the treatment by the authorities. "Whenever I phone them, they say they have no news and they do nothing. They only give me pain-killers, nothing more." He said state security knows the whereabouts of everyone, "they can even find a needle anywhere in the whole of Egypt."...

"It is a sin what is happening to the Christians in Egypt," Father Tedaos said. "If the Islamists want to kill us, let them go ahead and do it," he said....

What has gotten into the Washington Post? Has hell frozen over?

The first column against the mega-mosque is here. "A mosque at Ground Zero is inappropriate and counterproductive," by Richard Land at the Washington Post's On Faith blog, July 22:

Having a mosque at Ground Zero would be the equivalent of having a Japanese Shinto shrine built next to the USS Arizona. Do the followers of Shinto have a right to have a shrine in Honolulu? Yes. In close proximity to the USS Arizona? No. I am well aware that many Japanese did not support the attack on Pearl Harbor and in fact, Japanese-Americans in a Nisei battalion composed the most decorated combat unit in the American armed forces in WWII, as they demonstrated their patriotism, even while many of their family members were shamefully placed in internment camps in the United States. That still does not negate the fact that it would be inappropriate to have a Japanese shrine in close proximity to the USS Arizona. It is similarly inappropriate to put a mosque in close proximity to Ground Zero.

There are other disturbing statistics here, after the obligatory expressions of shock from the neighbors. "American-Bred Terrorists Causing Alarm For Law Enforcement," by Jason Ryan, Pierre Thomas, and Xorje Olivares for ABC News, July 22:

A Virginia man charged with providing material support to terrorists abroad appeared in court today requesting an attorney be appointed to him.

Zachary Chesser, 20, is accused of trying to join Al-Shabaab, a Somali-based Islamist militant group suspected in the recent bombing attacks in Uganda that left 73 dead and dozens more injured as they watched the World Cup final.

"I'm shocked--I'm just surprised," said Yvette Deale, Chesser's former neighbor. "It's not the kind of thing I would have expected in this neighborhood."

Chesser, who just two years ago was a high school football player and crew member in Fairfax, VA, is now one of 34 Americans accused of and charged with having ties to international terrorists in the past 18 months.

Sources say this trend represents an unprecedented spike in homegrown terror and is an emerging threat that has them deeply concerned. What they consider to be most alarming is the fact that many of those charged were radicalized on the Internet, with thousands of Americans reportedly frequenting terror websites that espouse mass murder.

"This Is What We Have Feared"

A recently disclosed FBI Directorate of Intelligence document from July 2009 estimated that there were as many as 15,000 websites and web forums that were supportive of terrorist activities. Yet, officials say the number of websites is constantly changing since many of the sites and forums are not maintained, with current estimates indicating as many as 10,000 active sites.

The FBI analysis noted that about 80 percent of those sites existed on U.S.-based computer servers. U.S. officials say these type of sites rapidly gained popularity when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, began to post beheading videos on the Internet in 2003.

"This is what we have feared for a very long time--that finally the ideology of radical Islam is effectively reaching into the United States to disaffected people here over the Internet," said Richard Clarke, a former White House counterterrorism adviser. [...]

There's a long way to go from being your garden-variety "disaffected," usually young person, to embracing a brutal supremacist ideology. And that doesn't explain the relatively well-to-do jihadists who otherwise had everything going for them.

With so many potential threats, authorities say they are in a race against time to find these radicals before they launch a successful attack on the land they grew up on.

"In the last six to nine months," Clark said, "the FBI has seen more domestic Islamist extremist activity than at any time since immediately right after 9/11."

No mention, of course, of CAIR's status as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case. No mention, of course, of the studies that show that most mosques teach hatred of Jews and Christians and the necessity to impose Sharia. See, for example, this pdf. "Anti-mosque protests on the rise, say Muslim advocates," by Liz Goodwin for Yahoo News, July 21 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Opposition to the construction of mosques has skyrocketed in cities and towns across the country, scholars and advocates of Muslim culture tell The Upshot.

Public protests against three planned mosques have made news in the past week: Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin joined others in opposing the building of a mosque a few blocks from the World Trade Center site. Hundreds demonstrated against a proposed mosque in a small town in Tennessee. And some residents of Temecula, California, are opposing the local Muslim community's plan to build a bigger mosque, saying it could become a hotbed of radical Islam.

Professor Akbar Ahmed, the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University's School of International Service, is not surprised by the recent spate of public protests. He spent last year traveling to more than 100 mosques in 75 U.S. cities with a team of researchers, and concluded that opposition to mosques, including some attacks on them, is on the rise.

"Everywhere there's a mosque, there's a tension now," Ahmed says.

Ahmed believes most Americans have little idea what goes on inside the approximately 2,000 mosques in the country, which leads to fear and anti-Muslim sentiment. Comments from public figures like Sarah Palin exacerbate the problem, he says.

Palin posted Sunday on Twitter that a planned mosque near the World Trade Center site would "stab hearts." She joined a PAC and family members of some 9-11 victims in vocally objecting to the religious center. "Peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand, Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing," she wrote. (In addition to the mosque, the 13-story, $100 million project would include a swimming pool, gym, and performance space open to everyone, reports ABC News.)

[No churches in Saudi Arabia? Then no mosques near Ground Zero, Gingrich says]

"Sarah Palin's comments again were saying implicitly that mosques are associated with violence and terrorism," Ahmed says, though he adds that he thinks the tension over this proposed mosque is unique due to the "raw wounds" of the 9/11 attacks. "At the highest level, even in America, we have a [former] vice presidential candidate, she can openly make a statement like this." [...]

Jim Zogby, the head of the Arab-American Institute, a nonprofit research group, said there are not enough people in public life defending American Muslims' right to worship.

"There is very little counter-thrust in the public debate, and the result is, I think, Muslims are becoming increasingly concerned about their security in the country," Zogby says. "This is a worrisome environment. Something's got to give."

Opponents of mosques feel freer now to openly object to the presence of a mosque in their community, says Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy organization.

"Mosques used to face opposition in the past, but it was usually couched in terms of opposition to parking or traffic," Hooper says. "But you know, it's only recently, I think, that people feel comfortable expressing their bigotry so openly."

Of course, opponents of mosques do not consider themselves bigots, and many are genuinely concerned that mosques may help produce homegrown terrorists. According to the Washington Post, 34 Americans have been charged by U.S. authorities since January 2009 with direct involvement in international terrorism. But in many of these case, it appears the suspects were radicalized via Internet contacts.

Ahmed says the incidents of Americans turning to jihad is a reflection of a "failure in Muslim leadership." He says Muslim religious leaders should have to be trained and certified, since they are in positions of power, often over young congregations. But he adds that opposing mosques at home will only fuel accusations from America's enemies that the country hates Islam and Muslims.

A pastor opposed to the proposed Temecula mosque reflected these fears of homegrown terrorism.

"There is a concern with all the rumors you hear about sleeper cells and all that. Are we supposed to be complacent just because these people say it's a religion of peace? Many others have said the same thing," Pastor Bill Rench told the Los Angeles Times. ...

You aren't really surprised by this, are you? "Frequent Muslim Speaker to Kids in New York Schools Supports Hamas, Hezbollah," by Ryan Mauro at Pajamas Media, July 20:

In communicating with Hassan Shibly, it's hard to see why this frequent guest speaker at schools in New York would be embroiled in a controversy. He's easy to converse with and kind. He passionately condemns terrorism (including the 9/11 attacks) and sings the praises of America. But shortly after January 10, when he gave nine presentations during his fourth visit to Clarence High School, he became part of a controversy when a mother of a student that listened to Shibly reported that he blamed the 9/11 attacks on U.S. foreign policy, specifically support for Israel. The mother later found out that he doesn't consider Hezbollah to be a terrorist group. School officials defended Shibly in emails to the mother and he defends his position by saying it is backed by top political scientists.

Shibly says he has spoken to over 40 high school classes in New York. He claims that he only focuses on the basics of Islam and avoids discussion of political issues unless asked during the Q&A session. Shibly engaged in a back-and-forth with Nonie Darwish over what he was alleged to have said (it can be read here). He attributes the criticism of him by the mother and Darwish to an anti-Islam agenda. The mother says her 14-year old son lacks the political awareness to make up the statements he said Shibly made, and indeed, background research on Shibly does show that he has controversial beliefs that parents should be aware of.

Shibly is not shy about stating that "Hezbollah is absolutely not a terrorist organization.” Rather, he says the group is a "resistance movement" and "any war against them is illegitimate." On his Facebook page, he posted an interview where Norman Finkelstein praises the group. In his extensive communication with me, he has refused to condemn Hamas as a whole or refer to them as a "terrorist" group, saying such labels are too simplistic and would write off the group as a peace partner that could be negotiated with. He instead condemned violence against innocent civilians by both Israel and Hamas, and said that he would not describe Israel as a "terrorist state" for the same reasons.

He compliments the late Syrian Sheikh Ahmad Kuftaro, the former grand mufti of Syria, for "speak[ing] out for the oppressed." He links to Kuftaro’s website, and Shibly's father has organized trips to the sheikh’s center in Syria. Although Shibly did not have a personal relationship with Kuftaro, that isn't the case with his father. In 2002, Kuftaro had neo-Nazi William Baker as a speaker at his mosque, as well as Louis Farrakhan. In 2004, Kuftaro called on the world's Muslims to "use all means possible to thwart the aggression, including martyr operations against the belligerent American, British and Zionist invaders," and specifically mentioned Iraq as a place where Muslims should fight. He also held a meeting with Hamas leaders where he said all Muslims were required "to do jihad upon the Zionists."

Read it all.

"When ye meet the unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks..." -- Qur'an 47:4

But these were not unbelievers, they were fellow Muslims! Yes, but since they were working for the Afghan police, they were considered apostates or heretics, and thus fair game.

"NATO: Insurgents Behead 6 Police in Afghanistan," from VOA News, July 21 (thanks to Timothy Furnish):

NATO forces in Afghanistan say militants have beheaded six Afghan police officers in northern Baghlan province.

A NATO statement said the killings occurred late Tuesday during an insurgent attack on a school, clinic and local government building. The statement said police successfully repelled the assault, but that during the attack, insurgents overran a police checkpoint and killed the officers. The alliance condemned the incident as "brutal" and "barbaric."...

Common sense. "The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over."

"Newt Gingrich comes out against planned Cordoba House mosque near Ground Zero," by Joe Tacopino for the New York Daily News, July 22 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is the latest high-profile national political figure to come out against the proposed mosque near Ground Zero.

Gingrich, who recently said he was "serious" about running for President in 2012, made the statement on his website.

"The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over," Gingrich wrote.

"America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization."...

The guilty pleas come as expected. The names on the hit list should be made public -- provided that protection is accorded to the people on the list. I am sure that the identities of those targeted would be illuminating in many ways.

An update on this story. "Alaska pair pleads guilty to lying about hit list," by Mary Pemberton for AP, July 22 (thanks to all who sent this in):

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A National Weather Service employee and his British-born wife pleaded guilty Wednesday to domestic terrorism charges of lying to the FBI about a hit list of possible targets who the couple suspected were enemies of Islam.

Paul Rockwood Jr. and his wife, Nadia Rockwood, of King Salmon, Alaska, were charged with lying about the list and making false statements about domestic terrorism during interviews with FBI agents in May.

The FBI alleged that the list had about 15 targets. Its contents were not made public, but officials said none of those targeted lived in Alaska.

Under a plea deal, Paul Rockwood, 35, who worked as a meteorological technician for the weather service, will get eight years in prison, the maximum allowed. His 36-year-old wife, who is five months pregnant, will be allowed to return to the United Kingdom and serve five years of probation there.

Neither was held in custody prior to the hearing.

U.S. District Judge Ralph Beistline did not immediately sign off on the plea deal. He set sentencing for Aug. 23.

Prosecutors alleged that Paul Rockwood, also known as "Bilal," converted to Islam about a decade ago and began studying the teachings of American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who has professed hatred for the United States and supports acts of terrorism.

According to court documents, Paul Rockwood converted to Islam in late 2001 or 2002, when the couple lived in Virginia.

"After his conversion, and while residing in Virginia, Rockwood became a strict adherent to the violent Jihad-promoting ideology of cleric Anwar al-Awlaki," documents said. "This included a personal conviction that it was his religious responsibility to exact revenge by death on anyone who desecrated Islam."...

Rewards for jihad continue. "U.S. upgrades status of Palestinian mission in Washington," by Natasha Mozgovaya for Haaretz, July 22 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The United States State Department has upgraded the Palestinian Liberation Organization's mission in Washington, the PLO's U.S. representative said on Thursday.

The upgrade, which will give the PLO Mission to the U.S. the status of 'Delegation General', became effective beginning July 20, 2010.

Ambassador Maen Rashid Areikat, the PLO's representative to the United States, said that the decision was preceded by several consultations made over the past year between the PLO Mission and the Obama administration.

Although not fully fledged diplomatic recognition, the upgrade raises the status of Palestinian representation in the U.S. to the same level as PLO representation in many European countries, as well as Canada.

In addition to the name change, the PLO office will now be able to fly the Palestinian flag - although there was some doubt that the organization would gain permission to hoist the Palestinian colors from its headquarters, which it shares with other tenants.

Areikat said he hoped the upgrade was "a sign of America's determination to play an active role in bringing about an end to Israel's 43-year-old military occupation of Palestinian lands and the creation of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital".

And it probably is just that kind of sign.

In the video above, you can watch what happened when I asked a spokesman for this mosque about the connections of his group, the Muslim American Society, to the Muslim Brotherhood, and about the support for Hamas of MAS leader Mahdi Bray.

Victory! This just in from my SIOA colleague Pamela Geller:

I just received word that the board voted NO. There will be no mosque in Midland. The Saint Margaret Mary Church will not be converted into a Muslim Brotherhood project.

NYC Councilman Oddo confirmed the NO vote by the Board of Trustees.

News just broke that the Catholic Church has reversed and and canceled the sale of the convent in Midland Beach to AMS.

Amen.

This is now a textbook case on how to fight Islamic supremacists.

Statement on Saint Margaret Mary Parish

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 22, 2010
STATEMENT ON SAINT MARGARET MARY PARISH

Father Keith Fennessy, pastor of Saint Margaret Mary parish on Staten Island, announced in June that after careful consideration he was withdrawing his support for the planned sale of the parish convent to the Muslim American Society.

The trustees of the parish have met, as legally required under New York State law, and voted to ratify the pastor's decision.

The Muslim American Society has been informed that the sale of the convent will not take place....

Be sure to read it all.

Comments by David G. Littman in his capacity as a failed letter-writer to the International Herald Tribune:

I went through the ritual of sending a letter to the International Herald Tribune, knowing full well it would not be published. For 30 years and more, all my letters were accepted, especially from 1986 on UN topics - but for the last decade or so nothing from me passes muster. It proves (for me) that freedom of opinion and expression depend on the whims of an editor. As this 'letter to the editor' was a joker's query for Jihadists and Haredis alike, it merits publication as a teaser in Jihad-Watch.

* * * * *

Alana Newhouse's article (Who is a Jew? - July 17-18) raises a tricky question for
outsiders. If the "ultra Orthodox, or Haredi, rabbis" manage to push through their
Knesset Bill on "Jewish identity", how will the ulema then decide: "who is a Jew?"

Their reiterated preaching of the hadith (from al-Bukhari and Muslim) concludes
the binding Hamas Charter's genocidal article 7: "The Day of Judgment will not come
about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind
stones and trees. The stones and trees will say: O Muslims, O Abdullah [slave of Allah],
there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree would not do that
because it is one of the trees of the Jews."

And what about the Jewish Gharkad tree - who will decide if it's 'Jewish' or not?

Ninety percent of honor killings worldwide are done by Muslims. Yet the world human rights organizations continue to look the other way and treat the practice as purely "cultural," instead of calling Islamic countries to account for their tolerance of honor killing. "Turkey: Honor Killing; Girl Murdered By 15-Years-Old [sic] Brother," from ANSAmed, July 22 (thanks to Insubria):

(ANSAmed) - ANKARA, JULY 22 - A 17-year-old girl found dead one month ago was allegedly murdered by her 15-year-old brother in an ''honor killing'' after she left the women's shelter where she was staying, daily Radikal reported Wednesday. The body of Seyma G. was found half buried in the ground in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir, while subsequent tests revealed that she had been strangled to death.

Her brother Y.G. was caught by police and then arrested July 16. According to the Diyarbakir police, the suspects in the murder were determined after an examination of the crime scene revealed footprints in the area and fingerprints on the tape put over the victim's mouth. The victim had reportedly been staying in a women's shelter after being subjected to violence at home.

Family members allegedly found her after they learned she had left the shelter. Her brother, who is accused in the murder, had previously been detained for being a member of the illegal Muslim organization Hizb ut-Tahrir. (ANSAmed).

Even (horror of horrors!) karaoke centers. There Is No Fun In Islam, as Khomeini reminded us. Sharia Alert from modern, moderate Malaysia: "Kangar Entertainment Outlets Not Allowed To Operate During Ramadan," from Bernama, July 22 (thanks to Twostellas):

KANGAR, July 22 (Bernama) -- All entertainment outlets here including karoake centres must stop their operations during the month of Ramadan, said Kangar Municipal Council (MPK) president Rosli Mat.

He said the step was taken as a mark of respect for the holy month and that the council would be monitoring the activities of other businesses as well to ensure they carried out their operations according to regulations....

Samir Khan has seemingly encountered no resistance as he went from a twerp with a computer sponging off of his parents to a high-profile al-Qaeda propagandist, now living in Yemen, nearer the operations of al-Qaeda's franchise in the Arabian Peninsula. There is a very valid question regarding whether investigators made a tactical decision (as many would argue, at least he's not here anymore), or failed to detect or act on information regarding Khan's intentions.

An update on this story. "N.C. Rep.: U.S. missed terror connection," from UPI, July 21:

CHARLOTTE, N.C., July 21 (UPI) -- A U.S. politician says the intelligence community missed a connection between a terrorist group and a U.S. blogger now believed to be with al-Qaida in Yemen.

Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., said the connections should have been made when Samir Kahn [sic], now thought to be the top editor of an al-Qaida recruiting Web site, was in North Carolina, The Charlotte Observer reported Wednesday.

"It becomes clear to me that he had contacts with al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula while he was in the U.S.," she said. "And if that's the case, the intelligence community should have been able to discover that. And if they knew it and didn't do something, that raises more red flags."

Khan, in his 20s, is a Saudi-born U.S. citizen whose family moved to New York when he was 7 and to North Carolina in 2004, the Observer said.

In 2005 Khan started a blog called "Inshallahshaheed," or "a martyr soon if God wills," from the suburban home in Charlotte he shared with his parents.

Khan, believed to be in Yemen, is suspected of editing "Inspire," an online magazine designed as a recruiting tool for al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, intelligence sources said....

And guess who else is in the picture again? Anwar al-Awlaki. "US couple had terror hit list: court documents," from Agence France-Presse, July 21:

WASHINGTON -- A US man has been charged after he compiled a hit list of 15 people he believed had harmed Muslim civilians and deserved to die, court documents showed Wednesday.

Paul Rockwood and his wife Nadia were charged with lying to federal investigators about the compilation and content of the list, which Nadia Rockwood delivered to an unnamed individual in April at her husband's request.

The Alaska couple were expected to plead guilty to the charges later Wednesday.

According to plea agreement documents obtained by AFP Wednesday, Paul Rockwood converted to Islam around late 2001 and soon "became a strict adherent to the violent jihad-promoting ideology of cleric Anwar al-Awlaki."

Awlaki, a US-Yemeni cleric, has been accused of inspiring a string of terror attacks, including the 2009 shooting attack at Fort Hood military base, and last year's failed Christmas Day attack on a US airliner.

"This included a personal conviction that it was his religious responsibility to exact revenge by death on anyone who desecrated Islam," the document said.

Rockwood began researching explosive devices, and by late 2009 was discussing "committing acts of domestic terrorism, including... the use of mail bombs and the possibility of killing targets by gunshot to the head."

By early 2010, Rockwood "formalized" a list of some 15 specific targets, which may have included US soldiers. The list has not been released.

Nadia Rockwood was aware of her husband's radicalization, the documents said.

Both husband and wife subsequently lied to investigators about the content of the list, which was obtained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Joint Terrorism Task Force.

For all that, there isn't much of a prison sentence:

Paul Rockwood was expected to plead guilty later Wednesday to charges of "making material false statements involving domestic terrorism," in exchange for an eight-year sentence followed by three years of supervised release.

His wife was expected to plead guilty to a less serious charge of lying to investigators in exchange for five years of probation, which she was expected to serve in Britain, her country of origin.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said US government officials notified the individuals on the list "and took appropriate steps to ensure their safety."

Symbolically, trying to plunge the area into darkness is rather appropriate for the jihadists. "Two killed in hydro plant terrorist attack," from ABC.au and Reuters, July 21 (thanks to Dumbledoresarmy):

Russia says Muslim militants are behind a deadly attack on a hydro electric power plant in the volatile North Caucasus region.

Militant fighters attacked the power plant overnight with a grenade launcher, according to security services.

Two guards were killed in the assault and as many as four bombs exploded in the plant's generator area.

The attack took place in the republic of Kabardino-Balkria in the North Caucasus bordering Chechnya and Dagestan.

Authorities say the attackers may also be behind other strikes on security services in the area.

There are frequent attacks in Russia's North Causasus region and militants seeking an independent Islamic state often target police stations and state infrastructure.

