January 2012 Archives

I appeared tonight on the Michael Coren Show on Sun TV and discussed the Shafia honor killings and the media whitewash of Islam's role in them.

Video courtesy Blazing Cat Fur.

No doubt it never entered their mind that he was anything but a "moderate."

An update on this story. "US, UN Helped Colo. Man Now Accused of Terrorism," from the Associated Press, January 31 (thanks to Kenneth):

A man from Uzbekistan that the United States and the United Nations helped relocate to Colorado now faces a terrorism charge.

Jamshid Muhtorov opposed his home country's dictator following a 2005 massacre, endured a brutal detention, and saw his sister arrested on a false murder charge. The 35-year-old fled his country by night dressed as a woman, and the U.S. and the U.N. helped bring him to Aurora in 2007.

Now, he's accused of providing material support and attempting to provide material support to the Islamic Jihad Union. The violent group opposes the Uzbek government and has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.

Authorities arrested Muhtorov in Chicago on Jan. 21, the Denver Post reported Tuesday ( http://bit.ly/yHsRIF ).

Federal authorities say the Islamic Jihad Union has claimed responsibility for attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan, including a March 2008 suicide attack on a U.S. base. The group is also blamed for carrying out simultaneous suicide bombings of the U.S. and Israeli embassies and a prosecutor's office in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

"It is a crime, and has been a crime for many years, to provide material support for a designated terrorist organization, the IJU," said Dean Boyd, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington. "Our job is to enforce the law."

The FBI said Muhtorov communicated with a contact with the IJU by email using code words, asking to be invited to the "wedding." He also told the contact that he was "ready for any task, even with the risk of dying," the FBI said.

Authorities said there was no evidence that Muhtorov planned any attacks within the U.S....

American officials had described Muhtorov as a human rights worker whose activism began while he was trying to make a living in his home city, Jizzak. He ran up against corrupt officials expecting payments, which is common in Uzbekistan, and spoke out....

During this time, he worked closely with Human Rights Watch....

Muhtorov and his family resettled in Aurora, a Denver suburb, and obtained a job as a truck driver....

Muhtorov's colleagues at the UZ Auto Trans company, where he hauled cars for dealers to destinations across the country, knew that he opposed the Uzbek regime.

"I knew him as a good guy. Praying. He never talked bad about the U.S. Maybe he was angry with the regime back in Uzbekistan," said Ishmael Abdubafour, a former truck driver with the company. "He had the long beard and stuff, but that doesn't mean anything. We see a lot of people who have the beard. He was very gentle."

A decent fellow.

Another defeat for the freedom of speech and another victory for Hamas-linked Islamic supremacist thugs -- courtesy the U.S. Military. "CAIR pressures retired general, critic of Islam, to back out of West Point event," by Caroline May for the Daily Caller, January 31 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

The Council on American-Islamic Relations announced Monday night that it had successfully prevented retired Lieutenant General William G. “Jerry” Boykin from speaking at an upcoming prayer breakfast at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

“We welcome Mr. Boykin’s withdrawal from this event and hope that the speaker who replaces him will offer cadets a spiritual message that promotes tolerance and mutual understanding,” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad in a statement.

West Point initially balked at the calls to remove Boykin — a former military intelligence officer — from the event.

Lt. Col. Sherri Reed of West Point told The Associated Press that cadets are “purposefully exposed to different perspectives and cultures.”

“The National Prayer Breakfast Service will be pluralistic with Christians, Jewish, and Muslim cadets participating,” Reed said. “We are comfortable and confident that what retired Lt. Gen. Boykin will share about prayer, soldier care and selfless service, will be in keeping with the broad range of ideas normally considered by our cadets.”

Boykin backed out of the event on his own volition, according to a report from Fox News.

The retired lieutenant general has been on CAIR’s radar for casting Islam in a poor light, specifically in speeches in which he analogizing the War on Terror to a war against Satan....

I recently spoke at a conference sponsored by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), held at the Sheraton hotel in Framingham, Massachusetts. Titled “The Persecuted Church: Christian Believers in Peril in the Middle East,” Part 1 of my talk follows:

Click for Part 2 and Part 3.

I just received an email from a friend who lives in Egypt, which ends with the following anecdote:

I went to the veggies market last Friday, I usually go on Friday anyway, but this time for the first time the merchants stopped selling anything when they heard the call for prayer!!! Most of them left their young kids to watch over the goods and they went to pray. Most of the customers also disappeared and the few like me who were oblivious to the “New Misrstan” had to wander around aimlessly and wait for those idiots to return! It was unbelievable, suddenly we are living in Saudi or Afghanistan without the need for a passport or a visa.

“Misrstan” is a play on words meaning “Egyptistan” — as in, “Afghanistan,” “Pakistan” — you know, all those extra “pious” Muslim nations. And of course, where Muslim prayers are practiced with rigidity, you can rest assured any number of other “pious” practices — such as hatred for infidels, including in the prayers — are also being upheld. Anyway, this is but another subtle example, directly from the ground, of how Egypt continues to change.

This is about control, and maintaining dependence. Al Shabaab wants no challenges from any entity operating independently of its control that may in any way facilitate a challenge to its authority.

Hungry people can't fight back. "Somalia's al-Shabab militants ban Red Cross aid work," from BBC News, January 30 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Somalia's al-Shabab militants have banned the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from operating in parts of the country it controls.

The Islamist group said the ICRC had falsely accused them of blocking aid and had been handing out unfit food.

Al-Shabab controls large parts of south and central Somalia, which is suffering its worst drought in decades.

The ICRC, one of the few aid agencies operating there, said it had not heard about the ban.

The agency had suspended food distribution earlier this month saying militants had blocked supply routes, but it was still providing emergency care and water programmes.

Al-Shabab had already halted the work of several aid agencies working in the famine-hit region, including some from the UN. It accused them of exaggerating the scale of the problems for political reasons, and trying to convert Muslims to Christianity.

In a statement, it said the ICRC had "repeatedly betrayed the trust conferred on it by the local population and, in recent weeks, falsely accused the mujahideen [al-Shabab fighters] of hindering food distribution".

The group said 70% of food it had inspected in ICRC warehouses was unfit for human consumption, and that it had since destroyed nearly 2,000 tonnes of "expired" rations.

Baloney. Aid work depends on non-perishable, shelf-stable rations. And even if this were the case, if you were starving, if the date said, say, "Best before November 2011," would you care? If Al-Shabaab were starving, would they care?

Somalia is said to be one of the world's most dangerous places for aid workers to operate. It has not had a functioning central government for more than 20 years and has been wracked by fighting between various militias.

The UN-backed government runs only a few areas, including the capital, Mogadishu, which al-Shabab withdrew from in August.

The UN says the areas worst affected by famine are in the southern and central areas, which are under the control of the al-Qaeda linked group.

In recent weeks, al-Shabab has lost ground to both Kenyan and Ethiopian forces, which have moved onto Somali territory.

No one can claim this one was taken out of context. This is from Iran's own English-language propaganda outlet. "'ME nations battling Zionist autocracy'," from PressTV, January 30:

Ayatollah Khamenei said the Zionists, US, and Western powers feel weak in the face of Islamic Awakening and “this feeling of weakness and defeat will grow by the day.”

The Leader said humanity is standing at a critical juncture and is on the verge of a “grand development.”

“Humanity has passed all material and ideological schools such as Marxism, Liberal Democracy and Secular Nationalism and is at the beginning of a new era,” the Leader said.

Ayatollah Khamenei further urged the revolutionary youths to vigilantly guard the fruit of their efforts and not allow arrogant powers to “hijack” and “derail” their revolutions.

The Leader stressed that despite social, historical and geographical differences, Muslim nations are “everyone is against the satanic US and Israeli dominance and cannot tolerate the cancerous tumor of Israel.”

Ayatollah Khamenei made the remarks in a meeting with foreign guests participating in the "Islamic Awakening and Youth Conference" in Tehran. The two-day event kicked off on Sunday with some 15-hundred participants from 73 countries.

The conference mainly focuses on the pivotal role of the youth in the wave of Islamic Awakening that is sweeping through the Middle East and North Africa.

Probably. "Brotherhood would cancel Camp David Agreement, says Hezbollah official," by Haitham Dabbour for Al Masri Al Youm, January 30:

Tehran — Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood will eventually cancel the Camp David Agreement, despite the group’s announcement that it respects international agreements Egypt has signed, said Amin al-Sayed Ibrahim, head of Hezbollah’s political council.

Speaking to the “International Conference on Islamic Awakening and the Youths,” Ibrahim said that the Egyptian military, so as not to lose its clout, would never allow the Brotherhood to write the constitution or even form a constituent assembly to write the constitution.

Following their electoral victories in Parliament, Egypt's most organized political group has offered assurances that it would respect the 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

When asked early this month whether Washington believed that the Islamist party would uphold the treaty, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that the party "has made commitments to us in this regard.”

That and 50 cents will get you... 50 cents. They may have noticed that the Ikhwan's message changes with its audience.

Ibrahim said that the current unrest in Syria is a conspiracy and not a revolution, as western media claims. The Egyptian delegation clashed with him over the remarks.

“The Syrians transfer arms to the Palestinian resistance,” he said.

Over 1,200 young people from Iran as well as 73 other countries are participating in the two-day conference, Iran’s Fars news agency reported on Monday.

The Islamic Spring is spreading its message. Translated from The World Today, January 23: "Iranian converts stabbed in Norway":

Two Iranians who converted from Islam to Christianity was stabbed by masked men in Norway Haugesund last week. The attackers shouted "kuffar" -- an Arabic invective for unbelievers -- during the attack. The attack occurred on Tuesday evening when the two Christian Iranians were out for a walk in Haugesund. They were attacked by three masked and knife-armed men, who reportedly shouted "kuffar" as they stabbed the two. ...

The two assaulted men want to be anonymous and have not spoken out afterwards. They have lived in Norway for several years. One of them has become a Christian in Norway, the other left Islam and became a Christian in Iran and fled to Norway a couple of years ago after being beaten and imprisoned for his Christian faith in Iran. Both are involved in a mission church in Haugesund.

"Dear Muslim Brotherhood. I think you're swell. I hate infidels. Do you? [ ] Yes [ ] No."

"Tehran in 'constant contact' with Brotherhood, says Iranian FM," by Gomaa Hamdala for Al Masri Al Youm, January 31:

Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood maintain close contact, Iran's foreign minister has said in an interview with Al-Masry Al-Youm.

"Tehran is in constant contact with the Muslim Brotherhood," said Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi.

He said Iran is ready to promote its diplomatic relations with Egypt to the ambassadorial level, paricularly in light of the Muslim Brotherhood's recent ascendancy to power. The group's party, the Freedom and Justice Party, controls 43 percent of parliamentary seats.

Salehi told the paper that Iran would immediately send an ambassador to Cairo if Egypt agreed.

Some countries "are not happy about improving relations between Egypt and Iran," he said, adding that if Egypt, Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia cooperated, all would benefit.

Egypt and Iran severed official ties in 1979, when Iran underwent an Islamic revolution and Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel. However, relations have improved since a popular uprising forced former President Hosni Mubarak from power early last year.

The West keeps trying wish into existence modern, moderate, model Islamic states in Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. It keeps not working as advertised. "Iraqi bill to ban travels to Israel," by Roi Kais for YNet News, January 30:

The Iraqi parliament is planning to pass a new bill banning Iraqis from traveling to Israel, Al Jazeera online reported Monday.

The bill was proposed following a number of incidents at the Bagdad airport. A local security officer working there said the passport had caught a number of Iraqi officials carrying passports with Israeli entry visas. The officer, speaking on a condition of anonymity, reported that the passports of some nine high-profile Iraqi politicians were clearly marked with Ben-Gurion Airport stamps as well.

According to the source, the politicians made their first trips to Israel after the Iraqi elections, held on January 2010, until around October that same year. The officer claimed that during questioning of the Iraqis, it was discovered that they were operating as envoys to Israel on behalf of Iraqi politicians.

In response to the report, Iraqi Parliament Member from the National Iraqi Alliance Mohammad Redha al-Khafaji declared that some 50 parliament members have already put their John Hancock [Irony -ed.] to a bill proposing to ban such trips to Israel. Khafaji emphasized that in the past, Iraqi senior officials had visited Israel secretly.

Meanwhile, a member of the parliament's judicial committee said these signatures do not necessarily mean that such a law should be passed.

Forbidding a citizen from traveling is against the Iraqis' right to freedom, as written in the constitution. However banning travel to Israel has nothing to do with politics, she told Al Jazeera, explaining that Iraq has never had any diplomatic or political relations with Israel, nor has it acknowledged the State of Israel.

One may argue it is against the constitution's guarantees of personal freedom, but the same constitution holds that no law may contradict Sharia. The spirit of the latter provision overrules the former.

Israel classifies Iraq, as well as most Arab countries, as an "enemy state." However, over the years senior Israeli officials have hinted on numerous occasions that despite having no official diplomatic relations with such countries, many times there are economical and security ties.

Pamela Geller has background on this important free speech case in a piece that ran at the American Thinker yesterday: "The Civilized Man vs. the MTA Savages." As she says there, "The very idea that the MTA would censor free speech in defense of the blasphemy laws under the sharia speaks volumes as to the success of the stealth jihad in America. I hope the MTA is prepared to go to the Supreme Court, because we are."

From the American Freedom Law Center:

American Freedom Law Center (AFLC), on behalf of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), Pamela Geller, and Robert Spencer, filed a request today for a preliminary injunction in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), seeking to halt MTA’s censorship of AFDI’s pro-Israel / anti-Jihad bus advertisement.

AFLC Senior Counsel Robert Muise commented, “Here, the MTA would rather violate a law-abiding, private citizen’s right to freedom of speech than offend those who support violent jihad against Israel and others. The American Freedom Law Center is committed to fighting this pernicious form of civilization jihad that undermines our fundamental rights.”

At issue in the lawsuit is AFDI’s pro-Israel / anti-Jihad advertisement, which states, “In Any War Between the Civilized Man and the Savage, Support the Civilized Man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.” This advertisement was offered as a direct response to an anti-Israel advertisement that was run previously by a pro-Palestine group. The MTA approved the anti-Israel advertisement. However, it rejected AFDI’s advertisement, claiming that it violated its policy against displaying “images or information that demean an individual or group of individuals on account of race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, gender, age, disability or sexual orientation.”

AFLC Senior Counsel David Yerushalmi commented, “The MTA’s ‘demeaning speech’ policy is operating here as a viewpoint-based restriction on our clients’ speech. Viewpoint discrimination is the most egregious form of content discrimination under the First Amendment.”

According to the papers filed this morning in federal court, the MTA, by policy and practice, has intentionally dedicated its advertising space on its vehicles, including its public buses, to expressive conduct. Pursuant to this longstanding policy, MTA has permitted a wide variety of commercial, noncommercial, public-service, public-issue, political, and religious advertisements on the outside of its vehicles.

For example, MTA permitted a religious group, Muslims for Peace, to run an advertisement on 90 public buses. The advertisement stated, “Muslims for Peace, Love for All, Hatred for None . . . WHY ISLAM.” The MTA permitted an atheist group, the Big Apple Coalition of Reason, to display an advertisement stating, “A million New Yorkers are good without God. Are you?” Recently, and as noted previously, the MTA permitted the display of a pro-Palestine / anti-Israel advertisement which stated, “Be on our side. We are the side of peace and justice. End U.S. military aid to Israel.” This advertisement was displayed at MTA subway stations throughout the City.

This past September, AFDI submitted its proposed advertisement to CBS Outdoor, which acts as the advertising agent for MTA. AFDI’s pro-Israel advertisement is political speech that directly responds to the pro-Palestine / anti-Israel advertisement. The anti-Israeli advertisement suggests that Israel’s military is the impediment to peace between the Israelis and Palestinians and that U.S. military aid to Israel also acts as an impediment to peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. In other words, the anti-Israel advertisement blames Israel, its military, and U.S. military aid to Israel as the cause of Palestinian terror directed against innocent civilians in Israel and abroad.

AFDI’s advertisement presents the message that there is no comparison or equivalence between savage civilian-targeting violence and Israel’s civilized struggle for survival in a part of the world where civilized behavior is overshadowed by terrorism, despotism, and brutality.

On September 21, 2011, CBS Outdoor, acting on behalf of MTA, informed AFDI by email that MTA had rejected the advertisement on the grounds that it violated its demeaning speech policy. The MTA’s rejection concluded with an invitation to AFDI to modify its message in some way so as to be acceptable to MTA.

By email on September 22, 2011, AFDI, through legal counsel, rejected MTA’s invitation to censor its speech and requested a “formal and final determination.” AFDI’s response made clear that the pro-Israel advertisement did not violate MTA’s demeaning speech policy and that MTA’s use of the policy to prohibit AFDI’s message violated the First Amendment.

On September 23, 2011, CBS Outdoor, acting on behalf of MTA, informed AFDI that MTA had formally and finally rejected AFDI’s advertisement on the grounds that it violated MTA’s demeaning speech policy. AFDI promptly filed this civil rights lawsuit.

Through the lawsuit and the recently filed preliminary injunction motion, AFDI is challenging the constitutionality of MTA’s censorship, which is suppressing the viewpoint AFDI is attempting to express in its message. That viewpoint is that U.S. foreign policy supporting Israel in the face of savage violence is the correct moral, political, and strategic choice for the leader of the Free World.

Muise concluded, “The Constitution does not permit the government, in this case the MTA, to take sides on political issues by silencing one-side of the debate. Here, the MTA is siding with the savage and silencing the civilized man, in violation of the First Amendment.”

The American Freedom Law Center is a Judeo-Christian law firm that fights for faith and freedom. It accomplishes its mission through litigation, public policy initiatives, and related activities. It does not charge for its services. The Law Center is supported by contributions from individuals, corporations, and foundations, and is recognized by the IRS as a section 501(c)(3) organization. Visit us at www.americanfreedomlawcenter.org.

A pack of about 40 Muslims gathered in front of the Norwegian parliament, shouting "Allahu akbar" while the bearded speaker, a known criminal named Arfan Qadeer Bhatti, in perfect Norwegian told the Norwegians:

We therefore demand that Norway immediately decide to withdraw her forces from Afghanistan before the war comes back to Norway. ... The Norwegian people should also know that their security will continue to be threatened as long as the Norwegian government continues its aggression against the Muslim people, and takes part in the occupation of Muslim countries. If security is dear to you, dear Norwegians, you should collectively demand that the Norwegian government withdraw Norwegian forces. And I stress: this is not a threat; it is a warning for your own good. (Crowd cheering 'Allahu akbar').

This is an extremely important case, as it touches on the nature of Sharia and the U.S. Government's role in promoting it, which gallops ahead in other areas today. I was one of the experts who testified for the plaintiff. "AFLC Attorneys to Argue Before Federal Appellate Court that AIG Bailout Was Unconstitutional," from the American Freedom Law Center, January 30:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has announced that it will hear oral argument in Cincinnati, Ohio on April 20, 2012, in an appeal challenging the AIG bailout.  The case, which is captioned Murray v. United States Department of Treasury, et al., was brought by American Freedom Law Center attorneys David Yerushalmi and Robert Muise, representing the plaintiff, Kevin Murray, a taxpayer and former combat Marine who served in Iraq.  The federal lawsuit alleges that the U.S. government’s takeover and financial bailout of AIG was in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Specifically, at the time of the government bailout (beginning in September 2008 and continuing to the present), AIG was (and still is) the world leader in promoting sharia-compliant insurance products.  Sharia is Islamic law, and it is the identical legal doctrine that demands capital punishment for apostasy and blasphemy and provides the legal and political mandates for global jihad followed religiously by the world’s Muslim terrorists.  By propping up AIG with taxpayer funds, the U.S. government is directly and indirectly promoting Islam and, more troubling, sharia.

In May 2009, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Zatkoff, who presides in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, rejected a motion to dismiss the lawsuit brought by the Obama administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) and later rebuffed their efforts to stay the proceeding so they could avoid discovery and take an extraordinary appeal to the Sixth Circuit.

After a year of document requests, depositions of current and former government witnesses, and three separate subpoenas issued to AIG and the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Yerushalmi and Muise filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that the undisputed facts demonstrate that the government, through its absolute control and ownership of AIG, and with tens of billions of taxpayer dollars, has directly and indirectly promoted and supported sharia as a religious legal doctrine in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

What makes this case all the more egregious is that this doctrine — sharia — also happens to be the underlying legal and military doctrine animating jihad against the West by Muslims from the Middle East, Asia, Russia, Africa, and even right here at home, as evidenced by the tragic Fort Hood massacre.  Each and every one of the domestic and foreign jihad terrorists has proclaimed allegiance to sharia and its call for “jihad against apostates and infidels.”

Two experts on sharia, sharia-compliant finance, and jihad testified at length through affidavits in support of the plaintiff’s case.  The government could not — and did not — oppose this expert testimony with any contrary evidence....

Read it all.

Be sure to listen in tonight: "Fired For Islamophobia — on The Jamie Glazov Show," and hear about how and why the Daily Kos said, "So long, Eric":

Join the Jamie Glazov Show on Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 8-9 pm Pacific (11-12 pm EST) on Blog Talk Radio. This week’s guests are:

Eric Allen Bell, a regular blogger for the “Daily Kos” — where he was recently banned for the crime of writing three articles that ran afoul of the mindset there, specifically naming “Loonwatch.com” as a “terrorist spin control network.” He is currently producing a documentary entitled “Not Welcome” that is about the backlash against construction of a 53,000 square foot mega mosque in America’s Bible Belt.

and

Dr. Tim Furnish, an author and Muslim world analyst who holds a PhD in Islamic history from Ohio State and who learned Arabic in the US Army; his areas of expertise are Islamic eschatology, Mahdism, sects and transnational movements. He has lectured at Joint Special Operations University, the Army War College, Ben Gurion University and the annual Mahdism Conference in Iran.

To read Robert Spencer’s report on the developments surrounding Eric Bell’s firing at the Daily Kos, click here.

To listen to the program, click here.

Or go to: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/radio-jihad/2012/02/01/the-jamie-glazov-show

Phone in #: (347) 857-1380

See you Tuesday night!

The superb Kamala has an excellent piece about a drearily typical whitewash of Islam and jihad that is going on today at the Santa Clara County Office of Education Library Materials Fair, and in all sorts of other places these days as well. "Silicon Valley Reads...a book of lies," by Kamala, January 22:

About three years ago, I stumbled upon a book called The Muslim Next Door. Written by Sumbul Ali-Karamali, an American-raised, Stanford-educated Muslim woman, this book aims to "clear away the misconceptions about Islam." The back cover effuses: “What if you could sit down at a kitchen table with an American Muslim mom and ask anything you wanted about her faith and religious practice?”

After reading the book, I was left with only more questions. The Muslim Next Door is filled with patently false, wildly misleading, and fully unsubstantiated claims about the very concerns many Americans have about Islam. Taking her at her word, that she would be open to answering questions about Islam, I prepared ten detailed questions regarding problematic aspects of her book. Perhaps, I thought, these were honest mistakes or omissions. Perhaps she would acknowledge and address the flaws in her book. The ten questions can be read here. They cover a wide range of topics, including:

• Ali-Karamali’s claim that Muhammad had sex with his favorite wife Aisha only when “she was well past puberty … somewhere between twelve and sixteen,” even though the most respected scholars of Islam – including one that she herself calls a “highly respected luminary” – quote Aisha as having said that her marriage was consummated at age nine.

• Her claim without citation that Muslims make up 3% of the US population, a grossly inflated figure in comparison to even the most optimistic credible estimates.

• Her explanation that one of Islam’s definitions is “peace,” a falsehood that even the Muslim Student Association of the University of Southern California labeled the “#1 Misconception” about Islam.

• Her argument that female genital mutilation and honor killings are antithetical to Islam, despite mountains of contradictory evidence, including rulings in an Islamic manual of law certified by Al-Azhar University in Egypt, which Ali-Karamali herself calls “one of the great centers for Islamic studies.”
  

At the time, author Robert Spencer was kind enough to post a link to these questions at his web site, Jihad Watch.

I politely asked Ms. Ali-Karamali several times – via both her publisher and another mutual contact who assured me that the message was personally delivered – to respond to the questions. Each time, I got no response. One person who had read my questions and also wanted some answers went to one of Ali-Karamali’s numerous promotional San Francisco Bay Area appearances and asked her, face-to-face, to address these questions: "I spoke with Karamali following her Commonwealth Club speech yesterday. She said she's familiar with this article but that it's affiliated with Jihad Watch, which is a hateful organization, so she won't answer the questions."

So much for getting the questions answered. At least, I thought at the time, Ali-Karamali didn’t seem to be getting increasing levels of exposure – unlike some other truth-challenged apologists for Islam.

Fast forward to 2012.

Sumbul Ali-Karamali’s book is about to become the centerpiece of a four-month-long, government-sponsored initiative called “Silicon Valley Reads.” An annual program in the San Francisco Bay Area, 2012 is the 10th anniversary, and its sponsors “are celebrating with an outstanding selection of books and events focused on the theme, 'Muslim and American: Two Perspectives.’” Ali-Karamali’s three-year-old book is featured as (ostensibly) one of those perspectives.

(The second “perspective” is delivered from another American Muslim woman, Willow Wilson, who converted to Islam and wrote a book called The Butterfly Mosque. While not even an attempt to address non-Muslim concerns about Islam, Butterfly Mosque’s view of Islam is hardly inconsistent with Ali-Karamali’s or those of other contemporary apologists for Islam. For Wilson, the “parts of Shari’a law that were premodern and problematic” were “no more so than the Old Testament. Islam had all the hang-ups, along with all the potential for resolution, of any ancient faith.” Wilson pins any negative impressions of Sharia on the Wahhabis, a common response from apologists unwilling to admit to the vast agreement among Muslim scholars (and Islamic schools of jurisprudence) about the most despicable aspects of Sharia. Wilson also dishes out disdain for “self-righteous” apostates who risk death to leave Islam, denigrating “the Ayaan Hirsi Alis and Wafaa Sultans who had made their fortunes by rejecting Islam.")

Back to Ms. Ali-Karamali, just look at the publicity and exposure that this program will bring her:

• January 25: On-stage interview with columnist Mike Cassidy (mcassidy@mercurynews.com) of the San Jose Mercury News, to be recorded and broadcast on KLIV Radio February 1

• January 31: Guest of the Santa Clara County Office of Education (a government organization) Materials Fair, open to all teachers and school librarians

• February 2: Discussion of her book at the Saratoga Library

• February 12: Discussion of her book at the India Community Center

• February 22: Television interview on CreaTV Channel 30 in San Jose with Janice Edwards (janice@creatvsj.org)

• March 3: On-stage interview with De Anza College President Brian Murphy (murphybrian@deanza.edu)

• March 10: Discussion of her book at the Morgan Hill Library

• March 16: Interview with Dale Bryant (dbryant@svcn.com), Executive Editor of Silicon Valley Community Newspapers, at the History Club of Los Gatos
  

• March 29: Presenting “What I’d like Teachers to Know about Islam and Muslims” at the Santa Clara County Office of Education

• April 29: On-stage interview with columnist Sal Pizarro of the San Jose Mercury News (spizarro@mercurynews.com)

Read it all.