Media quoted emergencies ministry workers as saying it took almost three hours to contain a fire that followed the blast.

Unrelated to South Park, at least -- there certainly is a common thread connecting his actions. In this case, Zachary Chesser decided he wanted to join al-Shabaab, the perpetrators of the recent massacre in Uganda. Interestingly, he also planned to travel to Somalia through via Uganda to cover his tracks.

An update on this story. "'South Park' critic faces unrelated terror charge," by Matthew Barakat for the Associated Press, July 21 (thanks to all who sent this in):

McLEAN, Va. - A man known for posting an online warning that the creators of "South Park" risked death by mocking the Prophet Muhammad was arrested Wednesday and charged with providing material support to a Somali terror group linked to al-Qaida.

Zachary A. Chesser, 20, of Oakton, Va., told FBI agents that he twice tried to travel to Somalia to join al-Shabab as a fighter. On the most recent attempt, earlier this month, Chesser brought his infant son with him as he tried to board a flight from New York to Uganda so he would look less suspicious, according to an FBI affidavit.

Chesser was barred from the July 10 flight and told by the Transportation Security Administration that he was on the no-fly list, according to the affidavit.

While Chesser told the FBI that he had intended on July 10 to join al-Shabab, he told them in a July 14 interview that he had changed his mind because of the July 11 bombing in Uganda that killed more than 75 people watching the World Cup, for which al-Shabab claimed responsibility.

But leading up to July 10, Chesser said he had corresponded with al-Shabab members and expected to undergo a six-week basic training and then serve as a "foreign fighter" with al-Shabab in Mogadishu. According to the affidavit, Chesser expected he would be asked to serve as a propagandist but that he had been willing to fight on the front lines.

The affidavit also states that Chesser corresponded with the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki last year. Al-Awlaki is a U.S. citizen now living in Yemen who has recently been designated a terrorist by the U.S. government. Al-Awlaki is believed to have corresponded with several alleged terrorists, including Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the U.S. Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people in November at Fort Hood, Tex.

Chesser also told authorities that he used several online profiles to spread terrorist propaganda.

The affidavit makes only a brief mention of Chesser's warnings to the "South Park" creators, saying that Chesser told authorities his parents were no longer speaking to him because of death threats they received after Chesser posted his warnings.

In April, Chesser posted a warning on the revolutionmuslim.com website that Trey Parker and Matt Stone could face the same fate as a Dutch filmmaker [Theo Van Gogh] who was killed after making a movie about a woman who rejected Muhammad's teachings. An episode of the show depicted Muhammad in a bear costume.

At the time, Chesser said his online posting was not a threat.

"It's not a threat, but it really is a likely outcome," Chesser told FoxNews.com. "They're going to be basically on a list in the back of the minds of a large number of Muslims. It's just the reality."...

Is Zach Chesser an Islamophobe?

Eating on the factory floor: what could be wrong with that? Well, hygiene considerations aside, there is the fact that demanding a privilege that would be flatly forbidden of other employees is not "equal" treatment. That is, unless any and every worker now gets to snack on the job as well.

On the other hand, you're not supposed to find food in your Electrolux fridge until you take it home and stock it yourself. "Muslim employees: Let us eat at St. Cloud appliance plant," from the Star-Tribune, July 21 (thanks to all who sent this in):

An advocacy group is asking managers of the Electrolux appliance plant in St. Cloud to allow its Muslim employees to eat during their shifts during Ramadan.

The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN) asked that the Muslim employees be allowed to bring a snack onto the plant's production floor so they can break their fast at sundown during the monthlong observance, which begins during the second week of August.

According to the group, Electrolux earlier this year adopted a new policy that bars all food from the plant's production floor.

Most of the 300 employees who work the evening shift are Muslims, the group said.

Some employees filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, saying the company's policy violates federal and state civil rights laws.

A call to the North American headquarters of the Swedish appliance manufacturer wasn't immediately returned.

A prime example of the uselessness of the term "terrorism." First, it is a method, and not an ideology, and thus lends itself to broad applications without describing the reason for the supposed "terrorism." And allegations of terrorism are quite easy to come by -- one will recall the charges of "religious terrorism" and "moral rape" leveled against Christians accused of proselytizing in Morocco.

Accusations of terrorism in contexts like this are ultimately instruments of moral equivalence, with the aim of painting non-Muslim parties as the aggressors using an emotionally charged term with a conveniently elastic application. Never mind Iran's own track record in the region, of course.

"Iran tells Muslims to fight 'savage' US, British terrorism," from Agence France-Presse, July 21 (thanks to Twostellas):

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Wednesday called on Muslims to fight the "blind and savage terrorism" fueled by U.S. and Britain, whom he blamed for deadly bombings of an Iranian mosque.

"In our region ... the blind and savage terrorism is borne out of the evil policies of the United States, Britain and their state and non-state mercenaries," Khamenei said in a statement marking the seventh day of mourning for victims of the bombings of a Shiite mosque in southeastern Iran.

"All Muslims are required to combat and confront this evil and sinister offspring which is the epitome of corruption on earth and of waging war against God," the all-powerful Khamenei said in the statement read out on state television...

"Corruption on earth and of waging war against God" is a quotation of Qur'an 5:33 (the lesser-known and very nasty followup to apologists' favorite go-to verse in 5:32): "The only reward of those who make war upon Allah and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land. Such will be their degradation in the world, and in the Hereafter theirs will be an awful doom."

The headline is at odds with the text of the article -- probably a typo -- over whether Al-Awlaki was addressing Muslims in the U.S., or calling for Americans in general to convert to Islam.

In the latter event, such a call would not be surprising, because Muhammad required Muslims to invite an enemy to Islam before attacking (Sahih Muslim 19.4294).

But in either case, Al-Awlaki continues to operate and incite at will from within Yemen, the jihadist bus station." "Al-Awlaki Calls for U.S. to Embrace Islam, Wage Jihad Against Government," from the Yemen Post, July 19:

U.S.-born Yemeni cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki called for the U.S. Muslims Monday to embrace Islam and wage Jihad against their government.

Al-Awlaki, designated by the U.S. as a key leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula AQAP, said in a videotape Jihad, holy war, is an individual duty incumbent upon every Muslim.

In his letter distributed today, he addressed the U.S. Muslims saying: how your consciousness accepts to co-exist with a country that has committed crimes against your Muslim brothers and sisters.

How you declare your loyalty to a government waging a war on Islam and Muslims, he said, pointing out that the Muslim community in the U.S. is continuously violating the most basic Islamic principles, spying for the U.S. against Muslims.

I was a Muslim cleric and non-combatant activist, but after invading Iraq and with continuous U.S. attacks against Muslims, I can't live and be a Muslim at the same time in the U.S., he said.

The U.S. is a cursed country because of its arrogance and illegal acts including carnage, invasions and occupation, he argued, adding that it will not be able to continue amid its draining wars.

Moreover, he hailed the botched bombing on a Detroit-bound passenger airplane in late 2009 by a Nigerian young man and the shooting at a Texas base by a U.S. doctor from Palestinian origin. The U.S. linked Al-Awlaki to the two attacks.

The U.S. froze last Friday the assets of Al-Awlaki on the ground he is a dangerous leader in the AQAP, sought to encourage his supporters to give money for terrorists and is involved in recruiting operatives.

Days after the move by the U.S. Treasury Department, Yemeni security sources said the hunt for Al-Awlaki and other Al-Qaeda suspects is continuing in Shabwa Province.

The sources said the forces aim to arrest and hand him to the Interior Ministry and judicial authorities in Yemen. They denied there were negotiations for extraditing Al-Awlaki to the United States which ordered this year to bring him dead or alive.

Al-Awlaki was jailed in Yemen in 2006 after he was charged with kidnapping for ransom and released in 2007.

An update on this story; a ban on burqas in government buildings may still be forthcoming. "Spain parliament rejects burqa ban _ for now," by Alan Clendenning and Harold Heckle for the Associated Press, July 20:

MADRID -- Spain's Parliament on Tuesday rejected a proposal to ban women from wearing in public places Islamic veils that reveal only the eyes.

However, the Socialist government has said it favors including a ban on people wearing burqas in government buildings in an upcoming bill on religious issues to be debated after parliament's summer vacation break.

Following a lower chamber debate, 183 lawmakers opposed the ban, 162 voted for it and two abstained.

The nonbinding proposal had been put forward by the leading opposition Popular Party, which portrayed it as a measure in support of women's rights. The ruling Socialist Party opposed the ban.

"It is very difficult to understand how it is that our troops are defending liberty in Afghanistan and the government doesn't have the courage to do so here, in Spain," said opposition spokeswoman Soraya Saenz de Santamaria in Parliament.

The opposition's proposal followed discussions in several other European countries on possibly banning face veils that show only a woman's eyes, or their eyes through a knitted mesh.

Nations like France, Belgium and Switzerland have struggled to balance their national identities with growing Muslim populations with cultural practices that clash with their own.

And clash with Western standards of human rights and dignity.

In Spain, the PP had put forward the proposal "in defense of the dignity and equality of all women" and to prevent Muslim women from being forced into wearing unwanted garments such as veils by their husbands....

But enraged Muslims in the area demanded blood for (alleged) pamphlets. "2,000 Muslim militants go on rampage in Faisalabad; acquitted Christians murdered," from Catholic Culture, July 21:

Two Pakistani Christians acquitted of blasphemy charges were murdered on July 19 as they left the courthouse. A police officer who accompanied them was injured in the attack.

Rashid Emmanuel and his brother, Sajid Emmanuel, had been arrested on July 4 after pamphlets critical of the Mohammed had been distributed. The brothers had grown up in a Catholic family; Rashid had recently become a Protestant pastor.

Following the murder of the brothers, some Christians took to the streets in grief and anger. "Emotional tension was high, there was some shouting, stone throwing against Muslim shops," said Father Khalid Rashid Asi, vicar general of the Diocese of Faisalabad, Pakistan's third largest city.

"2,000 Islamic militants-- urged at local mosques to 'fight the infidels'":

That night, 2,000 Islamic militants-- urged at local mosques to "fight the infidels"-- went on a rampage in Waris Pura, a Christian district of Faisalabad. "The mob was out of control, shops and streets were devastated, there was shooting, looting and torching," said Father Pascal Paulus, the local parish priest. "Some Christians were hurt, but the outcome could have been much worse."

Note the contrast in mentality in the following paragraphs:

"We, four priests, went from door to door, begging Christians not to react, to stay calm, to avoid provoking a dangerous spiral of violence and revenge," said Father Khalid Rashid Asi. "We reminded them: we belong to Christ, we love peace, we forgive our enemies."

"The angry mob attack caused panic, shops and other buildings were damaged, but no one was killed or seriously hurt, only a few had slight injuries," said Bishop Joseph Coutts of Faisalabad. "I must say that the authorities and the police were most efficient, they arrived immediately and the militants soon dispersed. Of course the defenseless, hunted Christian families are still under shock."

On the morning of July 20, Bishop Coutts offered the funeral Mass for the two brothers; 500 Catholics were in attendance. "Many of the faithful were still too frightened to leave their homes," added Father Khalid, the vicar general. "Some leading Muslim citizens expressed solidarity with the Christians and condemned the violence."

"Amidst general feelings of grief, pain and emotional tension, I told our people that we would offer the blood of these innocent men together with the Blood of Christ," said Bishop Coutts. "It will further our salvation and we hope, heal our city of Faisalabad of the sickness of hatred and violence."...

"Earlier this month, an Afghan soldier killed three British service members with gunfire and a rocket-propelled grenade and in November, an Afghan policeman killed five British soldiers at a checkpoint in Helmand."

And here is yet another. The rate of various failures of discipline among Afghan soldiers -- defections, disappearances (including those 46 or more who have disappeared in the U.S. after coming here for "training"), and outright murder should point to far more at work here than the official story of a developing country getting its bearings and facing some bumps in the road. But as always, there is the ideological component of jihad, together with a pervasive disregard for non-Sharia law, that constitute a persistent "elephant in the room."

"Afghanistan: Two Americans killed by 'alliance' soldier," from AdnKronos International, July 21:

Kabul, 21 July (AKI) - Two American civilians and two Afghan soldiers were killed Tuesday on a military base in northern Afghanistan, NATO said.

The attacker - an Afghan soldier at the base outside Mazar-e-Sharif -opened fire during a weapons exercise, NATO said in a statement. The shooter was among those killed.

NATO and Afghan authorities will conduct a joint investigation into the incident, according to Afghan defence ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi.

The soldier fled after that attack, leaving his motive unclear, according to a news report.

No information about the American civilians was immediately available but contractors commonly work on military bases.

Earlier this month, an Afghan soldier killed three British service members with gunfire and a rocket-propelled grenade and in November, an Afghan policeman killed five British soldiers at a checkpoint in Helmand.

Fun for the whole genocide-minded family. "Hezbollah Opens Jihad Theme Park," by Max Fisher at the Atlantic Wire, July 20 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

The Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah, after decades of anti-Israel and anti-U.S. violence, has decided to try something new and open an amusement park. The million-dollar attraction, enticingly named "Museum for Resistance Tourism," includes documentary videos, an aerial tramway, and a terrace called "The Abyss" that showcases remnants of Israeli tanks. Located on the Lebanese mountain town of Mleeta, the museum is meant to cement Hezbollah, which was founded only in the 1980s, into the ancient and storied Lebanese culture. ABC News' Lara Setrakian visits the center that is sometimes called "HezbollahLand":

Rami has a ready answer when asked if the museum advances terrorist propaganda.

"I believe it's our right to have our own propaganda. The important thing is that this is the sincere and true propaganda."

Despite its militant edge, the museum is part of an effort to soften Hezbollah's image. It's designed to be the centerpiece of a massive tourist development - dubbed "HezbollahLand" in the global press - capped with an aerial tramway offering scenic rides from Mleeta to an abandoned Israeli base on a nearby hill.
... That, analysts say, is where the museum fits into Hezbollah's overarching strategy: fighting Israel in times of war, and in times of peace, investing in ways that seal a bond with its followers. Hezbollah runs hospitals and builds homes, partly under the umbrella of its "Construction Jihad" - hardening its constituents by giving them a social safety net and improving their quality of life.

In "Balancing rights and prudence" at the Washington Post's On Faith panel, July 20, Tom Flynn not only comes out against the mega-mosque at Ground Zero, but admits that Islamic supremacism in its political manifestation is "not a distortion of Islam; it is a particular understanding of Islam that crops up far too frequently to be so casually dismissed."

This is in the Washington Post, people. I am going to step out of my hotel room now and I expect to see the lion lying down with the lamb and swords everywhere being fashioned into plowshares.

This controversy has to be viewed in the context of New York City's 9/11 trauma -- and the context of one uncomfortable truth: 9/11 was a faith-based initiative. The hijackers were operating on strongly, perhaps primarily, religious motivations, and the religion that motivated them was Islam. To be sure, it was Islam as they understood it, and millions of Muslims do not understand their faith in that way. On the other hand, the number of Muslims who do understand their faith as Muhammad Atta did is far from insignificant. What we sometimes call "political Islam" is not a distortion of Islam; it is a particular understanding of Islam that crops up far too frequently to be so casually dismissed.

I'm willing to grant that the Cordoba House organizers have a very different understanding of Islam. For them it may truly be (pardon the politically correct phrase) a religion of peace. But Islam is not always so. (Not that Christianity has clean hands in this regard, not when the Catholic-Protestant war in Northern Ireland, to cite just one example, remains in living memory.)

Of course, unlike the global jihad with its deep roots in Islamic texts and teachings, the Irish conflict had nothing to do with any Christian texts or teachings, but this is, after all, the Washington Post.

It's time to acknowledge that the understanding of Islam that made Ground Zero into Ground Zero lies within, not outside, the spectrum of Islam as it is understood and practiced around the world.

In the abstract, Cordoba House has the right to build its mosque. When complete it would probably provide downtown New Yorkers with excellent neighbors. But there's a profound cultural tone-deafness in pursuing this project at this time and in that place.

Another day, another Donors' Conference, in downtown Kabul. Again, it will be the non-Muslim nations who will commit, and actually deliver, still more tens of billions to a place, Afghanistan, that was never a nation but always a collection of warring tribes - and even warring families, and individuals. Afghanistan is of no real consequence except as a land area where, for a time, the Taliban who were raised up and put in place by Pakistan, then gave refuge and succor to Al Qaeda. Because we are run by people who cannot think clearly, the idea seems to be that we are to spend tens of billions of dollars in this particular place, even though by now at least three things are clear.

To wit:

1) The government of Hamid Karzai, at every level, is hopelessly corrupt, and this corruption inflames the populace, and causes more to support the Taliban they once had grown to despise. But the corruption occurs because there is now something to be corrupt about - the very money that flows in from donor nations that do not know how to tell the Americans no, do not know how to analyze the situation correctly, and feel as though, if they did not send troops, or are refusing to send more troops, or are intending to withdraw the troops they have, then the least they can is send a few hundred million or a billion. It's madness. It makes no sense. Were no money to come from the outside, Karzai and Karzai's brother and all the other warlords would be disappointed, but at least the spectacle of their corruption - they would now have so little to be corrupt about - would be over, and the Taliban could not use that as a rallying cry.

2) There is no winning of Afghan hearts and minds. They are Muslims and we are Infidels. A handful of people may wish to cooperate with us, may sense that we wish them well, and are far more to be trusted than the sinister Pakistanis, but these people cannot possibly influence the mass of primitive Muslims who will always see us as what, in fact, we are - Infidels. That puts a limit, a very low limit, on any collaboration beyond temporary overlaps of self-interest. Money will not do it.

3) We must come to understand that what keeps Afghans economically down is a combination of things that all come from Islam - the habit of mental submission, the habit or duty of submission to authority, if that authority is Muslim; the hatred of Bid'a or innovation, the deep inshallah-fatalism; the insistence that women are an inferior species and must remain uneducated and be kept down; the deep belief that Muslim and Infidel can never be friends, that Muslims have a duty only to other Muslims, and cannot possibly be loyal to Infidels; and the deep belief that Muslims have a duty, the one that gives most meaning to their lives: to support, to defend, to protect, to lie for, and to tear down all obstacles that stand in the way of, Islam and the spread of Islam and the dominance of Islam.

But let's return to the country that matters more than Afghanistan, and that is Pakistan. Just this week, Hillary Clinton was visiting. She was there, the State Department trumpeted, to announce a "massive" package of aid, of very kind, at every level, from water treatment and supply plants, to projects to improve the Port of Karachi. Why, the Pakistanis needn't worry about all their problems, or about the diversion of billions to all kinds of other causes -- including that of producing the nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them - because the Americans were not content with having spent the last day or two, before the comic farce in Kabul opens and more billions are handed over from the Infidels to the Muslims, and went back to neighboring Pakistan.

An update on this story. They would have faced the death penalty in court as well, and remember: this is all about the alleged distribution of Christian literature.

Blood for pamphlets. "Pakistan: Christian brothers shot dead for 'blasphemy'," from AdnKronos International, July 20:

Faisalabad, 20 July (AKI) - Two brothers were shot dead outside a courtroom in the Pakistani's Punjab province where they faced blasphemy charges after allegedly distributing Christian pamphlets. According to reports, two unidentified gunmen shot dead Pastor Rashid Emmanuel and his brother Sajjad, and left their police escort critically wounded, as they were leaving the court following a hearing.

The brothers killed in the city of Faisalabad by an unidentified person as they left the court accompanied by inspector Muhammad Hussain who was critically injured, the Express Tribune newspaper reported.

Clashes between Christians and Muslims broke out following the shooting prompting police to impose measures banning meetings of more than four people in some areas of Pakistan's third-largest city.

"Both brothers were rushed to hospital where they were pronounced dead," the newspaper cited police official Amanullah Khan as saying.

The Christian brothers on 2 July were accused of distributing blasphemous material in overwhelmingly Muslim Muslim Pakistan at a bus stand.

The brothers' supporters claim that the charges were fabricated. James Aftab, a senior church official in Faisalabad, said the men had been "implicated in a fake case" while Atif Jamil Pagaan, a spokesperson for the Pakistan Minorities Democratic Foundation, also said the men had been set up, according to the Express Tribune.

Yes, you read that right. And Wilders, only Wilders, is standing up to this breathtaking short-sighted idiocy: "'Netherlands Subsidising Mosque by Ground Zero,'" from NIS News, July 21 (thanks to Fjordman):

AMSTERDAM, 21/07/10 - The Party for Freedom (PVV) is demanding clarification by the Dutch government regarding reports that the Netherlands is co-financing the construction of a mosque a stone's throw away from Ground Zero in New York with 1 million dollars of Dutch taxpayers' money.

On the foreign ministry's website, it says that a subsidy of 1 million dollars has been awarded to the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA). This organisation is, in partnership with the Islamic organisation Cordoba Initiative, responsible for the Islamic centre including a mosque, costing 100 million dollars, to be built near Ground Zero.

The PVV is demanding an explanation and terms the plans to build a mosque right next to Ground Zero absurd and an insult to relatives of the thousands of victims who lost their lives on 11 September 2001. The party wants the subsidy to ASMA to be withdrawn immediately.

That is, he believes in the Inner Spiritual Struggle, but not in jihad warfare. It's a rather transparent and flimsy defense, but it may well fly given the general prevalence of the Religion of Peace farrago. "JFK Terror Suspect Says He Doesn't Believe in 'Jihad,'" from Bloomberg, July 20:

July 20 (Bloomberg) -- A former member of Guyana's parliament accused of plotting to blow up New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport testified he doesn't believe in "jihad" in the sense of fighting.