Why shouldn't Mohammad Shafia have been arrogant and hubristic? It would have been more surprising if he had not been. Just look at how Islamic supremacist spokesmen in the West always deal with anti-jihadists: not with legitimate discussion, not with honest engagement with legitimate concerns, but with exceeding and almost incredible arrogance, endless torrents of abuse, and reflexive charges of "bigotry," "racism," and "Islamophobia." Just look at how the mainstream media and Western governments are endlessly compliant, endlessly accommodating to Islamic supremacist demands, endlessly turning a blind eye to Islamic jihad activity, violent and stealthy, with endless gullibility swallowing the ever more fantastic claims that underneath the behavior of Islamic jihadists who quote Qur'an to support their views and position themselves within the Islamic community as the exponents of Islamic authenticity, it really is a Religion of Peace.

If Mohammad Shafia had not been arrogant and hubristic, it would have been a miracle.

Join us for the first annual AFDI/SIOA Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference on Honor Killings.

"How arrogance and mistakes led to Shafia’s murder conviction," by Timothy Appleby for the Globe and Mail, January 29 (thanks to Mark):

Even after murdering his daughters and his first wife a few hours earlier, the millionaire businessman haggled over the motel bill.

One view of the guilty verdicts in the Shafia “honour killings” trial is that they were the final act in a kind of morality play that pitted 21st-century technology against ancient, twisted concepts of right and wrong.

The other connecting thread in the police investigation was the almost unfathomable, small-minded stupidity and arrogance of the three Afghan-Canadian defendants, borne out of a lifelong sense of entitlement.

Mohammad Shafia, 59, was wealthy and had essentially bought his residency in Canada under the federal investor-immigrant program. He owned a $1.6-million mall in Laval, Que., and was having a big, custom-designed home built in Brossard, a Montreal suburb. He had cars, property, assorted business projects, and had travelled widely.

In sum, he belonged to a tiny minority of privileged middle-class Afghans, both before he and his family fled the advancing Taliban in 1992, and later abroad.

From the trial testimony emerged a portrait of the man he was at home: A crude, brutal patriarch who terrified his children including those he’s convicted of murdering.

He, his co-accused second wife and their eldest son Hamed were not only clumsy killers. They were also bad liars, offering the jury wildly conflicting accounts of what happened on the night the four victims died.

From the first hours of the investigation, the trio struggled to dig themselves out of the hole they were in, weaving an ever-less credible tangle of lies and obfuscation. Steadily the hole got deeper.

And yet, in his hubris, Mr. Shafia appeared convinced they could get away with it.

“You guys aren't hit men, you don't know how to cover your tracks,” Kingston Police detective Mike Boyles told 18-year-old Hamed Shafia, shortly after he and his parents were charged with the four murders in July, 2009....

Seldom has any mainstream media outlet ever presented such a full and honest presentation of Islamic honor killing. Bravo, Coren.

Join us for the first annual AFDI/SIOA Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference on Honor Killings.

Video courtesy Pamela Geller.

Also of interest in this story is the coincidence of Saudi investment in the company and the potential curtailment of Twitter as a platform for political dissent. It was, for example, instrumental in the Iranian "Green Revolution" a few years back. "Saudi grand mufti: Twitter is full of lies," from the Jerusalem Post, January 29:

The Saudi grand mufti on Friday called social-networking website Twitter full of lies, a day after the site announced that it would begin restricting Tweets in specific countries.

The news from the social media platform is renewing questions over how it will handle issues of free speech as it rapidly expands its global user base.

Until now, Twitter had to remove a tweet from its global network if it received a takedown request from a government.

But the company said in a blog post published on Thursday that it now has the ability to selectively block a Tweet from appearing to users in one country.

“Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country while keeping it available in the rest of the world,” the Twitter blog said.

Twitter gave as examples of restrictions it might cooperate with, such as pro-Nazi content in France and Germany, where it is banned. It said that even with the possibility of such restrictions, Twitter would not be able to operate with some countries.

“Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there,” it said.

“As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression.”

In the interest of transparency, Twitter said, it has built a mechanism to inform users in the event that a tweet is being blocked. A Twitter spokeswoman declined to elaborate on the blog post.

Saudi Grand Mufti Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh said in his Friday sermon in Riyadh that Muslims should avoid being a “source or feeding” Twitter, the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper reported.

Twitter was a place “in which people are invited to throw charges between them, and to lie in a manner that brings fame to some,” he said.

The 71-year-old cleric called on those present to warn people about such sites, adding that positive sites do exist on the Internet concerning science, business and God.

Despite the grand mufti’s caution over the website, Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding Company announced in December that it would invest $300 million in the social-media site.

“Our investment in Twitter reaffirms our ability in identifying suitable opportunities to invest in promising, high-growth businesses with a global impact,” Alwaleed said, according to BBC.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, critics question whether the site has succumbed to pressure from certain governments or even its new Saudi investors, with some activists tweeting for a one-day Twitter boycott against the company.

Twitter’s acknowledgment that it will censor content represents a significant departure from its tone just one year ago, when anti-government protesters in Tunisia, Egypt and other Arab countries coordinated mass demonstrations on the social network and, in the process, thrust Twitter’s disruptive potential into the global spotlight....

One bit of good news in this is that the U.S. actually demanded substantive action from the Taliban and not just words, as prior reports implied. An update on this story. "US, Taliban talks on prisoner swap falter," by Mustaf Yusufzai for NBC News January 29:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Talks between the Afghan Taliban and the United States in Qatar almost failed as the Taliban leadership reportedly refused to accept the U.S. demand of a ceasefire before swapping prisoners.

Sources in the Afghan Taliban said the Taliban had set up an office in Qatar hoping that it would help in a prisoners' swap, especially for their five top commanders held at the Guantanamo Bay base since 2002.

The Taliban sources said their talks with the U.S. had been going for the past few years in exchange for an American soldier, Bowe Bergdahl, captured by Taliban militants in Afghanistan's Paktika province in June 2009, bordering Pakistan's South Waziristan.

Maulvi Sangeen, a senior commander of the powerful Haqqani terror network, had initially claimed responsibility for kidnapping the U.S. soldier.

The Taliban sources said U.S. officials had earlier promised them they would exchange prisoners and later start peace talks.

However, according to the sources, the U.S. demanded that the Taliban announce a ceasefire in Afghanistan before any prisoner swap, which they said their central leadership had turned down.

"Our stance is the same. We will announce a ceasefire when the foreign forces start their withdrawal from Afghanistan," a Taliban source said.

The Afghan Taliban leadership is also worried about the reaction from their field commanders and fighters if a ceasefire were announced without getting anything to show in exchange.

Some members of the 140-strong Taliban delegation that went to Qatar had started leaving after no breakthrough was seen in talks with the U.S.

But deep down, they really want peace! Once again, the "moderate" guys are caught acting less than moderately. In the case of the PA, "moderate" means "not as bad as Hamas," but the distinction is often shown to be largely wishful thinking. "Palestinian TV airs show praising Fogel family murderer," by Avi Issacharoff for Haaretz, January 30:

Palestinian television aired an interview with the relatives of the Fogel family murderers earlier this month, praising the two cousins convicted with the brutal attack as "heroes."

The broadcast was aired as part of a weekly show on the Palestinian state-run station called "For You," which focuses on Palestinian prisoners incarcerated in Israel.

The show featured the aunt and mother of Hakim Awad, who along with his cousin Amjad was convicted of brutally stabbing to death five Fogel family members in an attack on their home in the West Bank settlement of Itamar on the night of March 11, 2011.

Hakim Awad's mother sent her regards to her son, proudly describing him as the perpetrator of the Itamar attack and that he was sentenced to 5 consecutive life sentences.

Awad's aunt then proceeded to describe her nephew as a "hero and a legend."

The unusual broadcast was reported by the Israel-based media watchdog organization Palestinian Media Watch

Late last year Amjad Awad was convicted of the murdering Ehud and Ruth Fogel, along with three of their young child-ren, Yoav, 11, Elad, 4, and Hadas, 3 months old, before fleeing the scene. His cousin Hakim was convicted a month earlier. Both men were sentenced to five consecutive life sentences by an IDF court.

In a way, it's kind of a compliment. In his conspiracy paranoia, he is ascribing all kinds of foreknowledge to the West. For example, the Balfour Declaration on a Jewish homeland occurred in 1917. Oil prospecting in the Mideast gained momentum in the 1930s, with especially spectacular oil fields discovered in the late '30s. When the State of Israel was established, U.S. oil production was still going strong, and would not reach peak production for about another 22 years.

But if it was all about the oil, one would think that we in our nefarious conspiring would plunk a Jewish state where, you know, there's actually oil. "'West implanted Israel into ME to control oil'," from the Jerusalem Post, January 29:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday that western powers had implanted the Israeli regime into the Middle East as part of a scheme to gain control of the region and its resources.

“Why did they install the Zionist regime (Israel)? To gain control over oil, as well as the popular and revolutionary uprisings in the Middle East,” Iranian news agency Press TV quoted Ahmadinejad as saying during a speech at a youth conference in Tehran.

“It is clear that this was a historical scheme,” he added.

Ahmadinejad's comments came as UN nuclear inspectors arrived in Iran on a visit aimed at shedding light on suspected military aspects of Tehran's atomic work.

Iran said on Sunday it was very optimistic over the visit, but warned it would curb cooperation if the experts became a "tool" for outside powers....

The moment they feel uncomfortable, that is what they will claim.

But... but... that's where the "moderate" guys are. "Climate of intolerance in West Bank, activists say," by Diaa Hadid for the Associated Press, January 30 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — A Palestinian atheist who was jailed and beaten last year for expressing anti-Muslim views on Facebook and in blogs says Palestinian security forces are harassing him again, despite government pledges to respect human rights.

The blogger's renewed ordeal is part of a persistent climate of intolerance of dissent in the territories controlled by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, say human rights activists. They say they've seen improvements, including a marked decrease in the mistreatment of detainees, but that Abbas' security forces, who are partially funded by the West, must halt harassment and arbitrary detention.

Government spokesman Ghassan Khatib acknowledged occasional lapses, but said that in the past two years, "there's been great progress and success in reducing abuses."

Such promises mean little to atheist blogger Walid Husayin, who has lived in fear of the security forces since being released from a nine-month prison stint last summer.

"I'm sick and tired. My life has come to a halt," the 28-year-old Husayin said in a phone interview from his home in the northern West Bank town of Qalqiliya.

Since his release on bail, he has been picked up several times by security agents and held for days at a time. In one of those detentions, he was beaten with cables and forced to stand in a painful position on empty cans, said Husayin, the son of a Muslim preacher.

Interrogators smashed his two computers and demanded that he stop expressing his views, he said.

Activists from three rights organizations said they witnessed an increase in arbitrary detentions in recent months, including calling in "troublemakers" for repeated interrogation, but said they hadn't yet collated 2011 figures.

Those targeted include loyalists of the Islamic militant Hamas, Abbas' political rival, and supporters of Hezb al-Tahrir, or the "Liberation Party," a puritan Islamic movement considered apolitical.

The increased pressure on dissent coincides with pro-democracy uprisings of the Mideast Arab Spring, but it's not clear if there is a direct link. Anti-government demonstrations in the West Bank usually draw just a few dozen or few hundred people, tiny compared to protests that toppled rulers in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia over the past year.

There appears to be little popular sympathy for those targeted in the crackdown, said Jamil Rabah, an independent Palestinian pollster.

In Gaza, ruled by the Islamic Hamas since a violent takeover in 2007, the Islamists appear to dealing even more harshly with critics, particularly on religious matters.

In both territories, those who violate social norms find themselves in the crosshairs. In Gaza, Hamas recently banned a televised amateur singing contest on modesty grounds because it included female contestants.

In the West Bank, Palestinian-American comedian Maysoon Zayid said her husband was roughed up and lightly hurt last fall after she mocked Palestinian officials in a skit.

Witnesses identified the assailants as plainclothes security men, said Zayid, a contributor to "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" on Current TV, a U.S. cable show.

She said it was the first attempt at intimidation after years of West Bank performances.

"I feel like the Palestinian Authority is going backward," said Zayid, a resident of Cliffside Park, New Jersey. "That is not the state I am fighting for."...

Once again, wherever Sharia experiences a resurgence or increases its encroachment upon a society, tolerance decreases, and harassment increases. Indeed, as also seen in Tunisia, a sense of entitlement to harass and mind others' business emerges, even short of the formal establishment of morality police. "'Are you married?': Pakistani TV host dubbed the 'vigil-auntie' sacked after haranguing couples for 'immoral behaviour' in parks," by Daniel Miller for the Daily Mail, January 30:

A Pakistani TV host has been sacked after an episode of her morning TV programme showed her ambushing young couples and demanding to know whether they were involved in immoral behavior.

Samaa TV host Maya Khan was filmed charging around a park in Lahore, Pakistan, asking youngsters what they were up to, whether they were married or engaged and if their parents knew where they were.

In one particularly cringeworthy scene the 31-year-old host - who has been dubbed the 'vigil-auntie' - demanded to see a couple's wedding certificate after they told her they were married.

The show sparked outrage with viewers branded it - a 'witch hunt' and taking to the internet in their thousands to register their disgust.

Within hours of the broadcast on January 17th, several online petitions had sprung up demanding that Khan be sacked.

At first the controversial host remained defiant describing her critics as 'an elite class that don’t even watch my show,.'

But the following day Samaa TV showed a clip of her sitting on a bed in which she seemed to apologise saying: 'I never intended to make you teary-eyed or hurt you.'

According to the station, Khan, along with members of her production team, were sacked after refusing to give an unconditional apology.

The host later blamed ‘a vicious media campaign by rival groups’ for her sacking.

Now four non-governmental organisations have announced they are filing a civil suit against Samaa TV in Pakistan's supreme court.

Adnan Rehmat of Intermedia, a media development organization who were behind one of the petitions, said: 'Journalists don’t have the right to become moral police.

'We need to draw a line.'

Some viewers claimed the show brought back bad memories of 1980s when Pakistan was ruled by the Islamist dictator Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq and police could demand to see a couple’s wedding papers under threat of imprisonment.

Others accused Khan and her team of picking on poor Pakistanis while ignoring the rich and powerful whose western lifestyles are potentially far more morally dubious.

Let us see if the Norwegians will blame these Muslims' manual for terror as much as they blamed anti-jihadists for Breivik's murders. Translated from Jyllands-Posten, January 30: "Seven years in prison for terror plans against Jyllands-Posten":

The case has been called historical in Norway, because it is the first time that someone has been convicted for planning terror.

The Chinese Uighur and Norwegian citizen Mikael Davud was the main man behind the terror plans against Jyllands-Posten's premises at the Town Hall Square in Copenhagen. So he got a sentence of seven years in prison.

"The Court finds no doubt that Davud took the initiative and that he also was the main man. He was himself responsible for the implementation of the terrorist attack," said Judge Oddmund Black Berg.

It was ruled that the preparations were characterized by professionalism, but that the attack was not imminent. It appeared that there would only have been a small bomb, which probably would not cost lives. The defenders demanded acquittal. ...

According to the indictment, Mikael Davud was acting on behalf of Al Qaida. He admitted in court that he received bomb training from a terrorist group in Iran. The prosecutor argued that Davud instead traveled across the border into Pakistan, where he trained with Al Qaeda. Mikael Davud acknowledged that he had contacts with Al Qaida, but not that he was on a mission for the terrorist network. He acted on his own, he said. ...

The Iraqi Kurd Shawan Sadek Saeed Bujak has argued that the goal was Jyllands-Posten and Kurt Westergaard, a goal that both he and Davud allegedly agreed on. And this was the charge that the court found was proven.

I recently posted a couple of articles about the Muslim area Vollsmose in Odense, Denmark ("Denmark: More Muslim violence against non-Muslims" and "Danish police: Immigrant criminals target Danes to make them move out of the (Muslim) area").

The latest development is that the major Danish insurance company GF-Insurance no longer offers comprehensive insurance on cars in the area. Translated from Fyens Stiftstidende (notice the newspaper's use of "discriminate" in the header), January 30, 2012: "GF-Insurance discriminate against Vollsmose citizens":

GF will no longer insure cars if the owners live in zip code Odense NE. ... Chairman of the GF-Insurance on Funen, Knud Nielsen confirms that the company will no longer offer comprehensive insurance for cars that are located in 5240 NE.

"We have found that there are more burglaries and burned cars in Vollsmose than other places. Therefore we will not insure cars hull in Vollsmose," he says to Fyens Stiftstidende.

Other big insurance companies may well have comprehensive car insurance, even if you live in NE 5240, but the price may vary compared to other areas.

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 29 — Datuk Seri Anifah Aman insisted tonight that despite supporting a “two-state solution,” Malaysia has never supported Israel in its conflict with Palestine.

The foreign minister said this differed from Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that he “supports all efforts to protect the security of the state of Israel.”

“His statement clearly shows his acceptance and support for actions taken by Israel against Palestinians up to now.

“Actions interpreted as security measures by Israel include military attacks on Gaza causing the death of thousands of innocent Palestinians including women and children,” the Kimanis MP said in a statement sent to The Malaysian Insider.

Anifah stressed that Malaysia has never supported these actions but joined the global community in condemning Israel that clearly breaches international law.

“Malaysia calls for all parties to find a comprehensive solution that is fair and just based on the ‘Roadmap’ and United Nations (UN) Security Council resolutions whereby both nations can live side-by-side in a peaceful and safe manner,” he added.

Anwar came under heavy fire from Umno and its media after his statement was published by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday.

But the international business daily said Anwar stopped short of saying he would open diplomatic ties with the Jewish state, a step the former deputy prime minister said remains contingent on Israel respecting the aspirations of Palestinians.

And we should all well and truly know by now what those 'aspirations' are.

The opposition leader was forced to defend himself last night by stressing that his remarks in the newspaper meant that he supported a two-state solution as mentioned by Anifah when the latter addressed the UN general assembly in September last year.

But Anifah said today Anwar’s interview “clearly shows full support for all actions taken by Israel to protect its security, unless he is accusing the Wall Street Journal of making a mistake.”

Muslim-majority Malaysia is a staunch supporter of Palestine and has no diplomatic ties with Israel.

Muslim politicians have long vied for support from Malays by denouncing what they say are inhumane acts of aggression by Israel towards its neighbour.

Anwar has previously been attacked as a supporter of the Zionist movement due to his interaction with prominent Jewish figures in the West.

When we look closely at the current situation in the Middle East and the Iranian issue, we can see some parallels with the situation of the world community before the Second World War.

At that time, the Nazis, without any significant resistance, had seized power in Germany and Austria, and Italy was their Fascist ally. Islamic supremacists are now also easily seizing power in North Africa, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Then, and today, Turkey adopted a wait-and-see attitude. During World War II, Turkey signed a non-aggression treaty with Hitler, and only in 1945, when it was clear that the Nazis were defeated, did it declare war on Germany. Today, Turkey is friendly with Iran and the jihadists, as if she is waiting to share in Ahmadinejad's nuclear achievements.

The proof of Turkey's loyalty to Iran and the jihadists is the recent speech of the Prime Minister of that country, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, about the State of Israel. In addition to denouncing Israel for possessing a nuclear bomb, he accused Israel of state terrorism.

Also noteworthy were his words about the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire. Erdogan, foaming at the mouth, insisted before the global community that the killing and expulsion of 1.5-million Armenians in modern Turkey was not an act of genocide.

Long ago, after the Islamic revolution in Iran, its leaders chose the path of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, the Koran and Sharia. They are threatening to destroy the U.S., Israel and the Jewish people. If we compare the Ayatollah Khamenei and other leaders of Iran to Adolf Hitler and other Nazis, we will find similar words and phrases -- and not only similar words, but similar actions.

Many of us ask ourselves: when will the war start? Is it even going to begin? Maybe the international sanctions will help the world and civilization, and bring the Iranian mullahs and president to their senses, so that they will give up their nuclear ambitions. Maybe they will move jihad terrorist organizations to take up the path of the genuinely righteous, such that they will renounce violence.

Those were the same kinds of things that our ancestors were thinking in the thirties, when the Nazis gained power in Europe. And we all know what sacrifices humanity had to make in order to eradicate Nazism.

Do we really need to wait for the coming of the new Fuehrer, the caliph, to understand what is wrong with our analyses and hopes today?

It is certain that the leaders of Muslims worldwide, a significant number of them, are praying and working for one and the same goal: a jihad against the infidels. The Mufti of Jerusalem during World War II called for the destruction of Israel and Jews. Abu Mazen wants to expel Jews from the so-called east Jerusalem, and from Judea and Samaria. Muslim leaders around the world supported the Mufti and support the "Palestinians" now.

Once, at a regular meeting with the leader of the Jihad in the Caucasus, I asked the question: how are you going to win the war, when there are so many differences among various sects in Islam? He replied: "Allah loves diversity. We have our differences, but we all believe in Allah and the Prophet Muhammad and recognize Sharia, and we know that we are waiting for the terrible meal, if we abandon jihad." He was referring to the Koran's description of the people in hell being tortured with, among other things, food that is disgusting and painful to eat.

I hope that the administration of President Barack Hussein Obama will remember the story of Pearl Harbor: that slowness and hesitancy in the face of a regime that is willing to use brutal force, such as the Iranian regime, only plays into the hands of the enemy.

There are many means of jihad, they note. Or in other words, a way to stick it to the infidel is a way to stick it to the infidel.

Scholars differ on circumstances for acceptable use, and its position in the pecking order of means of jihad, but are in agreement in principle that it can and ought to be used as a weapon of war. Electronic jihad is ultimately familiar destructive behavior, only applied to an electronic medium instead of detonating a truck bomb. Imagine if that ingenuity, resourcefulness, and planning were actually applied to something constructive. "Scholars speak out in favor of “electronic Jihad” against the enemy," from Al Arabiya, January 29:

In light of the increasing support of “the electronic Jihad” and the divergence of views regarding this subject, Islamic scholars have underlined their support for this new phenomenon, arguing that “any attempt to spite the enemy and endorse religion is legitimate”. They consider that Muslim youth involved in this phenomenon are in fact leading a jihad”.

But what do those who refuse to support this phenomenon have to say? They believe that “bringing down the enemy’s electronic devices could help in realizing certain objectives in some instances, but it can also be harmful if done at the wrong time.”

They noted that there is “a large number of people in the world who sympathize with Israel and might get involved in this battle, which would widen the circle of damage.”

On the other hand, Sheikh Fahd Bin Saad Al Jahni, a professor of sharia graduate studies, says that “in Islam, the Jihad is a broad concept that could be defined according to the interpretation of the and texts that cite the jihad. There are many types of jihad: the personal jihad, the jihad by money, and verbal Jihad. The last type includes the intellectual jihad, jihad by composition and by the call to God”.

Al Jahni added that “any attempt to spite the enemy and empower the religion must be conducted by legitimate means and according to Muslim rules. Therefore, religion could be widely empowered through electronic websites. This is what some people call “the electronic Jihad”. Thus, the terminology is correct, but it is the definition that matters as well as the extent to which the concept respects the legitimate procedure.”

“Therefore, I believe that the young Muslims who are striving to take advantage of this wide electronic window and fight the perverted ideology or shut down obscene websites and the websites of those who offended and dishonored the people of Islam and put hand on their holy sites like the Zionist aggressors, are using all legitimate means and are indeed leading a jihad provided they don’t exceed the limit of God in their rivalry,” Al Jahni said.

Moreover, Abdullah Al Aalwit, a Muslim law researcher, pointed to the fact that electronic jihad means “destroying the enemy’s electronic devices or surreptitiously taking valuable information from these devices.” He confirmed that “the electronic jihad, like any other type of ihad, is legitimate in determined instances and might be harmful if used at the wrong time and in the wrong circumstances.”

“However, it is clear that the nation’s condition does not allow any type of Jihad against any of its enemies because our enemies are way more advanced than we are in all kinds of fields. If an electronic war shall erupt, it is expected to have serious repercussions due to the big number of those who sympathize with Israel in the world and who might enter this battle, which would widen the circle of damage,” he added.

Al Aalwit advised that people should “take this factor in consideration because sympathizers with Israel exceed us in number and in their scientific and technological skills. We are not discouraging this type of jihad because the true original jihad is led by fight and struggle and any other attempt is simply a means to exert pressure and strangle the enemy rather than a jihad. The term “jihad” here is used as a metaphor, and since electronic wars are means of pressure, they do not conform to the known provisions of jihad”.

“In addition, the electronic Jihad is immoral because it is similar to theft, spying and embezzlement. Jihad is not fought in this manner, as if we are spreading drugs in the enemy’s society. Electronic jihad only serves in times of war when fighters want to disrupt the enemy’s communication devices. However, we are not in war and electronic battles under these circumstances are considered as a type of corruption.”

The Saudis in particular know they can only encourage freelance jihad so much, lest it be turned against the Saudi establishment, electronic jihad included.

On a larger scale, supporters of the electronic jihad have raised their tone. Newspapers reported the announcement of Sheikh Jamal Kotb, chairman of the Fatwa Committee in Al Azhar, who advocated for the confrontation of the Israeli piracy “to prevent them from attacking us,” although he refused “to harm them if they did not attack first”. Dr. Mustafa Mourad, professor at Al Azhar University, said that “the electronic jihad is a type of jihad because jihad is not limited to military weapons or any other type of painful means. Under jihad, it is possible to use any tool that might fulfill the goal behind the attack against the enemies of God in response to their attempts to violate our rights and seize our holy sites.”...

Mohammad Shafia has previously said: "I would do it again 100 times"; "May the devil shit on their graves. Is that what a daughter should be? Would a daughter be such a whore?" And "God's curse on them for generations. ... They betrayed Islam."

"Shafias all found guilty of first-degree murder," by Timothy Appleby for the Globe and Mail, January 29 (thanks to Mark):

Three Afghan-Canadians charged with murdering four relatives in a so-called "honour killing" have been convicted on all charges.

The verdict was reached shortly after 1 pm Sunday afternoon and delivered about an hour later to a packed courtroom.

In all, the seven-woman, five-man jury had deliberated just over 15 hours, spread over two days, sequestered on the second floor of the historic Frontenac County Court House in downtown Kingston.‬

Tooba Mohammad Yahya, husband Mohammad Shafia and son Hamed Mohammed Shafia are escorted to court in Kinston last month.

A police officer stands outside the Frontenac County Courthouse, where Mohammad Shafia, his wife Tooba Mohammad Yahya and their son Hamed were undergoing trial for the murder of four family members, in Kingston, Ontario January 26, 2012.

‪The defendants face an automatic penalty of life imprisonment with no chance of parole for at least 25 years.

There have been other murder charges involving so-called "honour killings" – homicides of women slain out of a perverse desire to "purify" families of disgrace created by supposedly immoral conduct – but not on this scale, and not involving parents who were willing to wipe out half their family for the sake of their honour, and then lie about it.‬

‪Charged with four counts of first-degree murder were businessman Mohammad Shafia, 59, his second wife Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 42, and their eldest son, Hamed, 21.‬

‪They stood accused of drowning sisters Zainab, Sahar and Geeti Shafia, aged 19, 17 and 13, whose bodies were found in a submerged car at a Rideau Canal lock, just east of Kingston, in June, 2009.‬

The fourth person in the vehicle was Mr. Shafia’s first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad, 53, who had entered Canada illegally, posing as his cousin, but who in fact was part of a polygamous marriage and who by every indication wanted to escape from it.

‪ All three defendants briefly addressed the court and proclaimed their innocence in what Mr. Justice Robert Maranger described as a “heinous crime.”

“We are not criminal, we are not murderer, we didn't commit the murder and this is unjust,” Mr. Mohammad said through a translater.

Ms.Yahya responded: “Your honourable justice, this is not just. I am not a murderer, and I am a mother, a mother.”

Their son said, in English: “Sir, I did not drown my sisters anywhere.”

But the judge was unmoved.

“You have each been convicted of the planned and deliberate murder of four members of your family...(A verdict) clearly supported by the evidence presented at this trial,” said Judge Maranger.

“It is difficult to conceive of a more despicable, more heinous crime...the apparent reason behind these cold-blooded, shameful murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your completely twisted concept of honour ... that has absolutely no place in any civilized society.”...

Shakila, the ex-Muslim living in a Muslim country who blogs at Liberated, has a new post up about Muslim men, Muslim women, and marriage:

Each time I see a Muslim woman dressed up in the complete Islamic burqa with only her dead expressionless eyes piercing through the black face veil, I cannot but help feel extremely helpless and distressed. It breaks my heart to see a woman being treated worse than an animal. On top of that, they actually feel they are doing the right thing by subjugating themselves to the tyranny of their husbands or fathers.

Read it all.

If this is true, for the parties they are trying not to offend, anything short of Islam -- of professing that there is no god but Allah, and that Muhammad is his messenger -- would be "offensive." This is not making Christianity more palatable. It is de-Christianizing it. It is manufacturing yet another Christian heresy.

Indeed, for many denominations, the validity of baptism depends on the words used: "I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." No euphemisms, no nicknames: for example, trial balloons aiming to portray a more gender-neutral God have already been burst: the use of "Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier" in baptism has been rejected by the Catholic Church, if not others.

Those who truly believe they are winning souls for Christ would not risk the validity of baptism, and those who are genuinely convinced that they possess the truth will not apologize or worry it is offensive.

As a technical matter, one wonders how the translators handle the words: "Who is a liar but he that denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denies the Father and the Son" (1 John 2:22). And "But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 10:33).

One last bit of holy writ: "You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward." - James Thurber

"'Father' and 'Son' Ousted from the Trinity in New Bible Translations," by Hussein Hajj Wario for the Yahoo! Contributor Network, January 27 (thanks to CGW):

A controversy is brewing over three reputable Christian organizations, which are based in North America, whose efforts have ousted the words "Father" and "Son" from new Bibles. Wycliffe Bible Translators, Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) and Frontiers are under fire for "producing Bibles that remove "Father," "Son" and "Son of God" because these terms are offensive to Muslims." Concerned Christian missionaries, Bible translators, pastors, and national church leaders have come together with a public petition to stop these organizations. They claim a public petition is their last recourse because meetings with these organizations' leaders, staff resignations over this issue and criticism and appeals from native national Christians concerned about the translations "have failed to persuade these agencies to retain "Father" and "Son" in the text of all their translations."

Clearly, they fail to appreciate the far-reaching ramifications that Christians not only may dare, but are commanded to call on the Creator of the Universe as "Father." That fundamentally re-wires one's relationship with God and describes a unique intimacy and bond of love that ought not be squandered to score short-term points.

Biblical Missiology, a ministry of Boulder, Colorado-based Horizon International, is sponsoring the petition.

The main issues of this controversy surround new Arabic and Turkish translations. Here are three examples native speakers give:

First, Wycliffe and SIL have produced Stories of the Prophets, an Arabic Bible that uses an Arabic equivalent of "Lord" instead of "Father" and "Messiah" instead of "Son."
Second, Frontiers and SIL have produced Meaning of the Gospel of Christ , an Arabic translation which removes "Father" in reference to God and replaces it with "Allah," and removes or redefines "Son." For example, the verse which Christians use to justify going all over the world to make disciples, thus fulfilling the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19) reads, "Cleanse them by water in the name of Allah, his Messiah and his Holy Spirit" instead of "baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Rev. Bassam Madany, an Arab American who runs Middle East Resources, terms these organization's efforts as "a western imperialistic attempt that's inspired by cultural anthropology, and not by biblical theology."

Third, Frontiers and SIL have produced a new Turkish translation of the Gospel of Matthew that uses Turkish equivalents of "guardian" for "Father" and "representative" or "proxy" for "Son." To Turkish church leader Rev. Fikret Böcek, "This translation is 'an all-American idea' with absolutely no respect for the 'sacredness' of Scripture, or even of the growing Turkish church."

SIL has issued a public response stating "all personnel subscribe to a statement of faith which affirms the Trinity, Christ's deity, and the inspiration of Scripture." However, in the same statement, which is similar to Wycliffe's, it claims "word-for-word translation of these titles would communicate an incorrect meaning (i.e. that God had physical, sexual relationships with Mary) [sic]," thus justifying substituting "Father" and "Son" in new translations. Calls and emails to Wycliffe and SIL to clarify their positions were not returned. Frontiers responded to calls with articles that critics have already dismissed as skirting omissions of "Father" and "Son" in new Bible translations.

The point about sexual connotations is baloney. Many of these countries have, or once had indigenous Christian populations with scriptures in indigenous languages where this was not a problem. If they're coming up with something untoward, they need better translators.

Nine. There's that number again. Now, everyone knows only the greasiest of greasy Islamophobes retail the notion that the practice of marrying girls as young as nine has something to do with Muhammad marrying Aisha when she was six and consummating the marriage when she was nine, and he was six times her age at fifty-four. So, all of these people continuing the practice in the remotest, most undeveloped areas Afghanistan and Yemen out of Islamic piety must actually be reading American or European blogs, right?

Wrong. For example, there is Sahih Bukhari 7.62.88: "The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)."

It is Islam's own texts and traditions that cause the practice to persist in places far removed from one another, and to appear where it had previously been unimaginable -- for example, Britain. "Islington girls forced into marriage at the age of nine," by Pavan Amara for the Islington Tribune, January 27:

An alarming number of under-age girls – some as young as nine – are being forced into marriage in Islington, according to a leading campaign group.

The Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (IKWRO) claim that at least 30 girls in the borough were forced into marriage in 2010.

The practice was condemned by the Imam of Finsbury Park Mosque, who said such marriages were against Islam and “unacceptable”.

He pledged to invalidate any marriage which he said were carried out by “back-street Imams”.

IKWRO, which made headlines last month when they revealed there had been almost 3,000 “honour-based” violence cases in 2010, has shown the Tribune records which revealed at least three 11-year-old girls and two nine-year-olds had been forced into marriage with older men within Islington. The oldest girls involved were 16.

They have warned that hundreds of Islington girls could be suffering sexual, emotional and physical scars as a result of the child marriages every year and are calling for teachers, social workers and police to be better trained to spot and manage the abuse.

Information from the Ministry of Justice, following a Freedom of Information request, revealed that 32 Forced Marriage Protection Order applications were made for children under 16 in Britain last year.

Six of these were made for under-16s within Islington at the Royal Courts of Justice, although these were not necessarily made for Islington residents.

At the Islington court, “five or fewer” orders were made to protect children between the ages of 9-11.

The orders are a form of injunction that threaten legal punishment if marriage takes place due to emotional or physical force.

In most cases, the children fear they will be killed if they reveal the truth to anybody, while others believe they will be separated from their families and taken into social services’ care.

Dianna Nammi, director of IKWRO, explained that the girls are married in a mosque’s sharia court. This means they are not legally married according to British law, rendering the Home Office unable to recognise or prove the abuse.

“They are still expected to carry out their wifely duties, though, and that includes sleeping with their husband,” she said.

“They have to cook for them, wash their clothes, everything. They are still attending schools in Islington, struggling to do their primary school homework, and at the same time being practically raped by a middle-aged man regularly and being abused by their families. So they are a wife, but in a primary school uniform.

That's not being "practically" raped. The practice will diminish when the law comes after the "husbands" and families with the force with which they would pursue child molesters and human traffickers. This is rape, and it is human trafficking.

“The reason it doesn’t get out is because they are too terrified to speak out, and also the control their families have over them is impossible to imagine if you’re not going through it. The way it is covered up is so precise, almost unspeakable.”

Ms Nammi said that one 13-year-old had to sneak out of a maths lesson to contact the group, because she was being monitored so closely by her family.

“Her teacher didn’t notice because she said she’d gone to the toilet, but when she got home that day she was beaten,” she said.

“Her father knew she hadn’t been in maths because he had sent an uncle to spy on who she was talking to through the classroom window.”

Ms Nammi said that the girls are married off to family friends or family members to stop them from losing their virginity to anyone not chosen by their father.

As young as nine. Heaven knows they're all going to become wild party animals at age 10.

However, the incentive is also often financial.

The financial aspect supports the human trafficking angle:

“The girl automatically becomes her husband’s property, so he takes financial responsibility for her,” said Ms Nammi.

“In fact, often the husband has to start contributing to the girl’s family, so it becomes a way of bringing in another salary.

“Who are girls going to tell? Often they feel like teachers at school won’t understand what their families are like. They will think they’re like Western families, and won’t understand that if they pass on anything at all that they’ve been told to the family, then the girl will be killed. So they just chose not to tell at all.”....

Indeed. It defies imagination that a secretive group holed up in a meticulously controlled compound in close proximity to the Pakistani military never made them wonder who their neighbors were. Panetta's observations echo what he said after the bin Laden raid in May: either the Pakistanis were incompetent, or complicit, though Panetta now seems to be leaning more toward the latter assessment.

"Pakistan knew where Bin Laden was all along, Leon Panetta admits as he reveals intelligence source for Osama raid," by David Baker for the Daily Mail, January 28:

Pakistan officials must have known that terror chief Bin Laden was holed up in a remote compound in Abbottabad, claims Pentagon chief Leon Panettta.

The Defence Secretary has publicly hit out at the Pakistani government who he says 'must have had some sense' of Osama Bin Laden's whereabouts.

He said he remains convinced they must have known someone of interest was hiding out in the safe-house in an interview for CBS's '60 Minutes', but added he has no proof.

The explosive interview, to be broadcast tomorrow, also saw Panetta acknowledge for the first time that Pakistani doctor Shakil Afridi had provided key information about the former Al Qaeda frontman's whereabouts.

Afridi ran a vaccination program for the CIA to collect DNA and verify Bin Laden's presence in the hideout and Panetta confessed he is 'very concerned' for the doctor who has been charged by Pakistan with treason.

Since the May 2 attack on Bin Laden's compound, last year, Pakistani leaders have continued to deny they had any idea Bin Laden was staying in the city.

This is despite revelations that he had been hiding at the site for as long as five years.

For months the CIA knew of his presence there and spied on him from its own top-secret safe-house next door to the terror leader's fortified compound, before Navy Seals were sent in. [...]

Shortly after the raid security forces announced they had arrested 40 people in Abbottabad, suspected of having connections to Osama Bin Laden.

This gave rise to growing accusations the Pakistani government must have been aware he was using the base as a safe house, given the network of support he had there....

Wherever Sharia experiences a resurgence, the observable effect is an increase in harassment and a decline in tolerance, of human rights, and civil liberties. Note the woman below who even found the grocer scolding her about her jeans. And she observed: "Everything becomes tougher: Going to see a gynaecologist, what to wear, how to talk."

The good news in this story is that not all Tunisians are ready to welcome their new overlords without a fight. What remains to be seen is whether they have the political will and strength in numbers to counter a highly aggressive and well organized campaign for Islamic rule, and a ruling party that will try to play both sides as long as it can, but will throw in its lot with Sharia when push comes to shove.

Younger Tunisian girls may soon have to ask their mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers how things used to be. "Thousands protest conservative Islam in Tunisia," from Agence France-Presse, January 28:

Thousands of Tunisians angered by the increasing prominence of ultra-conservative Islamists in a country only recently freed from dictatorial rule took to the streets in protest Saturday.

An AFP correspondent estimated several thousand activists, professors, artists and other demonstrators flooded the streets of the nation's capital, including along Bourguiba Avenue, a well-known thoroughfare that became a centre for dissent during protests that led to the ouster of dictator Zine el Abidine Ben Ali a year ago.

Some in Tunisia are angry by the growing influence of radical Islamists, known as Salafists, who have dominated headlines in recent weeks.

Police on Tuesday ended a weeks-long sit-in by Salafists at the university in Manouba, about 25 kilometres (15 miles) from Tunis. The Salafists were angry the university had banned the full-face Muslim veil, or niqab, over security concerns if students were concealed from head to toe.

Journalists have also suffered attacks at Salafist protests.

"We are here to speak out against aggression against journalists, activists and academics," said Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, founder of the Democratic Progressive Party.

"And to tell the government that Tunisians' hard-fought freedoms must not be compromised."

Sarah Kalthoum, a retired teacher in her 70s, said she was concerned by what she viewed as regressive ideas from Salafists.

"We spent our lives educating people, and now some want us to go back in time 14 centuries," she said.

Some in the crowd said they are sensing an encroaching religious conservativism in their everyday lives.

"The grocer told me the other day, 'I don't like your jeans,'" said Leila Katech, a retired anaesthesiologist. "I told him I didn't like his beard."

Outstanding.

Through this religious prism, "Everything becomes tougher: Going to see a gynaecologist, what to wear, how to talk," Katech said. Following Ben Ali's ouster, many Tunisians in October voted for the Islamist Ennahda party, which now dominates the government.

Again, when push comes to shove:

Anxious not to alienate its more radical members, the moderate Islamist party has remained quiet or reacted timidly to some Salafist incidents....

Recently a Danish cop broke the taboo and said what many already know: Immigrant criminals target Danes to make them move out of (Muslim) area. As a follow-up, I will here publish a few statements made by a Christian priest, a Danish police officer and a council chairman that confirm this observation:

Translated from Kristeligt Dagblad, January 12, 2011: Christian priest fleeing harassment in Vollsmose

The Iranian-born leader of the Free Church "Church of Love," Massoud Fouroozandeh has moved out of the Odense district Vollsmose with his family to a small town at a secret location. This happens after the family has had two cars smashed because a Christian cross was hanging inside them.

"I was told by young people in Vollsmose that I should not drive into the area with the cross hanging in the car. Then our car was smashed and burned and the seats cut up. Since then the side windows in our new car was smashed three times," he says.

After the vandalism Fouroozandeh Massoud and his wife dare no longer let their children play on the playground in Vollsmose.

"They do not wear a headscarf, which 99 percent of the other children do, so they attracted too much attention, and it was not safe to send them out to play. So we moved very far away from Vollsmose," he says.

Translated from the official Danish Police magazine Dansk Politi, September 1, 2009: It was only a question of time:

Kim Thyssen was one of the two policemen who were shot at in Vollsmose in August. He has worked in the area for ten years and he is not surprised that there has been shooting at police. ...

"They have an extreme hatred towards authority. Moreover, there is also racism here, and it has become more pronounced in recent years. The Danes have a very difficult time here. Their children can not play in the sandbox, it's Danish cars that are set on fire, it is the Danish population's apartments that are broken into, it is the Danes that are shot at with air rifles, and it is the Danes who are exposed to street robberies."...

"We are often called racists, but that's how they look at everyone who enforce the law," says Kim Thyssen.

Translated from Fyens Stiftstidende, October 8, 2010: Violence against Danes in Vollsmose

According to Ra Ranunkel, Chairman of the Cooperation Council in Vollsmose, the situation in Vollsmose is tense and there is racism against the Danes living in the district. ...

"Ethnic conflict is about to be started," he warns. "It is the Danes who are victims of violent assault and it is the Danes' cars that are torched. It's gangs of mainly Palestinian and Somali background who are behind the attacks."...

According to Ra Ranunkel, it is a hardcore gang of Somalis who target their assaults against Danes. And it is mainly Palestinians who burn the Danes' cars ...

"An ethnic conflict, a racial conflict is breaking out, and it's scary," says Ra Ranunkel.

We should stop using Muslims' self-chosen word – “Islamophobia” – by which they paint themselves into a corner of being feared: it destroys communication. Instead of such a divisive term, we should insert a more approachable and factual word that preserves opportunities for bridge-building and learning: “Islamonausea.” This does not render communication impossible, but enables visitors to our Western cultures to notice aspects of their behavior that make us sick.

It's no wonder that Muslims use the word “Islamophobia” so often. Lacking convincing arguments, charm or constructive contributions to their surroundings, being feared is the only way to gain at least some kind of respect. The term Islamophobia, fear of Islam, points to what Muslims want, not to what non-Muslims feel. Who is afraid of Islam, anyway?

“Xenophobia,” an irrational fear of that which is strange or foreign, also doesn't work. Aversion to Islam doesn't come from unfamiliarity with the religion; in fact, it's quite the opposite. There’s no reason to fear being called a racist, either, since neither Islam nor Muslims are a race.

Our language needs a term that describes what many critically thinking people feel about Islam according to their own terms, not according to what Muslims wish us to feel or what the PC establishment diagnoses to scare us into allowing more voters for the Left into our countries. We need a term that simultaneously invites Muslims to realize what they need to change about their behavior and religion if they wish to advance from an embarrassing last place in the evolution of civilizations and to earn some real respect among the world community.

Natural reaction

As in many other nauseating situations, Islamonausea is a normal and natural reaction to something abnormal, not vice versa.

The nausea reflex is innate, and it is biologically natural and healthy to experience emotional and bodily discomfort with anything that is unpleasant, unhealthy or harmful.

There is nothing phobic or racist in feeling nausea when hearing about the Islamic massacres performed by Muhammad and his many devout copycats through history and all over the world today. The same goes for Muhammad's sexual relationship with a nine-year old girl, and the cutting off of limbs and stonings in the name of Allah and his Sharia laws.

Thinking of Muslims’ epidemic practice of forced inbreeding (which damages intelligence and increases the risk of psychiatric diseases) -- often many generations in a row -- one may also experience unpleasant feelings in the abdomen. There is also no shame in feeling nausea when hearing about the extreme social control, violence and murderous examples made to keep and scare hundreds of millions of their women from enjoying their human rights to chose their own sexual partners, clothing and lifestyle.

The many calls for hatred, violence and killing of non-Muslims commanded by the faultless Koran are outright disgusting. Imagining the pinnacle of evolution being a planet-sized Islamic caliphate is not only a complete embarrassment to the human race; it may also make one lose one's appetite.

Examples

The word Islamonausea can be used to describe a feeling of nausea, disgust, displeasure, discomfort or aversion that arises by itself when encountering Islam or Islamic culture, or whatever or whoever represents it.

Examples of use of the word: "I'm not afraid of Islam, I have Islamonausea." "I do not want minarets in my town. They give me Islamonausea." "They got Islamonausea from all the Muslim immigrants and decided to move to another neighbourhood." "Reading the Koran gives me Islamonausea." "He got Islamonausea and decided to quit his job at the prison." "I get Islamonausea hearing about all those honor killings." "I get Islamonausea at the thought of eating Halal." "I get Islamonausea seeing all those Muslims hopping up and down and shooting in the air, trying to scare us into respecting their childish behaviour."

Prevalence

The first use of the word that I have been able to trace, is from 7 July 2005, in a comment on this website, Jihadwatch.org.

Here, a person calling himself Sheik Canuck, writes in a comment to an article on Muslims' positive reaction to the Islamic suicide bombings in London that same day:

"I don't have islamophobia, I have islamoNausea, I'm sick of them all."

The first time it occurred in a Danish newspaper was in a letter by this writer in Nordjyske Stiftstidende on December 30th 2011, entitled "We have nausea."

The term attracted some attention when the comedian, atheist and Islam critic Pat Condell used it in a video from 2009 called "Apologists for evil."

Islamonausea deserves its own article on Wikipedia. Help get Islamonausea into our dictionaries by using the word on blogs, in articles and in Letters to the Editor, and in everyday speech.

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 28 — Former Selangor Islamic affairs executive councillor Datuk Hasan Ali claimed today Christian ministers have resorted to handing out electronic gadgets and wearing kopiah (skullcaps) to mosques in their efforts to convert Muslims.

The Gombak Setia assemblyman, who was sacked from PAS and the state government earlier this month, told an anti-apostasy rally in Kepala Batas, Penang that Muslims in the country were vulnerable to these methods due to their lack of faith.

He said that when he was Selangor executive councillor, he received at least 60 reports of apostasy including how Muslims were enticed with money and given gifts of laptop computers, cameras, cars, monthly food provisions and gadgets like solar-powered bibles.

“There were reports of foreign Christian ministers wearing Muslim skullcaps and attending prayers at a certain mosque in Petaling Jaya to establish a communal relationship with Muslims before converting them.

“I was told these international Christian groups have unlimited funds,” he told a crowd of about 2,000, a tenth of Himpunan Sejuta Umat’s (Himpun) targeted 20,000 attendess.

Unlimited funds? How underhanded and dastardly!

The coalition of Muslim NGOs has organised several such gatherings in response to the “challenge of Christianisation”.

Himpun was mooted following last year’s controversial August 3 raid by Selangor Islamic authorities on the Damansara Utama Methodist Church (DUMC) in Petaling Jaya, where it was alleged that Christians were converting Muslims.

Hasan had backed the raid and said there “could be hundreds, maybe even thousands” of cases of Muslims being converted by Christians.

Last November, the former Selangor PAS chief told the Selangor Legislative Assembly that evangelical Christians are using high-tech devices such as solar-powered talking bibles to proselytise Muslims in the state.

The indomitable Ali Sina of Faith Freedom has been in a discussion of sorts with Sheila Musaji of The American Muslim, who is an established liar. His latest piece addressed to her brilliantly answers the principal charges that Leftists and Islamic supremacists routinely make against Pamela Geller and me, and our organizations.

(I have reproduced it below as it appears in the original; "Namazi" is of course the communist antisemite Maryam Namazie, and "Bari" is Rifqa Bary.)

...Let us continue:

It is both surprising and not surprising that Ali Sina has now been named to the Board of Directors of the newly formed Stop the Islamization of Nations SION which is a coalition SIOA, SIOE, and other hate groups, and which will be led by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer.  It is not surprising because of the animosity towards Islam that he shares with Geller and Spencer.  It is surprising because of the fact that Geller herself is Jewish, and Ali Sina seems to have as much animosity towards Judaism as he does against Islam.

Perhaps this is above your ken but what unites Pamela Geller (a Jew), Robert Spencer (a Catholic), Wafa Sultan (a secular humanist), Babu Suseelan (a Hindu) ,and yours truly, is our humanity. We have different beliefs, but we don’t allow that to divide us.  To a Muslim this might be incomprehensible. You see the world divided on religious lines.  We don’t see it that way. We see all mankind as members of one gigantic human family.  We have different tastes in politics and in religion. But we never let them come between us and divide us.

I receive many emails from youths who say they no longer believe in Islam and want to become Christian. I never discourage them. Let me quote what I wrote to one such youth yesterday.

This 22 year old Somali woman wrote to Pamela Geller and told her that she wants to be a Christian.  She added, “However, i know that if my family [comes to] know about this they will surely end my life since it will bring them shame in our community. Once my father found a bible in my drawer and he told me that if he founds it there again he will do something to me that i will regret forever. I feel unsafe here and am looking for a way out please help me before it is too late.”

Pamela asked me to reply and here is a few passages from my email to her:

“Faith is a very personal matter. It is a relationship you have with your God.  No one can take it away from you and you don’t have to speak about it to anyone.   Jesus did not start a new religion. He wants to have a personal relationship with you.  As long as you have him in your heart, he is with you even if you don’t attend any church or interact with other Christians.  

If you live in your parent’s home, you need to live by their rules. Don’t keep a Bible at home and don’t have any cross or anything that may make them think you are a Christian.  You don’t need to do any baptism either.  Love of God is your baptism. Soon you will be out of your parent’s home and will be more independent.

…

Meanwhile I suggest you act with caution.  Time will pass fast. Study hard and get the best education you can. Education is your key to freedom. If you have a good education you can get a hired sooner and afford getting out of your parental home faster. You may even go and live in another city or another country.  

If you want to read the Bible you can find it online. If you want to discuss your faith with anyone you can find Christian communities online.  Don’t share your thoughts with anyone. Study, study and study!  This is the fastest way to your freedom.”

Pamela is a Jew and I am a humanist. But neither of us discouraged this girl from following the path that she had chosen for herself.  We don’t care about people’s faiths. We care about their lives.  We don’t divide mankind along religious lines.  There is no such thing as believers/unbelievers, the faithful and the kafir in our lexicon. What matters, is our humanity and what makes us human is not what we believe, but how we live.

You are a Muslim. You are genuinely incapable to see that we are humans first, and religion is nothing compared to the strong string of humanity that runs through the core of all of us and binds us together like the beads in a rosary.  You see the world from the tainted glasses of Islam. What you don’t know is that those glasses come from the mind of a psychopath narcissist.  Islam is insanity.  This is not an insult.  This is my thesis and I have proven it. Read my book and you too will agree.

You then continued:

The Southern Poverty Law Center published a report citing Geller for hate speech.  The AFDI has been named a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.  The American Freedom Defense Initiative is the parent group of the SIOA.  Spencer, Geller, and Yerushalmi are featured in the SPLC reports Jihad Against Islam and The Anti-Muslim Inner Circle.

Yes I know. These traitorous leftist organizations are your lackeys.  What unites them with you Muslims is your common hatred of the Judeo-Christian western values.  But they are stupid.  They think by supporting fellow haters of the western values they will be stronger and you will help them to come to power. All they have to do to see their folly is to talk to fellow commies from Iran. Let them talk with Maryam Namazi from UK.  Namazi and her comrades were instrumental in the revolution of 1979 in Iran. They threw their lot with Islamists. But they were the first who were eliminated when Khomeni took power.  If Islam ever comes to power in Europe or in America, all those left leaning organization that today defend Islam will be the first to be eliminated.  Those who don’t read the history, tend to repeat the same errors.

Pamela Geller and her organizations don’t become hate groups just because a bunch of moon-bats says so.  Pamela has demonstrated her compassion and care for countless hapless and helpless young Muslims whose own families have turned against them.  Young Muslims write to her from all over the world asking for help. This woman should be awarded the Nobel Prize for her humanitarianism and for her compassion.  Alas the Nobel Prize committee is so politicized that they think charlatans like Arafat, Obama and Al Gore are more deserving for that prize than good humans who truly serve mankind.

One of the saddest stories is when Gore was granted the Nobel Prize for lying about global warming there was a 92 years woman named Irene Sendler, who was also a nominee.  She had saved some 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazi Holocaust by smuggling them out of Warsaw Ghetto, in her basket and tool box.  I felt a lump in my throat when I read her story and  that instead of her the committee chose this filty liar.

I don’t give a damn about those organizations calling Pamela Geller a hate monger.  I can see how much she cares about people. I saw how she took to heart the case of Rifqa Bari and protected that beautiful soul when her parents wanted to kill her.

Where were you to protect Rifqa? Why young Muslims don’t write to YOU to protect them from their families and write to Pamela?  Because they know you are a hypocrite Islamist and all you care is your damn religion, but Pamela is a humanitarian who cares about them and is not concerned about what religion they believe.  I have seen people write to her and say they want to stay Muslim but just want to be free from the tyranny of their parents and Pamela still advised them compassionately and tried to help them without ever telling them they should leave Islam first.

 Pay Pal at least temporarily suspended Geller’s site Atlas Shrugs for being a hate site.

Sure! They did it because a bunch of Muslims like you wrote to Pay Pal lied about Pamela and libled her of spreading hate.  When Pay Pal realized they had been duped they reversed their decision.

Actually, Musaji is here lying yet again. PayPal never actually suspended Geller at all.