"I do not subscribe to fighting because I have no need to fight," Abdul Kadir told jurors today at his terrorism trial in federal court in Brooklyn, New York.

Prosecutors on July 15 showed the jury photos of Kadir brandishing what appear to be weapons, including assault rifles. The pictures were found on an electronic flash drive when Kadir was arrested in June 2007 on a plane in Trinidad on his way to Iran. Kadir said one of the guns was his personal weapon and the others were toys.

Kadir and Russell Defreitas, a former Evergreen Airlines cargo worker, are charged with hatching the plot in January 2006. They circulated their plan to an international network of Muslim extremists, prosecutors alleged.

Kadir denied the government's contention that he was bringing the photographs to Iran as part of a plan to get support there for the JFK plot.

He said the photos, which included pictures of his children with the gun and what he said were toys, were on the flash drive that backed up his computer data. He would never show the photos to the Iranians because he was shirtless in them and not subscribing to Muslim dress.

"It would be most inappropriate to take pictures like that to Iran," he testified. "Me being without a shirt does not gel and my daughter was not fully covered as a Muslim woman."

Pictures of Children

He said they took the pictures because it was around Christmastime "and the kids had all of these toys around," he said. "We just decided to pose for some pictures."

Kadir testified that he was going to Iran to celebrate the anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the country's former supreme leader, and to try to gather support for a mosque he wanted to build in Guyana. He had been to Iran twice before, he said.

The attacks were designed to destroy "the whole of Kennedy," the largest airport in the New York City area, Defreitas said in a taped conversation, according to the Justice Department. The plot was foiled in the planning stages with the aid of an informant, Steven Francis, Assistant U.S. Attorney Berit Berger told the jury.

The plotters conducted surveillance of the airport, including videotaping its buildings, and sought expert advice, financing and explosives, she said....

It appears yet again that the more observant and devout one is in Islam, the more likely one is to Misunderstand the Religion of Peace. "A new German study shows that boys growing up in pious Muslim families are more likely to be violent," from the National Secular Society via Muslims Debate, n.d. (thanks to F.P.):

A new German study shows that boys growing up in pious Muslim families are more likely to be violent.

The study, which involved intensive questioning of 45,000 teenagers from 61 towns and regions across the country, was conducted by Christian Pfeiffer of the criminal research institute of Lower Saxony.

Pfeiffer was quick to assure the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper that he was not a racist or 'Islamophobe' and that, in fact, he had been dismayed by the results of the survey....

News flash, Pfeiffer: there are few, if any, actual "Islamophobes," and this caveat will not prevent you from being labeled one. Those who are called "Islamophobes" are those who have studied the texts and teachings of Islam and how those texts and teachings are applied in Islamic societies and among Muslims in the West. Often many of these "Islamophobes" were dismayed by what they were seeing.

[...] Pfeiffer said that even when other social factors were taken into account, there remained a significant correlation between religiosity and readiness to use violence. There were some positive correlations too he said, noting that young religious Muslims were much less likely than their non-Muslim counterparts to drink alcohol - or to steal from shops. The increased likelihood to use violence was restricted to Muslim boys, Pfeiffer said - Muslim girls were only as likely to be violent as non-Muslim girls.

This led him to conclude that there was not a direct link between Islamic belief and violence - but an indirect one. He pointed to Christian teachings which justified domestic violence and male dominance of society for a long time.

Pfeiffer runs completely off-course here. He doesn't appear to understand that Islam not only contains teachings that justify violence, but also teachings that relegate women to second-class status. And his moral equivalence, given the absence of Christian terror groups around the world, just politically correct attitudinizing.

His researchers asked the teenagers a range of questions about their ideas of manliness, for example whether they thought a man was justified in hitting his wife if she had been unfaithful. They also asked about what media and computer game violence they were exposed to, as well as whether their friends were involved in crime or violence.

The results showed that Muslim boys from immigrant families were more than twice as likely to agree with macho statements than boys from Christian immigrant families. The rate was highest among those considered as very religious, Pfeiffer said. They were also more likely to be using violent computer games and have criminal friends.

Added to that, the more religious Muslim boys felt the least integrated into German society, with only 14.5 percent of the very religious Turkish boys (the largest group of Muslims in the study) saying they felt German, although 88.5 percent had been born there.

Pfeiffer said he thought the responsibility for the macho culture lay with Imams in Germany, who he said usually come from abroad and often cannot speak German or have much understanding of the culture. "We have to prevent attempts at integration from being destroyed by Imams who preach Turkish provincial stories and a reactionary male image," said Pfeiffer. He concluded that Germans should reconsider how they treat Muslims, noting that there had been a damaging loss of trust since the September 11 attacks in 2001....

Of course, with his enemy not pursuing victory and preparing to leave Iraq soon, it isn't hard for Zawahiri to see victory in sight. Regarding Afghanistan, he says: "We will show you who will be soon fleeing Kabul, in defeat, fear and humiliation." Given Washington's openness to find an accord with a mythical "moderate Taliban," that may not even be necessary for Zawahiri to achieve his goals. "Audio purportedly from al Qaeda No. 2 says victory coming," from CNN, July 20:

(CNN) -- A man identified as Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's No. 2 man, promises his followers victory in Afghanistan and Iraq, vowing that these wars will eventually lead to a battle to liberate Jerusalem, in an audio message posted Monday on jihadist websites.

The audio was released by As-Sahab Media, al Qaeda's production company. CNN could not verify the authenticity of the message.

Radical Islamists often use the Arab-Israeli struggle as a propaganda tool to recruit militants because they believe that Israel has no right to exist on what they consider to be Muslim and Arab land.

In the message, the speaker also says mujahedeens -- Islamic militants backed by the Taliban and al Qaeda -- are moving from one victory to another in Afghanistan against U.S.-led forces....

The audio message criticizes media coverage of the operation in Marjah, saying, "They made a big deal when they covered the Marjah battle ... but later on, they didn't want to report what was really happening on the ground, that the Mujahedeens were winning."

The speaker says the relationship between al Qaeda and the Taliban is stronger than ever -- an apparent reaction to reports that suggested the United States might be willing to deal with the Taliban if it distanced itself from al Qaeda. The message pledges al Qaeda's allegiance to Taliban leader Mullah Omar, calling him "the commander of the faithful."

Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri are believed to be living in the tribal areas of Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan.

The speaker goes on to mock U.S. President Barack Obama and warns him that the United States will be defeated in Afghanistan and other Jihadi fronts. "Poor Obama came to Kabul and vowed that Taliban will never be back in power ... We will show you who will be soon fleeing Kabul, in defeat, fear and humiliation."

The speaker also blasts Arab leaders as "Zionists" in disguise for supporting Israel over Gaza and the war in Afghanistan. Zawahiri challenges the Muslim nations, including Egypt and Jordan, for supporting the war in Afghanistan and Iraq by sending Muslim troops to fight the Mujahedeen and providing intelligence services in order to capture and kill al-Qaeda operatives all over the world.

"They were clearly exposed by the heroic work of Abu Dajana Al-Khorasani," the message says, referring to the man believed to be the suicide bomber who killed seven CIA operatives and a Jordanian army captain on December 30 at a U.S. base in Khost, Afghanistan.

Criticizing the leadership of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority, the speaker says, "The Arab Zionists that we deal with on a daily basis are much worse than the Jewish Zionist because they are the true traitors who constantly stab us in the back and the wounds only get deeper and deeper by the hour. They are much more dangerous than the Jewish Zionists."...

We hear this kind of thing in the U.S. as well, although usually in opposition to a specific counter-terror measure rather than as a comprehensive criticism of the government's entire approach: CAIR has opposed virtually every counter-terror measure that has come down the pike, and other Islamic advocacy groups have joined in also to oppose specific counter-terror strategies that are denounced for supposedly "alienating" otherwise peaceful Muslims. While the rest of the population has to put up with intrusive and annoying airport security procedures that have been instituted because of Islamic jihadists, and are required to endure all manner of inconvenience and expense because of those Islamic jihadists, ostensibly peaceful and law-abiding Muslims appear entirely unwilling to endure any inconvenience or hardship whatsoever in aid of rooting the "extremist" elements out of their communities.

"Counter-terrorism projects 'are alienating Muslim communities,'" by Martin Bentham in the Evening Standard, July 19 (thanks to Twostellas):

A Government counter-terrorism scheme should be scrapped because it is alienating Muslims and increasing the risk of an attack, a report will warn this week.

The report by think tank Demos says that the £60 million-a-year Preventing Violent Extremism programme, which aims to "isolate and defeat" extremists in Muslim communities, has raised tensions and focused too much on law-abiding citizens.

MPs and leaders of Muslim organisations have previously claimed that the Government's counter-terrorism strategy is counterproductive. Home Secretary Theresa May has announced a review of the programme, which has been used to fund community cohesion initiatives in London and elsewhere, to see whether it should be scaled back or altered.

The Demos report says that the scheme should be axed as it is "impossible to determine" whether it provides value for money.

Jamie Bartlett, the head of the think tank's violence and extremism programme, said: "Building strong communities shouldn't fall under the counter-terrorism brief. The Government must continue to show that Muslims are not a community under suspicion and deal with them as citizens, not suspects."

The Preventing Violent Extremism scheme has supported efforts to strengthen the role of moderate imams and women in mosques.

How does one determine who they are?

It has also funded health and education projects and forums at which residents can discuss extremism and Islamophobia.

The Demos report warns, however, that while many of these projects "are excellent in themselves, it is questionable how far they prevent terrorism" and they have "blurred the boundaries between social cohesion and counter-terrorism".

Instead, the report says that prevention work should be "solely focused on people with the intent to act or who are being targeted by recruiters".

How does one determine who they are?

On freedom of speech, it says that non-violent extremist views "should be heard" to allow them to be exposed as flawed, rather than suppressed through legislation.

The Commons communities and local government select committee this year warned that many Muslims believed that the "Prevent" programme was being used to spy on them.

In FrontPage this morning I discuss what could follow the end of Hosni Mubarak's rule in Egypt, and how the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to take advantage of the situation:

Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak has been diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer, and is not expected to live beyond a year. After that, the uneasy equilibrium of Egyptian politics could be violently disrupted, with the possibility for escalation in the Middle East and beyond. The Islamic supremacist Muslim Brotherhood, from which sprang both Hamas and Al-Qaeda, could attempt to seize Mubarak's death as an opportunity to try to take power in Egypt. Mubarak's son Gamal, however, appears to be determined not to let that happen. It is by no means beyond the realm of possibility that armed conflict could result - conflict that could be the deadly match in the Middle East's tinderbox.

Officially, the Muslim Brotherhood is banned in Egypt, but its candidates often run in elections as independents - winning one-fifth of the seats in the 2005 parliamentary elections. Since the presidency of Gamel Abdel Nasser (1956-1970), the Egyptian government has practiced steam control with the Brotherhood, looking the other way as the group terrorized Coptic Christians and enforced Islamic strictures upon the Egyptian populace, but cracking down when the Brotherhood showed signs of growing powerful enough actually to seize power. Shortly before he was assassinated by members of another Islamic supremacist group that was enraged by his peace treaty with Israel, Nasser's successor Anwar Sadat not only released all the Brotherhood political prisoners who had been languishing in Egyptian prisons, but also promised the Brotherhood that Sharia would be fully implemented in Egypt.

The Islamization of Egypt has been proceeding steadily for decades. While in the 1960s women wearing hijabs were rare on the streets of Cairo, now it is rare to see a woman not wearing one; the Brotherhood's societal and cultural influence has long outstripped its direct political reach, and shows no sign of abating. Nonetheless, nearly thirty years after Sadat's promise, the Brotherhood is still waiting for that full implementation of Sharia. Mubarak's son and heir apparent, Gamal Mubarak, said in a July 2008 interview [1] that "religion" was one of the "most important components" of Egyptian society and culture." Yet he maintained that Egypt's "constitution formally prohibits confessional political parties and the use of religion in political discourse." He added, in clear reference to the Brotherhood and allied Islamic supremacist groups:

But this is not enough. During the last months, these groups have been trying to take advantage of the difficulties our country is going through. By multiplying anti-Western references, they are building barriers between the different cultures. They are destroying the bridges between the Eastern and Western worlds that the past generations had so much trouble building. That is the worst thing that could happen.

Gamal Mubarak's remedy for this growing Brotherhood influence involved "audacious leaders who are able to prepare their country for the future and implement some reforms even when they are unpopular. Such a leader must be brave enough to remain faithful to his convictions, despite all opposition."

But is Gamal himself such a leader? Middle East analyst Barry Rubin tells Frontpage that "he has some good characteristics-pragmatism and moderation-but his age, lack of military experience, and limited charisma are against him."...

Read it all.

At Human Events today I discuss Muzzammil Hassan's grotesque attempt to portray himself as the victim of the wife he beheaded:

In February 2009, Aasiya Z. Hassan, a 37-year-old Muslim woman, was founded decapitated in Orchard Park, N.Y., a village near Buffalo. Her husband, Muzzammil Hassan, 44, admits that he beheaded his wife. Yet now, in a bizarre turn in the case, Muzzammil Hassan has claimed that he was the real victim in the case, driven to murder his wife after enduring years of her emotional and physical abuse.

The case stands as a classic example of the universal tendency on the part of Islamic supemacists and jihadists to blame everyone but themselves for what they have done.

In a larger sense, Muzzammil Hassan's attempt to claim that he was actually the victim of the woman he beheaded is exactly like the jihadis blaming American foreign policy for the global jihad, and is related to the campaign to get the West to "stop linking Islam with terrorism."

Islamic jihadists link Islam with terrorism with consistency and religious fervor, but if a Western non-Muslim notices this, he is "hateful," "bigoted," "Islamophobic," "ignorant of Islam," etc. Never would the Muslims who accuse non-Muslims of "hate" for "linking Islam with terrorism" ever look to themselves, see the responsibility for the link as being within the Muslim community rather than outside it, and challenge those jihadists instead.

It is always someone else's fault. In this case, according to the Buffalo News, "Hassan has never publicly denied killing his wife. Instead, he has suggested he will build his court defense on the grounds that as a long-abused spouse, he finally snapped and killed his wife in a desperate bid to end the psychological abuse inflicted upon him." Hassan himself has claimed that "anytime I sought outside help, I got falsely accused of sexual misconduct or physical abuse--more than 12 police reports, each in response to my reaching out for help from counselors, my family or her family."

Poor lamb. Clearly the only option left open to him was to behead his wife.

Read it all.

Freedom fighter Geert Wilders makes an important and illuminating statement at MuslimsDebate.com: "Muslims Debate asked Mr. Geert Wilders why he became anti-Islam and what is his message to the Muslims?"

I first visited an Islamic country in 1982.

I was 18 years old and had traveled with a Dutch friend from Eilat in Israel to the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm-el-Sheikh.

We were two almost penniless backpacking students.

We slept on the beaches and found hospitality with Egyptians, who spontaneously invited us to tea.

I clearly recall my very first impression of Egypt: I was overwhelmed by the kindness, friendliness and helpfulness of its people.

I also remember my second strong impression of Egypt: It struck me how frightened these friendly and kind people were.

While we were in Sharm el-Sheikh, President Mubarak happened to visit the place.

I remember the fear which suddenly engulfed the town when it was announced that Mubarak was coming on an unexpected visit; I can still see the cavalcade of black cars on the day of his visit and feel the almost physical awareness of fear, like a cold chill on that very hot day in Summer.

It was a weird experience; Mubarak is not considered the worst of the Islamic tyrants and yet, the fear of the ordinary Egyptians for their leader could be felt even by me. I wonder how Saudis feel when their King is in town, how Libyans feel when Gaddafi announces his coming, how Iraqis must have felt when Saddam Hussein was near. A few years later, I read in the Koran how the 7th century Arabs felt in the presence of Muhammad, who, as several verses describe, "cast terror into their hearts" (suras 8:12, 8:60, 33:26, 59:12).

From Sharm el-Sheikh, my friend and I went to Cairo. It was poor and incredibly dirty. My friend and I were amazed that such a poor and filthy place could be a neighbor of Israel, which was so clean. The explanation of the Arabs, with whom we discussed their poverty, was that they were not in any way to blame for this affliction: They said they were the victims of a global conspiracy of "imperialists" and "Zionists", aimed at keeping Muslims poor and subservient. I found that explanation unconvincing. My instinct told me it had something to do with the different cultures of Israel and Egypt.

I made a mistake in Cairo. We had almost no money and I was thirsty. One could buy a glass of water at public water collectors. It did not look clean, but I drank it. I got a terrible diarrhea. I went to a hostel where one could rent a spot on the floor for two dollars a day. There I lay for several days, a heap of misery in a crowded, stinking room, with ten other guys. Once Egypt had been the most advanced civilization on earth. Why had it not progressed along with the rest of the world?

In the late 1890s, Winston Churchill was a soldier and a war correspondent in British India (contemporary Pakistan) and the Sudan. Churchill was a perceptive young man, whose months in Pakistan and the Sudan allowed him to grasp with amazing clarity what the problem is with Islam and "the curses it lays on its votaries."

"Besides the fanatical frenzy, ..., there is this fearful fatalistic apathy," he wrote. "The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist where the followers of the Prophet rule or live. ... The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to a sole man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. ... Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities - but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it." And Churchill concluded: "No stronger retrograde force exists in the world."

There are people who say that I hate Muslims. I do not hate Muslims. It saddens me how Islam has robbed them of their dignity.What Islam does to Muslims is visible in the way they treat their daughters. On March 11, 2002, fifteen Saudi schoolgirls died as they attempted to flee from their school in the holy city of Mecca. A fire had set the building ablaze. The girls ran to the school gates but these were locked. The keys were in the possession of a male guard, who refused to open the gates because the girls were not wearing the correct Islamic dress imposed on women by Saudi law: face veils and overgarments.

The "indecently" dressed girls frantically tried to save their young lives. The Saudi police beat them back into the burning building. Officers of the Mutaween, the "Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice," as the Police are known in Saudi Arabia, also beat passers-by and firemen who tried to help the girls. "It is sinful to approach them," the policemen warned bystanders. It is not only sinful, it is also a criminal offence.

Girls are not valued highly in Islam; the Koran says that the birth of a daughter makes a father's "face darken and he is filled with gloom" (sura 43:15). Nevertheless, the incident at the Mecca school drew angry reactions. Islam is inhumane; but Muslims are humans, hence capable of Love - that powerful force which Muhammad despised. Humanity prevailed in the Meccan fathers who were incensed over the deaths of their daughters; it also prevailed in the firemen who confronted the Mutaween when the latter were beating the girls back inside, and in the journalists of the Saudi paper which, for the first time in Saudi history, criticized the much feared and powerful "Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice."

However, Muslim protests against Islamic inhumanity are rare. Most Muslims, even in Western countries, visit mosques and listen to shocking Koranic verses and to repulsive sermons without revolting against them.

I am an agnosticus myself. But Christians and Jews hold that God created man in His image. They believe that by observing themselves, as free and rational beings capable of love, they can come to know Him. They can even reason with Him, as the Jews have done throughout their history. The Koran, on the contrary, states that "Nothing can be compared with Allah" (sura 16:74, 42:11). He has absolutely nothing in common with us. It is preposterous to suppose that Allah created man in his image. The biblical concept that God is our father is not found in Islam. There is no personal relationship between man and Allah, either. The purpose of Islam is the total submission of oneself and others to the unknowable Allah, whom we must serve through total obedience to Muhammad as leader of the Islamic state (suras 3:31, 4:80, 24:62, 48:10, 57:28). And history has taught us that Muhammad was not at all a prophet of love and compassion, but a mass murderer, a tyrant and a pedophile. Muslims could not have a more deplorable role model.

Without individual freedom, it is not surprising that the notion of man as a responsible agent is not much developed in Islam. Muslims tend to be very fatalistic. Perhaps - let us certainly hope so - only a few radicals take the Koranic admonition to wage jihad on the unbelievers seriously. Nevertheless, most Muslims never raise their voice against the radicals. This is the "fearful fatalistic apathy" Churchill referred to.

The author Aldous Huxley, who lived in North Africa in the 1920s, made the following observation: "About the immediate causes of things - precisely how they happen - they seem to feel not the slightest interest. Indeed, it is not even admitted that there are such things as immediate causes: God is directly responsible for everything. 'Do you think it will rain?' you ask pointing to menacing clouds overhead. 'If God wills,' is the answer. You pass the native hospital. 'Are the doctors good?' 'In our country,' the Arab gravely replies, in the tone of Solomon, 'we say that doctors are of no avail. If Allah wills that a man die, he will die. If not, he will recover.' All of which is profoundly true, so true, indeed, that is not worth saying. To the Arab, however, it seems the last word in human wisdom. ... They have relapsed - all except those who are educated according to Western methods - into pre-scientific fatalism, with its attendant incuriosity and apathy."

Islam deprives Muslims of their freedom. That is a shame, because free people are capable of great things, as history has shown. The Arab, Turkish, Iranian, Indian, Indonesian peoples have tremendous potential. It they were not captives of Islam, if they could liberate themselves from the yoke of Islam, if they would cease to take Muhammad as a role model and if they got rid of the evil Koran, they would be able to achieve great things which would benefit not only them but the entire world.

As a Dutch, a European and a Western politician, my responsibility is primarily to the Dutch people, to the Europeans and the West. However, since the liberation of the Muslims from Islam, will benefit all of us, I wholeheartedly support Muslims who love freedom. My message to them is clear: "Fatalism is no option; 'Inch' Allah' is a curse;

Submission is a disgrace.

Free yourselves. It is up to you.

Geert Wilders

It seems doubtful that the cries of "Islamophobia" will be as shrill against Syria as they have been against Europe. "Syria bans face veils at universities," by Albert Aji for Associated Press, July 19 (thanks to Choi):

DAMASCUS, Syria - Syria has banned the face-covering Islamic veil from the country's universities to prevent what it sees as a threat to its secular identity, as similar moves in Europe spark cries of discrimination against Muslims.

The Education Ministry issued the ban Sunday, according to a government official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly.

The ban, which affects public and private universities, is only against the niqab -- a full Islamic veil that reveals only a woman's eyes -- not headscarves, which are far more commonly worn by Syrian women.

The billowing black robe known as a niqab is not widespread in Syria, although it has become more common recently -- a move that has not gone unnoticed in a country governed by a secular, authoritarian regime.

"We have given directives to all universities to ban niqab-wearing women from registering," the government official told The Associated Press on Monday.

The niqab "contradicts university ethics," he added, saying the government was seeking to protect its secular identity....

Opponents say such bans violate freedom of religion and will stigmatize all Muslims.

Duaa, a 19-year-old university student in Damascus, said she hopes to continue wearing her niqab to classes when the next term begins in the fall despite the ban.

Otherwise, she said, she will not be able to study.

"The niqab is a religious obligation," said Duaa, who asked that her surname not be used because she was not comfortable speaking publicly on the issue. "I cannot go without it."

"Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because God has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them." -- Qur'an 4:34

And what if the beating doesn't work? Yaya Sujana found a solution. People will say, of course, that this has nothing to do with Islam, and that men murder and dismember their wives in all cultures, and that is true. But a culture that considers that the supreme god has ordered men to beat disobedient women has created a culture of violence that can lead all too easily to this kind of thing.

"Indonesian Man Murders, Slices Up Wife With Kitchen Knife Because of Nagging," from the Jakarta Globe, July 19:

An Indonesian man allegedly strangled his wife to death and then spent nine hours carving up her body with a kitchen knife because of her constant nagging, police in West Java said on Monday.

Adjutant Comr. Agung Masloman, chief detective with Bandung Police, confirmed that police had arrested Yaya Sujana, 45, a carpenter, for the murder and dismemberment of his wife, Liliana, 40, in their house in the Soreang Indah housing complex on Wednesday night.

"We arrested the perpetrator on Sunday at 5 p.m," Agung said. "He admitted that he killed the victim and mutilated her because she always yelled at him."

Yaya strangled Liliana in the bathroom," he alleged.

"Yaya spent nine hours mutilating the victim. It was conducted with a kitchen knife from 7 a.m. to 4.30 p.m.," Agung said. "After he mutilated the victim, he put the body parts in two cardboard boxes and three buckets before disposing of them in two places" in Bandung as well as Garut district....

Hotbed

The burbs ain't what they used to be. The Ahmadis are targeted, and "the past year has seen churches closed, Christian events raided and a call to bring a city's bylaws in line with Shariah law -- all in cities neighboring the country's capital."

"Suburbs a Hotbed for Religious Strife," by Arientha Primanita, Ulma Haryanto and Zaky Pawas for the Jakarta Globe, July 19 (thanks to Twostellas):

Peace is a word defined differently by certain religious communities and the Bogor administration, according to controversial Islamic sect Ahmadiyah.

"We had already erected steel pillars and the base framework for our mosque when members of certain communities began to protest its construction. The Bogor administration backed them, and requested us to stop building the mosque so that there would be peace in Bogor," Ahmadiyah spokesman Mubarik told the Jakarta Globe on Sunday.

Mubarik said the group ceased construction, but hundreds of public order officers in Bogor on July 12 demolished the foundations to make sure the mosque would not be completed.

Residents had objected to the plan to build the mosque in Cisaladah village, claiming it violated a 2006 decree by the ministries of religious affairs and home affairs on the establishment of houses of worship, which require the approval of local residents before they can be built.

The Ahmadiyah case is but one in a number of incidents targeting minority religions in Bogor, a city that sits just outside Jakarta. But it is not just happening in Bogor. The past year has seen churches closed, Christian events raided and a call to bring a city's bylaws in line with Shariah law -- all in cities neighboring the country's capital.

Radicalizing the Suburbs

The Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace, a human rights organization, says what is happening in Bogor is part of a radicalization phenomenon in suburban regions, including neighboring Bekasi and Tangerang.

"When these attacks were becoming frequent in 2007, we assumed that they were the workings of the PKS [Prosperous Justice Party, an Islam-based political party]," said Ismail Hasani, a Setara researcher.

"But then we studied it more and we learned it was something else. Have you heard of the concept 'people from the villages besieging cities?' "

According to Setara's research, at least 291 acts of religious violence occurred last year across 12 provinces -- West Java had the highest number with 57 incidents, followed by Jakarta with 38. Both Bogor and Bekasi are within West Java.

"These incidents illustrate the political motives of certain organizations to gain supporters in suburban regions bordering Jakarta," Ismail said. "These mass organizations are frequently used for political reasons. For instance, approaching regional elections, mass organizations are used to win more votes."

The destruction of the planned Ahmadiyah mosque stemmed from a promise made by a district head in Bogor prior to his election.

Theophilus Bela, secretary general of Indonesian Committee of Religions for Peace, said freedom to worship was being restricted more openly with help from local governments.

"Building permits are an excuse here to shut down churches or to freeze prayer services in homes," Theo told the Globe.

"Christians are of many types, including Pentacostal, the Huria Christian Protestants, Catholics and many others. The government must understand this that each religion has sects and each has a different need. They must be accommodated."

Aside from the characteristics of the local governments, attitudes among residents in these suburbs may also help explain why hard-line groups thrive there.

The Rev. Palti Panjaitan from HKBP (Batak Christian Protestant Church) Filadelfia, whose permit was denied by the government because residents rejected it, claimed that local Islamic leaders told residents they would not receive religious services unless they opposed the church.

"The local residents are mostly field workers and elementary school graduates; they got intimidated easily," he said.

A Bekasi resident who lives near the proposed site of the HKBP Filadelfia church told the Globe she did not object to a church being built there, "as long as they did not try to Christianize our children."

The changing demographics of these cities could also play a part. Palti acknowledged that his congregation members were all migrants from North Sumatra who moved to Bekasi starting in the 1980s.

"Our population grew, as Bekasi is in the outskirts of Jakarta and there are a lot of factories in the area where most people work," he said.

Johny Nelson Simanjuntak, a commissioner for monitoring and investigations at the National Commission for Human Rights (Komnas HAM), said a combination of factors could be contributing to radicalization.

"There is a lack of critical thinking and even weaker law enforcement in these areas. It is growing like an epidemic," he told the Globe.

Weak Government Response

Regardless of the reasons behind this phenomenon, many are worried over the apparent lack of action to address it.

"The result of the recent congress in Bekasi is a big threat to the nation. That is open provocation," Johny said. He was referring to a recent conservative Islamic congress that discussed a plan to bring Bekasi more in line with its interpretation of Islam.

The congress also called for the creation of a militant youth group within each mosque to fight the ongoing "Christianization" of the city....

Maybe Obama and Clinton do issue condemnations of all jihad terror attacks, but this is the first one I've seen -- a condemnation of an attack on a mosque in Iran for which the mullahs blame America. "Iran blames US for mosque attack," by Jim Lobe in Asia Times, July 20 (thanks to Twostellas):

WASHINGTON - Both United States President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have denounced last week's suicide bomb attacks on a Shi'ite mosque in Sistan and Balochistan province in southeastern Iran by a Sunni extremist group that Tehran charges is being supported by Washington.

"I strongly condemn the outrageous terrorist attacks on a mosque in southeast Iran," Obama said in a statement released by the White House. "The murder of innocent civilians in their place of worship is an intolerable offence, and those who carried it out must be held accountable."

In a separate statement, Clinton condemned the attacks "in the strongest possible terms" and suggested that Jundallah, the group that claimed responsibility, may be added to the State Department's terrorism list. "This attack, along with the recent attacks in Uganda, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Algeria, underscores the global community's need to work together to combat terrorist organizations that threaten the lives of innocent civilians around the world," according to the statement, which cited Jundallah by name.

The double bombings - the latest in a series of bloody attacks claimed by Jundallah over the past several years - reportedly killed at least 30 people at a mosque in the city of Zahedan, including several officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), a favorite target of the group.

Nearly 300 others were injured by the blasts, which took place during evening prayers marking the birthday of the Prophet Mohammad's grandson, Imam Hussein. The first bombing, which took place at the mosque's entrance, was followed 15 minutes later by the second, as people gathered to help the wounded.

In taking credit for the bombings, Jundallah, which also calls itself the Iranian People's Resistance Movement, said they were carried out in retaliation for last month's execution of the group's leader, Abdulmalik Rigi. His brother, Abdulhamid Rigi, was hung in May after he was captured in Pakistan in 2008 and subsequently returned to Iran.

"This operation is a response to incessant crimes of the regime in Balochistan," the group said on its website. "The two young martyrs sacrificed their lives and shattered the dreams of executioners and devils."....

Note how Ramey's demeanor changes from the first video to the second.

He denies that the Muslim American Society is the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S., but the Muslim Brotherhood's own website carries the Chicago Tribune expose from 2004 that identifies the MAS as the Brotherhood's arm in the U.S.

"In recent years, the U.S. Brotherhood operated under the name Muslim American Society, according to documents and interviews. One of the nation's major Islamic groups, it was incorporated in Illinois in 1993 after a contentious debate among Brotherhood members." -- Chicago Tribune, 2004, via the Muslim Brotherhood's English-language website, Ikhwanweb.

The Muslim Brotherhood "must understand that their work in America is 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 Allah's religion is made victorious over all other religions." -- Mohamed Akram, "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America," May 22, 1991, Government Exhibit 003-0085, U.S. vs. HLF, et al. P. 7 (21).

Jihad Watch readership has been rising so sharply in the last few months that I thought I'd extend a greeting to all the new readers. Yesterday -- a Sunday -- we had 101,424 unique visitors here at the site, which I think may be a record for a Sunday, and in general our readership is higher than ever. It is heartening to know that more and more people are realizing the hollowness of the analysis that the mainstream media (and most blogs, for that matter) supplies about the jihad threat, and are turning to alternative sources.

Jihad Watch welcomes all people -- Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, sincere Muslims of conscience -- who recognize the threat to freedom that Islamic supremacism constitutes, and are determined to resist it. Comments are open and unmoderated, although offensive comments may be removed if we see them. Comments that are racist, genocidal, etc., are unwelcome. Remember that when you write here you're not talking to your friends in your living room, but to an avid audience of predators looking for ammunition to use against the cause of liberty.

And above all, never give up, never give in.

UPDATE: Readership just keeps rising: 163,433 unique visitors for Monday. Average daily traffic is now well over 100,000.

He's in Yemen now, having not "yet" returned to slacking off at his parents' house after buying a round-trip ticket. If there were ever a case for being bumped from a flight... An update on this story. "U.S. citizen believed to be writing for al Qaeda website, source says," by Paul Cruickshank for CNN, July 19:

(CNN) -- A senior U.S. law enforcement official has told CNN that U.S. intelligence believes the principal author of the new online al Qaeda magazine is an American citizen who left for Yemen in October 2009.

The magazine -- called "Inspire" -- appeared last week. Running to nearly 70 pages online, it included articles on bomb-making and encrypting electronic messages, as well as an interview with fugitive Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al Awlaki.

The source has identified the driving force behind "Inspire" as 23-year-old Samir Khan, who previously lived in North Carolina and was involved in radical Islamist blogs, including one he ran called "Jihad Recollections." The source says Khan traveled to Yemen on a round-trip ticket but has not come back to the United States.

Before moving to North Carolina, Khan lived in the New York area. U.S. law enforcement officials say he attended meetings of the Islamic Thinkers Society, but was not a central figure in the group. The Islamic Thinkers Society says its mission is to achieve the ideal Islamic society. On its website, it says: "Our struggle is always intellectual [and] political non-violent means."

Surrrrre. They just incite others to do the rest.

Khan's online name was inshaAllhashaheed (Arabic for "God willing a martyr"). On his various blogs he distributed English translations of al Qaeda propaganda and links to videos produced by Iraqi insurgent groups and others. In a profile in 2007, the New York Times described him as "a kind of Western relay station for the multimedia productions of violent Islamic groups."

Khan was born in Saudi Arabia, and moved to Queens, New York, with his family when he was 7. The family later moved to Charlotte, North Carolina.

And yet the Pakistani foreign minister quoted below seems baffled as to why this is such a sore spot for India. "India: ISI ''controlled'' Mumbai attack," from AdnKronos International, July 16:

New Delhi, 16 July (AKI) - Pakistan's intelligence service orchestrated the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the Indian home secretary said, in one of the most straightforward accusations of Pakistan's suspected involvement in the coordinated assault on India's financial centre that killed 166 people.

"It was not just a peripheral role," G.K. Pillai was cited as saying in the Indian express newspaper.

"They (Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence) were literally controlling and coordinating it from the beginning till the end."

Pillai's comments come a day before the Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers were to meet in Islamabad in an effort to patch up relations worsened by the Mumbai attacks.

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Friday said that India was not prepared for a positive outcome of the talks, DawnNews reported.

Qureshi said Indian officials were constantly taking directions from New Delhi.

Someone decided to follow Muhammad's orders yet again. "Pastor killed by gunman," from the Barnabas Fund, July 16 (thanks to Dumbledoresarmy):

A dynamic Christian pastor has died after being shot in the head as he was leaving church, in what is being seen as a bid to intimidate converts from Islam in the strongly Islamic republic of Dagestan.

Artur Suleimanov (49), himself a convert from Islam, was murdered by a gunman who approached and opened fire as the pastor got into a car outside Hosanna House of Prayer in the capital, Makhachkala, on Thursday 15 July. He died from his wounds in hospital around an hour later. Nobody else was injured in the attack. Pastor Suleimanov leaves behind a wife, Zina, and five children, the youngest of whom is twelve years old.

Mr Suleimanov's church is one of the largest Protestant churches in Dagestan. In a context where Christians face regular harassment and intimidation, his life had been threatened on several previous occasions.

Barnabas Aid has supported Christians in Dagestan, and our co-ordinator for the Former Soviet Union met Pastor Suleimanov a number of times. He said, "Pastor Suleimanov was a wonderful Christian brother and his shocking death is a devastating loss for the Dagestan church. He and the Hosanna House of Prayer church were very active in ministry and outreach in particular. We see his murder as an attempt to put further pressure on Christian converts in Dagestan."

The Russian Republic of Dagestan borders Chechnya in the turbulent North Caucasus. The population is 98 per cent Muslim, and the Church faces harassment and intimidation from various groups.

But, but, but, I thought that in Kosovo they were all moderate Muslims who loved America! I read all about it in Commentary! "Kosovo: Judges Say No to U.S. Request for Extradition of Terrorism Suspect," from AP, July 17 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Three European judges serving in Kosovo turned down a United States request to extradite a Kosovo Albanian man wanted on terrorism charges, the European Union mission said Friday. The man, Bajram Asllani, 29, was arrested on June 17 after federal prosecutors in North Carolina accused him of providing material support to terrorism suspects and conspiring to kill and hurt people abroad. The mission said that there were no accords between the United States and Kosovo governing extradition of Kosovo's citizens, and that the United States request did not adequately demonstrate well-grounded suspicions that Mr. Asllani had committed the crimes for which he was charged.

An update on this story. "Spanish parliament to debate ban on public burqas," by Harold Heckle for the Associated Press, July 18:

MADRID - Spanish lawmakers will debate barring burqas in public, joining other European countries considering similar moves on the grounds that the body-covering garments are degrading to women, the leading opposition party said Sunday.

Top officials of the ruling Socialist Party have indicated they will support the proposal by the opposition Popular Party, making a ban likely unless the country's highest court rules it unconstitutional.

A debate in Spain's lower house has been set by the Popular Party for Tuesday or Wednesday, the party said.

No vote will be scheduled until after the debate, and Spain's Parliament usually goes on vacation for a month starting in late July or early August.

Justice Minister Francisco Caamano said on June 15 that garments like the burqa are "hardly compatible with human dignity."

Head-covering veils would not be included in a ban as they form a part of traditional Spanish dress, with women often covering their heads with a garment called a mantilla, especially during church services in the south of the country.

In substance as well as symbolism, one of these things is not like the other.

Other European nations that have debated regulating the use of body-covering burqas or face-covering niqabs include Belgium, the Netherlands and France.

A notable exception has been Britain, where Immigration Minister Damian Green described calls to outlaw such garb as "un-British."...

There have been a run of these kinds of attacks lately. "Suicide bombing at Pakistani mosque wounds 8," from AP, July 18 (thanks to JCB):

ISLAMABAD - A suicide bomber ran past guards at a minority Shiite mosque in eastern Pakistan then blew himself up Sunday, wounding eight worshippers, officials said.

The attack appeared to be the latest in a string by Sunni extremists against other Muslims they consider infidels.

It took place in Sargodha city, which is in Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province and its political heartland....

Government official Zulfikar Shah said guards at the mosque tried to stop the suicide attacker, but he evaded them.

Sargodha police chief Bashir Ahmad said eight people had been taken to the hospital, two of whom were in critical condition. The attacker apparently was not more than 17-years-old, he added.

Earlier this month, militants bombed a Muslim shrine in the Punjabi city of Lahore, killing more than 40 people....

There Is No Fun In Islam* Alert from the burgeoning Islamic republic in Gaza: "Some Gaza women smolder over Hamas' water-pipe ban," by Diaa Hadid and Ibrahim Barzak for Associated Press, July 18 (thanks to all who sent this in):

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - There are few pleasures left for Gaza's 1.5 million people, squeezed by both a blockade and Hamas efforts to impose its strict Muslim lifestyle. And women here just lost another one.

Gaza's Hamas rulers have banned women from smoking water pipes in cafes, sending plainclothes agents through popular beachside spots Sunday to enforce the edict. Some women in the Palestinian territory are grumbling.

"This is silly," said Haya Ahmed, a 29-year-old accountant who said she has smoked water pipes for 10 years. "We are not smoking in the streets but in restaurants, where only a few people can enter."

She predicted the ban would actually make water pipes more tempting for rebellious young women. "Everything forbidden becomes desirable. The decision will lead to more smokers," Ahmed said.

Many Gazans pile into beach cafes in the evenings to puff on water pipes well into the wee hours of the morning. Islamic law does not ban women from smoking the traditional tobacco-infused pipes, but many frown upon the practice.

The water pipe restrictions are just the latest in a yearlong Hamas campaign to gradually enforce a strict Muslim life code on the people of Gaza -- many of whom are conservative Muslims themselves and not entirely opposed. But the secular minority feels the crunch. [...]

Last year, a 23-year-old man was interrogated for a week over rumors he was gay. He requested anonymity for fear of further reprisals. In another case, the New York-based Human Rights Watch reported that a gay man was held in a Gaza jail.

Ghussein, the Interior Ministry spokesman, denied claims they were trying to coerce Gazans into adopting a strictly Islamic lifestyle.

"If we wanted to make Gaza like the Taliban, then we could have done that very easily," Ghussein said.

Looks as if you're well on your way, Ghussein.

* The Ayatollah Khomeini said that.

By itself, this story is absurd, and even comical. If nothing else, at least it's not public money for a change, unlike the squat toilet recently installed for the use of inmates at Canterbury Prison. But it is most noteworthy, of course, as part of a larger trend of self-congratulating, self-righteous, politically correct pandering to Muslims, and to the exclusion of other groups.

One would be remiss not to consider one other matter. Muhammad prescribed the use of an odd number of stones with which to clean up. If the mall is taking the extraordinary step of installing a culturally correct loo, will stones be complimentary, or will there be a Bring-Your-Own-Stones policy? Or would considering that still be too absurd?

"Shopping centre bosses approve 'Asian squat toilets' following cultural awareness course," by James Tozer for the Daily Mail, July 18 (thanks to Basil):

For centuries, the great British loo has been a matter of envy to the rest of the world.

Thanks to the efforts of pioneers like the legendary Thomas Crapper, we have long since led the world in comfort and hygiene.

Now, however, that could be about to change.

For most of us, the squat toilet is nothing more than a staple of horror stories about old-fashioned French service stations or the exploits of adventurous backpackers in far-flung parts of India.

But this basic form of plumbing, also known as a Turkish toilet or Nile pan, could be coming to a shopping centre near you - and all in the name of cultural sensitivity.

From next week, shoppers in Rochdale who push open the cubicle door expecting the reassuring sight of a modern, clean lavatory could instead be faced with little more than a hole in the ground.

Bosses of the Greater Manchester town's Exchange mall have installed two as part of an upgrade costing several thousand pounds after attending a cultural awareness course run by a local Muslim community activist.

A familiar sight in parts of the Middle East, and still sometimes seen in France and Italy, the toilets require users to squat above them, rather than sitting.

With one in ten of Rochdale's population of Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin, centre managers say they have been told some members of the local Asian community prefer them for cultural reasons.

The town hit the headlines during this year's General Election campaign when pensioner Gillian Duffy was dismissed by Gordon Brown as a 'bigoted woman' when she voiced concern about immigration.

News of the introduction of squat toilets was met by disbelief, however.