You then said

Spencer and Geller attempted to patent the SIOA trademark, but were refused by the U.S. patent office The government response, posted on the site, states, “The applied-for mark 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.”

 That is because our Governments are misled. They consider Islam a religion and as such it is protected.  That is why we formed SION (Stop Islamization Of Nations) to educate and to unmask Islam.  Islam is not just a religion. It is more a political ideology of domination. It must be classified as such. It is more akin to communism and Nazism than it is to other faiths. Muhammad said al Islamo deenun wa dawla (Islam is both religion and government.) One cannot be separated from another. This is what people don’t know. It will take some time to make the world aware of it. But we are patient and determined.  More prominent people are joining SION from all over the world. We are poised to become a powerful international force.  And we will go after traitors who sell their country for vote.  We will expose them. We know that anytime a politician supports Islam we have to follow the money trail to find a skeleton in their closet. That is what we intend to do.

 The Center for American Progress released a groundbreaking report Fear Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America.  The key researchers for this report were Wajahat Ali, Eli Clifton, Matthew Duss, Lee Fang, Scott Keyes, and Faiz Shakir.  The report itself is the result of a six month investigative project, and is 132 pages in length.  Geller is cited as part of this network.

Oh really!? So a bunch of Muslims and their minions got together and cited Geller as Islamophobe? And what else is new?  I repeated many times that Islamophobia is a fallacy. Geller is a defender of the Western civilization.

Musaji quotes several other organizations that are either run by Muslims or are sympathetic to Islam that denounce the critics of Islam as “Islamophobe”. In her opinion this is “evidence.”  In Persian we have a saying: They asked the fox who will testify on your behalf, he said my tail. Or better than that is when Allah backs up Muhammad.  Who gives a damn if Muslims and their minions call us hate monger? This is circular reasoning.  I talk about facts and I have shown that we are not hate mongers, but Muslims are.

It is one thing to be unidentifiable in a society where one is always under the control of a male guardian and a perpetual minor, but in a free and open society, full participation requires being identifiable as an individual and not merely in relation to another.

For that matter, in the West, unlike other places where the supposed equivalence has been stated very crassly, the bottom line is that the female face is not a private part.

"Dutch plan ban on Muslim face veils next year," from Reuters, January 27 (thanks to Kenneth):

(Reuters) - The Dutch minority government plans to ban Muslim face veils such as burqas and other forms of clothing that cover the face from next year. The ban would make the Netherlands, where 1 million out of 17 million people are Muslim, the second European Union country to ban the burqa after France, and would apply to face-covering veils if they were worn in public.

"People should be able to look at each other's faces and recognize each other when they meet," the interior affairs ministry said in a statement Friday.

The ban will also apply to balaclavas and motorcycle helmets when worn in inappropriate places, such as inside a store, Deputy Prime Minister Maxime Verhagen told reporters, denying that this was a ban on religious clothing.

Geert Wilders' anti-Islam Freedom Party (PVV), which helps give the Liberal-Christian Democrat coalition a majority in parliament, has set considerable political store on getting the so-called burqa ban passed into law.

Few Muslim women in the Netherlands wear the Arabic-style niqabs which leave the eyes uncovered and Afghan-style burqas that cover the face with a cloth grid. Academics estimate the numbers at between 100 and 400, whereas Muslim headscarves which leave the face exposed are far more common.

The coalition has agreed to submit a new law to parliament next week stipulating that offenders would be fined up to 390 euros ($510), the ministry said.

Verhagen said the ban was intended to ensure that a tradition of open communication cherished in Dutch society was upheld, and to prevent people from concealing their identity in order to do harm....

The organization and transition to violence always seem to happen more than a little too easily, once again suggesting a rampage waiting for an excuse. And any old excuse will do.

These are not the makings of a stable society, and there can be no prosperity if society is so unstable that one fears anything one invests in might be obliterated at the drop of a hat.

Self-government, such as Egypt is said to desire, depends on the government of the self, on the individual level, and in communities. "Over 3000 Muslims Attack Christian Homes and Shops in Egypt, 3 Injured," by Mary Abdelmassih for the Assyrian International News Agency, January 28:

(AINA) -- A mob of over 3000 Muslims attacked Copts in the village of Kobry-el-Sharbat (el-Ameriya), Alexandria this afternoon. Coptic homes and shops were looted before being set ablaze. Two Copts and a Muslim were injured. The violence started after a rumor was spread that a Coptic man had an allegedly intimate photo of a Muslim woman on his mobile phone. The Coptic man, Mourad Samy Guirgis, surrendered to the police this morning morning for his protection.

According to eyewitnesses, the perpetrators were bearded men in white gowns. "They were Salafists, and some of were from the Muslim Brotherhood," according to one witness. It was reported that terrorized women and children who lost their homes were in the streets without any place to go.

According to Father Boktor Nashed from St. George's Church in el-Nahdah, a meeting between Muslim and Christian representatives was supposed to take place in the evening in Kobry-el-Sharbat. But, by 3 P.M. a Muslim mob looted and torched the home of Mourad Samy Guirgis, as well as the home of his family and three homes of Coptic neighbors. A number of Coptic-owned shops and businesses were also looted and torched. "We contacted security forces, but they arrived very, very late," Said Father Nashad. The fire brigade was prevented from going into the village by the Muslims and the fires were left to burn themselves out. "Those who lost their home, left the village," said Father Nashed.

Coptic activist Mariam Ragy, who was covering the violence in Kobry-el-Sharbat , said it took the army 1 hour to drive 2 kilometers to the village. "This happens every time. They wait outside the village until the Muslims have had enough violence, then they appear." She said that she spoke to many Copts from the village this evening who said that although their homes were not attacked, Muslims stood in the street asking them to come to their homes to hide. "They believed that this was a new trick to make them leave, so that Muslims would loot and torch their homes while they were away," said Ragy.

The Gov of Alexandria visited al-Nahda, near Kobry-el-Sharbat, this evening and told elYoum 7 newspaper that the two Copts and one Muslim who were injured were transported to hospital. He said that the family of the Muslim girl whose image was on the Copt's mobile phone wanted revenge from the Coptic man. They broke into his home and torched a furniture factory located in the same building.

Joseph Malak, a lawyer for the Coptic Church in Alexandria, said it is too early to count injuries to Copts or losses to their property.

Mr. Mina Girguis, of the Maspero Youth Union in Alexandria, said that "collective punishment of Copts for someone else's mistake, which is yet to be determined, is completely unacceptable." He believes that the reason for this violence is fabricated, and the military is behind it. "They are trying to divert the attention from the second revolution which is taking place now."

Father Nashed denied that Islamists were present, only ordinary village Muslims, and could not give an explanation as why people who have lived together amicably for years could commit such violence. "Maybe because of lack of security, they think that they can do as they please."

He said that the nearly 65 Coptic families were ordered to stay indoors and not to open their shops and businesses tomorrow. He added that security forces did not arrest any of the perpetrators, "on the contrary, they were begging the mob to go home."

By midnight the violence had subsided.

In a country where the Ikhwan got 47 percent of the vote, that will only go so far, but it does underscore the fact that the group, which knows how to campaign (and how to tamper with voting), now has to figure out how to implement its plans to govern and maintain power.

The Brotherhood built its reputation in part by railing against corruption and cronyism in Mubarak's regime, but has already shown its own ample propensity for the very same.

We tried to tell you. "Some in Egypt Turn Their Anger on Islamists, and the Syrian Embassy Is Attacked," by Liam Stack and David D. Kirkpatrick for the New York Times, January 27:

CAIRO — The resentments of many young political activists toward the Muslim Brotherhood spilled into a public spat on Friday as some demonstrators who came out to mark the first anniversary of the country’s revolution turned on the group.

The protesters, who accuse the popular Islamists of being too accommodating of the military leaders who replaced the ousted president, Hosni Mubarak, surrounded a stage set up by the Brotherhood, jeering and in some cases hurling plastic bottles.

Although the exchange lasted only about a half-hour and was hardly representative of national opinion, some Brotherhood members appeared shocked by the vehemence of the verbal assaults. At one point, protesters who have grumbled privately for weeks that the Brotherhood had made its peace with the military rulers chanted, “You sold out the revolution.”

Adding to the tumult, opponents of another autocratic leader, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, stormed into that country’s embassy a few blocks from the demonstration and caused some damage. Many Egyptian pro-democracy advocates and Syrians in Cairo believe that Mr. Assad should be overthrown as part of the Arab Spring revolts.

The tactics they first try on non-Muslims, they will eventually also turn on Muslims who for whatever reason are not good enough. Quite literally, first they came for the Jews, and no one cared.

It was the second time in five months that Egyptian security forces failed to prevent an attack on an embassy; the previous attack was at the Israeli Embassy.

The hostility toward the Brotherhood appeared to reflect the Islamist group’s transition from outlawed opposition to part of the political establishment, as well as the frustration of pro-democracy advocates who accuse the military of thwarting revolutionary change.

The dispute broke out around sunset Friday as thousands of people in several anniversary marches converged on the capital’s Tahrir Square, where the Muslim Brotherhood had erected a giant stage.

The marchers were determined to use the anniversary to call for the military council leading the country to exit power immediately. But the members of the Brotherhood, which dominates the newly elected Parliament, came to the square in an attempt to keep the anniversary demonstration upbeat. The Brotherhood has endorsed the generals’ timetable for a handover of power by the end of June.

When the marchers reached the square, some vented at the Brotherhood, both for its approval of the military’s timetable and for the acoustic domination of its stage.

A crowd surrounded the stage, shouting insults and waving their shoes in the air, a grave affront in the Arab world.

The speakers on the stage, including several sheiks from the prestigious Al Azhar College of Islamic Studies, looked stunned. “Please, don’t do this,” one speaker pleaded. “We are all one hand!”

The Brotherhood speakers attempted to join with the crowd by leading chants of “the people want the fall of the regime” and “down with military rule.”

But the protesters appeared unconvinced. The speakers retreated under a hail of insults and an occasional plastic soda bottle.

“Young people made the revolution, but then the army brought us Tantawi,” said Abdelrahman Ahmed, 37, a telecom engineer, referring to Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the top officer of the military council. “And now the Brotherhood mocks us.”...

Will the Islamophobia never end? An update on this story. "Man must stand trial in plot to hire hit man," from Associated Press, January 27 (thanks to Kenneth):

WILMINGTON, N.C. -- A North Carolina man must stand trial in a plot to hire a hit man to behead three witnesses from his brother's terrorism case, a federal magistrate judge ruled on Friday....

Sherifi, 21, was arrested last weekend after FBI agents tracked him to a Jan. 8 meeting in the parking lot of a Wilmington Food Lion grocery store with a government informant posing as the representative of a hit man. He is accused of paying the informant $4,250 toward the first killing while his mother waited nearby in a Honda minivan.

On Jan. 22, prosecutors said Sherifi met with the informant again, this time receiving fake photos that showed the blood-covered witnesses lying in a shallow grave and what appeared to be the man's severed head.

Officials say the plot to execute the witnesses was masterminded by Sherifi's imprisoned brother, Hysen Sherifi, 27. The older Sherifi was sentenced to 45 years earlier this month for his role in what prosecutors described as a conspiracy to attack the Marine base at Quantico, Va., and targets abroad....

Those targeted for death, according to the government, were three confidential informants who testified against Hysen Sherifi and his co-defendants during a lengthy terrorism trial that began in shortly after the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Hysen Sherifi and two other Raleigh men were found guilty of terrorism related offenses, while three other accused co-conspirators pleaded guilty.

During Friday's hearing, defense lawyer James Payne suggested that Shkumbin Sherifi may have believed that he was providing the money to pay for a lawyer for his brother's appeal and stressed that in hours of phone calls and meetings taped by the FBI he never directly ordered anyone to be killed.

Judge Jones said the government had probable cause to arrest Sherifi, questioning why anyone would hire a lawyer in a clandestine meeting held inside a car.

Good question!

"We have an individual who was in a Food Lion parking lot giving someone $4,000," the judge said.

The Sherifis are naturalized U.S. citizens who emigrated from Kosovo in 1999 following a bloody sectarian war. On Friday, one of their three sisters took the stand as a character witness and asked the judge to let her brother go home. Hylja Sherifi, 24, said her younger sibling was a primary caregiver to their ailing father, who has lung cancer.

Shkumbin Sherifi has also volunteered as a youth soccer coach and is an aspiring songwriter, she said. Several of his rap songs are available online on a website intended to promote his music.

"He has a lot of passion," Hylja Sherifi said, a college student. She added that her family loves the United States.

"I have hope in the American government and support America," she said. "I supported my boyfriend when he was fighting in Iraq for 13 months."

The soldier she spoke of sat with the family in the courtroom, along with about 25 other people who made the two-hour drive from Raleigh to show their support for the defendant. Many were members of the Islamic Association of Raleigh, the city's largest mosque.

Farris Barakat, a 21-year-old college student who attended the hearing, said Elshiekh was his second-grade teacher at the mosque's school. At the time of her arrest, she was also teaching at a secular Montessori academy in suburban Morrisville. Elshiekh is charged with using interstate facilities for murder for hire.

Barakat stressed that he did not in any way support the type of violence of which the Sherifis are accused of plotting. Islam is a religion of peace, he said.

Well, that's obvious. But how did the Sherifis come to misunderstand it so?

However, he questioned whether an overzealous government was seeking to prosecute Muslims for terror offenses using questionable tactics, such as using paid informants with criminal records.

Of course. That must be it. Muslims are always victims. Never perpetrators. Ever. An "overzealous government," drunk with "Islamophobia," is devoting its time to framing innocent, peaceful Muslims. Why didn't I realize this before? After all, "Islamophobia" is so obviously rampant at all levels of government: federal, state and local.

Hylja Sherifi echoed those sentiments, suggesting the full story had not been told in the courtroom.

Asked on the witness stand if any of the evidence presented Friday changed her positive view of her younger brother, she replied: "Not at all."

Of course not. Why should it?

Islamic supremacists and their Leftist allies game the system, get a thug acquitted, and then gloat about it. "'Zionists always lose' chant as SOAS cheekbiter is acquitted of assault," from the Jewish Chronicle, January 26:

A PhD student who bit a pro-Israel campaigner on the cheek at SOAS Israel Apartheid Week has been acquitted of assault.

Mohammed Abdelkarim was accused of biting Dean Gold on the face during a tussle on March 20 last year, smashing his camera to the ground. He was cleared of both assault and criminal damage. Palestine Solidarity Campaign activists in the public gallery cheered and whooped as the verdict was announced, shouting, "Zionists always lose," at Mr Gold's family and friends as they left court.

The scuffle took place as Mr Gold was filming an unidentified man making obscene remarks about the Holocaust.

In footage played to the court, an elderly black man rants to the camera: "Six million Jews lined up outside the gas chambers like lambs to the slaughter." Mr Gold said: "I was very distressed. I thought, this must be illegal. I remembered I had my camera, so I asked him if he minded being filmed."

Mr Abdelkarim is then heard approaching and asking the man if he minds being filmed, telling the man he will "knock it [the camera] off" if he does not wish to be filmed.

But the subject replies: "I have nothing to hide." Mr Gold alleged that Mr Abdelkarim then launched himself at him. "He was growling and my cheek was pinned between his teeth, I felt like he was trying to bite my ear off. I could feel his breath and him moving towards my ear. My cheek was clamped, vice-like, in his teeth."

The defence argued that it was Mr Abdelkarim who had been first punched by Mr Gold, and then pinned in a bear hug, before resorting to biting Mr Gold in order to free himself.

Srikantharajah Nereshraaj, defending, said the pro-Israel activists had been present to "disrupt, antagonise and provoke reactions" at what he described as a "Palestinian cultural event."

Mr Abdelkarim said the Israel campaigners had apparently ignored his requests not to take pictures of his two young children. Israeli film student Roy Goldman, who was called as a witness, agreed that he had been filming and taking pictures at the event.

Mr Abdelkarim told the court he was "not a political person" and had come to the event with his family for food and face-painting. "I did not want my children appearing in any footage at all," he said. He had noticed Mr Gold filming. "I could see they [his children] would appear in the background."...

Islamic supremacists have a thing about filming. At our various AFDI/SIOA rallies, they film all of us incessantly, but when pro-freedom activists try to photograph or film them, they're shouted at, abused, and even attacked.

The fundamental aim of jihad in all its forms is to impose Sharia, and that is why jihadists in supposedly "regional" conflicts find common cause with others far removed from them, as the spokesman here claims support in Saudi Arabia.

Boko Haram has consistently targeted institutions, practices, and people that would stand in the way of their imposition of Sharia, to which the government in Abuja responded this week: but what are your demands?

More on this story. "Boko Haram vows to fight until Nigeria establishes sharia law," by Monica Mark for the Guardian, January 27:

The Islamist group Boko Haram, which has killed almost 1,000 people in Nigeria, will continue its campaign of violence until the country is ruled by sharia law, a senior member has told the Guardian. "We will consider negotiation only when we have brought the government to their knees," the spokesman, Abu Qaqa, said in the group's first major interview with a western newspaper. "Once we see that things are being done according to the dictates of Allah, and our members are released [from prison], we will only put aside our arms – but we will not lay them down. You don't put down your arms in Islam, you only put them aside."

Oh, Qaqa.

Qaqa, whose name is a pseudonym, said the group's members were spiritual followers of al-Qaida, and claimed they had met senior figures in the network founded by Osama bin Laden during visits to Saudia Arabia.

He chose "Qaqa" on purpose?

The interview comes a week after Boko Haram claimed responsibility for Nigeria's single deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 186 people in the northern city of Kano.

In an audio message posted on YouTube on Friday, the group's current leader, Abubakar Shekau, threatened to bomb schools and kidnap family members of government officials.

"If [security forces] are going to places of worship and destroying them, like mosques and Quranic schools, you have primary schools as well, you have secondary schools and universities, and we will start bombing them."

Shekau rejected calls for a negotiated peace from President Goodluck Jonathan, who on Thursday called for the shadowy sect to step out of the shadows and engage in dialogue.

Nigerian officials have voiced hopes for a negotiated settlement with "moderate elements" of the group. "Under the circumstances, if you look hard enough, you can find moderate elements you can communicate with," General Andrew Azazi, the national security adviser to the president, told the Wall Street Journal on Friday. [...]

Qaqa said Shekau and others had travelled to Saudi Arabia for training and funding. "Al-Qaida are our elder brothers. During the lesser Hajj [last August], our leader travelled to Saudi Arabia and met al-Qaida there. We enjoy financial and technical support from them. Anything we want from them we ask them." [...]

But Qaqa said the rights of the country's 70 million Christians, who represent half of Nigeria's population, "would be protected" under the group's envisioned Islamic state. "Even the prophet Mohammed lived with non-Muslims and he gave them their dues." But he said everyone must abide by sharia law: "There are no exceptions. Even if you are a Muslim and you don't abide by sharia, we will kill you. Even if you are my own father, we will kill you."...

That Muslim Brotherhood? The moderate, "largely secular" one? This is, of course, not so much a departure as moving from one department to another: Hamas' charter describes itself as "one of the wings of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine," and the leader of the Brotherhood in Egypt, Mohammed Badie, has praised Hamas as a role model.

"Source: Hamas' Meshaal Sets Sights on Brotherhood Post," from the Investigative Project on Terrorism, January 27:

Hamas' out-going politburo chairman is leaving the Palestinian terrorist group to take a "high position in the Muslim Brotherhood movement," a "well-informed source in Hamas" told the Nazareth-based Arabic-language Al-Sinnara last week.

The move would see Khaled Meshaal—the longtime Damascus-based leader of Hamas—transition to a new, more international role, as head of the "Supreme Council of the [Brotherhood] movement." The Council is said to be "responsible for political issues," according to the report. It remains to be seen whether the article is referring to the group's Guidance Bureau, which largely deals with the movement's political affairs, or with another body altogether.

If true, the news would help explain why Meshaal has been so adamant about not seeking re-election. Earlier reports noted that the group made an official plea for Meshaal "to reconsider" his stance.

"This is a public matter that the Hamas institutions should decide, and not an individual person," the group said.

Not a day later, an informed Palestinian source told Ynet that Meshaal's request to withdraw from the one-man race was denied by the group's Shura Council, and that he would indeed continue to serve as the politburo chief.

It has been speculated that if Meshaal exits, the post could go to Hamas' Gaza-based Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh, or Hamas' original political bureau chief, Mousa Abu Marzook.

Hamas has been in a state of flux in recent months, and unrest in Syria could force the group to find a new home base for its political leadership.

Meshaal's purported move appears to have the blessing of higher-ups in the Brotherhood. According to the Al-Sinnara source, longtime Brotherhood spiritual advisor, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, is in support of the leadership jump.

How is it that Shekau studied Islam at the feet of Islamic clerics and yet did not emerge with the idea that it was a beautiful Religion of Peace? Why is this exact same misunderstanding of Islam so prevalent among Muslims, including clerics, worldwide? Why does no one in the mainstream media ever care to ask such questions of Muslim spokesmen in the U.S.?

"Shekau leading Boko Haram from the shadows," from AFP, January 28 (thanks to Clark):

KANO (AFP) – Abubakar Muhammad Shekau was once thought to have been killed, but has re-emerged to lead Islamist group Boko Haram from the shadows as it carries out a bloody onslaught in northern Nigeria.

Very little is known about Shekau, but this week he appeared on YouTube, threatening more attacks and saying Boko Haram was responsible for the January 20 violence which killed 185 people in Kano in reprisal for the arrest and torture of its members.

Aged 43, he was born in a farming village also called Shekau in northeastern Yobe state.

He moved to the nearby city of Maiduguri, Boko Haram’s base, about a decade ago, according to sources familiar with the group.

Shekau studied theology under local clerics in the Mafoni area of Maiduguri and enrolled in a government-run school for Islamic studies.

He is often shown in photos wearing a keffiyeh and seated next to an AK-47, his face intense....

The voice said to be Shekau in the message posted on YouTube on Thursday said “we attacked the security formations because our members were arrested and tortured. Our women and children have also been arrested.

“They should know that they also have wives and children,” he said. “We can also abduct them. It is not beyond our powers.”

In another part of the message, he says, “I enjoy killing anyone that God commands me to kill the way I enjoy killing chickens and rams.”

Every day my email box is filled with torrents of abuse and threats. There are at least three websites that are almost wholly dedicated to showing what a stupid and evil person I am, and ugly to boot. Opinions I never held and statements I never made, approving of genocide, racism, fascism, etc., are routinely ascribed to me. People I've stood in a room with once or twice, or said something polite about, are in numerous reports my closest collaborators, with my wholehearted approval for every supposedly wicked thing they've ever done. People I've never met claim to know all about my motives, my character, and my innnermost thoughts, and eagerly "expose" just how rotten they are.

All this just comes with the territory. It is by now obvious that the Islamic supremacist machine in the U.S., and the Left as well, doesn't just try to show its enemies to be wrong. In fact, it usually doesn't attempt that at all, or if it does, it does on false pretenses. No, what the Islamic supremacists and the Left do is try to demonize and marginalize their opponents, so that no decent person would dare to be seen with them. And even among cowardly and craven conservatives, this tactic has traction. And so in sum, I am confident that I have been insulted, abused, lied about, and threatened far, far more than Abas Idris ever was. As Pamela Geller says, "I figure I am owed about a trillion bucks, give or take."

"Jury sides with Muslim guard in harassment case," by Bob Egelko in the San Francisco Chronicle via Moonbattery, January 26 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

A San Francisco jury has awarded $465,400 to a Muslim of African descent who quit his job as a security guard after a co-worker called him a "goddamn terrorist," supervisors made racist comments and a top company official endorsed a statement that "Muslims kill people."

The Superior Court jury found Thursday that Abas Idris' employer, Andrews International, was responsible for harassment and a hostile work environment that forced Idris to resign, and awarded him $65,400 for lost wages and emotional distress. On Monday, the jury added $400,000 in punitive damages.

Idris, 27, said Tuesday he's had other security jobs both before and after his 2 1/2-year stint with Andrews, but none in which "co-workers and superiors were referring to me as a terrorist or referring to me as al Qaeda."

He said the court case allowed him to stand up for his rights and to make it clear that "Islam is a religion of peace."

Yes, it certainly establishes that.

Andrews International, a worldwide security company based in Los Angeles, plans to appeal the verdict, attorney Madonna Herman said Tuesday.

"Andrews does not condone discrimination or harassment of any kind," Herman said in a statement. She said the company promoted Idris to a supervisory position and accommodated his requests for schedule changes.

Idris, of Eritrean descent, was brought to the United States from Saudi Arabia by his parents when he was 2. He was hired by Andrews as a security officer at the Letterman Digital Arts Center in the Presidio in September 2010 and made $14 an hour....

Later, Idris said, one supervisor told him that war was one of the "pillars of Islam," and another said that "Muslims kill people," particularly gays.

Idris said a co-worker told him about a January 2010 conversation with a fellow security officer who referred to Idris as a "goddamn terrorist" and added, "You can't trust al Qaeda."

Idris said no one took his complaints seriously. When the incidents were discussed at a supervisors' meeting in February 2010, he said, the company's regional director, Tom Dinnauer, described Idris as "a rat with an agenda" and said his supervisor, who had declared that Muslims kill people, "has a good point."

Idris said he quit his job that month in fear for his safety.

The mainstream media and the Islamic supremacist Hamas-linked hate group CAIR are still doing all they can to whip up a frenzy about the NYPD's showing of the film The Third Jihad to police officers.

Lost in the hysteria is the question of whether there is anything inaccurate or false in the film -- no one who is protesting against this film is going beyond the claim that it is "Islamophobic." In a sane world, Kelly and Bloomberg would not be apologizing at all. They'd be saying, "Yes, we showed the film, and we're going to keep showing it, and what of it? If the Muslims in New York are upset about it being inaccurate, let them demonstrate its inaccuracy by taking positive steps to fight in their own community against the stealth jihad activity that the film documents."

Also, in a sane world, the Mayor and the NYPD would not be expected to reach out to the Muslim community and prove their good will. The Muslim community would be reaching out to the Mayor and the NYPD, eager to prove its good will. And the Mayor and the NYPD would be telling Hamas-linked CAIR that its counterterror cooperation was not enough, instead of letting this execrable Islamic supremacist Hamas front dictate New York City's counterterror operations.

But instead, we get more inverted reality coverage: "Really? Bloomberg Says Anti-Islam Film Flap Hurts NYPD's 'Credibility' With Muslims," from Gothamist, January 27:

Top cop Ray Kelly and his spokesman Paul Browne have been on the defensive all week after they were caught lying, or misremembering, the details of Kelly's involvement in an Islamophobic propaganda film that was screened on a continuous loop for over 1,300 officers. Asked again about the controversy yesterday, Mayor Blooomberg told reporters, "Anything like this doesn’t help credibility. Ray’s got to work at establishing, or re-establishing, or reinforcing the credibility that he does have [with the Muslim community]. In other news, the NYPD has credibility with the Muslim community?

Not so much, says Cyrus McGoldrick of [Hamas-linked] CAIR-NY, a group that advocates for Muslim civil rights and has called for Kelly's ouster. "This controversy has moved beyond an issue of poor judgment in the use of an Islamophobic training film to an issue of the integrity of public officials," McGoldrick said in a statement. CAIR-NY and several other groups also called for Browne's resignation, and even Bloomberg criticized his storytelling abilities. "I keep saying to everybody, ‘Get the whole story out right away,’ and that’s to keep it from going on and on and on, and to give the public the information they need," said Bloomberg. "That wasn’t done as well as we could have done it, and next time we’ll do it a little bit better."...