'This strikes me as a classic case of excessive pandering to a politically correct minority,' said Philip Davies, Conservative MP for Shipley.

'We in Britain are rightly proud of our toilets, and the onus is on people who come to this country to appreciate them for what they are.

'It's absolutely ludicrous - Thomas Crapper would be turning in his grave!'

Proponents of what some campaigners call the natural posture toilet claim there are health benefits to squatting, rather than sitting.

Canterbury Prison recently installed one for foreign inmates as part of a £17,000 upgrade.

But they are regarded as unhygienic and backward in many parts of the world - infamously, a controversial sculpture briefly displayed at EU offices in Brussels last year lampooning member states depicted Bulgaria as a squat toilet.

Mike Bone, of the British Toilet Association, warned the washing facilities associated with squat toilets could pose a hygiene hazard.

'We really don't see a need for them,' he said.

'Space for public toilets in places like shopping centres is already at a premium, and if this is meant to cater for Muslims we would point out that the vast majority use normal toilets in their own homes.'

A development much to be applauded. Meanwhile, Pamela Geller has more coverage of yesterday's events in Dudley, here, here and here.

"EDL Jewish Division Issues First Press Release," from the EDL, June 29 (thanks to Yuval):

We, the English Defence League Jewish Division, support the British Armed Forces, the IDF and the British people.

We are English, we love England, and we are committed to combat racism, fascism, anti-semitism, the biased media, and uninformed politicians.

We are here to fight for all people - Jews in England in particular - against attacks by pro-Islamic, anti-Jewish, anti-Israel media propaganda and lies, relating to Jews, Jewish culture and beliefs, and against blood-libels propagated by the left, Nazis and Muslims.

We are committed to waking up the sleeping Jewish press, e.g: The Jewish Chronicle, to the threat of Muslim attacks on Judaism, Zionism and to Muslim attempts to delegitimise Jews, the Jewish state of Israel and to force, by stealth and overt means, sharia law on England.

Our EDL units have gays, transgender, Black, Sikhs, Hindus, Jews and ex-Muslims (apostates) members. We are professionals of ALL classes!

We are the only organisation in the UK that demonstrates against Muslim violence and discrimination against women, such as forced marriages, underage marriage, female genital mutilation and honour killings. Not one so-called feminist has spoken out against these terrible things, preferring to collude with male Muslims and respect these appalling acts as "culture"!

Our Facebook page is http://www.facebook.com/EnglishDefenceLeagueJewishDivision?ref=ts -by invitation only.

We are also connected to the wonderful English Defence Youth, who have their own website which, we contribute to.

Our fight is worldwide: against Muslim hegemony, polygamy, misogyny, sharia law, the building of any more mosques in the UK, racist attacks on non-Muslims (or kuffar as they call us!), homophobic attacks, Islamic no-go areas for British people, Muslim-only services paid for by the tax-payer, laws just for Muslims.

We repudiate preferential treatment for Islamic hate-speakers, terrorists and groups/organizations like IFE, Muslims against Crusaders, who, apart from being sponsored by terrorist organizations, proselytise against our armed forces and against the freedoms that the generations of English people have fought for!

This struggle is everyone's struggle, and remaining silent is no longer an option.

No Surrender!

English Defence League Jewish Division

Morrigan Emmaleth

Cassandra Victoria

When in Muslim countries, non-Muslims must conform their behavior to Islamic sensibilities. When in non-Muslim countries, non-Muslims must conform their behavior to Islamic sensibilities. Got it? Dogs are "unclean" in Islam, with a few exceptions, and so the guide dogs have to go. "Muslim bus drivers refuse to let guide dogs on board," by Andy Dolan in the Daily Mail, July 18 (thanks to Eleanor):

Blind passengers are being ordered off buses or refused taxi rides because Muslim drivers or passengers object to their 'unclean' guide dogs.

One pensioner said he had twice been confronted by drivers and asked to get off the bus because of his guide dog, and had also faced hostility at a hospital and in a supermarket over the animal.

The problem has become so widespread that the matter was raised in the House of Lords last week, prompting transport minister Norman Baker to warn that a religious objection was not a reason to eject a passenger with a well-behaved guide dog.
George Herridge and his guide dog

National Federation of the Blind spokesman Jill Allen-King said the problem was common, and 'getting worse'.

The tension stems from a strand of Islamic teaching which considers a dog's saliva to be impure....

This would be laughable if it didn't involve a woman without a head. In any case, it is a classic example of the essentially universal tendency on the part of Islamic supemacists and jihadists to blame everyone but themselves for what they have done. In a larger sense, this is exactly like the jihadis blaming American foreign policy for the global jihad, and is related to the campaign to get the West to "stop linking Islam with terrorism": Islamic jihadists link Islam with terrorism with consistency and religious fervor, but if a Western non-Muslim notices this, he is "hateful," "bigoted," "Islamophobic," "ignorant of Islam," etc. Never would the Muslims who accuse non-Muslims of "hate" for "linking Islam with terrorism" ever look to themselves, see the responsibility for the link as being within the Muslim community rather than outside it, and challenge those jihadists instead.

From our bulging It's-Always-Someone-Else's-Fault File: "Hassan says he's the victim: Facing murder charge, he blames slain wife," by Sandra Tan in the Buffalo News, July 17 (thanks to Mark):

Muzzammil "Mo" Hassan, the Orchard Park man charged in the stabbing and decapitation of his wife in February 2009, said last week that he is an honest man prepared to speak the truth.

And the truth, he said, is that he is the real victim.

Contrary to the pile of evidence and witness corroboration that he mentally tormented and physically beat his wife over a period of years, he said, the truth is that he was the one "emotionally tortured" by his outwardly kind and sweet-natured wife, Aasiya Zubair Hassan.

Few believe him, however.

"It, to me, sounds like a desperate attempt by a person who does not have a credible defense," said Suzanne Tomkins, the clinical professor at the University at Buffalo Law School who runs a domestic violence law clinic.

Sure does, doesn't it?

In brief conversations with The News at the Erie County Holding Center last week, Hassan said that immediately after his wife was killed, he could have fled the country.

"I could have gone to Toronto, taken a direct flight to Pakistan, and I speak the language fluently," he said.

Instead, he said he chose to turn himself in and adhere to Gandhi's principle of "satyagraha" -- to seek the truth without selfish interests.

Gandhi, yet! What a manipulator this murderer is! But of course, we already knew that about him: he was the founder of Bridges TV, a network designed to give "Islamophobic" Westerners a "positive," "moderate" image of Muslims -- until the day he beheaded his wife inside the Bridges TV studios.

The former banker and head of an Islam-oriented cable network faces a murder trial in September. Erie County Judge Thomas P. Franczyk recently ruled that Hassan's statement from Feb. 12, 2009, that he just killed his wife, is admissible as evidence.

Hassan has spared no effort in promoting his own version of events and taking control of his own case. He has sent The News a dozen handwritten letters -- two under the false authorship of his mother -- and fired two of his lawyers since his incarceration.

If he hadn't beheaded his wife, this propagandist could easily find gainful employ with the Palestinian PR machine, or any number of Leftist publications.

A News reporter met with Hassan and discussed the possibility of conducting an extensive interview with him in the future, in the presence of his lawyer.

Hassan said he would agree to an extended interview on two main conditions: That he determines when and where the story would run and that he would be the only person interviewed for it.

The Buffalo News refused those terms, quoting instead from last week's meetings and his letters.

Hassan has never publicly denied killing his wife. Instead, he has suggested he will build his court defense on the grounds that as a long-abused spouse, he finally snapped and killed his wife in a desperate bid to end the psychological abuse inflicted upon him.

He stated last week that in cases where battered women kill their abuser, they "overkill" them -- shooting the abuser five times instead of once, for example. And they rarely try to run or hide after the homicide, he said, clearly attempting to draw parallels to his own case.

Police have accused Hassan of repeatly stabbing, then beheading his wife after meeting with her alone in their Orchard Park television studio.

Aasiya had filed for divorce a week before her death and told others she feared for her safety. She had filed multiple police complaints, received orders of protection, produced photos of her injuries, and signed an extensive divorce affidavit attesting to her trauma. Her husband was also investigated by Child Protective Services.

Hassan, however, contends he is the one who suffered immense psychological abuse and humiliation during his seven-year marriage to a wife who publicly nurtured a false image as a kinder and more sympathetic woman.

"All abuse happens behind closed doors, thus NO witnesses," Hassan stated in his most recent letter. "All abuse is psychological, emotional wounds are not visible, thus NO evidence. . . . What a perfect crime! Only the poorly trained abusers use physical violence and get caught, for physical abuse leaves behind evidence."

Domestic violence advocates are unimpressed by Hassan's defense....

Many of Hassan's letters include hand-drawn charts chronicling the "spiral of abuse" and other abuse statistics and theories, or articles about battered men.

He stated that he repeatedly tried to get his wife to face the fact that she needed psychological help, without success, and that his claims of abuse were dismissed by local domestic violence victim advocates because he was a man subjected to "sexist ideology."

"Anytime I sought outside help, I got falsely accused of sexual misconduct or physical abuse -- more than 12+ police reports, each in response to my reaching out for help from counselors, my family or her family," he stated.

He said he sought help from more than two dozen domestic violence professionals in Erie County but was told he was "blaming the victim," or "in denial." He said last week that when he told an Orchard Park police officer at his home in 2006 that his wife was abusing him, the officer laughed in his face.

But those familiar with the Hassan case say Hassan's profile fits all the markers for an abuser, not a victim.

In his defense, Hassan said he has more than 2,000 e-mails between himself and his wife dating back to 2000 showing Aasiya to be an emotionally unstable, abusive and manipulative woman who came from a troubled family. He offered to share some of the e-mails if The News agreed to his terms.

Aasiya stated in her divorce papers that in December 2007, when a child-neglect proceeding was pending against Hassan, he forced her to tell him her e-mail password, then logged into her account and sent out messages pretending to be her.

Hassan denied the charge, saying that if he was capable of forcing his wife to hand over her e-mail account password, why wasn't he able to require her to get the psychological counseling that experts "agreed" she needed during their years of marriage?

Recurring theme

He also denied allegations that he not only abused Aasiya, his third wife, but also his second wife by arranged marriage, Sadia Hussain Hassan. They divorced after 13 months with the intervention of the Muslim community in Rochester.

He said he took out an order of protection against his second wife and eventually divorced her because she, too, was abusing him, not the other way around.

"I moved out of home with Sadia Hussain due to her extreme abuse," he wrote. "She continued her abuse with letters to M&T Bank CEO [Hassan's former employer]. The bank helped me get a protection order against her. And the court granted me divorce on the grounds of cruel and inhuman treatment by Sadia."

Those who assisted with his second wife's divorce said that while Hassan attempted to force Sadia to say she abused him in divorce proceedings by holding her immigration status over her, she refused.

Yes, clearly beheading was your only remaining option, Mo.

According to Reuters, the murderers were "machete attackers," "raiders," and "unknown assailants," but then the rest of the story is about "religious violence" in Nigeria, making it likely to the point of certainty that Nuhu Dawat's family was murdered by Islamic jihadists. But for Reuters, as for the rest of the mainstream media, Muslims are only identified as such when they are the victims, not when they're the attackers. "Machete Attackers Kill Nigerian Priest's Family," from Reuters, July 17 (thanks to Bill):

JOS, Nigeria (Reuters) - Raiders armed with machetes killed the family of a Nigerian Christian priest and set fire to his church in central Plateau state Saturday, close to where hundreds have died in religious violence this year.

Residents said unknown assailants attacked the family of Rev. Nuhu Dawat in the early hours in the farming village of Mazah, around 12 km (7 miles) from the state capital of Jos, killing his wife, two children and grandson.

Dawat himself ran and hid when the attack occurred and was the sole survivor in his household. "I leave everything to God to judge," a sobbing Dawat told Reuters.

At least four other people were also killed in the attack, a military spokesman said. A Reuters witness said many of the bodies were slashed with what appeared to be machete blows and one was burned beyond recognition....

Over the past decade, thousands of people have died in religious and ethnic violence in the "Middle Belt" of central Nigeria, where the Muslim north meets the predominantly Christian south.

The tension is rooted in decades of resentment between indigenous groups, mostly Christian or animist, who are vying for control of fertile farmlands and for economic and political power with migrants and settlers from the north.

That those "migrants and settlers" are Islamic supremacists is, of course, glossed over.

President Goodluck Jonathan has said ensuring peace and stability is a priority....

Good luck, Jonathan.

Going against the will of 2/3 of British people. Are 2/3 of Britons un-British, then?

Green also says that such a ban would run contrary to the conventions of "tolerant and mutually respectful society." Clearly, he knows nothing of Islamic law and its knack for doing just that. And for that matter, how does concealing one's face in public foster a mutually respectful society? It is a mark of separation and distrust, and of non-engagement with "the other," to borrow a well-worn multiculturalist term.

But, of course, one must remember that multicultural "tolerance" is a one-way street on which Western values must yield the right-of-way to galloping Sharia.

"Burka ban ruled out by immigration minister," by Patrick Hennessy for the Telegraph, July 17:

Damian Green said such a move would be "rather un-British" and run contrary to the conventions of a "tolerant and mutually respectful society".

He said it would be "undesirable" for Parliament to vote on a burka ban in Britain and that there was no prospect of the Coalition proposing it.

His comments will dismay the growing number of supporters of a ban. A YouGov survey last week found that 67 per cent of voters wanted the wearing of full-face veils to be made illegal.

Mr Green used a wide-ranging interview with The Sunday Telegraph, his first since taking up his post at the Home Office in May, to issue a "message around the world that Britain is no longer a soft touch on immigration".

He said the summer would see a major crackdown on the main streams of illegal immigration -- including sham marriages, illegal workers and people trafficking -- and confirmed that this autumn the Government would set an overall cap on migrants entering Britain from outside the European Union.

His firm decision to rule out a burka ban will disappoint some Right-of-centre Tory MPs, including Philip Hollobone, who has tabled a private member's bill that would make it illegal for anyone to cover their face in public....

The guy robbed a casino, was fleeing from police, and fired upon his pursuers. He was killed. He was a Muslim. Now Muslims are rioting. A clearer indication of what they think of Western law enforcement and Western justice could not possibly be found. "France: Riots over killing of Muslim man," from Ynet News, July 17 (thanks to Pamela Geller, who has much more detail and background here):

Rioters burned cars, attacked a tramway and shot at police in the French city of Grenoble overnight in protest at the death of a local Muslim man, identified as 27-year- old Karim Boudouda, fleeing police after allegedly holding up the city's casino.

Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux was to travel to the southeastern city on Saturday to monitor events, his office said.

The violence began around midnight on Friday and lasted through the night in the poor suburban neighborhood of Villeneuve, home to the alleged robber.

Police said they intervened after local residents stopped a tramway by setting a fire on the rails and stoned it. At least 50 cars were burned and police said they were shot at once and returned fire. No casualties were reported.

The trouble followed a hold-up in a casino in nearby Uriage-les-Bains by two armed men in the early hours of Friday.

Police said the duo fled with 20,000-40,000 euros and were chased by police. Police said the suspects opened fire, wounding an officer, and one of the suspected robbers was killed in the ensuing shooting.

The second man fled into Villeneuve, where police helicopters flew overhead for much of the night in a fruitless attempt to locate him....

Christians are fleeing the area in large numbers -- understandably. Islamic Tolerance Alert from the Islamic Republic of Pakistan: "Christians flee violence by Islamic extremists in Faisalabad," from AsiaNews, July 16 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Faisalabad (AsiaNews) - A large number of Christians has fled Waris Pura, on the outskirts of Faisalabad, fearing violence, after Muslims launched a protest action that started at a local mosque after Friday prayers. The risk of attacks against Christians and their property is very high, a source in Faisalabad told AsiaNews, choosing anonymity for security reasons. Yesterday, hundreds of Islamic militants joined a protest march, calling for the death of two Christian brothers accused of blasphemy. During the procession, the mob stoned a Catholic church. An alleged booklet with offensive words about Prophet Muhammad is the reason for the rising tensions.

Contacted by AsiaNews, Fr Pascal Paulus, parish priest at Holy Rosary Catholic Church, said that "today's demonstration was peaceful" and "went off without any incident." This was made possible by "the government's intervention" which "helped the dialogue with Muslim leaders". The "massive presence of police" was also key in preventing acts of violence.

Fr Pascal noted that both Christians and Muslims want "Pakistan to prosper". He insisted that all men of faith must "work for peace and dialogue;" nevertheless, he did confirm that "a climate of fear" prevails among Christians. Still, there is hope in lasting and peaceful coexistence.

Earlier, local Muslim leaders had called on Muslims to join en masse in today's demonstration. Local sources told AsiaNews that "flyers were handed out at the mosque and door to door" with threats against Christians.

In Waris Pura, a suburb of Faisalabad (Punjab) and a former Christian ghetto with some 100,000 residents, tensions are in fact still running high. For this reason, "a large number of Christians fled".

Tensions went further up yesterday when a similar protest march of hundreds of Islamic militants demanded the death of the two Christian brothers accused of blasphemy. As they went by Holy Rosary Catholic Church, they threw rocks and stones at the building. In previous days, additional attacks were recorded in the predominantly Christian neighbourhood.

At the root of the crisis is a blasphemy accusation levelled at Rev Rashid Emmanuel and his brother Sajid. The two were arrested on 2 July for allegedly writing insulting words against the prophet Muhammad. They have rejected the accusation but are now facing the death penalty....

If you believe the mainstream media, this makes two-thirds of the British people racists and bigots. But in reality, of course, they just want to stand up for some cultural standards, and ask immigrants to conform to the customs and mores of their new home -- and that is, of course, exactly what all too many Muslims are determined not to do. "Majority of Brits want burkas banned, from AFP, July 17 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Two-thirds of British people would support a ban on Muslim women wearing face-covering veils in public, similar to the one approved by French lawmakers this week, a poll has found.

An online survey of 2,205 adults for Five News television found 67 per cent of respondents agreed that the burka - the full-face veil - should be banned.

That figure rose to 80 per cent among people aged over 55.

The YouGov poll was carried out between Wednesday and Friday (local time), after France's lower house of parliament voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to ban full Islamic veils in public spaces.

Similar laws are pending in Belgium, Spain and some Italian municipalities, but the ban is particularly sensitive in France, whose rundown city suburbs are home to Europe's biggest Muslim minority.

A Harris poll for the Financial Times in March revealed Britons were among the most tolerant in Europe towards the Islamic veil, with just 57 per cent backing a ban, compared to 70 per cent in France and 65 per cent in Spain....

"Despite ties to two of the 9/11 hijackers and the Fort Hood gunman, al-Awlaki has avoided terrorism charges over the years because he never crossed the line into being an active member of al-Qaida -- someone who recruits and trains terrorists and plots attacks on the U.S."

That is a very fine line, apparently.

"U.S.-Born Radical Cleric Added to Terror Blacklist," from AP, July 16 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The Obama administration added the U.S.-born, al-Qaida-linked cleric accused of helping to plan the failed Christmas Day airline bombing to a terrorism blacklist Friday, targeting him with sanctions aimed at cutting off his financial support. fox news

The Obama administration added a U.S.-born, al-Qaida-linked cleric to a terrorism blacklist Friday, targeting him with sanctions aimed at cutting off his financial support.

The Treasury Department placed Anwar al-Awlaki -- accused by officials of helping plan the failed Christmas Day airline bombing -- on its list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists. That means any bank accounts found in the United States belonging to him are frozen. Americans are forbidden from doing business with him. And, it bans him from traveling to the U.S.

The move comes about six months after the U.S. government put al-Awlaki on a secret list of targets to be captured or killed, according to U.S. officials.

Born in New Mexico, al-Awlaki, 39, is not perceived by American officials as a major tactical terror leader on par with al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden. But his role as an inspirational exhorter for al-Qaida's cause and his growing involvement in plots aimed at the U.S. has made him a prime target in the effort to counter the militant movement.

The U.S. government has been monitoring al-Awlaki for years. But the Treasury Department was able to slap the cleric with sanctions because officials established an operational link between him and an al-Qaida spinoff group in Yemen, according to a government official who was not authorized to speak publicly about this matter and spoke only on condition of anonymity.

Despite ties to two of the 9/11 hijackers and the Fort Hood gunman, al-Awlaki has avoided terrorism charges over the years because he never crossed the line into being an active member of al-Qaida -- someone who recruits and trains terrorists and plots attacks on the U.S.

But that changed with his involvement with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the young recruit to al-Qaida's nascent Yemen branch, who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day....

"The girls were molested, raped and brutally tortured in broad daylight. Nobody came in their rescue as the area is Muslim area."

"Muhammad is the apostle of Allah. Those who follow him are merciful to one another, but ruthless to the unbelievers" -- Qur'an 48:29

"3 Hindu Girls raped and brutally tortured by Jihadis in West Bengal," from Haindava Keralam, July 15 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Santipur: Three teen age Hindu Girls have been raped by the Muslim goons on 12th July at Middepara Lichutala under Santipur police station in Nadia district of West Bengal.

The names of the girls are :

(1) Chaitali Ghosh, age 13 yrs, D/O, Keshto Ghosh

(2) Sumita Ghosh, age 13 yrs, D/O, Dilip Ghosh

(3) Susmita Ghosh, age 14 yrs, D/O, Ashok Ghosh.