Sir, yes, sir! We will not offend Muslims by training the NYPD to fight jihad, sir!

Hamas-linked CAIR smells blood, and is going in for the kill. They've eliminated any truth about Islam and jihad from national FBI training, and are now trying to eliminate it everywhere. The outcome will be a cadre of agents and police officers who are full of politically correct nonsense that will render them clueless and complacent in the face of jihad activity. And so the jihad in the U.S. will advance unimpeded.

How, then, pray tell, is Islam so consistently "misunderstood," across geographical areas and schools of jurisprudence, with respect to jihad warfare, and the rights of women and non-Muslims, from Great Britain to Nigeria to Algeria to Tunisia to France to Egypt to Germany to Turkey to the Palestinian territories to Lebanon to Syria to Saudi Arabia to (big breath) Yemen to Iraq to Iran to Afghanistan to Pakistan to Kashmir to the Maldives to Bangladesh to Indonesia to Malaysia?

"Islam 'most misunderstood' religion in world: Hina Rabbani Khar," from the Press Trust of India, January 26 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

DAVOS: Islam is the "most misunderstood" and "misrepresented" faith in the world, Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said today and acknowledged that illiterate and irresponsible people have been allowed to take the religion in their hands.

"In my mind Islam is the most misunderstood and misrepresented religion in the world. For example, Islam is the one religion that reinforces respect for women but we, the entire world must take responsibility because we have let Islam to be misrepresented," Khar said during a debate on Democracy at the World Economic Forum ( WEF) here.

She said Islam supports best of the democracies and her country would become the best example of this fact in ten years of time.

"If you ask whether Islam will come in the way of democracy, it is the other way round. Islam supports best of the democracies. Islam and democracy are not contradictory forces. They are rather supportive forces. Pakistan will become the best example of this fact in ten years of time.

"We have to take Islam away from the hands of the left overs of the society. We have let illiterate and irresponsible people take Islam in their hands. But it is also the duty of the Western world to understand the difference. They have been very biased on various occasions," she added.

"A big bias has been shown say in cases like Palestine and Kashmir," she alleged.

Remember when that "radical fringe" was sure to be a harmless, ineffectual sideshow of a Tiny Minority of Extremists? Not only is the Tiny Minority once again less tiny and inconsequential than advertised, but they do not need to attain absolute power to do very real damage to human rights and civil liberties.

There is also the matter of mixed and ambiguous messages: Tunisia's leaders here are finding it more difficult to uphold the inconsistency of saying the "right" things to different people. "Tunisia's Islamic leaders pressured by radical fringe," from Agence France-Presse, January 26 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

AFP - Tunisia's moderate Islamist leaders are under pressure from a radical Muslim fringe, forcing them to stress their liberal democratic credentials without alienating their base, analysts say.

Ultra-conservative Salafists have in past months launched bold challenges -- demanding full-face veils for female university students, castigating a TV channel for a "blasphemous" film and beating up journalists at a protest.

Their actions have heightened tensions in the north African country that was under secular rule for decades until the overthrow a year ago of strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali kicked off the Arab Spring and led to elections in October.

Moderate Islamist Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali, who took power in December, has this week adopted a firmer tone, while his Ennahda party also took unusually clear positions against the extremist religious activists.

On Tuesday, the authorities intervened to end a two months old sit-in protest by Salafists on a university campus, the faculty of letters at Manouba, about 25 kilometres (15 miles) from the capital Tunis.

The students, most of whom were not enrolled at the university, had camped out there since November to demand the right for women students to wear the full veil, known as the niqab, and for a place of prayer on campus.

Police removed them on the first day of delayed exams. The university had banned the niqab citing security concerns if students wore it with a flowing garment, which would conceal them from head to toe.

Also this week, Ennahda in an unprecedented statement affirmed its commitment to free expression and dissociated itself from a legal action lawyers close to Islamist groups launched against the privately-owned Nessma satellite TV station. [...]

The prime minister in a speech to the national assembly this week stressed his determination "to enforce the law" and denounced the beatings of journalists.

"The government is worried," said Ali Laidi Ben Mansour, editor in chief of Nessma and of news site webmanagercenter. "From my point of view, a confrontation is looming between the 'moderate Islamists' of Ennahda and the radical Salafists.

"Until now the Salafists -- who are certainly a minority but capable of mobilizing and acting -- have taken advantage of the government's hesitation."

He said Ennahda has no deep interest in facing up to this problem, which highlights that the party itself is "torn between hawks and doves".

The Salafists have a hard core of about 200 people but 5,000-7,000 supporters, including backers of Ben Ali's dissolved party, according to estimates.

"The fact remains that much of the base for Ennahda is close to that doctrine," said researcher Alaya Allani, specialist in Islamic movements in North Africa.

Suddenly, Tunisia's ruling Islamist party "finds itself in a very difficult situation," said the researcher. "It does not want go to war with the Salafists, because it does not want to lose that base before the next election.

"But it won't be able to maintain its stance of ambiguity much longer."

Across the world, one could argue that the world's biggest Islamophobes are Sunnis attacking Shi'ites, and vice-versa. Where's the outrage for that? "Dozens Killed in Attack on Iraqi Funeral Procession," by Sam Dagher and Ali A. Nabhan for the Wall Street Journal, January 27:

BAGHDAD—Dozens of people were killed and wounded when a suicide car bomber attacked a funeral procession in Baghdad on Friday, days after an al Qaeda-linked insurgent group warned it would step up its fight against Iraq's government, security forces and Shiite majority.

The suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into a crowd that included the pallbearers at a funeral for an Iraqi army commander's brother, according to a Ministry of Interior official. The commander had been assassinated along with three other people on Thursday.

Friday's attack in the predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Zafaraniyah on the capital's southeastern side left at least 31 people dead and another 60 wounded, according to the official.

The explosion happened in a congested section of the working class neighborhood near a hospital, an outdoor food market and an apartment building.

"I saw bodies strewn all over the place," said a witness. "The women fishmongers are all gone, not a single one is left."

Hours after the attack a fire truck was seen hosing down blood and debris at the scene as grieving families waited to receive the bodies of their loved ones from the hospital for burial.

In a separate attack before nightfall, a roadside bomb planted next to an outdoor soccer field in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Ghazaliya in western Baghdad killed one person and wounded three, according to the Ministry of Interior official. There was no claim of responsibility for Friday's attacks.

The attacks came after a warning earlier this week of more violence from a group linked to al Qaeda in Iraq.

"Today we have retaken the initiative attacking and appearing whenever and wherever we please," said a man identifying himself as Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, the spokesman for the Islamic State of Iraq, in an audio message posted online this week. The group is typically described as a front for al Qaeda in Iraq. The authenticity of the recording couldn't be independently verified.

Iraq has seen a significant increase over the past few weeks in suicide bombings, the type of violence usually associated with al Qaeda-linked militants.

The Islamic State of Iraq, which was significantly weakened in recent years following the deaths and capture of many of its leaders, appears to be exploiting the end of the U.S. military mission in Iraq last month, the Iraqi government's distraction by a political crisis and a rise in sectarian tensions. The group's goal is to establish a fundamentalist Sunni Islamic state in Iraq. It considers the country's Shiite majority apostates....

And apostates are lawful for slaughter under Islamic law. By the same principle by which Shi'ite Iran wants to execute a Christian pastor who left Islam, al-Qaeda in Iraq wants to execute Shi'ites.

And maybe killing that many people will bring about paradise under Sharia. They keep trying, and it keeps not working. "Gunmen shoot police officers in flashpoint Nigerian city," by Aminu Abubakar for Agence France-Presse, January 27:

Gunmen opened fire on a police station Friday and two officers were feared dead in the Nigerian city of Kano, where attacks claimed by Islamist group Boko Haram left 185 dead last week.

Boko Haram consistently attacks institutions, people, and practices that would stand in the way of their imposition of Sharia.

The latest attack occurred just before 7:00 pm, the start of a nighttime curfew in effect since last week's attacks, residents said.

"Gunmen came on motorcycles and one all-terrain van and opened fire on the police station," a resident said. "It was quite brief, lasting not more than five minutes ... Two policemen lay in pools of blood."

The resident said the officers appeared to have been killed, but their condition could not be immediately confirmed. Another resident reported gunshots but could not say whether any officers had been hit.

Both claimed they heard the gunmen shouting "Allahu Akbar." [...]

The purported head of Boko Haram said in an Internet message that he ordered the gun and bomb attacks that rocked Kano last week, the deadliest assault attributed to the shadowy group.

"We were responsible," said Abubakar Muhammad Shekau in the audio message posted on YouTube. "I ordered it and I will give that order again and again. God gave us victory."
The authenticity of the Hausa language message could not be independently verified but the photo appeared to match others said to be of the Boko Haram leader.

Jihad causes poverty:

The violence sparked fear in the city, the economic heart of Nigeria's mainly Muslim north. [...]

Boko Haram has previously said that it wants to create an Islamic state in Nigeria's deeply impoverished north, and has charged the government with harassing Muslims and raiding Islamic schools....

Greasy Islamophobes in Britain once again impede a Muslim's expression of the beautiful Religion of Peace.

"Asim Kausar jailed over ricin recipe find," from the BBC, January 27 (thanks to David):

A man who downloaded a recipe for the deadly poison ricin and documents about how to make bombs has been jailed for two years and three months.

Asim Kausar, 25, from Bolton, kept the information on a computer pen drive.

The material only came to light after Kausar's family suffered a burglary and the memory stick was handed in to police.

Kausar pleaded guilty to four charges under the Terrorism Act at Manchester Crown Court.

The memory stick contained details about ricin, assassination and torture techniques, and how to construct improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

Police had been given it so officers could view CCTV images of the break-in stored on the device.

They then came across the terror-related information....

Whoops!

The documents were entitled Improvised Munitions Handbook and Unconventional Warfare Devices and Techniques.

Kausar told officers he had downloaded the information out of "curiosity and a thirst for knowledge".

Yeah, sure, that's it. Work on your "war is deceit" act, there, Kausar.

The court heard Kausar had "scoured the internet" between January 2009 and June 2011 and the information he downloaded ran into thousands of pages of documents.

Sentencing him, the Recorder of Manchester Judge Andrew Gilbart QC said there was no evidence that the offending went beyond collecting information.

However he said he was satisfied Kausar's actions "went beyond mere idle curiosity"....

When Kausar's bedroom was searched, police found what appeared to be a "shopping list" of munitions, said Riel Karmy-Jones, prosecuting, with prices marked down next to entries of various weapons and ammunition.

His mobile phone was also seized which contained a photograph of Kausar posing with an AK rifle - believed to have been taken in Pakistan.

The court was also told about a letter written by Kausar in which he said: "I want to fight jihad for Allah".

The letter also asked "whether he would be able to fight and whether his martyrdom would be accepted".

Carrying on (allegedly) with "different men from the neighborhood": haram. Murdering with an axe the person so accused: halal.

It is no accident or coincidence that Muslims commit 91 percent of honor killings worldwide. A manual of Islamic law certified as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy by Al-Azhar University, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam, says that "retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right." However, "not subject to retaliation" is "a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring's offspring." ('Umdat al-Salik o1.1-2). In other words, someone who kills his child incurs no legal penalty under Islamic law.

Syria in 2009 scrapped a law limiting the length of sentences for honor killings, but "the new law says a man can still benefit from extenuating circumstances in crimes of passion or honour 'provided he serves a prison term of no less than two years in the case of killing.'" And 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."

Nonetheless, the media drumbeat is constant: honor killings have nothing to do with Islam. And so they continue, as no one ever challenges Muslim authorities to do anything to stop them.

"Honour killing: Suspect surrenders, ‘confident of acquittal,’" by Owais Jafferi for the Express Tribune, January 24 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

MUZAFFARGARH: Allah Bachaya has surrendered himself to Rohilanwali police after killing his sister in the name of honour but he is confident that he will be released in a matter of days.

Bachaya gave his arrest on Saturday after killing Alina* in an axe attack for alleged loose morals.

He told The Express Tribune that he was certain his brother-in-law would withdraw the case as it was a matter of family’s honour. “I have killed her because she brought disgrace to the family’s name,” Bachaya said.

“She had become a nuisance. I feel no remorse over my actions. I am backed by the family. They were in favour of my decision to kill her,” he said.

Bachaya said Alina* had eloped more than once with [different] men from the neighbourhood. On Saturday, he said, she had returned home after spending three days with a man.

Alina*, 25, was married to Muhammad Akhtar. The couple had three children.

Akhtar, who is the complainant in the FIR against Bachaya, told The Tribune that while he had filed a complaint in the matter he might withdraw it in a few days.

“I believe he (Bachaya) has not done wrong. Nothing is above honour,” he said. “I would have also taken similar action had my sister left her husband and eloped with someone else,” he said, “I filed the report so that the police are informed of the matter. I don’t plan on prosecuting him (Bachaya),” he said. He said he would soon inform the police in writing that he had pardoned the suspect.

“When she returned home on Saturday, I sat down with her and tried to make her realise the consequences of her actions but she kept straying from the topic,” he said.

Later, he said, Bachaya came over to his house on finding out that Alina* had returned. Following an argument, he said, Bachaya attacked Alina* with an axe, chopping both her legs. She died while she was being taken to hospital....

I tried to tell you. Or maybe Larijani is just a "fearmongering Islamophobe."

"Iranian leader: Egypt’s new parliament a step toward Islamic regime," from Al-Masry Al-Youm's Egypt Independent, January 26 (thanks to Wimpy):

The inauguration of Egypt's new parliament is an important step toward fulfilling public demands for the establishment of a regime based on Islam, said Ali Larijani, speaker of the Iranian parliament, in a letter on Wednesday. The letter was sent to Saad al-Katatny, People's Assembly speaker.

In the letter, Larijani extended his congratulations to Katatny and expressed pleasure that the latter had been elected as parliamentary speaker.

In the message, posted on Al-Alam channel online, Larijani also said he hoped that brotherly ties between the two countries would grow stronger.

Given the importance of parliamentary cooperation in the development of bilateral relations, Iran's parliament is ready to help promote parliamentary collaboration, Larijani said....

In November, Mojtaba Amani, director of the office for Iranian interests in Cairo, said he expected diplomatic relations between Cairo and Tehran to normalize after Egypt's parliamentary elections.

Will the Islamophobia never end? "Md. Man Caught in Sting Pleads Guilty in Bomb Plot," by Sarah Brumfield for the Associated Press, January 26 (thanks to all who sent this in):

A Maryland man pleaded guilty Thursday to trying to detonate what he thought was a car bomb outside a military recruiting center in suburban Baltimore, saying he was motivated by what he saw as an American war on Islam.

Antonio Martinez entered the plea to the charge of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction against federal property. The plot to bomb the Armed Forces Recruiting Center in Catonsville in December 2010 was foiled by an FBI sting.

The 22-year-old had also faced a charge of trying to kill U.S. officers and employees, but prosecutors agreed to drop the second charge at sentencing. The deal calls for a 25-year prison term.

Martinez wore a burgundy jumpsuit and his hair in two braids in court, and he smiled and hugged his defense attorney. The U.S. citizen born who was born abroad preferred to be called Muhammad Hussain after his conversion to Islam and signed the plea using both names.

Public records are unclear about when Martinez, who was born to a Nicaraguan father and an African-American mother, moved to Maryland, but he attended Laurel High School in Prince George's County, a Washington suburb. The former part-time construction worker said in court Thursday that he finished 10th grade.

In the plea agreement, Martinez acknowledges that he wanted to pursue jihad to the United States "to send a message that all American soldiers would be killed so long as the country continued its 'war' against Islam."

An FBI informant first communicated with Martinez on Facebook after seeing public posts "espousing his extremist views" and recognizing him from a mosque he attended, according to court documents. The documents say Martinez later told the informant of his ideas for attacking military-linked sites and said all he thought about was jihad.

Authorities say Martinez' ideas ranged from a bombing and armed attack to burning the building down. He told an undercover FBI agent that he wanted to make jihadist activities his profession, dedicating his life to the cause, according to the plea.

Martinez decided on a car bomb after a discussion with the undercover agent because "using a bomb would allow him to commit further acts here and overseas," prosecutor Christine Manuelian said....

After his arrest, Martinez confessed that the attack was his idea, he wanted to be a martyr and he had expected an explosion that would level the front of the building, according to the plea.

After the hearing, FBI Special Agent in Charge Richard McFeely thanked members of the Muslim community for reaching out to law enforcement and identifying a threat....

What exactly did they do? Will Hamas-linked CAIR upbraid them, in light of the advice they've given out elsewhere, as in this poster?

In FrontPage this morning I discuss the ongoing travesty in New York, as Hamas-linked CAIR shouts "Jump!" and the dhimmi Mayor Bloomberg responds, "How high?"

A controversy has broken out this week that epitomizes how bold the Islamic supremacist forces in the U.S. have become, and how weak and supine those who are charged with protecting the public have become.

The New York Times has run a news story and an indignant unsigned editorial about the showing of The Third Jihad, a relatively tepid anti-jihad film, to New York Police Department personnel. The Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) immediately got into the act, compelling New York’s ever ready to accommodate Mayor Michael Bloomberg to apologize and denounce the film, which he almost certainly has not seen. But that wasn’t enough for Hamas-linked CAIR: they’re calling now for the resignation of New York’s Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

And that stands to reason, based on the principle that when one’s enemy is down, one should kick him some more. Hamas-linked CAIR sees its chance to end all effective counter-terror measures in New York, and is going for it.

This whole controversy is epitomized by the photo illustration and lead paragraph of the first New York Times story on this issue: “In Police Training, a Dark Film on U.S. Muslims,” which was by Michael Powell and appeared in the January 23 issue. The photo shows the black flag of jihad flying above the White House, with the caption, “An Islamic flag atop the White House in ‘The Third Jihad.’”

Then the lead paragraph says: “Ominous music plays as images appear on the screen: Muslim terrorists shoot Christians in the head, car bombs explode, executed children lie covered by sheets and a doctored photograph shows an Islamic flag flying over the White House.”

Both the Times’ use of the image and its reference to it at the beginning of the story suggest that the producers of The Third Jihad doctored the photo themselves in order to push their cockamamie idea that some Muslims want to “infiltrate and dominate America.” But in reality, Muslims originated this image, as we have reported here several times. Here is a photo of Muslims holding up this photo at a rally in New York in February 2006:

And another:

Yet this whole controversy is predicated on the assumption that The Third Jihad is whipping up hysteria about a non-existent threat. In reality, it covers much the same ground that I cover in my book Stealth Jihad, in which I show that the agenda of infiltration and subversion on the part of the Muslim Brotherhood and its allied groups is very real.

In “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America,” by Mohamed Akram, May 19, 1991, Muslim Brotherhood operatives in the U.S. are told that they “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 God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

There is more.

From Yahoo News:

NEW YORK, Jan. 26, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A prominent national human rights and advocacy organization is asking New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and city officials to resist efforts by the Hamas-linked Islamic supremacist hate group the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to dictate the nature and content of anti-terror training for New York Police Department personnel

The request by the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) and its Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) program comes after Hamas-linked CAIR, one of the nation's most notorious Islamic supremacist hate groups, demanded the resignation of New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly for allowing the counter-jihad film The Third Jihad to be shown to NYPD personnel. AFDI/SIOA respectfully requests that the New York City government repudiate this attempt by Hamas-linked CAIR to interfere with and impede counterterrorism training.

AFDI/SIOA Executive Director Pamela Geller said in a statement: "AFDI/SIOA deplores the attempts by Hamas-linked CAIR and a thoroughly compromised New York Times to undermine the security of New Yorkers by demanding the removal of accurate material about the jihad threat from NYPD training. AFDI/SIOA calls on Mayor Bloomberg to reject the persecution of Police Commissioner Kelly, and to reaffirm him in his position. New York's leaders must not cave in to Hamas-linked CAIR's campaign to outlaw the truth about jihad and Islamic supremacism, thereby making us all more vulnerable to them."

Hamas-linked CAIR 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, SIOA's Associate Director Robert Spencer, 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 NYPD and dictate its choice of training materials is consistent with its long record of pro-jihad 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.

The jizya tax is a state protection racket. This was a private-enterprise version, of which there are many in Egypt now, as this report describes. "Nag Hammadi: Muslim bandits kill two Copts. Christians live in fear of being kidnapped," from AsiaNews, January 27:

Cairo (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Two Copts, father and son, were killed yesterday in Bahgourah, a suburb of Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt, shot dead by a Muslim bandit, and his accomplices because they refused to pay the money demanded by the racket. Four days ago the head of the gang, Ahmed Saber, asked Moawad Asaad, a Coptic contractor for a large sum of money to enable him to continue working.

Yesterday afternoon Ahmed Saber went to Asaad’s home to demand the money, the Copt refused to get into Saber’s car to speak, for fear of being kidnapped. At that point, four men came out of the car armed with machine guns and opened fire on Moawad and his son Asaad Mowad an engineer. Both were killed instantly. Their deaths have sparked the protest of thousands of Christian Copts outside the government building at Nag Hammadi, demanding protection for the Coptic community, the victim of racketeering and violence by Muslims. A sit-in is taking place in front of police headquarters, attended by four thousand people who have vowed to continue the protest until Ahmed Saber and his accomplices are arrested.

The Bishop of Nag Hammadi, Kyrollos, said since last year Ahmed Saber, well known to the police, has extorted money from members of the Coptic community, and kidnapped the children of Christians to get the ransom money. "Police have received numerous complaints about these crimes. I do not understand why they have not arrested them. I think that the police, and Muslims, are fully responsible for the situation of terror in which the Copts of Bahgourah live." The bishop called the authorities in Cairo, and the Interior Ministry demanding that protection be provided to the Copts living in the Nag Hammadi, "who are constantly subject to kidnappings and terror."

Here is a sterling example of how the mainstream media lies to the American people and misleads them about the nature and breadth of jihad activity in this country as well as elsewhere. "Motive of shooter who targeted military sites is unclear," by Josh White for the Washington Post, January 26:

Yonathan Melaku was sneaking through Fort Myer and Arlington National Cemetery, his backpack filled with plastic bags of ammonium nitrate, a notebook containing jihadist messages, and a can of black spray paint. The 23-year-old former Marine was heading to the graves of the nation’s most recent heroes, aiming to desecrate the stones with Arabic statements and leave handfuls of explosive material nearby as a message.

Before police foiled the plan in June, the vandalism was to be Melaku’s sixth attack, months after he went on a mysterious shooting spree that targeted the Pentagon, the National Museum of the Marine Corps and two other military buildings in Northern Virginia. A video found after Melaku’s arrest showed him wearing a black mask and shooting a 9mm handgun out of his Acura’s passenger window as he drove along Interstate 95, shouting “Allahu Akbar!”

It was all part of a solitary campaign of “fear and terror,” federal prosecutors said. But authorities and Melaku’s defense attorney said no one knows for sure what led Melaku — a naturalized U.S. citizen from Ethi­o­pia, local high school graduate and former Marine Corps Reservist — down that path or what message he was trying to send.

Melaku stood in U.S. District Court in Alexandria on Thursday morning to plead guilty to three counts, including shooting at the Pentagon on Oct. 19, 2010, and attempting to injure veterans’ memorials on U.S. property. As part of a plea agreement, Melaku admitted to using his legally obtained 9mm handgun to shoot the National Museum of the Marine Corps, the Pentagon and two military recruiting offices in October and November 2010.

The agreement calls for Melaku to serve 25 years in prison. Judge Gerald Bruce Lee accepted the plea, and Melaku is scheduled for sentencing on April 27.

Although Melaku acknowledged shooting at the buildings — attacks that did not injure anyone but caused an estimated $111,000 in damage — it still remains unclear why he did it. In a video entered into evidence and released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, Melaku says that he was targeting the museum as a military building, to “turn it off permanently.”

FBI officials and prosecutors said Melaku was on a personal terror mission. They said he researched jihadism on the Internet and had references to terrorism in a notebook and on his computer. It also seemed like he was gathering materials to make an improvised explosive device, though there was no indication how he would have used it.

Melaku wanted “to create fear and terror, which is what terrorists do,” said Dana Boente, first assistant U.S. Attorney in Alexandria.

Special Agent Jacqueline Maguire, of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, said it was fortunate authorities caught Melaku before anyone was injured. She said it appears Melaku acted alone....

When asked what he wanted to plead to the three counts included in his agreement, Melaku leaned forward to a microphone and said: “Uh, guilty, sir.”

Gregory English, Melaku’s defense lawyer, said after the hearing that Melaku’s family is of the Coptic Christian faith and that they were stunned to learn of his involvement in the crimes and the references to Islamic jihad. English said the shootings were out of character for Melaku, and he wonders whether his client suffers from a psychological problem, which he has asked the court to evaluate.

Or maybe he just converted to Islam, as appears abundantly to be the case.

English said Melaku thought that by shooting at the buildings he did, late at night, no one would get hurt. English said the video was intended for YouTube.

“As bad as it is, this is someone who essentially broke windows,” English said. “It’s vandalism. He has no link to terrorism. . . . He had a message, but I don’t understand what that message was supposed to be.”

He "essentially broke windows," but what if someone had been on the wrong end of the bullets he shot out of his Acura while shouting "Allahu akbar"? "He has no link to terrorism" -- i.e. they didn't find an Al-Qaeda membership card in his wallet. Researching "jihadism" and shouting "Allahu akbar" while shooting a gun out of a car window doesn't count in English's politically correct world.

Poor Mohammad Shafia can't catch a break. First, his first wife and daughters die in a tragic accident that just happens -- pure coincidence! -- to show all the signs of an Islamic honor killing, and now this, which won't help his Poor Victimized Man of Peace act one bit.

"Shafia trial to resume after bomb scare prompts delay," from CTVNews, January 26 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

The Shafia family murder trial in Kingston, Ont. is expected to resume Thursday afternoon with increased security after a bomb scare shut down proceedings earlier in the day.

People have started returning to the courthouse but police procedures, including checking for photo identification and using metal detectors, have made for long waits.

There is only one entry point into the building now.

Earlier Thursday, journalists and spectators who had lined up hours before court was scheduled to begin were suddenly told by police they had to leave and court would resume in the afternoon.

Police would only say there was a "security concern," but a source told The Canadian Press that a bomb threat prompted the evacuation.

"I can neither confirm nor deny in regards to specifically a bomb, but we are just stating at this point in time it is a security concern," Const. Steve Koopman told The Canadian Press. "As you can see we're taking it extremely seriously."

Mohammad Shafia, 58, his wife Tooba Yahya, 42, and their son Hamed, 21, have each pleaded not guilty to four counts of first-degree murder.

They were evacuated from the courthouse Thursday in a police prisoner vehicle.

Koopman couldn't say if the security threat was directly related to the Shafia trial.

The trio is accused of killing teenage Shafia daughters Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, as well as Shafia's first wife in his polygamous marriage.

The Crown began its final arguments on Wednesday and was expected to wrap up Thursday. It isn't clear whether jury deliberations will still begin on Friday, as originally scheduled.

Three defence lawyers presented their final arguments Tuesday and Wednesday.

The bodies of the four were found in June 2009 in a car at the bottom of a canal in Kingston.

The Montreal family had stopped in Kingston on their way back from a trip to Niagara Falls, Ont.