All these three girls are residents of Baliadanga village of Nadia district and they are students of Haripur High School. On 12 July they were returning from school after appearing in school exam. Some Muslim girls too were with them who were their classmates. The way back goes through a Muslim dominated locality called Middepara, where a Muslim religious fair known as Ghazir Mela was going on. At 11.30 am, when they were passing through Muslim dominated Middepara, about 400 Muslim youths chased and surrounded the hapless Hindu girls. They were in a joyous mood. The Muslim girls fled.

The Muslim boys snatched the scarves (dupatta) of the 3 Hindu girls and poured liquor on their whole body. The girls were absolutely scared and unable to resist.

The girls were molested, raped and brutally tortured in broad daylight. Nobody came in their rescue as the area is Muslim area....

Apostates are living in fear for their lives, also, from Misunderstanders of the Religion of Peace. Islamic Tolerance Alert from the Islamic Republic of Iran: "BREAKING NEWS: Iran Pastor Facing Execution, Church Official," by Stefan J. Bos for BosNewsLife, July 13 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

TEHRAN, IRAN (BosNewsLife)-- A well-known Iranian pastor faces execution after two judges agreed to make him "liable to capital punishment," as part of a crackdown on the growing Protestant church movement in the Islamic nation, BosNewsLife learned Tuesday, July 13.

Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani was detained in June along with wife Fatemeh Pasandideh in the city of Rasht in northwestern Iran because of their Christian activities, Iranian Christians said.

A senior pastor of the Church of Iran movement, which includes house churches across the country, told BosNewsLife that judges had "already signed" an Islamic order that would potentially allow a death sentence for Nadarkhani, pending further investigations. The pastor usually speaks on condition of anonymity to BosNewsLife amid security concerns.

News of the execution overshadowed joy over the release of two Church of Iran Christians, a man and a woman, and the expected release this week on bail of two other members, who the movement only identified as "brothers Mehdi and Afshin."

MORE DETENTIONS

They were part of a group of eight Church of Iran members detained June 18, the senior pastor said. One of them, a pastor's wife identified as Fatemeh Kojouri Tork, remained in Tehran's notorious Evin prison Tuesday, July 13, while her husband, Behrouz Sadegh Khanjani, was kept in isolation in a security prison in the southwestern city of Shiraz, the Christian leader said.

"We still do not hear from Reverend Behrouz Khanjani..." Iranian Christians have also expressed concerns about reports of other detentions, including last month's capture of Pastor Behnam Irani in the city of Karaj, 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) west of Tehran.

Several believers have allegedly been mistreated. "We have learned that information that [security forces] have been using substances to extract confessions from Christians," the senior pastor said....

Church sources say the number of Christians in Iran has grown from 500 known believers in 1979 to at least 100,000 today.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has reportedly said the government needed to halt the growing movement of house churches across Iran.

Under Iran's strict interpretation of Islam, "apostasy" -- or the formal renunciation of religion-- is punishable by death.

There is no Islamic sect or school of jurisprudence that does not teach that apostasy is punishable by death.

The Star Tribune headline refers to "Somali terror," but there is nothing specifically or inherently Somali about it. After all, "those recruited by Faarax were reportedly trained by Somali, Arab and Western instructors." Now why would Arabs and Westerners care to train people to fight in Somalia? Obviously the answer is Islam, Islamic jihad and Islamic supremacism -- the motivating factor that the mainstream media and government dare not name.

"First man is sentenced in local Somali terror probe," by James Walsh for the Star Tribune, July 17 (thanks to Benedict):

A federal judge on Friday sentenced the first man out of more than a dozen charged in a sweeping counterterrorism investigation that has spanned more than two years and several continents and focused a spotlight on the Twin Cities Somali community.

Abdow Munye Abdow, 26, was a relatively small player in a major drama involving the recruitment of 20 or more local men of Somali descent to aid and, in some cases, fight for the Somali terrorist group Al-Shabaab. U.S. District Judge James Rosenbaum sentenced Abdow to four months behind bars and four months of home confinement for lying to federal agents investigating the case....

A total of 14 men, most of whom lived in the Minneapolis area, have been charged or indicted in connection with an investigation that began more than two years ago, after young Somali men from Minnesota started secretly slipping away from their families.

Five of the 14, including Abdow, have pleaded guilty in connection with the case. One local man awaits trial. Another sits in jail in the Netherlands, awaiting extradition. The rest are believed to have fled the country and remain at large.

Five Somali men have been killed in the fighting waged by Al-Shabaab for control of war-torn Somalia. Another Minneapolis man, a convert to Islam, also was killed....

The Minnesota investigation took off in October 2008, when Shirwa Ahmed, an American citizen who attended high school and college in Minneapolis, died as part of a coordinated suicide bombing attack in northern Somalia. Ahmed's death immediately heightened fears in the U.S. intelligence community that other Somali men from the United States who left to train and fight with a terrorist group might return to the United States and carry out an attack here.

While FBI officials say they've found no evidence of planned attacks on U.S. soil, investigators learned that many of the men who left here were indeed trained to fight in Somalia.

Over the next year, investigators say, more than a dozen young local men were seduced to the cause of fighting for Al-Shabaab, a group the U.S. State Department said is aligned with Al-Qaida. Al-Shabaab has been fighting for control of Somalia, but it also has extended its reach with attacks in neighboring countries.

One of the key local figures in romanticizing the fight was Cabdulaahi Ahmed Faarax. According to court records, Faarax used stories of his own fighting in Somalia to recruit others.

As part of his pitch, Faarax said that he "experienced true brotherhood" while fighting. Travel for jihad was the best thing that they could do, he said.

Those recruited by Faarax were reportedly trained by Somali, Arab and Western instructors "in the use of small arms, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and military-style tactics," records say. They also were indoctrinated against Ethiopian, American, Israeli and Western beliefs....

Details are sketchy at the moment, and as is always so in the heat of breaking events not all that is being reported may turn out to be accurate. But it does seem likely that there is rioting in Dudley, provoked by Muslim gangs. Pamela Geller is following events closely over at Atlas Shrugs, and is updating with exclusive reports, so check back there often. Here is part of her report on what has been reported so far:

The EDL, the standard bearers of freedom in the UK, planned on another peaceful demonstration in Dudley today. They have come under fierce attack. Details are sketchy at the moment. Will update as news breaks. Do not look to the media for accurate reporting. They will report on this the way they report on the tea party: lies, distortions, slander.

The "Muslim Defense League" had planned to be there. According to EDL media, the EDL is being subjected to assaults by the police. Injuries have been caused and there is rioting in Dudley...gangs of Muslims are attacking people...THE MEDIA IS NOT REPORTING ANY OF THESE EVENTS...

Follow this developing story here.

Look at the AFP headline: "Gunmen kill 16 Shiite Muslims in Pakistan: officials." Note how the mainstream media readily identifies the victims as Muslims, but not the perpetrators, even though they were just as Muslim as their victims, and were killing them at least in part because they regarded them as Rafidite dogs, heretics from the true Islam.

In the story also, the victims are again identified as "Shi'ite Muslims" and the violence described as "sectarian," but the aggressors are identified only obliquely. Since the violence is "sectarian" and "the incident took place...in the Sunni dominated Charkhel area," we can surmise that the murderers were "Sunni Muslims," but they're never identified as such.

This is of a piece with the mainstream media's general tendency to whitewash violence committed by Muslims in the name of Islam. Muslims can only be victims. When they kill, they're not Muslims anymore, they're just "gunmen."

"Gunmen kill 16 Shiite Muslims in Pakistan: officials," from AFP, July 17:

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) - Sixteen Shiite Muslims were killed and four wounded Saturday in an apparent sectarian ambush in a remote tribal town in northwest Pakistan, a paramilitary spokesman and local officials said.

The incident took place early Saturday in the Sunni dominated Charkhel area on Tal-Parachinar road in the violence-hit Kurram tribal district, close to the Afghan border.

The victims were heading to Peshawar in two passenger vehicles when unidentified attackers ambushed them in a hail of gunfire, officials said.

Major Fazal-Ur-Rehman, a spokesman for the paramilitary Frontier Corps, confirmed the attack.

Local administrative and intelligence officials also confirmed the incident and said that all those killed were Shiite Muslims....

An update on this story: several Christian activists from the Acts 17 Apologetics group were arrested in Dearborn, Michigan a few weeks ago, after they started having discussions with Muslims. Is it now illegal -- in accord with Sharia -- to preach Christianity to Muslims in the United States? Dearborn Mayor John B. O'Reilly Jr. has been taking a lot of heat for these arrests, understandably, on First Amendment grounds, and so in response he published a statement with the hotly defensive title, "Please consider the following before condemning us."

In it, he makes the bizarre claim that the City of Dearborn is "under attack" from the Acts 17 group:

The City of Dearborn has been under attack for several years by a group identifying themselves as Acts 17 Apologetics. They arrive in Dearborn with the intent to disrupt a local cultural festival and misrepresent facts in order to further their mission of raising funds through emotional response. The funds they raise are then used to finance travel and cameras to disrupt other events in other cities.

He also said that the group only "pretended to be arrested":

Yes, I said pretended to be arrested. In a video they have posted on their website, they are standing near the Ferris wheel when some police officers approached them on Saturday, June 19. They lead you to believe that they were arrested shortly thereafter for passing out Christian flyers. Although they were temporarily detained for violating the festival rules regarding the location of the distribution of literature, they were not arrested on that day. And they were never arrested for passing out flyers.

On Friday, June 18, they behaved very differently than what you saw on film from Saturday, June 19. They were not handing out flyers but were aggressively engaging passers-by in confrontational debate when they were arrested and cited for Breach of the Peace and Failure to Obey the Lawful Order of a Police Officer. See www.cityofdearborn.org for more details.

All right. Let's go to the videotapes. The top video is footage of the arrest of two Acts 17 Apologetics activists, Nabeel Qureshi and Paul Rezkalla. It shows Nabeel having a peaceful conversation with Muslims just before being arrested. Paul was simply standing there with a camcorder.

The second video shows Dearborn police arresting Negeen, a young Christian girl, apparently for the crime of holding a camera and telling them to stop touching her. Her trial for "Disturbing the Peace" and "Failure to Obey a Police Order" is set for September 20. Pre-trial is August 30.

These videos paint a very different picture from what the police reports and mayor are saying. And they certainly leave wide open the question that the Dearborn mayor tried to close -- as to whether or not Dearborn police were kowtowing to Sharia and Islamic supremacism and arresting these Christians simply for proselytizing.

More details here.

They were apparently proud that they were about to "kill and be killed" for Allah (cf. Qur'an 9:111). "The last moments: Two suicide bombers pose for the camera as they strap on explosive vests before killing 28 at Iranian mosque," from the Daily Mail, July 16 (thanks to Twostellas):

These are the last moments of two suicide bombers as they strap on explosive vests minutes before detonating them at a prominent Shi'ite mosque in south east Iran.

Sunni Muslim rebel group Jundollah has claimed responsibility for the attack near the Grand Mosque in Zahedan, which it says was in retaliation for the execution of its leader Abdolmalek Rigi last month.

Iranian clerical leaders have claimed the attack was supported by the U.S. in order to create instability in the Middle East country.

The powerful bombs killed at least 28 people at the holy site, including elite members of the Revolutionary Guard, and were apparently carried out by relatives of Abdolmalek Rigi.

Al Arabiya television reported: 'The group said the suicide attacks were carried out by Abdolbaset Rigi and Mohammad Rigi... and warned of more operations to come.'

Senior Iranian lawmaker Alaeddin Boroujerdi said the U.S. should be held accountable for the 'terrorist acts in Zahedan' because of its support for Jundollah.

Cleric Kazem Sediqi said in a sermon broadcast on state radio today: 'Once more the wicked hand of America appeared out of the sleeves of ignorant and mercenary people.'...

What? Not the Zionist Jews?

Great news, which predictably, the mainstream media is spinning as the spreading of an "anti-Muslim message," as if it were anti-Muslim to stand for the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, and the equality of rights of all people before the law. No one, of course, calls them on their plantation mentality.

"Dutch Politician Forms Anti-Islam Coalition," by Alex Rossi for SkyNews, July 16:

Controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders has said he is forming an international "freedom alliance" to amplify his anti-Muslim message across the West.

Mr Wilders will launch the movement later this year in five countries: the United States, Canada, France, Germany and Britain.

The aim of the alliance is to end immigration of people from Muslim nations.

"The message: 'Stop Islam, defend freedom', is a message that's not only important for the Netherlands but for the whole free Western world," Mr Wilders told the Dutch parliament.

The far-right politician identified the five nations as "ripe" for his message as they already have a large number of Muslim immigrants and face a threat from Islamic terrorists....

Torture: the foosball table looks old

"Life skills" classes? Hey, I thought Obama was going to cut out the torture!

From the bulging How-Can-I-Get-Sentenced-To-Gitmo file: "Gitmo Detainees Serve Time By Playing Games, Talking to Family on Skype, Taking Classes," by Mike Levine for FoxNews.com, July 13 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

President Obama has not fulfilled his pledge to close the detainee prison at Guantanamo Bay, but he has brought Skype, Playstation3 and "life skills" classes to the detainees at the island facility.

While the 181 men being held in the prison wait to learn their fates after the administration fell through on its January 2010 deadline to move them out, 90 percent now live in a communal environment that includes Skype, the online video chat service, and access to a 17,000-book library.

That's up from 40 percent of detainees a year ago.

The "Twilight" series, a hit among so-called "tweens," is also popular with detainees, the camp's "librarian" said. [...]

But, McManus said, the Skype sessions are monitored "so they won't give away force protection information."

"Obviously we don't want them to say, 'I'm here at this camp. There's this many people here, and this is where the guards are,'" he said....

How reassuring!

Or, in English, Truth wins out over lies.

Thanks to David for the chart.

This story is totally preposterous, but hey, it's Friday afternoon. I just hope none of these jihad monkeys commit adultery:

"Narrated 'Amr bin Maimun: 'During the pre-lslamic period of ignorance I saw a she-monkey surrounded by a number of monkeys. They were all stoning it, because it had committed illegal sexual intercourse. I too, stoned it along with them.'" -- Bukhari 5.58.188

"Taliban training monkeys for Jihad?," from PTI, July 14 (thanks to all who sent this in):

NEW YORK: The US-led forces fighting the Taliban fighters in Afghanistan might soon encounter 'gun-totting' monkeys, trained for 'jihad', if a rumour doing the rounds in the Chinese media is to be believed.

NATO officials and military experts have scoffed at the report originating in the Chinese media, which says that the Taliban are training monkeys to fight the US-led military.

The New York Post cited the state-run People's Daily as saying that the Taliban is "training monkeys to use weapons to attack American troops".

"... the Taliban forces have tried any possible means and figured out a method to train monkeys as 'replacement killers' against American troops," Stars and Stripes quoted the Chinese daily as saying.

The militants were arming the primates with AK-47 rifles, machine guns and trench mortars in the Waziristan tribal region bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan, it claimed.

The monkeys soldiers are being turned into snipers at a secret Taliban training base and are in turn being rewarded with 'bananas and peanuts'....

Suicidal dhimmitude. "Nijmegen Municipality Maintains Subsidy for Sharia Website," from NIS News, July 16 (thanks to all who sent this in):

NIJMEGEN, 16/07/10 - Nijmegen municipality sees no reason to withdraw its subsidy to an ultra-orthodox Islam website. According to Mayor Thom de Graaf, all unacceptable content has already been removed from the site.

The centre-left D66 mayor, the party's national leader between 1998 and 2003, acknowledges in a letter to the municipal council that some text, cartoons and links which were on the Ar Rayaan foundation site were completely "unacceptable." But the municipality demanded that the Islamic foundation remove these from its website and that has been done, according to De Graaf.

The local conservatives (VVD) had requested an explanation. The party questioned how it could happen that a foundation that promotes Sharia should receive 3,500 euros from the Nijmegen budget for integration and participation, as became known recently.

Alderman Floris Tas has had a meeting with Ar Rayaan, at which apologies were reportedly made. The municipality says a "sharper" eye will be kept on the activities of the foundation, but it is not withdrawing the subsidy for 2010.

In fact, the website remains a patchwork of controversial texts. For example, the visitor can still read that men and women should only speak to each other if it is strictly necessary. The site also says that Western dress invites rape and that Islam "takes strong action" to effect the rule of the laws of the Koran.

Non-Muslims have "absolutely no right to seize the reins of power in any part of God's earth nor to direct the collective affairs of human beings according to their own misconceived doctrines." If they do, "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." -- Syed Abul Ala Maududi, founder of the Pakistani political party Jamaat-e-Islami

Maududi's writings do indeed encourage "militancy and terrorism," and it is important to note that they are completely mainstream in the Islamic world. It would be hard to find an Islamic bookstore in America or Europe that doesn't carry his books -- and that yet again raises questions about just how "moderate" Muslims in the West really are. I am not in favor of book banning, but this action by the Bangladeshi government is the first official recognition of any kind by anyone that Maududi is an Islamic supremacist whose works aid the jihad.

"Bangladesh bans books written by radical Islamic author," by Anbarasan Ethirajan for BBC News, July 16:

The Bangladeshi government has ordered mosques and libraries across the country to remove all books written by a controversial Islamic scholar.

The chief of the government-funded Islamic Foundation told the BBC that the books by Syed Abul Ala Maududi encouraged "militancy and terrorism".

Mr Maududi - who died in 1979 - is the founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami party.

His works are essential reading for supporters of the Jamaat-e-Islami party in the region.

Born in India, the Pakistani scholar is considered the most prominent theorist of radical Islam in modern South Asian history.

But Bangladeshi officials say Mr Maududi's writings promote radicalism and his ideological goal was to capture power in the name of Islam.

"His writings are against the peaceful ideology of Islam. So, it is not correct to keep books of Mr Maududi in mosques," Islamic Foundation Director-General Shamim Mohammad Afjal told the BBC.

The government has now ordered nearly 24,000 libraries attached to mosques to remove his books immediately. Some have already started to do so.

A senior official from Jamaat-e-Islami, ATM Azharul Islam, described the move as an attack on Islam.

"Mr Maududi's books are being published in many countries and there have been no complaints against his writings so far," he said....

Indeed not. But that was most likely due solely to ignorance about what those writings contained.

Hoping to "strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah" (Qur'an 8:60)

"Second terror attack may have targeted city's clubs, restaurants," by Mike Levine for FoxNews/Newscore via the New York Post, July 16 (thanks to Davida):

The failed bombing attempt over Detroit on Christmas Day may not have been the only attack that extremists planned for the 2009 holiday, with intelligence from overseas indicating three weeks earlier that a plot targeting New York City on the same day may have been in the works, according to an FBI report obtained Friday by the Fox News Channel.

"The final target of the attack was not known, but extremist members had allegedly discussed restaurants and night clubs located in New York City," the FBI's assistant legal attache in London wrote in a so-called threat report exactly three weeks before Christmas.

"The extremists allegedly discussed conducting the attack on Dec. 25, to coincide with the Christmas holiday."

The Dec. 4 report, sent to U.S. and British counterterrorism officials, warned that "extremists allegedly planned to conduct a test run" that evening, hiding components for an improvised explosive device in a shipment of khat, a plant often chewed like tobacco that is a tradition for many in East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.

"The extremists allegedly planned to smuggle unknown components of an unspecified explosive device onto a cargo flight departing ... Nairobi, Kenya on Dec. 4 with a final destination of London, England," said the report, which did not not identify the extremists or disclose the source of the information. "The group allegedly did not intend to detonate an explosive device on an aircraft."

In England, a "Caucasian British Muslim ... would [allegedly] facilitate the transfer of the components to [a] flight bound for NYC," according to the report.

In New York, "the group was coordinating its efforts with a Somali man living [in the city]," said the report, which identified the possible U.S. suspect only as "Mohammed." The report did not say whether "Mohammed" was a first name or a surname, noting that authorities had no further information about him....

In "O'Reilly's Burqa Betrayal" at FrontPage, Jamie Glazov zeroes in on one of the reasons why there is so much confusion even among conservatives about Islamic supremacism, its goals, and what can be done to resist those goals:

Bill O'Reilly is clearly continuing his shameless and cowardly surrender to Sharia Law. Daily on his program, The O'Reilly Factor on FoxNews.com, he engages in the standard and phony obfuscations about the jihadi threat the West faces, consistently refusing to honestly name and label the Islamic foundations of the terrorist enterprise. Back in April 2010, he blatantly sided with our society's dhimmis, blaming South Park ^[1] for doing the Mohammed shows. Rather than praising Parker's and Stone's courage, standing up for their right to make any script they wished, and denouncing the despots who threatened their lives (and the tenets of the Islamic religion that sanction such threats), O'Reilly publicly promoted submitting to Sharia Law, thereby surrendering ^[2] to the forces who killed filmmaker Theo van Gogh.

Now, this past Tuesday, on his July 13 program, O'Reilly hit a new low, making a grotesque statement about the millions of suffering persecuted Muslim women around the world. In a bizarre debate with Laura Ingraham about France's move to ban the burqa, O'Reilly flippantly jokes about a tragic and deadly reality in which any serious, sensitive person would find nothing laughable. With great self-satisfaction, O'Reilly teases Ingraham about "rooting for the French" while mind-bogglingly siding against the French ban. He makes a disparaging reference to "the Western eye" to imply that forced veiling is only oppressive through our Western lens — as though there is no universal standard of human rights. Priding himself on being for "tolerance" and, therefore, for being in favor of allowing Muslim women to veil, he affirms that "most" Muslim women want to veil themselves.