The Crown has alleged that the girls were murdered by their father, his wife and their brother, and that the killing was then made to look like an accident after the fact.

The Crown's argument is built on the premise that the girls broke the family's moral code and dishonoured their family by wearing clothing that was not conservative and having secret boyfriends.

"Not conservative" is media-speak for "not Islamic." In the media's world, "conservatives" are those who uphold Sharia, and also those who oppose it.

The defence, however, calls the argument preposterous and said the deaths were the result of a tragic accident.

Yeah, and the bomb threat was actually just a harmless movie review. Nothing to see here. Move along.

In 2006 I wrote the book on the right, The Truth About Muhammad, a biography of the prophet of Islam based on the earliest Muslim accounts of his life, in order to illustrate what Muslims generally believe that Muhammad said and did. In my forthcoming book, Did Muhammad Exist? An Inquiry Into Islam's Obscure Origins, which will be published April 23 by ISI, I examine the historical value of those early Muslim accounts. It is an attempt to determine whether what Muslims believe Muhammad said and did, as recounted in The Truth About Muhammad, actually corresponds to historical reality.

There are numerous reasons to question the historicity of the early Muslim accounts of Muhammad's life. Take, for example, an incident I refer to briefly in yet another book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades):

Muhammad already had experience as a warrior before he assumed the role of prophet. He had participated in two local wars between his Quraysh tribe and their neighboring rivals Banu Hawazin.

That he participated in these wars, known collectively as the Fijar War, or Sacrilegious War, is generally agreed upon, but there is no agreement about what he thought later about his role in them. The Egyptian writer Muhammad Hussein Haykal, in his 1933 biography, Hayat Muhammad (translated into English as The Life of Muhammad), quotes Muhammad expressing regret for his participation in this war:

"I had witnessed that war with my uncle and shot a few arrows therein. How I wish I had never done so!" (Pp. 52-3)

However, the ninth-century Muslim historian Ibn Sa'd, in one of the earliest and most important sources for biographical information on Muhammad, Kitab Al-Tabaqat Al-Kabir, directly contradicts Haykal by quoting Muhammad saying this about the Fijar War:

I attended it with my uncles and shot arrows there and I do not repent it. (I.143)

So which is it? Is Haykal right that he really did express regret, or is Ibn Sa'd right that he explicitly ruled out doing so? Haykal doesn't give his source, but it is possible that he had access to a hadith or some Islamic tradition that flatly contradicted the one Ibn Sa'd recorded eleven centuries earlier -- although this is unlikely, since Ibn Sa'd often records variant and contradictory reports and discusses how they can be harmonized, or why one should be accepted and the other rejected. In this case Ibn Sa'd gives no hint of any variants. Haykal may simply have altered this tradition for apologetic purposes. Those who cite him as their source on this, or try to build an argument upon his quotation, do so at their own risk.

Nonetheless, such contradictions abound in the hadith reports. Muhammad can quite often be found saying contradictory things, as I show in Did Muhammad Exist?. In that book also I discuss how this odd situation came about: opposing factions both invoked Muhammad as an authority, and invented traditions to support their point of view.

Of course, they didn't come up with all that many decisive variants on the matter of waging war against and subjugating non-Muslims. That Muhammad was a warrior and taught warfare against non-Muslims is not disputed by any party, regardless of their view of whether or not he regretted his participation in the Fijar War -- unfortunately for infidels. Here are two of the many hadiths in which Muhammad counsels war:

"I have been commanded to fight against people so long as they do not declare that there is no god but Allah, and he who professed it was guaranteed the protection of his property and life on my behalf except for the right affairs rest with Allah." -- Sahih Muslim 30

"Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war...When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these, you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them....If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah's help and fight them." -- Sahih Muslim 4294

UPDATE: I have received an email full of various false statements. I know the claims made about me are false, so it should come as no surprise that their claims about Arabic are false as well.

The email took issue with the points I made here on the basis that the Arabic of the passages from Haykal and Ibn Sa’d is identical. But that was not the issue in my post: the question is whether, as I said Haykal “had access to a hadith or some Islamic tradition that flatly contradicted the one Ibn Sa'd recorded eleven centuries earlier” – in other words, that led him to interpret the passage in the way that he did, such that his translator rendered it in one way, and the translator of Ibn Sa'd translated it in the opposite way.

I was working from the two-volume edition of Ibn Sa'd translated by S. Moinul Haq and published by Kitab Bhavan in New Delhi, which I have here in my office, and which is available at Islamicbookstore.com and numerous other Islamic bookstores. Did S. Moinul Haq, a respected Muslim translator of many Arabic works, really make an elementary error in his translation?

Actually, no. There is a good possibility, obliquely acknowledged in the email attacking my post, that the disputed statement from Muhammad could be translated as "I would not be pleased had I not done so." Although it is not incorrect to say that ما as a negating particle is not commonly used to negate a present tense, it still could be used, and a good majority of Arabophones use ما to negate the present tense in a variety of dialects, albeit not necessarily in written form. But this tradition purports to record what Muhammad said; why wouldn’t it be in Arabic as commonly spoken? So it is entirely possible that it uses ما to negate the present, as in common spoken form. Certainly Gulf-Arabic spoken variants do use ما to negate the present tense even today.

The double negative is not necessarily "nonsensical" here, as the email claims, and it would indeed translate into "I would not be pleased had I not done so," or “I do not repent.” To say that “repent” doesn’t appear in the Arabic is a quibble that betrays that the author of the email does not have even a basic understanding of how translation works.

The Obama administration supports “democracy” and “self determination” in the Middle East—two euphemisms that, in the real world, refer to “mob-rule” and “Islamic radicalization,” respectively. Yet, as Jimmy Carter recently put it: “I don’t have any problem with that [an “Islamist victory” in Egypt], and the U.S. government doesn’t have any problem with that either. We want the will of the Egyptian people to be expressed.”

Sounds fair enough. The problem, however, is that Muslim clerics openly and unequivocally characterize democracy and elections as tools to be discarded once they empower Sharia law. Thus Dr. Talat Zahran holds that it is “obligatory to cheat at elections—a beautiful thing”; and Sheikh Abdel Shahat insists that democracy is not merely forbidden in Islam, but kufr—a great and terrible sin—this even as he competed in Egypt’s elections.

The Obama administration can overlook such election-exploitations because the majority of Muslims are either indifferent or willing to go along with the gag—with only a minority (secularists, Copts, etc.) in Egypt actually objecting to how elections are being used to empower Sharia-enforcing Muslims.

But what if Muslims do not win elections? What if there are equal amounts of non-Muslims voting—and an “infidel” wins? What then? Then we get situations like Nigeria.

While many are aware that Boko Haram and other Islamic elements are waging jihad against the government of Nigeria, specifically targeting Christians, often overlooked is that the jihad was provoked into full-blown activity because a Christian won fair elections (Nigeria is about evenly split between Christians and Muslims).

According to Peter Run, writing back in April 2011

The current wave of riots was triggered by the Independent National Election Commission’s (INEC) announcement on Monday [April 18, 2011] that the incumbent President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, won in the initial round of ballot counts. That there were riots in the largely Muslim inhabited northern states where the defeat of the Muslim candidate Muhammadu Buhari was intolerable, [but] was unsurprising. Northerners [Muslims] felt they were entitled to the presidency for the declared winner, President Jonathan, [who] assumed leadership after the Muslim president, Umaru Yar’Adua died in office last year and radical groups in the north [Boko Haram] had seen his ascent [Christian president] as a temporary matter to be corrected at this year’s election. Now they are angry despite experts and observers concurring that this is the fairest and most independent election in recent Nigerian history.

Note some key words: Muslims felt “entitled” to the presidency and seek to “correct” the fact that a Christian won elections—which they assumed “a temporary matter.”

Of course, had elections empowered a like-minded Muslim, the same jihadis would still be there, would still have the same savage intent for Christians and Westerners—Boko Haram means “Western education is forbidden.” But there would not be a fullblown jihad, and Obama would be singing praises to Nigerian democracy and elections, and the MSM would be boasting images of Nigerians with ink-stained fingers.

Yet the same jihadi intent would be there, only dormant. Like Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood—whose ultimate goal is “mastership of the world”—they would not need to expose themselves via jihad, would be biding their time and consolidating their strength.

Now, back to the Egyptian clerics, specifically Sheikh Yassir al-Burhami—yet another leader in Egypt’s Salafi movement, who teaches that Muslims must preach peace when weak but wage war when strong. Discussing the chances of a fellow Salafi, Burhami asserts:

We say—regardless of the outcome of the elections—whether he [his colleague, the aforementioned al-Shahat] wins or loses, we will not permit an infidel [kafir] to be appointed to a post where he assumes authority over Muslims. This is forbidden. Allah said: “Never will Allah grant to infidels a way [to triumph] over the believers [Koran 4:141].” We are not worried about losing elections or al-Shahat losing votes. We will not flatter or fawn to the people.

What will you and your associates do, Sheikh Burhami—wage jihad? Of course, that will not be necessary: unlike Nigeria, most of Egypt is Muslim; one way or another, “elections” will realize the Islamist agenda.

Thus, whether by word (al-Burhami) or deed (Boko Haram) those who seek to make Islam supreme prove that democracy and elections are acceptable only insofar as they enable Sharia. Conversely, if they lead to something that contradicts Sharia—for instance, by bringing a Christian infidel to power—then the perennial jihad resumes.

Raymond Ibrahim is an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

The story and the rhetoric change with the audience. Does Mahmoud Ghezlan really suppose the kuffar are too dumb to notice the conflicting messages?

You can't fool all of the infidels all of the time. "Brotherhood vows to shun Israeli officials," from the Egypt Independent, January 25:

The Muslim Brotherhood will not speak or meet with Israeli officials and its stance on Israel is not up for discussion, group spokesperson Mahmoud Ghezlan told London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.

“It’s illogical to have dialogue, any dialogue, in light of the Israeli practices against the Arab peoples,” the paper quoted him as saying in an article published Wednesday.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Yigal Palmor told Israeli radio that Israel has not ruled out talks.

“We will be happy to hold dialogues with whoever wants to have dialogue with us,” Palmor said.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party controls 47 percent of the seats in the newly formed People’s Assembly, but the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is still running the executive branch of Egypt’s government.

Some fear that Islamists will push for ending the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.

Western officials met with several Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist leaders after People’s Assembly elections.

Ghezlan said the group had not received a similar invitation from the Israeli Embassy in Cairo, but that any such request would be rejected.

Ford just got a big boost in the Salafist market. "Egyptian Sheikh: Driving a Chevy is Haram," by Angie Nasser for Now Lebanon, January 24:

"And I think to myself, what a wonderful world..."

A Salafi sheikh in Egypt has reportedly issued a fatwa that buying [or driving] a Chevrolet vehicle is haram because the American brand’s logo looks like the Christian cross.

In the video below, prominent Egyptian TV presenter Amr Adeeb takes the sheikh’s joke-of-a-fatwa to task, saying, “We’ve reached a really strange place with this.”

“The car’s been around [for a century] and only now did you notice there’s a cross on the car?”

Adeeb also notes that the car is not used or presented as a form of religious iconography: “Do we hold mass for it? Do we pray for it?” And his guest chimes in with a comment about the self-centered nature of the fatwa itself: “As if the people who came up with the logo were thinking that we want to put this special logo on the car just to piss us [Muslims] off?”

The TV presenter concludes, “With all of the problems in Egypt, you’re concerned about the cross?... We’re calling for unity [in the country] and then you come up with [fatwas] like this?”

By the way, there’s actually a few theories going around about the symbolism behind the Chevrolet logo. One common story is that General Motors co-founder William C. Durant copied the design off some wallpaper he saw in a Parisian Hotel. But historian Ken Kaufmann says the logo is actually based on iconography used by the Southern Compressed Coal Company ad for its “Coalettes” logo....

Years of observation of footage suggest Toyota pickups still have the jihadist market cornered. The duplicitous Muslim Brotherhood, for its part, might prefer "Dodge."

If there's an app for that, it is surely haram. This item was broadcast in October, but is currently highlighted at MEMRI's home page. "Saudi Cleric Sa'd Bin Al-Shathari: It Is Forbidden to Pray to Allah to Place Steve Jobs in Paradise," from MEMRI, October 8, 2011:

Interviewer: There is a great deal of interest in the death of Steve Jobs, the founder and owner of Apple and its former CEO. I'd like you to comment on two matters. First, is it permissible to be sad over the death of an infidel? Second, is it permissible to ask for Allah's mercy for an infidel? There was a lot of debate on Twitter and Facebook about this.

Sa'd Bin Al-Shathari: With regard to being sad, it is not something within one's volition. One does not decide to become sad, and therefore, there is no ruling about it in Islamic law.

[…]

As for asking for Allah's mercy [upon an infidel], if a person prays for Allah to alleviate the torments of someone close to him, or for Him to ignore some of his sins – that's permissible too. But to pray for Allah to have mercy upon him or place him in Paradise – that is forbidden....

Those who wage jihad to impose Sharia push a circular argument: Sharia is the only way to peace and security because it is the only condition under which they will allow peace and security to take hold. They try to prove the supposed necessity of Sharia by attempting to create it, through harassment, sexual assaults, and acts of terrorism.

It is this man's mindset that also likely explains some of the reported surge in sexual assaults in the Maldives, and in Scandinavia as well. When you are a second class citizen, as women and unbelievers are under Sharia (women become perpetual minors, and unbelievers are dhimmis), you bear a disproportionate burden to keep the peace by knowing your "place." If you are found to be out of that place, you forfeit your protection, such as it is.

"'Strict Muslim' raped four women at knifepoint to 'punish them for being on the streets at night'," Nick Enoch for the Daily Mail, January 25:

A Muslim man who raped women to 'teach them a lesson' for being on the streets at night was jailed indefinitely today because of the danger he poses to women.

Sunny Islam, 23, who comes from a strict Muslim family, dragged his terrified victims - including a 15-year-old - from the street at knifepoint, bound and assaulted them during a two-month reign of terror.

Police fear that Islam may have attacked many more.

Three of the assaults took place close to his home in Barking, east London, while a fourth occurred in nearby Forest Gate.

Judge Patricia Lees, sentencing him to a minimum of 11 years, said: 'The harm you have done to your victims is incalculable.

'The nature and extent of these offences drives me to the conclusion that you represent an extreme and continuing danger to women, particularly those out at night.'

He was traced through the number plate of his girlfriend's car after he kidnapped and raped the 15-year-old in September 2010.

He grabbed her from behind as she walked home with a friend and bundled her into the car at knifepoint before driving to a secluded spot where he raped her twice despite her claiming she was only 11 years old.

Judge Lees said: 'You told her you were going to "teach her a lesson", and similar things were said to the other women.

'Those words are a chilling indictment of your very troubling attitude towards all of these victims.

'You seem to observe women out at night as not deserving respect or protection....

Indonesia's approach to homegrown Islamic thug groups like the Islamic Defenders Front is noticeably more flexible than its dealings with groups with international connections. In particular, there seems to be no sense of urgency as long as "Islamic vigilantism" restricts its targets to Christians and Ahmadis. But evidence is accumulating that feeding that proverbial crocodile will not keep the peace in the long run, but only create a stronger challenge to the authority of the government that will indeed come back to bite them.

"Indonesia's Islamic vigilantes 'turning to terrorism'," from the Times Online (Sri Lanka), January 26 (thanks to all who sent this in):

JAKARTA, Jan 26, 2012 (AFP) - Tolerance of Islamic vigilantism is helping to breed a new generation of terrorists in Indonesia, the International Crisis Group warned in a report Thursday.

The report criticised the government and police for lax law enforcement against hardliners, who often claim responsibility for violent anti-vice and sectarian attacks but regularly evade punishment.

“Indonesia: From Vigilantism to Terrorism in Cirebon” described how a group of poor uneducated men in the western Javanese town went from using sticks and stones in morality raids to using bombs and guns.

“What we saw in Cirebon was a a group of about 10 people who started out on a path to terrorism by participating in anti-vice campaigns,” ICG analyst Sidney Jones told AFP.

“By using violence in these campaigns, they clearly violated the law but weren't punished.” The group went from carrying out anti-vice attacks on TV stations and convenience stores selling alcohol to orchestrating suicide attacks on a police mosque and a church on Java island.

The attacks last year killed only the bombers themselves, but injured scores of others with nails, nuts and bolts spraying from homemade explosives.

“The government's saving grace is that the groups that have embarked on this path are poorly trained with very low capacity, but it won't always stay that w

The radicalisation of the Cirebon group was fuelled by weekly sermons where spiritual leaders encouraged the bloodshed of Islam's enemies, which have come to include the Indonesian government and police, the report said.

The threat of vigilantes turning to terrorism follows an effective decade-long crackdown on the country's most notorious networks, such as the Al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah, it added....

The Brotherhood and the Salafis don't even need to collect the jizya from the Copts, as long as they've got Barack Obama.

"Obama set to speed aid to Egypt: official," by Warren Strobel for Reuters, January 25 (thanks to Wimpy):

(Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama plans to accelerate the pace of American aid to Egypt, a top State Department official said on Wednesday, as the most populous Arab nation reaches a critical stage in its uncertain transition away from autocratic rule.

Undersecretary of State Robert Hormats, part of a U.S. delegation that held unprecedented talks last week with Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, said Washington wanted to provide "more immediate benefits" to Egyptians, who earlier this month conducted their first democratic elections in decades.

"During this period, we want to be as supportive as we can. This is an historic moment. Egypt's a country of enormous importance," Hormats said.

Under the plan, some non-urgent U.S. aid slated for other countries - he did not name them - would be redirected to Egypt. And funding in the pipeline for long-term programs in Egypt would be shifted to quick-impact projects, he said.

Hormats, speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of the annual World Economic Forum, emphasized that the White House had not made any final decisions, and that he was providing Washington's "broad thinking" on the subject.

It was unclear whether the total amount of U.S. aid to Egypt would be increased. "Whether it's an increase or whether it's reprioritizing existing assistance, we're still working this out," Hormats said.

Still, he made clear the United States wants to be seen as doing more to assist a hoped-for democratic evolution in Egypt, where the military still holds ultimate power on the first anniversary of protests that ousted President Hosni Mubarak....

Islamic spokesmen in the West routinely say that the Qur'an's command to fight against Jews and Christians, impose the jizya (poll tax) upon them and make them submit as inferiors to Islamic rule (9:29) is a relic of history, never to be revived -- and that only greasy Islamophobes say otherwise.

Yassir Al-Burhami didn't get the memo.

"Egyptian Salafi Leader Yassir Al-Burhami Compares the Christians of Egypt to the Jews of Al-Medina," from MEMRI, December 3, 2011 (air date; posted more recently), with thanks to J.:

Following are excerpts from a statement by Egyptian Salafi leader Yassir Al-Burhami, which was posted on the Internet, which aired on December 3, 2012 [sic]:

Yassir Al-Burhami: Appointing infidels to positions of authority over Muslims is prohibited. Allah said: "Never will Allah grant the infidels a way [to triumph] over the Believers."

We are not afraid of losing the elections or of not getting votes. We are not trying to ingratiate ourselves before the people.

Can the Christians of Egypt be compared to the Jews of Al-Medina? The case of the Jews of Al-Medina is one example of the relations between the Muslims and the infidels. The Muslims can implement any form of conduct used by the Prophet Muhammad. When the Prophet Muhammad was still in Mecca, he dealt with the infidels in a certain way, and when the Muslims are weak, they should deal with the infidels this way. "Refrain from action, pray, and pay the zakkat."

In many infidel countries, such as occupied Palestine, we instruct Muslims to do just that. We are not telling the Muslims in Gaza to launch rockets every day, which would lead to the destruction of the entire country. We tell them to adhere to the truce.

When the Prophet Muhammad first arrived in Al-Medina, he signed a treaty with the Jews without forcing them to pay the jizya poll tax. This was necessary at the time, but when they breached the treaty, he fought them, and eventually, he imposed the jizya upon the People of the Book.

[…]

The Christians [of Egypt] can be dealt with like the Jews of Al-Medina. This is possible.

Cigarette trafficking has been used to fund Hizballah.

"Mosque Leader Charged in Cigarette Smuggling Ring," from IPT News, January 23:

A leader of a South Carolina mosque was among 11 men arrested in a cigarette trafficking and money laundering scheme spanning several states. A 26-count indictment issued in November and unsealed last week accused Nasser Alquza, president of the Central Mosque of Charleston, and others of conspiracy, receiving stolen property, and related charges.

The arrests followed a government sting operation in which Alquza and other defendants allegedly purchased over 6,800 cases of "stolen" Marlboro cigarettes from undercover agents in exchange for over $7.5 million, the indictment said. The proceeds from the "stolen" cigarettes, whose wholesale value was in excess of $15 million, was then laundered through legitimate businesses owned or controlled by the defendants....

The indictment highlighted the illegal sale of cigarettes as a serious problem facing law enforcement. It detailed how criminal enterprises purchased large volumes of cigarettes in states with low cigarette taxes such as North and South Carolina and illegally transported them to states with higher cigarette taxes where they were sold without paying the sales tax for higher profits.

The case is reminiscent of a Hizballah fundraising operation from the 1990s based out of Charlotte, N.C., in which 18 defendants led by Mohamad Hammoud were responsible for the illegal smuggling of more than $8 million worth of cigarettes from North Carolina to Michigan. Profits from the cigarette sales were sent to Hizballah in Lebanon. In 2002, Hammoud was sentenced to 150 years in prison. A judge subsequently reduced Hammoud's sentence to 30 years....

This whole controversy is epitomized by the photo illustration and lead paragraph of the first New York Times story on this issue: "In Police Training, a Dark Film on U.S. Muslims," by Michael Powell, January 23. The photo shows the black flag of jihad flying above the White House, with the caption, "An Islamic flag atop the White House in 'The Third Jihad.'”

Then the lead paragraph says: "Ominous music plays as images appear on the screen: Muslim terrorists shoot Christians in the head, car bombs explode, executed children lie covered by sheets and a doctored photograph shows an Islamic flag flying over the White House."

Both the Times' use of the image and its reference to it at the beginning of the story suggest that the producers of The Third Jihad doctored the photo themselves in order to push their cockamamie idea that some Muslims want to "infiltrate and dominate America." But in reality, Muslims originated this image, as we have reported here several times. Here is a photo of Muslims holding up this photo at a rally in New York in February 2006:

And another:

Yet this whole controversy is predicated on the assumption that The Third Jihad is whipping up hysteria about a non-existent threat. In reality, it covers much the same ground that I cover in my book Stealth Jihad, in which I show that the agenda of infiltration and subversion on the part of the Muslim Brotherhood and its allied groups is very real.

In "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America," by Mohamed Akram, May 19, 1991, Muslim Brotherhood operatives in the U.S. are told that they "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 God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

There are other indications as well:

"We reject the U.N., reject America, reject all law and order. Don't lobby Congress or protest because we don't recognize Congress. The only relationship you should have with America is to topple it. . . . Eventually there will be a Muslim in the White House dictating the laws of Shariah." -- Muhammad Faheed, Muslim Students Association meeting, Queensborough Community College, 2003

"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." -- Hamas-linked CAIR cofounder and longtime Board chairman Omar Ahmad, 1998 (denial noted and full story explained at link)

"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." -- Hamas-linked CAIR spokesman Ibrahim "Honest Ibe" Hooper, 1993

"If only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate." -- prominent American Muslim leader Siraj Wahhaj, 2002

Yet the initial Times article and all the coverage that followed are based on the assumption that no Muslim in the U.S. believes or acts upon such ideas. None of the coverage deals with the possibility that the film might be accurate, and to what extent:

During that time, at least 1,489 police officers, from lieutenants to detectives to patrol officers, saw the film.

News that police trainers showed this film so extensively comes as the department wrestles with its relationship with the city’s large Muslim community. The Police Department offers no apology for aggressively spying on Muslim groups and says it has ferreted out terror plots.

But members of the City Council, civil rights advocates and Muslim leaders say the department, in its zeal, has trampled on civil rights, blurred lines between foreign and domestic spying and sown fear among Muslims.

“The department’s response was to deny it and to fight our request for information,” said Faiza Patel, a director at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, which obtained the release of the documents through a Freedom of Information request. “The police have shown an explosive documentary to its officers and simply stonewalled us.”

Tom Robbins, a former columnist with The Village Voice, first revealed that the police had screened the film. The Brennan Center then filed its request.

Instead of investigating its accuracy, the Times, predictably, looks into who funded the film:

The 72-minute film was financed by the Clarion Fund, a nonprofit group whose board includes a former Central Intelligence Agency official and a deputy defense secretary for President Ronald Reagan. Its previous documentary attacking Muslims’ “war on the West” attracted support from the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a major supporter of Israel who has helped reshape the Republican presidential primary by pouring millions of dollars into a so-called super PAC that backs Newt Gingrich.

Commissioner Kelly is listed on the “Third Jihad” Web site as a “featured interviewee.” Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, wrote in an e-mail that filmmakers had lifted the clip from an old interview. The commissioner, Mr. Browne said, has not asked the filmmakers to remove him from its Web site, or to clarify that he had not cooperated with them....

Clarion’s financing is a puzzle. Its federal income tax forms show contributions, grants and revenues typically hover around $1 million annually — except in 2008, when it booked contributions of $18.3 million. That same year, Clarion produced “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.” The Clarion Fund used its surge in contributions to pay to distribute tens of millions of copies of this DVD in swing electoral states across the country in September 2008.

“The Third Jihad” is quite similar, in style and content, to that earlier film. Narrated by Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim doctor and former American military officer in Arizona, “The Third Jihad” casts a broad shadow over American Muslims. Few Muslim leaders, it states, can be trusted.

“Americans are being told that many of the mainstream Muslim groups are also moderate,” Mr. Jasser states. “When in fact if you look a little closer, you’ll see a very different reality. One of their primary tactics is deception.”

Seeing as how most of them are listed as allied groups in that Muslim Brotherhood memorandum I linked above, this is an entirely reasonable statement.

Nonetheless, and again predictably, the Times is pressing on with its campaign, New York Mayor Bloomberg is in full retreat, and the Islamic supremacist thugs at Hamas-linked CAIR smell blood and are calling for the resignation of police commissioner Ray Kelly.

And so New York has taken a decisive step today toward outlawing the truth about jihad and Islamic supremacism, which only makes it more vulnerable to them.

This last weekend, I participated in a well-attended conference on the plight of Christians under Islam, sponsored by CAMERA. In "Boston Event Spotlights Imperiled Middle East Christians," from the Institute on Religion and Democracy, Matthew May describes the event. Because the report is long, below are snippets from my talk -- though be sure to read it all for summaries of the other speakers and their engaging talks:

Columnist and author Mark Steyn always gets a well-deserved laugh when he tells audiences that, to the useful idiots in the U.S. media and citizenry, “Allahu Akbar,” the calling card of Islamic terrorists the world over, is Arabic for “Nothing to see here!” But as author and scholar Raymond Ibrahim told a forum on violence against Middle Eastern Christians perpetrated by Islamists, what it really means is “My God is better than your God.”

The plight of Christians in the Middle East at the hands of Islamic jihadists – and U.S. media inattention and indifference to such struggles - was the subject of a forum entitled “The Persecuted Church: Christian Believers in Peril in the Middle East,” hosted and sponsored by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting (CAMERA), held at the Sheraton hotel in Framingham, Massachusetts, on January 21, 2012.