A vile statement like this reveals such ignorance and heartlessness in the face of mass human suffering that one does not even know where to begin in response. But here, nevertheless, the attempt shall be made:

First and foremost, stating that "most" people favor something in an environment where verbalized dissent or oppositional action is viciously punished is meaningless. In other words, to say that "most" Cubans support Castro or that "most" North Koreans support Kim Jong Il, when anti-regime thoughts and acts will, in these circumstances, get a Cuban or North Korean imprisoned, tortured or killed, is disingenuous and erroneous to the extreme.

Thus, the slightest suggestion that Muslim women "want" to veil themselves pushes millions of suffering victims into invisibility. Under Islamic gender apartheid, expressions and actions by women in support of the ingredients of the tyranny that enslave them are utterly hollow if, within the societal structure, any contrary expression or behavior will be punished by social stigma, imprisonment, maiming, mutilation, torture, gang rape ^[3] and execution. So, in Islamic cultures, women do not have a choice concerning whether they can veil or not veil. If they decide to throw their covering off, they will face horrendous punishment, which includes, like in the case of 20-year-old Fatima Bibi, acid being thrown in the face ^[4] and, as in the case of 16-year-old Aqsa Parvez ^[5], murder. [...]

And so, one now wonders: what are Bill O'Reilly's motives in all of this? When, for instance, will he invite guests like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Nonie Darwish and Wafa Sultan? When will he invite...Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer? These guests will be able to tell him and his viewers a lot about the fate that Muslim women suffer for not wearing the veil — and the theological reasons for their suffering. They will be able to introduce him to both victims of attempted honor killings ^[9] and family members of those who have been brutalized or murdered for not wearing the veil. [...]

Read it all.

Dave Gaubatz is the author of Muslim Mafia: Inside The secret underworld to Islamize America. Dave was the first U.S. Federal Agent in Iraq in 2003. He has publicly exposed numerous Muslim Brotherhood supporters, including Hamas-linked CAIR.

Dave will be holding a six-hour training session in Jacksonville, FL, on July 31, 2010, during which he will be providing exclusive details on terrorist supporters operating inside America. All are welcome!

And even if you can't make it to Jacksonville, visit the new site: www.muslimmafiainternational.com. "This site is dedicated to the innocent men, women, and children worldwide who deserve the truth be told about Islamic based terrorist organizations and their supporters. They are in your 'backyard' and the threat is being ignored."

Nice propaganda ploy in the picture above, but with a 98% rate of prevalence (at least 80% as infibulations) in Somalia, how well does one engage in combat with the mobility-compromising complications of female genital mutilation? "After Kampala attack, Somali militants promise more operations," from CNN, July 15:

(CNN) -- Al-Shabaab, the Somali militant group that claimed responsibility for Sunday's deadly attacks in Uganda, is promising to "unleash a new tide of terror," but Uganda's leader has vowed to "deal with the authors of this crime and fight back."

"This is only the beginning," Al-Shabaab warned Thursday in a statement on the internet.

Noteworthy: The propagation of a message of destruction and subjugation on an invention the jihadists could never develop themselves because they're too busy destroying the physical and intellectual building blocks for innovation and the generation of wealth. They should thank their lucky stars (and crescent) for the kuffar.

Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the bombings that killed 76 people in two locations in the Ugandan capital of Kampala. The attackers struck an Ethiopian restaurant in a neighborhood dotted with bars and popular among expatriates. Two other bombs exploded at a rugby center.

Police in Uganda have reported arrests in connection with the bombings, which also wounded dozens of people.

Al-Shabaab had said it is waging war "against 6,000 collaborators," a reference to the African Union peacekeeping force that includes Ugandan troops and warned Ugandans to refrain from involvement in Somalia. Burundi is a main troop contributor nation, and it has been threatened, too....

From our This is Why You're Poor Department comes this study in Islamic supremacist turf-control. As is standard, both schools have been "attacked and accused of trying to convert children to Christianity," a major no-no when the propagation of non-Islamic religions is absolutely forbidden under Islamic law.

The fact that so many in prominent positions of Kashmiri society have relied on these and similar schools must certainly be an embarrassment to those who insist Islam can and must control every aspect of human existence. "Missionary forced to leave Kashmir because his schools are 'too good'," by Nirmala Carvalho for AsiaNews, July 12:

Srinagar (AsiaNews) - Fr Jim Borst, a Dutch Catholic missionary, in charge of two schools must leave Kashmir and India by the end of July after receiving notice from the government of Jammu-Kashmir. Fr. Borst already received a similar warning in 2003, but just four months ago the government had renewed his visa until 2014.

Fr. Borst is the only member of the Institute Mill Hill missionary in the Kashmir valley and along with Predhuman Joseph Dhar, a Brahmin Hindu convert to Catholicism who is very close to Fr. Borst, had been working on a tranlstion of the Bible into the local Kashmir language. The Mill Hill institute has been present in Jammu-Kashmir since 1891-92, where it has always been involved in educational and health care.

"I'm really sorry. It is a great loss for me and the entire civil society of Kashmir. Fr. Borst has lived here since 1963", Mgr. Peter Celestine, Bishop of Jammu-Srinagar, tells AsiaNews.

Predhuman Joseph Dhar, tells AsiaNews: "The notice is a sparked by jealous vested interests".

Fr. Borst has run two schools in Kashmir since 1997. Both are called "School of the Good Shepherd", one in Pulwama and the other in Shivpora, Srinagar. The Dutch Catholic priest has always been active in education and his schools, where staff is 99% Muslim, is renowned for the quality of teaching.

Joseph Dhar believes that this is why they want to remove Fr. Borst: "The Muslim intelligentsia schools are unable to compete with his". Twice, in 2003 the schools of the Good Shepherd were attacked and accused of trying to convert children to Christianity.

Previously Fr. Borst directed St. Joseph School in Baramulla and Burn Hall School in Srinagar. The educational facilities of Catholic and Protestant missionaries in Jammu-Kashmir have never had the aim of proselytism. Many Muslim personalities in position of authority were educated in these schools such as Omar Abdullah, the current head of government in Jammu-Kashmir, Farooq Abdullah, a former head of government, and Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, one of the founders of Aphc (All Parties Hurriyat Conference).

Jammu-Kashmir is a state in northern India that Pakistan has claimed for decades. In Kashmir the Christian population counts 14 thousand faithful, less than 0.0014% of the population, which is 97% Muslim.

They seem to think that murdering Vilks was something justified -- indeed, called for -- by Islam. And once again, no "moderates" have come forward to explain how they're getting the Religion of Peace™ all wrong. And so the cycle endlessly repeats. An update on this story. "Brothers jailed for Vilks arson attack," from The Local, July 15 (thanks to Fjordman):

The two brothers accused of fire-bombing the home of Swedish Muhammad cartoonist Lars Vilks, have been imprisoned, with the older brother being served a three year sentence and the younger two years.

The brothers, from Landskrona in the south of Sweden, faced charges of arson at Helsingborg district court, a crime that carries a penalty of 2-8 years imprisonment.

The prosecutor had sought a six year sentence for the elder brother, a 21-year-old, and four years for his 19-year-old younger brother.

As the court trial opened last Wednesday the 21-year-old defendant described Lars Vilks as "God's enemy, he is the Prophet's enemy, he is the Muslims' enemy."

"He is Islam's greatest enemy right now," he added.

The news agency did not give the brothers' names, but the Expressen tabloid has identified them as Mentor and Mensur Alija, aged 21 and 19.

Vilks has faced numerous death threats and a suspected assassination plot since his drawing of the Muslim prophet with the body of a dog was first published by Swedish regional daily Nerikes Allehanda in 2007 to illustrate an editorial on the importance of freedom of expression.

The drawing by Vilks prompted protests by Muslims in the town of Örebro, west of Stockholm, where the newspaper is based, while Egypt, Iran and Pakistan made formal complaints.

An Al-Qaeda front organisation then offered $100,000 to anyone who murdered Vilks - with a $50,000 bonus if his throat was slit - and $50,000 for the death of Nerikes Allehanda editor-in-chief Ulf Johansson....

The slit throat bonus comes from the Qur'an's directive to "strike at the necks" of the unbelievers (47:4; cf. 8:12).

Adding perjury to her original sentence of two years and four months. Now she is looking at ten years for aiding the jihad. Leftist/Jihadist Alliance Update: "Attorney who helped terrorist gets 10 years in prison," from AP, July 15:

A judge had resentenced a 70-year-old civil rights lawyer to 10 years in prison for letting a jailed Egyptian sheik communicate with his radical followers.

Federal Judge John Koeltl sentenced Lynne Stewart in Manhattan after she pleaded with him to reimpose the two-year, four-month sentence he had originally given her in 2006. She said she has been diminished since her November imprisonment.

An appeals court had ordered a new sentencing, saying the judge needed to consider whether she committed perjury. Koeltl says she did and he says she lacked remorse after her first sentencing....

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

Sunni-Shi'ite Jihad Update. "'More than 20 dead' in suicide bomb blasts in Iran," from the BBC, July 15 (thanks to all who sent this in):

More than 20 people have been killed and scores injured in a suspected twin suicide bomb attack at a Shia mosque in Iran, officials say.

Iranian state media said at least 100 were hurt in the blasts outside the Jamia mosque in the south-eastern city of Zahedan.

The attacks, in a largely Sunni area, were the work of suicide bombers, the reports said.

Members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard were reportedly among the dead.

The city, capital of Sistan-Baluchistan province, has been targeted before by the Sunni rebel group Jundallah (Soldiers of God), whose leader Abdolmalek Rigi was hanged last month.

No group immediately said it carried out Thursday's attack.

The blasts came as worshippers celebrated the anniversary of the birth of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.

'Suicide operation'

"The [first] attacker, dressed in women's clothing, was trying to get in the mosque, but was prevented," local member of parliament Hossein Ali Shahriari told Fars news agency.

"When people came to rescue those hit in that blast, another bomber blew himself up. Three to four have been killed at least in the first attack."...

Spencer with Kent Ekeroth (left) and Daniel Assai of the Sweden Democratic Party

I was in Sweden a couple of weeks ago, speaking at the invitation of the pro-freedom Sweden Democratic Party. If you missed the videos, go here and here.

Unless some pro-Islamic supremacist Facebook groups that have been shut down are reinstated. "2.5 Million Muslims Threatening to Leave Facebook," from FoxNews.com, July 15:

In the wake of Facebook's Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, which outraged Muslims and led to worldwide bans, a group of Muslims has issued an ultimatum: reinstate a handful of pages or lose millions of users.

The group, apparently fueled by Facebook-clone Madina.com, are outraged at the removal of several very popular Islamic pages from Facebook.com, purges the group reportedly claim took place after the outcry over Draw Mohammed Day. The pages, such as Facebook.com/Rassoul.Allaah and Facebook.com/Logo.Ramadan each reportedly had hundreds of thousands or even millions of Facebook "likes," indicating millions of fans.

Unless the popular pages are reinstated by midnight on July 21st, the group plans to leave Facebook for Madina.com. The group's message is being spread through a comment that decries "irresponsible behavior," a comment being posted by thousands of users to Facebook posts mainly written by site admins (here's just one example)....

The apotheosis of multiculturalism. Ain't tolerance grand? For everyone except Aminat Magomadova, that is. Honor-killing mother walks: "Calgary mom who strangled daughter gets suspended sentence," by Daryl Slade in the Calgary Herald, July 15 (thanks to Josephine):

CALGARY - The Calgary mother who killed her teenage daughter by strangling her with a scarf more than three years ago will not have to spend a day in jail, a judge ruled on Thursday.

But, in suspending the sentence of Aset Magomadova and placing her on probation for three years, Court of Queen's Bench Justice Sal LoVecchio said the penalty can still meet the ends of justice.

"At first blush (a suspended sentence) may sound like a get out of jail free card. It is not," emphasized the judge.

"The court has said the act in question does not merit a period of incarceration. What the court has done is reserved or to use the word of the statute, 'suspended' judgment on that point for a period of time on conditions. If the conditions are satisfied, then the individual will not be sentenced. If they are breached, the individual will be brought back to the court to be dealt with further."

Magomadova, 40, a refugee from the wartorn country of Chechnya, was originally charged with second-degree murder for killing her daughter Aminat, 14, on Feb. 26, 2007, at their Calgary home.

But LoVecchio deemed she did not intend to kill her, even though such an act required at least 2 1/2 minutes of continuous strangulation to cause death, and convicted her last October of the lesser included offence of manslaughter.

Dhimmi Christians are dead chuffed:

Marilyn Millions, one of Magomadova's sponsors with St. James Anglican Church, said outside court she was relieved "at the compassion and mercy that has been shown" by the court.

"There were lots of tears and emotion," she said. "If you've lived through it and you've gotten to know these people, it's all in the context. It's a lot different than reading a little bit about it. It's a very different situation."...

Do you remember when George Casey was in the news, less than a year ago, in the immediate aftermath of the murders at Fort Hood by Nidal Hasan? Hasan was a Muslim, the son of "Palestinians" who had been not only allowed into this country but given the rare privilege of American citizenship. He had, furthermore, accepted full payment of his medical school tuition by the Army. Then as a psychiatrist in the Army he was earning $90,000 a year, but because he took Islam to heart, because he did not allow self-interest to get in the way of his carrying out what he regarded as his duty as a good Muslim: to "smite the Unbelievers" for....for being Unbelievers -- he murdered eleven unarmed men, fellow members of the American military.

And George Casey, Chief of Staff of the Army, immediately expressed his concern that the "real tragedy" would be if, because of this event, harm were done - hadn't another kind of harm already been done? - to the Great Aim And Only End Of American Life, Diversity: "As great a tragedy as this was, it would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty as well." He was severely and properly criticized for this, but not by any of those in power. No, in the face of such criticism, they didn't dare rush to his rescue - after all, he was merely mouthing the Party Line - but they did nothing to suggest that they in any way found his remark remarkable. And Casey did not learn a lesson. He did not ponder the idiocy of what he had said, for a few months later, in a February 2010 interview, Casey warmed again to the theme: "Our diversity not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse."

It was one more Burnt Offering on the Altar of An Idol of the Age - "Diversity" - and one more example of assertions being made without any evidence at all to support them, such as that "Diversity is our strength." (In the mighty contests to come, including possibly one with China, a country that, like Japan and Korea, does not worship or admire or have any great desire to enforce or bring about "diversity," we shall see just how much "diversity" turns out to be "our strength.")

Well, sometimes one almost feels a certain sympathy for General Casey, the hapless political general, because it is unclear if he is simply mouthing the script or if he really believes it. He was back in the news, fleetingly, and far too unremarked upon, two weeks ago, with what he said at the Aspen Institute, meeting in a bucolic setting. Here is the important part of what he said:

An ever-widening circle of people seems to have been involved in this attempted jihad mass-murder. "No bail for Maine man detained in car bomb probe," from AP, July 15:

PORTLAND, Maine -- Bail has been revoked for a Pakistani man held on an immigration violation in Maine while authorities investigated the attempted Times Square car bombing.

Barry Hoffman, Pakistan's consul general in Boston, says the family of Mohammad Shafiq Rahman had rounded up the $10,000 to secure his release only to learn the judge revoked bail at the urging of immigration officials.

Rahman, of South Portland, Maine, is one of three Pakistani men in New England charged with immigration violations as authorities investigated the May 1 attempted car bombing....

According to Hoffman, Rahman knew Shahzad, but they hadn't had contact in years.

Feel the love. "Turkish church defaced with Islamist graffiti," by Mehmet Ali Bulun for Hurriyet Daily News, July 14 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

Police have started an investigation after a suspected group of people defaced the façade of the 1,700-year-old Mor Jacob Syriac Orthodox Church in Nusaybin, in the southeastern province of Mardin, with pro-Islamic slogans.

The offenders allegedly defaced the stone walls of the church on Monday with various slogans, such as "Clear off, bastards," "Clear off, Zionist dogs," "Heretics, lay off," and "Zionist powers, clear off," in Turkish and, "Allah u Muhammed," and "Prophet Muhammad, fight the infidels and hypocrites," in Arabic.

The police will fingerprint the lid of a paint tin found on the ground at the site of the graffiti and will also fingerprint the wire fence surrounding the church, which is currently undergoing restoration.

Nusaybin Mayor Ayşe Gökkan and members of the town council also went to the church upon hearing of the vandalism, denouncing the act....

Actually, they are just fine with the ban on non-Muslims in Mecca. That's not any infringement on human rights. Human rights are only infringed when Muslims are asked to conform to the mores of the non-Muslim lands to which they have come. "Muslims say the total veil ban violates human rights and religious freedom," from Asia News, July 14 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

Beirut (AsiaNews) - The French law banning the veil covering the face (burqa and niqab) could give rise to a new wave of Islamophobia and state racism. This is the harsh condemnation of the President of the 'Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), Masood Shadjareh, to the initial approval by the French parliament of a law that requires women to have their faces uncovered in all public places.

Shadjareh's reaction, in an interview with official Iranian agency IRNA, is the harshest yet from the Muslim world that criticizes the violation of religious freedom and respect for Islamic culture, but above all which seems to be waiting for the Constitutional Court or European institutions to condemn these violations, although there are those who evoke the memory of Nazi persecution....

Of course. But never mind that the real neo-Nazis are all on the side of the jihad.

According to Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, Muslims could bring about the end times by murdering Jews: "The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews" (Sahih Muslim 6985)

An update on this story. "Jihad cell suspected of targeting Jews, pope," by Hagai Einav for Ynet News, July 15:

Cleared for publication: Eight residents of the northern city of Nazareth and the local council of Yafa an-Naseriyye were arrested last month on suspicion of dealing with weapons and discussing the possibility of murdering soldiers and Jews, and even target the pope.

The eight men, one of whom is a minor, were arrested by the Shin Bet on suspicion of committing various weapons-related offenses.

According to the indictment, the men expressed interest in jihad - a holy war undertaken by Muslims against those who do not believe in Islam. "The defendants, on their own and together, visited radical Islamic websites dealing with jihad and weapons, terror and arms, and spoke about jihad while examining possibilities for implementing it."

The eight indicted men were identified as Bader Salah, 33, of Yafa an-Naseriyye; Suhil Salah, 26, of Yafa an-Naseriyye; Misara Yaad, 28, of Yafa an-Naseriyye; Abdel Rahman Abu Salim, 19, of Nazareth; Ibrahim Muhammad Abu Aaqab, 27, of Nazareth; Bilal Ubeid, 29, of Yafa an-Naseriyye; and Sabri Narni, 29 of Yafa an-Naseriyye. The ninth defendant, who was a minor when he committed the alleged acts, was not named due to a gag order.

Judge Yonatan Avraham extended the eight defendants' remand until July 28 with their lawyers' consent.

According to the indictment, some of the defendants discussed the need to obtain a weapon and murder a Jew, and four of them discussed a plan to target soldiers. Two of them also discussed the possibility of targeting Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to Nazareth last year.

Two defendants explored the possibility of traveling to Chechnya and join the jihad of Muslim rebels against Russia, and three of them searched for anti-Islamic targets in order to act against them. In one case they planned to torch a Nazareth church, but failed to implement the plan due to an iron gate at the entrance....

The name "Cordoba" has been marketed to gullible Americans as being a place where Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived in harmony and peace, but actually Medieval Muslim Spain enforced the dhimma and systematically oppressed the Jews and Christians, and was the site of a Muslim pogrom against the Jews in the year 1011 -- 1000 years before this mega-mosque is slated to open.

Maybe enough people caught on to the name's bitter irony, and the deceivers decided it was best deep-sixed.

"Cordoba House mosque near Ground Zero slaps new name on itself with Park51," by Samuel Goldsmith for the New York Daily News, July 14 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The Cordoba House is now Park51.

Developers behind the controversial 13-story Islamic community center and prayer space near Ground Zero announced Tuesday a bland new name for the project.

Spokesman Oz Sultan said the new name puts emphasis on the community center aspect of the project rather than religion.

The name was derived from the address of the planned new building, 51 Park Place....

Bravo. "Oklahoma congressional candidate says he will not accept money from an Islamic group," by Julie Bisbee for the Oklahoman, July 15:

A congressional candidate has refused a campaign donation from the executive director of an Islamic-American association, saying the group has ties to terrorist groups.

Kevin Calvey, a candidate for the 5th Congressional District seat, said Wednesday he refused a $25 online donation from Razi Hashim, the executive director of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR.

Hashim said his donation was a personal contribution and not meant to be affiliated with the nonprofit group that employs him.

"I thought on a personal level, we could talk as two men, as people of God," Hashim said. "Jesus said to love your neighbor; we have similar teachings in Islam as well."...

"Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. Those who follow him are merciful to one another but ruthless to the unbelievers" -- Qur'an 48:29.

Calvey, an attorney who helped prosecute terrorism suspects in the Iraqi court system, said he had no problem with the Muslim faith, but he could not support the council.

"I worked alongside Muslims every day who were fighting against terrorism," Calvey said.

Calvey said he would have no problem meeting with members of the council, if they left the organization.

"I haven't met with them, nor will I," Calvey said. "CAIR is the moral equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan. I wouldn't meet with them either."...

No Hebrew edition for the people the Qur'an calls the worst enemies of the Muslims (5:82).

Islamic Antisemitism Alert: "Jordan's Queen Rania rejects offer to publish Hebrew edition of her children's book," by Maya Sela in Haaretz, July 14 (thanks to Alex):

Queen Rania of Jordan has turned down several offers to publish a Hebrew version of a children's book she recently wrote. The book, which was published in the United States by Hyperion under the title "The Sandwich Swap" for children between 4 and 8 years old, was co-written with Kelly DiPucchio and illustrated by Tricia Tusa.