Dr. Walid Phares, who among several other roles advises the U.S. House of Representatives Anti-Terrorism Caucus, delivered the conference’s keynote address entitled “The Ongoing Fight for Freedom.” Phares said that the battle of ideas is fiercer than combat battles because the same forces who have visited violence upon Christians, Jews, and others in the Middle East have tried to suppress the West’s understanding of what is really happening in the Middle East and what is being taught in U.S. academic institutions. [...]

Ibrahim, author of The Al Qaeda Reader discussed his research on Islamic primary sources and the emergence of the same patterns of behavior among Muslims who forcibly have demanded that non-Muslims submit to Islam for the past 1,400 years. He said the same acts, the same accusations, the same flattery, and, eventually, the same violence that modern-day Muslims have carried out against non-Muslims is documented by Muslim clerics throughout history.

Ibrahim pointed out that Muslim attacks against churches all over the world are not an aberration. He cited a Koranic verse that instructs Muslims to “fight the people of the book” [Christians and Jews] until they pay jizya and feel themselves subdued. Ibrahim argued that the word “until” reveals that such a verse is prescriptive and perpetual in meaning. He also cited the eighth century Pact of Umar and its provisions that prohibited Christians from building churches. He introduced the term “Islamicate” to describe a prevailing cultural attitude among Muslims that non-Muslims are beneath Muslims, which has seeped into the collective conscience of devout and non-practicing Muslims alike.

Ibrahim argued that the media are all too willing to undermine the realities of the Islamic faith, utilizing code terms such as “sectarian strife” to describe atrocities committed by Muslims without having to actually identify the religious affiliation of the perpetrators. He also denounced as “stupidity” the U.S. government’s prohibition against using qualifiers to describe Muslim violence against non-Muslims, which he argued erases a wealth of knowledge and pattern development....

"There is no compulsion in religion," according to Qur'an 2:256, but in reality, Islamic law is rife with means of coercion directed at unbelievers, whom Qur'an 9:29 offers the options of conversion, subjugation, or war. For that matter, "compulsion" is ultimately in the eye of the person in power doing the compelling, and rationalizations abound to blur the lines between persuasion and compulsion: "it's good for them." "It's for the best." "They'll thank us later when they realize we're right."

But, just to keep things looking good on paper, many forced converts are also forced to sign documents saying they converted of their own free will, or, as was the case in this report, brought to court to make a statement under duress.

Nadia Bibi got away. One other captive bride also recently got away. But Saba and Anila Masih, Farah Hatim, and untold others are still in captivity (and not only in Pakistan), with many cases of abducted Christian and Hindu girls and women going unreported.

Pakistan is a major recipient of U.S. assistance. We have leverage we are not using to insist Pakistan protect the rights of non-Muslims and to free those wrongfully imprisoned by various means on account of their faith.

"Christian Girl kidnapped and converted to Islam back home after 10 years," from Agenzia Fides, January 24 (thanks to E.):

Lahore (Agenzia Fides) - Nadia Bibi, a Christian girl who was abducted and forced to marry a Muslim man, returned to her family, of Catholic faith, after 10 years. Nadia was only 15 when, in 2001, she was kidnapped in Mariamabad (in Punjab), a city with a Catholic majority: her case is not an isolated case, as confirmed by Catholic sources of Fides in Punjab, there are at least 700 cases a year of Christian girls kidnapped and forced to marry a Muslim. If one adds the cases of Hindu girls, the number rises to 1,800 cases per year, says a recent Report carried out by the NGO "Asian Human Rights Commission".

Nadia's parents had turned to the police but, as often happens, they had been intimidated and threatened by the kidnappers, while the police refused to register a complaint. Later, when they heard that Nadia had been forced to marry the Muslim Maqsood Ahmed, her parents went back to the police and this time they managed to register a FIR (First Information Report). But the police refused to arrest him and the story ended up before the High Court of Lahore. Here Nadia, under threats, issued a statement in favor of her husband, expressing her free will to marry, for fear of tragic consequences for her and her family. So the case was closed.Meanwhile, for Nadia life was unbearable: Maqsood beat her and treated her badly, even asking her to convert her parents to Islam. After 10 years in December 2011, Nadia found the strength to escape, returning home to her parents. However Maqsood returned with a group of armed men, threatening to kill and kidnap Nadia’s younger sister. The family then fled and turned to the NGO CLAAS (Center for Legal Aid Assistence and Settlement) that protects Pakistani Christians. CLAAS has arranged to host Nadia and her sister in a hidden place, starting a new criminal case against Maqsood.

As reported by CLAAS to Fides, Nadia said: "Maqsood made my life miserable. I was afraid of being killed because Maqsood knew I was not happy with him. I felt totally helpless and I was very confused. Maqsood is inhumane, he has ruined my life. Now I have regained hope and even faith".Nadia's story is exemplary and follows a clichet [sic] that is repeated in many other cases, like that of Farah Hatim kidnapped and converted to Islam in 2011. Although her case was concluded with a statement (forced), made in court, in favor of the perpetrator but some international NGOs reported the story to the United Nations.

First this: "The quarterback for Lutheran planned to touch his knee to the ground to end the game, with Lutheran leading 48 to 6. Police said game officials knew this and instructed teams not to have contact after the snap. But players from Star Academy, according to police, went after the quarterback, knocking him to the ground and kicking him. The quarterback suffered a concussion."

Then this: "Attorney Nabih Ayad said said [sic] players are commonly involved in 'skirmishes' in post play but that these players were treated differently because of ethnic profiling."

Really? Players commonly give their opponents concussions in non-game situations?

And finally this: "'We believe that from the very beginning that, if these young men may have been of a different ethnicity, of a different religion, different skin color, that Dearborn Heights police officer most likely would not have been so aggressive in the means in which he carried out his investigation,' said CAIR Executive Director Dawud Walid."

The involvement of the sinister thugs of Hamas-linked CAIR should raise red flags. If this were a case of four non-Muslim high school football players attacking a Muslim opponent, kicking him and giving him a concussion, you can be sure Dawud Walid would be on the other side. Hamas-linked CAIR is trying to portray these Muslim football players as victims, despite the fact that they're the ones who carried out the assault in the first place. This is in line with Hamas-linked CAIR's never-ending quest for Muslim victims. In order to deflect attention away from jihad activity and try to portray Muslims as victims, so as to shame non-Muslims into not investigating or even being suspicious of further jihad activity, Hamas-linked CAIR and other Muslims have not hesitated to fabricate "hate crimes." Hamas-linked CAIR and other groups like it want and need hate crimes against Muslims, because they can use them for political points and as weapons to intimidate people into remaining silent about the jihad threat.

And in this case, they're trying to portray some thuggish Muslim footballers as victims, both to advance their Muslim victimhood narrative, and to try to intimidate law enforcement officials into being afraid to charge Muslims with anything, for fear of being charged with racial or ethnic or religious bias.

"Dearborn Heights football players challenge charges," from ClickOnDetroit.com, January 24:

DETROIT - The families of metro Detroit high school students are crying foul and fighting back against charges stemming from a fight on the field during a football game.

Four teens, Ali Bajjey, Fanar Al-Asady, Hadee Attia and Mohamed Ahmed, are facing charges of aggravated assault for the incident that happened Oct. 21 between Star Academy and Westland Lutheran High School.

The quarterback for Lutheran planned to touch his knee to the ground to end the game, with Lutheran leading 48 to 6. Police said game officials knew this and instructed teams not to have contact after the snap. But players from Star Academy, according to police, went after the quarterback, knocking him to the ground and kicking him. The quarterback suffered a concussion.

But the Council on American-Islamic Relations held a news conference Tuesday on the basis that the allegations are not true.

CAIR said there is new video showing the incident was "greatly exaggerated" and that the players were targeted because they were Arab-American.

"We believe that from the very beginning that, if these young men may have been of a different ethnicity, of a different religion, different skin color, that Dearborn Heights police officer most likely would not have been so aggressive in the means in which he carried out his investigation," said CAIR Executive Director Dawud Walid.

Attorney Nabih Ayad said said [sic] players are commonly involved in “skirmishes” in post play but that these players were treated differently because of ethnic profiling.

"Had their names been John or Bill, Randy or Jason, I don't think these charges would be standing here today. Because of the Arab ethnicity, I think these charges were brought with the racial animus behind it," he said. "If you play football, you better watch out. You can't be aggressive because you may be charged with a criminal act. We're asking judges to be referees on every play."

In response, the Wayne County Prosecutor issued a statement that said it had a policy against allowing race or ethnicity to influence any part of the charging process.

“Our investigation in this case includes a video tape which captured the incident. After a review of the evidence, we have charged the people involved in this incident with the appropriate charges,” Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said....

Shakila over at the Liberated blog has just post some very personal and affecting musings on what it is like to live as a secret apostate in a Muslim country:

Even when I am surrounded my thousands, I still feel so alone. I guess this is because I am living this dual existence which is killing me from inside. I have to pretend I am one of them when I am certainly not anymore. Sometimes I feel like crying out hysterically, while at others, I just want to laugh out loud. The other day I was sitting in our office cafeteria with a group of friends who were all laughing and gossiping, but I was sitting in a corner just smiling, while at the same time, my eyes were slightly damp with tears. I felt this sudden stab in my heart that these women who are supposed to be my friends and who say they love me actually just love me for what I am. If they found out that I am no longer one of them, they would hate me and would want to kill me. What kind of love is this? Not only them, I feel the same when I am with my family. I have realized that all these people, my friends, family and relatives, just love me for what I am. Everyone's love is so conditional. The truth hurts so much and the more I think of it, the more depressed I feel.

Read it all.

The common factor in the persistence of female genital mutilation outside of Africa is the Shafi'i school of Islamic jurisprudence, which holds the practice to be obligatory. The Maldives has been on a fast track here of late toward intensified observance of Sharia, and the government has already ruled with respect to Sharia's criminal punishments that "there is nothing to debate about in a matter clearly stated in the religion of Islam." As this report makes clear, that attitude threatens the bodily integrity of Maldivian girls and women.

"Female circumcision fear as fundamentalists roll back women's rights," by Ben Doherty for the Sydney Morning Herald, January 25 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

When the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, visited the Maldives late last year, she urged that the practice of flogging women for having sex outside marriage - while very rarely punishing men for the same - should be abolished.

''This practice constitutes one of the most inhumane and degrading forms of violence against women,'' she told local reporters then.

The response was as fierce as it was unexpected. The next day protesters rallied outside the UN building, carrying placards that read ''Ban UN'' and ''Islam is not a toy'' and threatened to ''Flog Pillay''. A website later promised to ''slaughter anyone against Islam''.

Similar protests have followed, and a growing religious divide between moderate and fundamentalist Muslims - constitutionally, all Maldivians are obliged to follow Islam - has led many to question the direction of religion in the Maldives and, in particular, the place of women in Maldivian society.

In an interview with the Herald, the Maldivian President, Mohamed Nasheed, conceded an emergent religious fundamentalism had changed the way women were viewed, and treated, in his country.

He said he was distressed by religious groups who campaigned for girls to be circumcised or to be kept home from school.

''We were a matriarchal society. Our inheritance, also, in the past was from women. But, with a new kind of radical Islam, the perceptions some of them have on women are not familiar to many Maldivians,'' Mr Nasheed said.

Once again, wherever Sharia enjoys a resurgence, the observable effect is that tolerance decreases, harassment increases, and respect for human rights decreases.

Anecdotal reports suggest female circumcision is undergoing a resurgence in the Maldives, particularly on the outer islands, where local imams hold significant influence.

Shadiya Ibrahim, member of the newly formed Gender Advocacy Working Group and a long-time campaigner for women's rights, said Maldivian society was growing more oppressive towards women.

''Being a woman is harder now. The religious Wahhabist scholars preach more forcefully than anyone else can. They have this backing of religion as a tool.

''No one can make the argument to have a more liberal, a more positive attitude towards women. Day by day, it is becoming harder for women to live in this country,'' she said.
Ms Ibrahim said women were excluded from positions of power, from taking jobs and even from education, particularly beyond primary level.

The practice of flogging women for extramarital sex was common across the Maldives, she said.

''It happens everywhere. Normally, this punishment is given when you give birth, which is why it is almost always women. If you have 140-odd women being flogged, you have only two or three men.'' The flogging is public and done with a paddle or a cane, and is intended more to humiliate than to cause serious injury.

Ms Ibrahim said flogging was accepted by many Maldivians, and there were other, more serious issues emerging, including a growing number of instances of sexual violence.

''This week, there have been two cases of a gang rape of [a] minor, one 16-year-old, one 12-year-old and, very often, while there is an effort to catch the perpetrators, eventually, the media will turn it into 'the girl was wearing this', 'the girl had gone there','' he said.

When you are a second-class citizen, if you are found out of your supposed place, you forfeit your right to protection. You are "asking for it."

Domestic violence is common. A nationwide survey done in 2007 found one in three Maldivian women had been abused, sexually or physically.

Aneesa Ahmed, president of advocacy organisation Hope for Women, said a domestic violence bill before the Maldivian parliament would raise awareness of an issue rarely discussed in the Maldives. But the legislation has been stuck in parliament more than 14 months. Only five of the Maldives' 77 parliamentarians are women.

Ms Ahmed said Maldivian women's control over their lives was being eroded. ''Men in the Maldives feel that the women's role is reproductive and in the home. That's what women should do and that's all we should do.''

Another bright idea from the boobs at al-Shabaab. "Attack claims 2 Kenyan soldiers, 11 Shabaab," by Bernard Momanyi for Capital FM, January 23:

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 23 – Two Kenyan soldiers were killed in Somalia on Sunday in a major attack that also left 11 Al Shabaab militants dead.

Military Spokesman Emmanuel Chirchir said a Transitional Federal Government (TFG) soldier was also killed in the air strike.

“Yesterday at around 2300hrs KDF/TFG conducted a raid on an Al Shabaab camp where 11 were killed,” the army spokesman said adding “out of the raid KDF unfortunately lost two of its personnel while TFG lost one.”

Chirchir said several arms were recovered from the slain Al Shabaab militants.

On Saturday, Cyrus Oguna of the Defence Forces said the militia had resorted to using women wearing bras fitted with explosives to further their cause.

Oguna said that the militia was getting desperate and had started using unconventional means to strike back at the Kenyan army.

He added that the outlawed group was also using propaganda, such as killing civilians and claiming they are KDF officials, as their new weapon.

“We are all aware that Al Shabaab for a long time prohibited women from wearing bras.

The phenomenon that is emerging now is that Al-Shabaab is using these women who are in their ranks and supplying them with bras that are fitted with explosives and this is something that is critical even to homeland security,” he explained.

He said that they were also dressing up as civilians in a bid to fool both the Somali people and the Kenya Defence Forces.

“They now dress like herders and in one incident, they fired at our troops and our troops fired back and they complained that we were firing at civilians,” he observed.

“They are trying to make us look bad by trying to engage non combatants. However, Al Shabaab dressing like me at one minute does not make him a civilian when he dresses otherwise the next minute,” he pointed out....

Wherever there arises a renewed interest in Sharia, the observable effect is that tolerance decreases and harassment increases, and violent persecution often results with the aim of putting the unbelievers in their supposed place. "Violence against Indonesia’s religious minorities surges -HRW," from by Thin Lei Win for AlertNet, January 24 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

BANGKOK (AlertNet) – Violence against religious minorities surged in Indonesia in 2011, with authorities standing aside and failing to uphold the rule of law as Islamist mobs attacked Christians and Ahmadis, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in its annual report on the country.

The report, part of a larger HRW publication monitoring human rights in more than 90 countries, also said violence continued to rack [sic] Papua and West Papua. The report said the authorities used excessive force against peaceful protesters in these Indonesian provinces, where a low-level separatist insurgency has been going on for decades.

Elaine Pearson, the group’s deputy Asia director, said attacks on religious minorities and police violence in Papua “got a lot worse in 2011.”

“The common thread is the failure of the Indonesian government to protect the rights of all its citizens,” she said.

The report said senior government officials, including Minister of Religious Affairs Suryadharma Ali, Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi, and Minister of Human Rights and Law Patrialis Akbar, “continued to justify restrictions on religious freedom in the name of public order.”

Incidents of sectarian violence “got more deadly and more frequent” last year, with 184 cases of religious attacks in the first nine months of 2011, the rights group said. Churches as well as Ahmadi mosques and communities in various places came under assault.

The Ahmadis are followers of a minority Ahmadiyya sect founded in the 19th century. They believe there have been other prophets of Islam since its founder Mohammad, although he is regarded as the most important. Mainstream Muslims consider them heretical, and Ahmadis face increasing threats of violence in many countries including Pakistan and Indonesia.

“Short prison terms for a handful of offenders did nothing to dissuade mob violence,” the report added, pointing to the February incident in western Java when some three Ahmadis were killed and five injured when some 1,500 Islamic militants attacked a house.

The event was caught on film – police officers were shown watching as the mob wreaked havoc – but only 12 men were charged, and none for manslaughter. One of the Ahmadis injured in the attack was later convicted of assault and disobeying police orders.

The case against Rev. Khanna for daring to baptize seven converts from Islam continues to grind on, and the question remains: whose law is supreme in Kashmir? Indian law, or the local Sharia courts?

They have also tried to get rid of Fr. Borst before. They have had it in for him for a long time. He is "credited with initiating the translation of the Bible into the Kashmiri language." "3 Christian priests told to leave J&K," by M. Saleem Pandit for the Times of India, January 20 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

SRINAGAR: A self-styled Sharia court in Srinagar on Thursday issued a fatwa asking three Christian priests to leave Jammu & Kashmir for "luring the Valley's Muslims to Christianity". The fatwa also directed the state government to take over the management of Christian schools in J&K, besides monitoring church activities.

The outrageous edict follows last November's arrest of pastor M C Khanna of All Saints Church in Srinagar.

According to Nasir-ul-Islam, deputy to grand Mufti Bashiruddin, four Christian priests are involved in luring Kashmiri Muslim youth to convert to Christianity. "Punjabi MC Khanna, Dutch national, Jim Borst, and Gayoor Messah were told to leave the Valley for their involvement in conversions. Case against the principal of Tyndale Biscoe School, Parvez Samuel Koul, is under investigation. A judgment will announced in due course," said Naib Mufti Nasir-ul-Islam. Besides the decree, Sharia court asked the government to involve itself with the management of missionary schools.

Hysen Sherifi's jihad continued even in prison. "Convicted terrorist accused of plotting to kill witnesses," from the Associated Press, January 24 (thanks to EZ Rider):

RALEIGH, N.C. – A North Carolina man sentenced to prison recently as part of a homegrown terrorist ring has been accused in a federal court document of plotting to kill witnesses who testified against him at trial.

An affidavit unsealed in federal court Monday accuses Hysen Sherifi of plotting against the witnesses from his jail cell. Authorities say an FBI informant posing as a hit man met with Sherifi's brother and a female friend and accepted $5,000 and a photo of an intended victim.

FBI agents have arrested the brother, Shkumbin Sherifi, and Nevine Aly Elshiekh, a school teacher. Now in federal custody at the New Hanover County Jail, each is charged with a felony count of use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire.

Hysen Sherifi, 27, was sentenced to 45 years in prison earlier this month in what prosecutors described as a conspiracy to attack the Marine base at Quantico, Va., and targets abroad. Five others, including construction contractor Daniel Patrick Boyd, have been sentenced to federal prison terms for terrorism charges related to raising money, stockpiling weapons and training in preparation for jihadist attacks....

Shkumbin Sherifi and Elshiekh await a scheduled first appearance Friday in federal court in Wilmington. The two have applied for court appointed lawyers, who have not yet been assigned....

The informant soon befriended Sherifi, who requested help in hiring someone to kill three people who had testified against him at his trial, according to the affidavit. Sherifi specified that he wanted the witnesses beheaded and that he would be provided photos of the severed heads as confirmation of the deaths, according to the document.

FBI agents said in the document that they arranged for a second informant to pose as a hit man and monitored Sherifi during a series of jailhouse visits with Elshiekh.

Following a Dec. 21 visit at the jail, Elshiekh left a voicemail on the fake hit man's cell phone, identifying herself as "Hysen Sherifi's friend," according to the affidavit. It added that the FBI observed and recorded subsequent meetings between Elshiekh and the fake hit man, during which she provided names, addresses and photos of those targeted and $750 in cash toward the first murder.

Agents also observed Elshiekh meeting with Shkumbin Sherifi, who met with the FBI's fake hitman on Jan. 8, the court document said. According to the affidavit, the brother traveled from Raleigh to Wilmington to provide the hit man another $4,250 in cash.

The affidavit provides no information about the nature of the relationship between Hysen Sherifi and Elshiekh, but a woman with that same name was quoted in media reports from last year's terrorism trial in New Bern. The names of the witnesses allegedly targeted were redacted from the affidavit....

The Sherifi brothers and other family members emigrated from Kosovo following the wars that ravaged the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. A call to the Sherifi family home in Raleigh on Tuesday was not returned.

Hysen Sherifi and others arrested in the terrorism conspiracy were members of the Islamic Association of Raleigh, the largest Muslim congregation in the Triangle. Several members of the mosque also routinely made the 4-hour round trip for the trial in New Bern to support the accused, who they described as innocent men being railroaded by overzealous federal authorities.

Messages to the media contact listed for the mosque were not returned.

What a surprise.

Yesterday on Christian Solidarity International (via RaymondIbrahim.com), I discussed the many reasons why a president of the United States -- I don't name any, specifically, lest I be accused of great naivety -- should speak up on behalf of the religious minorities being persecuted, cleansed, or merely oppressed under Islam. [Note: If, while reading the following article, you wish to tell the current president to stand up for religious minorities in the Islamic Middle East, sign CSI's petition]:

On January 24, during his State of the Union Address, the president of the United States has a chance to expose the plight of religious minorities living in Muslim majority nations. Doing so would not merely shed light on one of the most ignored humanitarian crises of the 21st century; it would help alleviate it.

Why should the president speak up on the oppression of religious minorities? For starters, because it is the right thing to do, and reflects American values and principles.

He should speak up because religious cleansing is currently underway in nations like Nigeria, where Boko Haram—"Western Education is Forbidden"—and other Islamic groups have declared jihad on the Christian minorities of the north, killing and displacing thousands, burning and bombing hundreds of churches, most notoriously this last Christmas, where over forty people were killed while celebrating Christmas mass. Likewise, since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, about half of Iraq's one million Christians have been forced by targeted violence to flee their homeland, the most notorious incident, again, being a church attack, where some 60 worshippers were killed.

He should speak up because churches are constantly being attacked, burned, or forced into closure, not just in Nigeria and Iraq, but in Afghanistan, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia (click on country-links for the most recent examples). In Egypt alone, after several churches were burned, thousands of Christian Copts gathered to demonstrate—only to be slaughtered by the military, including by being run-over by armored vehicles.

He should speak up because Muslim converts to Christianity are regularly ostracized, beat, killed, or imprisoned—recent examples coming from Algeria, Eritrea, Kashmir, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, and even Western nations. Iran's Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, whose plight actually made it to the mainstream media, is but one of many people imprisoned and tortured for simply following their conscience and converting to Christianity. Uganda offers a typical example: there, a Muslim father locked his 14-year-old daughter for several months without food or water, simply because she embraced Christianity. She weighed 44 pounds when rescued.

He should speak up because Christian girls are being abducted, raped, and forced to convert to Islam—recent examples coming from Egypt, India, Pakistan, and Sudan. In Pakistan alone, "a 12 year-old Christian [was] gang raped for eight months, forcibly converted and then 'married' to her Muslim attacker." Now that she has escaped, instead of seeing justice done, "the Christian family is in hiding from the rapists and the police." Earlier in Pakistan, a 2-year-old Christian girl was savagely raped and damaged for life because her father refused to convert to Islam...

What anti-Islam press? The mainstream media in both the U.K. and the U.S. has been for years and remains completely unwilling to discuss jihad and Islamic supremacism. When mainstream reporters are forced to report on jihad activity, they regularly ascribe it to other factors or obscure its motives. Thus we hear about "militants," "insurgents," and "youths" in connection with violent jihad activity, while being endlessly regaled with articles designed to intimidate people into thinking that concern about the stealth jihad and creeping Sharia is "Islamophobia."

This initiative is designed to shut down the last vestiges of truth-telling about jihad and Islamic supremacist in the British mainstream media. Note also that among the signers is not only once-fashionable Leftist Bianca Jagger, but Moazzam Begg, an apologist for Anwar al-Awlaki. That's right: the fox is demanding that the farmer stop his anti-fox activity of guarding the henhouse.

"We need an inquiry into anti-Islam press," from The Guardian, January 23 (thanks to Steven):

Over the past decade, a number of academic studies have indicated a worrying and disproportionate trend towards negative, distorted and even fabricated reports in media coverage of the Muslim community. Recent research at Cambridge University concludes that "a wider set of representations of Islam would signify a welcome change to reporting practices. Muslims deserve a better press than they have been given in the past decade." And according to a recent ComRes poll, one in three people in Britain today believe that the media is responsible for "whipping up a climate of fear of Islam in the UK".

The Leveson inquiry has so far failed to adequately address unfair media coverage as it relates to less prominent cases, including those relating to Muslims and Islam, focusing as it does on the impact of phone hacking on celebrities and other high-profile individuals.

An alternative inquiry is necessary to investigate what many regard as widespread and systematic discriminatory practices in reporting on Muslims and Islam in the British media. Victims – whether prominent or not – of alleged discriminatory media coverage have a right to have their testimonies catalogued and examined thoroughly by credible, independent assessors. Recommendations can then be made to improve ethical standards in the reporting of not solely the Muslim community but of all sections of society.

Imran Khan Human rights solicitor
Bianca Jagger Chair, Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation
Michael Rosen Writer
Jeremy Corbyn MP
Jemima Khan
Navnit Dholakia Deputy leader, Liberal Democrats, House of Lords
Mohamed Ali Harrath Islam Channel
Hajj Ahmad Thomson Barrister
Jenny Jones Assembly member (Green), London Assembly
Andrew Boff Assembly member (Conservative), London Assembly
Rabbi Janet Burden
Walter Wolfgang
Hugh Lanning Chair, Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Sanum Ghafoor, blogger
Jean Lambert, MEP, London
Peter Murray Former president, NUJ
Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari Chair, East London Mosque
Dr Omer El-Hamdoon Muslim Association of Britain
Massoud Shadjareh Islamic Human Rights Commission
Sunny Hundal Liberal Conspiracy
Ahmed J Versi The Muslim News
John Rees Counterfire
Vivien Lichtenstein
Anas Altikriti Cordoba Foundation
Miriam Margolyes
Farooq Murad Muslim Council of Britain
Sarah Colborne Director, Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Dr Daud Abdullah Middle East Monitor
Moazzam Begg Cageprisoners
Phil Rees Out of Office Films
Nabil Ahmed Federation of Student Islamic Societies
Abdullah Faliq Islamic Forum of Europe
Rabbi Jeffrey Newman
Cllr Larry Sanders Oxfordshire county council
Diana Neslen
Shemiza Rashid Director, The Creative Muslim Network
Na'ima B Roberts Editor, Sisters Magazine
Asa Winstanley The Electronic Intifada
Richard Peppiatt Writer and former tabloid reporter
Shazia Arshad Human rights campaigner
Myriam Francois Cerrah Activist
Murtaza Shibli Journalist and author
Lindsey German Stop The War Coalition
Murad Qureshi Assembly member, London Assembly
Cat Smith Chair, Next Generation Labour (pc)
Robert Pitt Islamophobia Watch
Dr Alana Lentin University of Sussex
Robin Richardson Insted Consultancy
Cat Boyd Coalition of Resistance Glasgow
Baroness Pola Uddin
Sean Rillo Raczka University of London Union
Chris Nineham Enough Coalition Against Islamophobia
Mark McDonald Barrister
Dan Poulton Journalist
Yasmin Khatun Producer
Frances Legg Producer
Chris Bambery Journalist
Sadiya Chowdhury Journalist
Supporters of the The Alternative Leveson inquiry

But deep down, they really, really want peace. To think otherwise would be "Islamophobic."