During a promotional campaign for the book, the queen described it as the story of two girls who let the food they bring to school get in the way of their friendship. They disparage each other's food based on their own cultural preconceptions. The two main characters, Lily and Salma, have a lot in common, but not when it comes to their sandwiches: Lily prefers the all-American peanut butter and jelly, while Salma sticks to pita and hummus.

The two learn how to maintain their friendship, despite their cultural differences, but not without a food fight at school in which their classmates take sides. The confrontation ends, however, with a party at which the children exchange sandwiches. The book's message touches open such issues as getting to know others, openness and multiculturalism....

But not for Jews.

How enduringly strange that Misunderstanding of the Religion of Peace™ is so widespread among its most devout adherents. Yet no one ever seems to consider the implications of this for national security issues. "Nigerian sect leader praises al Qaeda, warns US," from Reuters, July 14 (thanks to Twostellas):

LAGOS (Reuters) - A former leader of a Nigerian Islamic sect behind an uprising last year which killed hundreds of people has issued a statement expressing solidarity with al Qaeda and threatening the United States.

Abubakar Shekau, a former deputy leader of the Boko Haram sect who was thought to have been killed by police in last year's fighting, offered condolences for the deaths of al Qaeda commanders in Iraq in the statement on a jihadist website.

"Do not think jihad is over. Rather jihad has just begun. O America, die with your fury," the statement said, according to a translation published by the U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group.

SITE said the statement was addressed to al Qaeda affiliated groups in Algeria, Somalia and Yemen, as well as Iraq.

A five-day uprising by Boko Haram around the northern Nigerian city of Maiduguri a year ago killed close to 800 people, as security forces fought days of gun battles to end rioting by sect members.

Boko Haram is one of a number of militant movements in northern Nigeria which wants sharia (Islamic law) to be imposed more widely in Africa's most populous nation....

Apparently he is feeling the heat over his new policy of ignoring the threat that faces us. But it is doubtful that this mention of "radical Islam" will lead to any lasting or actual change. "Obama Departs from Revised Policy, Links 'Radical Islam' to Terror Groups," from FoxNews.com, July 14:

In a rare divergence from administration policy, President Obama used the term "radical Islam" to describe the African-based terror group that took credit Monday for killing 74 people in Uganda during an interview Tuesday with the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

The interview came just three months after the administration removed such religious terms from its national security playbook and two months after Attorney General Eric Holder hesitated to link "radical Islam" to recent terror attacks and plots in the U.S. during questioning at a House Judiciary Committee hearing.

When asked about opinions attributing radical Islam's impact on the development and stability on the African continent, Obama called Islam "a great religion," but added that the radical version views as anti-Islam "any efforts to modernize, any efforts to provide basic human rights, any efforts to democratize."

"And I think that is absolutely wrong," he said. "I think the vast majority of people of the Islamic faith reject that. I think the people of Africa reject it."

Obama also accused terror groups such as Al Qaeda an Al Shabab of being racist.

"What you've seen in some of the statements that have been made by these terrorist organizations is that they do not regard African life as valuable in and of itself," he said. "They see it as a potential place where you can carry out ideological battles that kill innocents without regard to long-term consequences for their short-term tactical gains."...

Now you can breath easy: no multiculturalist sensibilities were violated as this airplane was boarded.

Video thanks to Cheryl.

He says that "jihad, holy fighting in Allah's course, with full force of numbers and weaponry, is given the utmost importance in Islam....By jihad, Islam is established....By abandoning jihad, may Allah protect us from that, Islam is destroyed, and Muslims go into inferior position, their honor is lost, their lands are stolen, their rule and authority vanish. Jihad is an obligation and duty in Islam on every Muslim."

"...You will see that the Muslim world has just started....Islam is coming to the world, inshallah, Islam will spread on the whole world. And the democracy will be defeated, and so was Communism defeated, and all the others isms and schisms will be defeated, and the word of Allah will be supreme, inshallah. And Muslims are gonna do that. And as Allah says in sura 3, verse 110 [of the Qur'an]..."

Then the video cuts to footage of some mujahedin walking around. Qur'an 3:110 says to the Muslims: "Ye are the best of peoples, evolved for mankind, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong, and believing in Allah. If only the People of the Book had faith, it were best for them: among them are some who have faith, but most of them are perverted transgressors."

Expect the usual "moderate Muslim" spokesmen to explain forthwith how Faisal Shahzad is Misunderstanding Islam. Honest Ibe Hooper? Brave Ahmed Rehab? Slick Salam al-Marayati?

Sharia dictates that a woman is not to leave the house without permission from her husband or father. "Woman gunned down by son over 'honour,'" from the Daily Times, July 14 (thanks to Block Ness):

KARACHI: A man shot his mother dead allegedly over honour at their house in Shershah police precincts on Tuesday.

According to SHO Fida Hussain, Haleema Basheer, 40, lived in a house in lane No 13 on Muhammadi Road, and was killed by her son Muneer.

SP Naeem Sheikh said the woman had left the house for a few days thrice in the past, and Muneer had been scoffed at by the neighbours because of that.

However, when his mother returned home after leaving the house for the fourth time, he shot her dead, the SP added.

Police said Muneer was an unemployed drug addict, while his father was a labourer and had four more children with the victim....

Zead Ramadan at yesterday's Landmarks Commission hearing

NBC New York identified Zead Ramadan only as a "New Yorker" and a "Muslim," and quoted him distancing Islam from the 9/11 attacks:

"The villains who did this to our country do not represent Islam in any way whatsoever," said New Yorker Zead Ramadan, who is Muslim.

The New York Post didn't identify Ramadan in any way, saying only that he "said his wife was a first responder on 9/11":

Zead Ramadan -- who said his wife was a first responder on 9/11 -- testified for the mosque.

"We are picking and choosing which houses of worship can open at which streets and we are opening a can of worms," he said, adding, "It's called Islamophobia."

CNN didn't identify him at all, except by name:

"It's called Islamaphobia, pure and simple," said Zead Ramadan while being heckled.

It's interesting that the mainstream media identified Zead Ramadan so vaguely. Maybe they did that because of who he really is.

Ramadan did indeed rile the crowd with his spurious charges of "Islamophobia" at yesterday's Landmarks Commission hearing over whether 45 Park Place, the proposed site of the Islamic supremacist Ground Zero mega-mosque, should be designated a New York City landmark. And that wasn't all he did. At one point he brushed past me and asked, "How's business?," and went over to speak with the owner of the 45 Park Place property, Sherif El-Gamal.

I didn't know what he meant, so I went over to ask him just that -- "What do you mean?"

Ramadan rounded on me and said, "You're in the Islam-hating business, Robert! And you're making big money!" That was ironic -- there he was standing with a guy who is plunking down 100 million dollars to build an Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero, and I have to go begging to raise $8,000 to place some ads on taxicabs and buses, and he says I've got big money.

But I let it pass. Instead, I responded: "'Islam hating'? Yeah, I'm against the 9/11 attacks, and stonings, and amputations..." Ramadan struck an aggrieved tone. "We're against all that!," he declared. Skeptical, I replied, "Yeah, sure you are." This hotly offended Ramadan, but I explained: "If you were really against those things, you'd be standing with me, not defaming me." He then began to hector me, but then Sherif El-Gamal called to him sternly, "Zead," and told him to cool it.

Then I tried to take his picture. But when I took out my phone, Ramadan took out his and moved as if to take my picture in turn. Of course I have no objection to having my picture taken by anyone, so I gave him a big smile and kept trying to take his picture, but he kept moving his arm in front of his face so that I couldn't get a shot. Then he and a couple of hijabbed women began moving up the aisle.

I followed. As they passed a policeman who was standing in the middle of the hall, one of the hijabbed women gestured at me and said to the policeman, "Will you please get him to stop what he is doing?" Since I wasn't doing anything but walking up the aisle behind them, it was unclear what she wanted the cop to do, but of course what it was really all about was demonizing the kuffar.

And so when we got to the back of the hall I tried again to take Ramadan's picture, and the policeman ordered me to stop. "What?" I said. "It's illegal to take someone's picture now?" He conceded that it wasn't, and allowed me to get a clear shot of Ramadan as he was being interviewed by one of the members of the fawning mainstream media (that is the picture at the top of this post).

The idea that taking someone's picture is an act of aggression that warrants asking for help from the police is an example of how Islamic supremacists claim victim status and have banished civility from the public discourse by endlessly trying to smear and demonize their opponents.

Or maybe it's just that Zead Ramadan has something to hide. NBC New York, the New York Post, and CNN didn't see fit to mention it, but Zead Ramadan is actually Board President of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Relations. CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case -- so named by the Justice Department. CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror, and that CAIR's cofounder and longtime Board chairman (Omar Ahmad), as well as its chief spokesman (Honest Ibe Hooper), have made Islamic supremacist statements.

Zead Ramadan's involvement with CAIR certainly puts his claim to be "against all that" in an intriguing new light. And his apparently close relations with Sherif El-Gamal suggests yet again that the people behind this Ground Zero mega-mosque are not what they claim to be. Contrary to his claims of moderation, the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, leader of the mega-mosque initiative, is an open advocate for Sharia. He has (like CAIR) refused to denounce Hamas. He has lied about his commitment to religious dialogue. He has lied about whether the Islamic center planned for the Ground Zero site will contain a mosque or not. And he has lied about whether or not the project is getting foreign funding. He helped fund the jihad flotilla against Israel.

But Zead Ramadan self-righteously insists that they're "against all that." There's just one problem for Zead: the truth keeps showing up at the most inconvenient times.

In view of the picture of Islam painted at yesterday's Landmark's Commission hearing and in the mainstream media, it is useful to recall this famous statement from the Ayatollah Khomeini:

Islam makes it incumbent on all adult males, provided they are not disabled or incapacitated, to prepare themselves for the conquest of [other] countries so that the writ of Islam is obeyed in every country in the world. . . . But those who study Islamic Holy War will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world. . . . Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does this mean that Muslims should sit back until they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill them [the non-Muslims], put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. Does this mean sitting back until [non-Muslims] overcome us? Islam says: Kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you! Does this mean that we should surrender [to the enemy]? Islam says: Whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for the Holy Warriors! There are hundreds of other [Qur'anic] psalms and Hadiths [sayings of the Prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all this mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.

It is important to note that this notorious and important quotation comes from Amir Taheri's book, Holy Terror: Inside the World of Islamic Terrorism, Adler & Adler, 1987, pp. 241-3.

Also I quoted it, with attribution to Taheri of course, in my book Islam Unveiled, Encounter, 2002, p. 35.

Comments by David G. Littman, NGO Representative: Association for World Education and World Union for Progressive Judaism - United Nations, Geneva:

* * * * *

After the 'Flotilla frippery' tragedy, we are viewing a 'Sword of Islam' bout with Qad'hafi's diplomat son aboard the Amalthea (renamed, al-Amal = 'Hope'). Symbolically, his first name, 'Saif al-Islam', means 'Sword of Islam' and, as a foretaste, Saif al-Islam Muammar Qad'hafi earned a doctorate at the London School of Economics after a 4 year research thesis (428 pages) on "The Role of Civil Society in the Democratisation of Global Governance Institutions: From Soft Power to Collective Decision Making." He runs an "International Charity of Development Foundation" - and he now waives his sword at sea: here and here.

It's time to grasp what is being planned stealthily for Israel - and for the West. Like the watchman in the Book of Ezechiel, let all of us who can see the sword coming - and are able to blow the trumpet loud - continue to do so "and warn the people". (33:3) Even "with a little whistle", at the UN Human Rights Council - "the conscience of humanity" - in 2 minute plus oral statements. As promised, below are the videos (and texts) delivered for WUPJ & AWE: on Gaza, the Hamas Charter, etc. (14 June, item 7), with factual, unpronounced documentation provided in square brackets and notes.

* * * * *

N.B. Researcher Jonathan Fighel has provided a pertinent analysis, The Jihadist 'Istanbul Declaration' and the Gaza Flotilla, posted by the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism on June 26, 2010, and also by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center of Israel in a redrafted version on July 7.

He refers to BBC Radio 4 reporter Bill Law, the only Western journalist at that key meeting in Istanbul (February 14-15, 2009), organized two weeks after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stormed out of the Swiss Davos debate, snubbing President Shimon Peres in Turkey's new Islamic game of nations.

Nearly 200 Arab and European Sunni Sheikhs and clerics, as well as members of Hamas, attended the Istanbul Conference and "speaker after speaker called for Jihad against Israel in support of Hamas" - 90 of them signing the declaration; one of those was Daud Abdullah, Deputy Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain (established in 1997). Bill Law noted that: "To laughter in the audience, another speaker noted that twice as many babies were born as children were killed during the war. Every death, I was told, was a martyrdom on the road to liberation." For the Arabic 'Declaration' (Hamas forum: 15 Feb. 2009.

Videos courtesy the indefatigable Pamela Hall.

Perhaps predictably, the Landmarks Commission hearing today to consider landmark status for 45 Park Place, the proposed site of the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque overlooking Ground Zero, was about much more than just whether the building at 45 Park Place merited landmark status or not. It quickly became a public forum on Islam, Muslims in America, and the appropriateness of a huge mosque at Ground Zero.

The moderator of the hearing, Robert Tierney, explained at the outset that this was a hearing to give people a forum to speak on whether 45 Park Place should be designated a landmark. He read from the relevant law, which stipulated that a property had to have special architectural or historical value to be designated a landmark. Then an aide read a summary of the building's history and features, clearly situating the Commission hearing as a consideration of the question of whether the Renaissance Italian palazzo-style features of 45 Park Place warranted landmark status. Tierney explained that no decision would be made today, but that those who had signed up to speak would be heard, and that others who didn't get to speak could submit statements to the Commission by mail, email or fax by July 20. (Landmarks Preservation Commission, Municipal building, 1 Centre Street, 9th floor, New York City, N.Y. 10007.)

Tierney announced that Shelly Friedman, the counsel for the owner of the property (i.e., the group behind the mega-mosque), would speak first, followed by some people he had lined up to make presentations. Friedman noted that although the property had been designated for consideration as a landmark in 1989, the owner hadn't understood that when he bought the property. That's why, Friedman said, they had asked that a hearing be put on the calendar and landmark status considered and rejected. He asserted that the Commission had considered 45 Park Place for landmark status many times since 1989 as part of various historical districts, but that it was never ultimately included in any of them. He said that the building shared many architectural features with other buildings in the area, and thus was not unique.

So far the meeting was still on topic. But Friedman was just the first speaker. He was followed by Sherif El-Gamal, who identified himself as one of the site's owners "since 2009." He said that there had been no evidence of the Commission's interest in the property in the five years that it took him to buy it -- and that he bought it for the purpose of replacing it with another structure. I thought that was interesting; apparently plans for this mega-mosque go back to at least 2005.

Anyway, after that El-Gamal ran the meeting off the rails. "As a Muslim American and a businessman," he said, "I am proof of the American Dream." He spoke about the need for a place in New York for people to learn about "Muslim heritage." And he said, "Being a Muslim and serving our fellow citizens goes hand in hand," which, given the dishonesty and pro-Sharia elements behind this mosque initiative, reminded me of the old Twilight Zone episode, "To serve man" (but I resisted the impulse to shout out, "It's a cookbook!").

El-Gamal's exercise in Islamic civic boosterism opened the floodgates, turning the meeting into a public discussion of the appropriateness of building a triumphal mega-mosque at Ground Zero, rather than a narrow discussion of the appropriateness of landmark status for 45 Park Place. El-Gamal was followed by another one of Friedman's speakers, Nathan Riddle of the AKRF Environmental Consultant Firm, who asserted that 45 Park Place had no unique history and no unique design, and thus did not merit landmark status, but then it was back to more on Islam and Muslims from Mufazzar Chisti of the NYU School of Law, who announced that he was married to a Jewish woman and had two children who considered themselves both Jewish and Muslim, and that New York needed Cordoba House (the name of the proposed mega-mosque) as a place where people of all faiths could gather.

Since Friedman's speakers had already gone off-topic and raised the question of Islam and the appropriateness of a mega-mosque at Ground Zero, turnabout was fairplay. Sam Nunberg of the American Center for Law and Justice, Attorney Jack Lester, and the redoubtable freedom fighter Barbara Paolucci from Staten Island argued that the site should be a war memorial, since the landing gear from one of the 9/11 hijacked planes crashed into the roof there, and that a building very similar to 45 Park Place, 311 Broadway, had been designated a landmark, so why not 45 Park Place?

Then I spoke. I started by saying that I shared the view that some others had already enunciated, that this was supposed to be a hearing on the landmark status of 45 Park Place, not about what good citizens Muslims were and how much New York needed an Islamic "interfaith" center. But since that discussion had not been stopped and was thus apparently deemed relevant, it was also relevant that the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, leader of the mega-mosque project, was pro-Sharia -- a system of law that mandated discrimination against women and non-Muslims, and extinguished the freedom of speech and freedom of conscience. It was also relevant, I said, that he had been dishonest about his funding sources, saying in English that the mosque would be funded by American Muslims, and saying in Arabic that funding would come from Muslim nations. It was further relevant that he had declined to denounce Hamas as a terrorist organization, and that he had helped fund the jihad flotilla that was trying to take arms into Israel. I closed by pointing out that Riddle had said that the building had no unique historical value, but that it did, because it was the only building into which part of a 9/11 plane had crashed, and as such should be a war memorial. A Communist (really! At the Staten Island mosque hearing he actually shouted, "Workers of the world, unite!") started shouting that I was a bigot, to which I responded that it was not bigotry to point out dishonesty and subversion, and that the Commission should consider carefully whether or not it was being lied to by the mosque proponents.

Another speaker claimed that opposition to the mosque was simply "Islamophobia," drawing an angry reaction from the crowd (about 200 people were there, with about 70-80% opposing the mosque). Other speakers began to grow repetitive, so I got up to leave. There was another interesting incident before I left, which I will relate later, but it was tangential, albeit revealing. The hearing had all the appearance of a polite charade designed to satisfy legal niceties on the way to a foregone conclusion. Probably the only thing that can stop the mega-mosque now is the power of public opinion, brought to bear against the dhimmi authorities who have no idea what they're getting themselves -- and New York -- into.

An update on this story: they followed through, just in time to celebrate Bastille Day. "French MPs vote to ban Islamic full veil in public," from BBC News, July 13 (thanks to all who sent this in):

France's lower house of parliament has overwhelmingly approved a bill that would ban wearing the Islamic full veil in public.

There were 335 votes for the bill and only one against in the 557-seat National Assembly.

It must now be ratified by the Senate in September to become law.

The ban has strong public support but critics point out that only a tiny minority of French Muslims wear the full veil.

Many of the opposition Socialists, who originally wanted the ban limited only to public buildings, abstained from voting after coming under pressure from feminist supporters of the bill.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has backed the ban as part of a wider debate on French identity but critics say the government is pandering to far-right voters.

Mainstream media translation: The forces of eeeeeeevil!

After the vote, Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said it was a victory for democracy and for French values.

"Values of freedom against all the oppressions which try to humiliate individuals; values of equality between men and women, against those who push for inequality and injustice."

The vote is being closely watched in other countries, the BBC's Christian Fraser reports from the French capital Paris.

Spain and Belgium are debating similar legislation, and with such large-scale immigration in the past 20 or 30 years, identity has become a popular theme across Europe, our correspondent says.

'Open-faced democracy'

The bill would make it illegal to wear garments such as the niqab or burka, which incorporate a full-face veil, anywhere in public.

It envisages fines of 150 euros (£119) for women who break the law and 30,000 euros and a one-year jail term for men who force their wives to wear the burka.

The niqab and burka are widely seen in France as threats to women's rights and the secular nature of the state.

"Democracy thrives when it is open-faced," Ms Alliot-Marie told the National Assembly when she presented the bill last week.

She stressed the bill, which makes no reference to Islam or veils, was not aimed at "stigmatising or singling out a religion"....

In other words: We still insist this isn't really about what it's really about: the encroachment of Sharia on individual liberties and the character of French society.

Common sense and, in today's hyper-PC climate, a good measure of courage. "N.Y. Congressman Calls for Inquiry Into Funding of Mosque Near Ground Zero," from AP, July 12 (thanks to all who sent this in):

NEW YORK -- The ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee said Monday he favors an investigation into the funding of a proposed mosque near ground zero.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Rep. Peter King raised concerns about the sources of funding for the proposed $100 million mosque, just blocks away from the site of the Sept. 11 attacks, where nearly 3,000 Americans died at the hands of Islamic terrorists.

"It's a house of worship, but we are at war with al-Qaida," King told the AP. "I think the 9/11 families have a right to know where the funding comes from; I think there are significant questions."

The mosque is a project of the American Society for Muslim Advancement and the Cordoba Institute, which promotes cross-cultural understanding between Islam and the West. Cordoba's director, Imam Faisel Abdul Rauf, has refused to disclose the sources of funding for the mosque and once suggested in a television interview that U.S. policies contributed to the 9/11 attacks....

Dhimmitude for oil. "BP may face probe over bomber's release," by Jesse Solomon for CNN, July 13 (thanks to all who sent this in):

(CNN) -- A group of U.S. lawmakers have called for an investigation into whether BP may have played a role in lobbying for the release of Abdelbaset al Megrahi to secure an oil contract with the Libyan government.

Megrahi, now 58, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 which killed 270 people, including 189 Americans.

He was released from a Scottish prison on