"Top official says Hamas will never renounce jihad," from AFP, January 23:

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories — Senior Hamas official Mahmud Zahar said on Monday that the Palestinian Islamist movement will never give up its armed struggled against Israel.

The statement comes as Gaza Strip officials openly attacked the movement's leader-in-exile Khaled Meshaal, who has decided not to run again this summer for the leadership of Hamas, for prioritising "peaceful resistance."

"We are fighting for our dignity and rights. Jihad is our path, our life, our pride and we will not renounce it no matter the sacrifices," said Zahar, quoted on the website of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's armed wing.

Hamas will "never give up its armed struggle against the Zionist enemy," he said during a speech in Zeitun, a neighbourhood in east Gaza, in honour of the "martyrs" of Israel's December 2008-January 2009 Cast Lead operation against the enclave....

I am not in favor of laws restricting the freedom of speech, but this response from the OIC is consistent with its own attempts to restrict truth-telling about Islam and jihad under the guise of criminalizing "religious hatred." Note also that by labeling the French law an example of "Islamophobia," Ihsanoglu is tacitly admitting that the Armenian genocide was an Islamic jihad action; otherwise, what would Islam have to do with this law at all?

"OIC: Adoption of genocide law sign of Islamophobia in France," by A. Taghiyeva for Trend, January 24:

The adoption of the law criminalizing the denial of the so-called "Armenian Genocide" is a sign of Islamophobia in France, Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu told Trend on Tuesday.

"This law contradicts three fundamental principles of democracy -- equality, freedom and brotherhood. It is a sign of growing Islamophobia," Ihsanoglu said.

He called the law unacceptable, non-complying with historical facts and demonstrating double standards.

After a nearly eight-hour debate, the French Senate adopted the bill. Some 127 senators voted in favor, while 86 senators voted against on Jan.23.

The lower house of the French parliament adopted a bill criminalising the denial of the so-called "genocide" on Dec.22. Some 45 out of 577 French MPs voted with 38 voting for and seven against the adoption of the bill.

The bill demands a year's imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euro for denying the so-called "genocide." In response to the decision, Turkey announced that it has frozen all diplomatic relations with France.

MPs from the French president's Union for Popular Movement (UMP) party, which has the parliamentary majority, proposed the bill aimed at criminalising the denial of the so-called "genocide" to the legislative committee of the National Assembly in early December.

Armenia and the Armenian lobby claim that the predecessor of the Turkey - Ottoman Empire had committed the 1915 genocide against the Armenians living in Anadolu, and achieved recognition of the "Armenian Genocide" by the parliaments of several countries.

Here it is from Yahoo News:

Swiss Leader, Media Watchdog, Coptic Activist Join Board of Stop Islamization of Nations (SION)

NEW YORK, Jan. 23, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The international human rights organization Stop Islamization of Nations (SION) has just added three prominent freedom fighters to its Board of Advisers.

Oskar Freysinger is a Swiss Parliamentarian and member of the Swiss People's Party (SVP). He won international renown for his leadership of the successful campaign against the construction of minarets in Switzerland. The Swiss minaret ban was a huge victory and a major statement against the spread of Islamic law and the restriction of freedom in Switzerland and all over Europe.

Cliff Kincaid is editor of the Accuracy in Media (AIM) Report. A veteran journalist and media critic, Kincaid is also the editor of America's Survival, Inc. (ASI), which specializes in exposing the United Nations, international organizations and extremist movements. He has been a leader of the struggle to keep the jihadist propaganda network Al-Jazeera off American airwaves.

Ashraf Rameleh is the President of Voice of the Copts, an international organization standing up for the human rights of Coptic Christians and all religious minorities against religious bigotry and intolerance.

SION's President is the internationally renowned human rights activist Pamela Geller, author of Stop Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance (WND Books). Vice President is the acclaimed author and Islam expert, Robert Spencer, author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad (both Regnery).

The SION Board of Advisers also includes Dr. Ali Sina, the renowned ex-Muslim author and founder of FaithFreedom.org; Dr. Wafa Sultan, the ex-Muslim human rights activist and author; the German pro-freedom activist Stefan Herre of Politically Incorrect; the Israeli author Dr. Mordechai Kedar; the Hindu human rights activist Babu Suseelan; and Anders Gravers of Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE). More prominent pro-freedom activists will be added to the Board shortly.

A worldwide summit of SION freedom activists is currently being organized; location, date and other details will be announced in the coming weeks.

SION establishes a common American/European coalition of free people determined to stand for freedom and oppose the advance of Islamic law, Sharia. Islamic law is not simply a religious system, but a political system that encompasses every aspect of life; is authoritarian, discriminatory, and repressive; and contradicts Western laws and principles in numerous particulars. SION respects Muslims as fellow human beings and rejects Islamization as a comprehensive political, religious, cultural and social system of behavior and ideology.

SION stands for:

-- The freedom of speech - as opposed to Islamic prohibitions of
"blasphemy" and "slander," which are used effectively to quash
honest discussion of jihad and Islamic supremacism;
-- The freedom of conscience - as opposed to the Islamic death
penalty for apostasy;
-- The equality of rights of all people before the law - as
opposed to Sharia's institutionalized discrimination against
women and non-Muslims.

How did all these madrassa students and memorizers of the Qur'an misunderstand Islam so spectacularly as to think that jihad had something to do with a hot war against infidels?

"An Uzbek struggle in name only," by J Z Adams for Asia Times, January 25:

The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) in November released on its website, alfurqon.com, a list of its "martyrs" of 2011. The most striking aspect of the list, with its biographies and profile photographs written in the Cyrillic alphabet of the Uzbek language, is that only four of the 87 martyrs were from Uzbekistan.

The list shows how the IMU has evolved from being a group focused on overthrowing the "apostate" regime of Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan in the late 1990s and early 2000s into the global jihadi movement that it is now. Neither the biographies nor the preface to the list focus on Uzbekistan, and while 64 martyrs come from Afghanistan, 10 were from Tajikistan, six from Kyrgyzstan, with one each from Tatarstan (Russia), Germany and Pakistan.

Since the IMU left its bases in northern Afghanistan and took refuge with the Taliban in South Waziristan, Pakistan, after the US invasion of Afghanistan in October 2011, the composition of IMU fighters has become so "indigenized" in Afghanistan-Pakistan that the IMU is "Uzbek" in name only.

The IMU's priorities are now one and the same with the Taliban. As shown by the biographies, the IMU is focused on expelling the US from Afghanistan and fighting the Pakistani and Afghan armies.

Only after the US and its allies are defeated in Afghanistan can the IMU return to its bases in northern Afghanistan and fulfill the goals of its leader from 2002 to 2009, Tohir Yuldashev, who envisioned the IMU overthrowing the Karimov regime in Uzbekistan and other Central Asian governments in order to establish an Islamic State in all of "Turkistan"....

The following are some excerpts from the list of martyrs about the IMU's focus on fighting international forces; its continued respect for Yuldashev despite the group's current Afghanistan-oriented strategy; the use of madrassas (seminaries) for recruitment; the challenges of pulling jihadis from their families; the role of revenge against the US in motivating IMU fighters; and the IMU's pride for multi-ethnicism within its ranks....

Qori Mirojiddin "Muoz" (Baghlan, Afghanistan): He was studying the Koran in the madrassas in Khoja District of Takhor Province. When the battle against the hypocrites and the apostates flourished in his region, he considered it a shame not to help his Muslim brothers. He immediately joined the mujahideen. When the hypocritical Afghan army troops became stronger, and the region was taken over by a pro-American government, together with mujahideen Mirojiddin moved to Baghlan province. His sacrifice was destined to be in the Burka district of Baghlan province. May Allah bless this martyr friend of ours.

Ammor (Afghanistan, Saripul): Ammor comes from the Arab population living in Afghanistan. Although he was born in Saripul, he received his education in a madrassa located in Kunduz. This is where he became interested in jihad. He took part in jihad activities and received military training at an IMU base. After completing his training he was sent to Saripul where soon after he was killed in a fight against infidels. His death had a huge impact on his relatives and friends and many of them decided to join the jihad. During the next fights they succeeded in destroying an American "Chinook" helicopter.

Qori Bashir "Mus'ab" (Afghanistan, Baghlan): Qori Bashir was born in 1987 in Burka. During his childhood years he went through an orphan's school lifestyle. In 2004, at the age 17 he was accepted to "dorul huffoz" (a madrassa meaning "Abode of Recitation"). He started learning Sharia. Despite his weak physical state and proneness to illness he joined the jihad movement. Few months afterwards he sacrificed himself to Allah.

Shoh Masud "Talha" (Afghanistan, Baghlan): Shoh Masud also comes from Burka. He was a regular student at a madrassa. With his love and dedication to jihad he joined the Movement. However due to his young age he was not accepted for a while. At the end he achieved his goal. He joined the Movement, participated in jihad, and became a martyr.

Mullo Fayzulloh "Muttaqiy" (Afghanistan, Baghan): Mullo Fayzullo from Burka was famous for his name "Muttaqiy" and spent most of his life in madrassas. It was a short time before he was about to finish the required studies and start wearing a white turban, but it did not happen .... He sacrificed himself in the name of the war against Islam's enemies.

Qori Abdul Hamid(Uzbekistan, Mingbulak): Abdul Hamid also was raised in our madrassa. At 17 he became a Koran hofiz [reciter]. Before that he learned to use weapons and took part in jihad because in our Movement young men start when they are 15-16 years old ...

Shamsur Rahmon "Yusuf" (Afghanistan, Tahor): Shamsur Rahmon was born in Tahor. He joined the Movement in the winter. As usually happens, his parents tried to convince him to go back home, however they did not succeed. Soon after he gave his soul to Allah....

Najmon "Muhojir sohib" (Afghanistan, Baghlan): Najmon comes from Kunduz province's Khanabad area. His father was a well-educated person and during the invasion by the Soviets he served as a doctor. He also was a mentor to Najmon. He had a family and children ... However, he had a strong desire to serve Islam and Muslims. This led to his decision to join the Movement. He regularly supplied the movement with weapons. His hotel (guesthouse) was always full of jihad fellows. At 30 he sacrificed himself to the Allah, Inshallah....

Showing yet again that thuggery and intimidation work. "Salman Rushdie's video conference at Jaipur Literature Festival cancelled," from IBNLive, January 24 (thanks to Sanjay):

Jaipur: Celebrated author Salman Rushdie's live video conference at Jaipur Literature Festival has been cancelled following protests by Jaipur-based Milli Council. Several activists of the Milli Council arrived at the venue of the Festival at Diggi Palace on Tuesday afternoon, demanding that the proposed video address by Rushdie be called off, claiming that it was an insult to the Muslims.

Despite Rajasthan government supporting the organisers of the festival, the link was called off amidst much drama at Diggi Palace in Jaipur.

The owner of the Diggy Palace Ram Pratap Singh said that he decided to not allow the video link fearing violence. Singh said that several people had entered the venue and threatened to take the law in their own hands if the video link was allowed.

"I have taken a decision on not to allow the video conference to go ahead on the advise of Rajasthan police. There are a large number people who are inside the property and a large number who are marching towards the property. This is necessary to avoid violence and harm to the property and my family," he said.

Jaipur Literature Festival organiser Sanjoy Roy said he felt disgraced because bering artists they were not allowed to carry put what they had planned to do.

"We are having to step down from the freedom of expression, write and tell stories. It's not a decision to support. We have been pushed to the wall. We have been informed by the police that there are large crowds gathering in various parts of the city marching towards Diggy Palace. It's unfortunate to step down. But Rajasthan Police supported us. The Police Commissioner assured us that they will give us protection if we wanted to go ahead," said Roy.

Claiming that the Festival was one of the best across the world, Roy said the issue was not about him (Rushdie) in person as even seeing his face would have been a problem.

"Ram Pratap and Naina were adamant that they wanted to protect people who were here and would not allowed it to go ahead," he said.

Roy called the entire controversy "idiotic" to loud cheers from crowd and then broke down on stage. He walked off wiping his tears amidst thunderous applause from the crowd.

The Booker-winning author was scheduled to do a video conference at 3:45 pm on Tuesday. But Milli Council, one of the organisations which had filed a complaint against four authors for reading out passages from 'The Satanic Verses' on Friday, had been protesting against the move since Tuesday afternoon.

The organisers had earlier assured that Rushdie would not break any law with his video address at the Festival. Jaipur Literature Festival organiser Sanjoy Roy had said that they would go ahead with the video link with Rushdie at 3:45 pm on Tuesday....

Muslims' right to rob non-Muslims has been established since their prophet (always "their", not "the") attracted fighters by allowing booty and rape when attacking non-Muslims. An anonymous Danish police officer now says that "immigrant" criminals are targeting non-Muslims because they want them to leave the area. I guess the non-Muslims could avoid such attacks if they paid jizya to the local mosque.

Here is an account of Muhammed's copy cats at work, translated from B.T., January 23rd 2012. Vollsmose is one of the biggest Muslim ghettos in Denmark, located in Odense on the Island of Funen. "Police officer: They want the Danes out of the area. Danes targeted in burglaries in Vollsmose":

If your last name is 'Hansen' or 'Nielsen,' and do you live in the Odense district of Vollsmose, your risk of becoming the victim of a burglary is significantly higher than if you had had a more foreign-sounding surname.

A burglary campaign against ethnic Danes has spread in the troubled district in the recent months.

- There is a kind of racism out there, where we find that more and more Danes are chased out of the area. It happens as a result of a big increase in burglaries. There have been approximately 150 burglaries the last four months. What is striking is that nine out of ten burglaries are now directed against ethnic Danes, a cop at Funen Police headquarters explains. The cop does not want us to publish his name for fear of losing his job. His name is known by the editors. The officer believes that someone is trying to cleanse the area from the remaining Danes.

- Several of the young offenders have directly said that they want Vollsmose for themselves. Last year a Danish family reported several incidents, with the result that the family's apartment was vandalized every week until the family finally gave up and moved out of the area. Additionally, many of these burglaries resemble actual vandalism, which make it look like some kind of revenge.

The officer criticizes the way the authorities are handling the problem. He believes that they are trying to cover up the development simply because it is controversial.

- Everyone knows it ... Why they put a lid on it I do not know, but I guess it is because it is politically controversial. ...

The local police deputy in Vollsmose, Bjarne Puggaard, confirms that there is a dramatic increase in the number of burglaries in the area. He does not want to confirm whether it is especially ethnic Danes who are victims of the many burglaries.

Shortly after the interview with the local police, bt.dk, however, receives a phone call from the Funen chief of police. After a little reflection, the police now suddenly wish to confirm that the burglaries are mainly targeted at Danes. ...

- I have no idea why they look at the name of the mailbox before they commit burglary.

In Human Events this morning, I discuss Newt Gingrich's anti-Sharia statements:

Just before his stunning victory in the South Carolina primary, Newt Gingrich drew the ire of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the deceptive Islamic supremacist group that bamboozles many with its pose as a neutral civil rights organization. Gingrich, fumed a CAIR spokesman, was "one of the nation's worst promoters of anti-Muslim bigotry." How did Gingrich earn this dubious honor? By telling the truth about Islamic law, and making clear his determination to resist it.

It all started last Tuesday, when Gingrich took a question about whether he would ever endorse a Muslim for President. "It would depend,” Gingrich answered, “entirely on whether they would commit in public to give up Sharia,” the Islamic legal code that mandates stonings, amputations, and restrictions on the freedom of speech and freedom of conscience, and institutionalized discrimination against women and non-Muslims.

"A truly modern person who happened to worship Allah would not be a threat,” Gingrich continued, but “a person who belonged to any kind of belief in Sharia, any effort to impose it on the rest of us, would be a mortal threat." He even came out in favor of a federal law banning the use of Sharia in American courtrooms.

Gingrich also displayed an admirable grasp of the realities of Sharia, noting that the “rising Islamization of Turkey has been accompanied by a 1,400% increase in women being killed,” and pointing out other negative manifestations of Sharia: “The application of Sharia in places like Iran … churches being burned in Nigeria and Egypt, and … the decline of Christians in Iraq from a million, 200 thousand, when the Americans arrived, to about 500,000 today.”

Gingrich concluded: "I think the time has come for us to have an honest conversation about Islamic radicalism. I don't think we should be intimidated by our political elites, and I don't think we should be intimidated by universities who have been accepting money from the Saudis and who, therefore, now have people who are apologists for the very people who want to kill us."

This isn’t the first time Gingrich has challenged politically correct pieties so directly, and spoken so forthrightly about the realities of Islamic law. In August 2010, Gingrich made a point that our political elites of both the Left and the Right have still largely failed to grasp: “This is not a war on terrorism. Terrorism is an activity. This is a struggle with radical Islamists in both their militant and their stealth form. … 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.”...

There is more.

In Crisis Magazine today, my ongoing almost-nothing-to-do-with-jihad series on the Eastern Churches continues with "Keepers of the Lost Ark" on the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Ethiopian Christianity in general. Here is the bit that's jihad-related:

Today this Church, and the people who have so lovingly protected and preserved it for so many centuries, is – like all the strains of Eastern Christianity – increasingly endangered. Muslims make up only one-third of the Ethiopian population, but they are in in recent years in Ethiopia (as in many other parts of the world) growing markedly more assertive and aggressive. In March 2011, a Muslim mob in Ethiopia burned down 69 churches and displaced thousands of people in riots triggered by rumors that a Christian had desecrated a copy of the Qur’an. Then last April, four Muslims went to Kale Hiwot church, a Protestant church in Worabe (a predominantly Muslim area of Ethiopia) and told the pastor, Abraham Abera, that one of his closest friends was seriously ill and that he should visit him immediately. Once they had convinced Abera to go with them, they turned on him and beat him to death. When his pregnant wife ran up to try to save him, they began beating her as well. One of the attackers made their motive clear, saying: “You (Christians) are growing in number in our area. You are spreading your message (the gospel). We will destroy you.” And in November, a mob of 500 Muslims, including policemen, shouted “Allahu akbar” (Allah is greatest) as they burnt down a church that they claimed had been built without the proper permits, although it had been standing on that spot for over sixty years.

There is more.

But Nigerian officials assure us that the end of Boko Haram is near, only weeks after admitting that the jihad group had friends and supporters in high levels of the Nigerian government. Sounds as if the claims that the jihadis' end is near are just face-saving.

"Troops swoop on Boko Haram, claim end of sect is near," from The Guardian (Nigeria), January 24 (thanks to Clark):

SECURITY agents operating under the aegis of the Joint Task Force (JTF) on Operation Restore Order (ORO) in Maiduguri have killed four persons suspected to be members of the fundamentalist Islamic sect Boko Haram.

But the uncovering of vehicles laden with Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) cast a shadow over this victory.

The vehicles with the IEDs said to be owned by members of Boko Haram were uncovered in Kano where about 200 people were killed by the sect last Friday.

It was learnt that two vehicles, Honda and Camry cars, were discovered to have contained the explosive devices at Gorondutse and Sheka parts of the metropolis.

Though there is no official reaction to the discovery, it is believed that the explosives may have been abandoned by Boko Haram members.

To ensure the return of peace to the state, Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and the Emir of Kano, Ado Bayero, yesterday led hundreds of Muslim faithful in a special prayer session.

However, commercial banks that initially opened had to shut down at about 10.00 a.m. when false news filtered into town that the state government had declared yesterday a work-free day.

Armed soldiers and plain clothes security personnel patrolled strategic points within the metropolis and stern-looking security operatives barred residents from gaining access to any of the police formations within the metropolis.

Suspected Boko Haram members took their terrorism to Minna, Niger State as they set ablaze a Christian missionary home, Bethany Home, and destroyed property worth millions of naira.

Although no life was lost in the attack, occupants of the home, mostly orphans and the less-privileged were rendered homeless as a result of the attack.

The Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshal Oluseyi Petinrin yesterday assured that Boko Haram might soon run out of suicide bombers.

Oh, that's a relief!

The toothless response from the West has not deterred the mullahs. So what now? The Europeans want to negotiate. They will do anything to avoid the war the Iranians are itching to provoke. And certainly another Wilsonian adventure would be as misguided and foredoomed as the last two. Still, something must be done. Iranian nuclear scientists should be careful getting into their cars. But not all that careful. "Iran to continue nuke program despite new sanctions," from MSNBC.com, January 23:

Updated at 12:30 p.m. ET: Hours after the European Union imposes an oil embargo and sanctions on Iran's central bank, France, Britain and Germany say they are willing to negotiate with Iran if it is ready to talk seriously about its nuclear program.

"We call on Iran's leadership immediately to suspend its sensitive nuclear activities and abide fully by its international obligations," the European countries say in a joint statement. "Until Iran comes to the table, we will be united behind strong measures to undermine the regime's ability to fund its nuclear program."

In response, the offices of Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issues the following statement, according to NBC News:

"We welcome today's decision by the European Union to ban imports of Iranian crude oil and petroleum products, freeze the assets of the Iranian central bank, and take additional action against Iran's energy, financial, and transport sectors."

Updated at 12 p.m. ET: Iran says a European Union decision Monday to impose new sanctions over its nuclear program is "psychological warfare," Reuters reports.

"... Imposing economic sanctions is illogical and unfair but will not stop our nation from obtaining its rights," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast is quoted as saying by state television, referring to Iran's nuclear energy ambitions.

Updated at 11 a.m. ET: Russia's Foreign Ministry says the European Union was wrong to impose an oil embargo on Iran over its controversial nuclear program, The Associated Press reports.

"It's apparent that in this case there is open pressure and diktat, aimed at 'punishing' Iran for uncooperative behavior. This is a deeply mistaken policy, as we have told our European partners more than once. Under pressure of this sort, Iran will not make any concessions or any corrections to its policies," the ministry says.

Updated at 9:45 a.m. ET: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised a European Union decision to place sanctions on Iranian oil exports, Reuters reports. "I think this is a step in the right direction," Netanyahu said at a meeting of his Likud faction in parliament. "For now, it is impossible to know what the result of these sanctions will be. Heavy and swift pressure is needed on Iran and the sanctions must be evaluated according to their results."...

He was on his way to join the jihad. "FBI arrests suburban Denver man in Chicago over allegation he supported terrorist organization," from the Associated Press, January 23:

DENVER — The FBI has arrested a refugee from Uzbekistan at Chicago’s O’Hare airport on terrorism charges after he was accused of planning to travel overseas to fight on behalf of a terrorist group.

Jamshid Muhtorov, 35, of Aurora, Colo., who also goes by several other names, was arrested Saturday by members of the FBI’s Denver and Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Forces, the FBI said.

Muhtorov was indicted on a charge of providing and attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, the FBI said. The group named is the Islamic Jihad Union.

Authorities said there was no evidence that Muhtorov was plotting attacks inside the United States.

Muhtorov made his initial appearance Monday in federal court in Chicago, according to the Department of Justice.

The department said the group has been blamed for suicide attacks in Uzbekistan, and claimed responsibility for numerous attacks against coalition forces in Afghanistan.

The Justice Department said the Pakistan-based organization is an extremist group that seeks to replace the current regime with a government based on Islamic law.

Muhtorov was indicted by a federal grand jury in Colorado, charged with one count of providing and attempting to provide support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. If convicted, Muhtorov faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, and up to a $250,000 fine....

In the West, the neutral and non-combatant nature of charities like the Red Cross is sacred, and along with ethical considerations, is meant in part to protect it from becoming a target in war. Under Islamic law, there is no such distinction: charity also exists to aid those fighting in Allah's cause (Qur'an 9:60). It is thus to be expected that Hamas would have no qualms about exploiting the sanctuary of the Red Cross and making its workers human shields, just as we have seen other jihadist conflicts with fighters reportedly hiding or escaping in ambulances.

Most ironically, of course, Hamas has sought protection from a group whose symbol would disappear under Sharia.

Death to the infidels! No, wait-- save us, infidels! "Hamas lawmakers arrested at Red Cross in Jerusalem," from the Associated Press, January 23:

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli police say they have arrested two Hamas lawmakers who had been hiding inside a Red Cross compound in Jerusalem.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld says the men were wanted for "Hamas activities." He would not elaborate.

Khaled Abu Arfa and Mohammed Totah sought refuge in the compound more than a year ago to escape Israeli arrest. Police nabbed them when they ventured outside Monday.

Red Cross officials confirmed the men had been holed up inside.

Israel, along with the U.S. and European Union, lists Hamas as a terror group. Israel frequently arrests Hamas lawmakers. Last week Israel arrested the Hamas speaker of the Palestinian parliament.

The Palestinian parliament has not functioned since 2007 due to the arrests and infighting between Hamas and the Fatah party.

At long last, a sense of urgency and of what is at stake has set in with regard to Iran's nuclear program. If Iran were really in it for the electricity, why would it waste time and money bending over backwards in secrecy and subterfuge? They would not commit economic suicide just to mess with Washington and Brussels. "EU bans Iran oil imports," by Laura Rozen for The Envoy, January 23:

The 27-member European Union voted Monday to ban imports of Iranian oil, and to sanction some transactions with Iran's Central Bank.

The action, passed at a foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels, immediately bans EU member states from signing any new oil contracts with Iran, and orders the phasing out of existing contracts by July 1. The EU-bloc previously constituted the second largest customer for Iranian oil after China.

"Given the EU's serious and deepening concerns over the Iranian nuclear programme, the Council today broadened the EU's restrictive measures against that country," the European Union said in a statement (.pdf) announcing the action. "Today's decisions target the sources of finance for the nuclear programme, complementing already existing sanctions."

EU officials "also agreed to freeze the assets of Iran's central bank and ban trade in gold and other precious metals with the bank and state bodies," Reuters reported.

The development came days after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Iran to respond to a proposal for new international talks on curbing its nuclear program.

"We all are seeking clarity about the meaning behind Iran's public statements that they are willing to engage, but we have to see a seriousness and sincerity of purpose coming from them," Clinton said at a news conference with her German counterpart Guido Westerwelle at the State Department Friday.

Iran "can come back to the table, as we have consistently made clear to them, and address the nuclear program concerns that the international community rightly has or face increasing pressure and isolation," she said, adding: "I want to underscore we do not seek conflict."

A U.S. official briefed on the effort to execute the Iran oil sanctions told Yahoo News Sunday that the measures are being implemented as world demand for oil is going down, and thus should be able to be phased in without a spike in oil prices. But markets do not always act logically, he noted...

No, they pretty much act like a particularly easily alarmed squirrel.

Is there still actually a government in Jakarta? One could be forgiven for doubting, in yet another episode of the Yasmin Church saga.

The great irony for the Islamic supremacist thugs here is that their prolonged persecution of the Yasmin Church has made it, and its perseverance, known to the world. By trying to make them disappear, they have made them more visible in public life than they ever would have been. That's a great, big "own goal." "Radical Groups Disrupt Yasmin Church Sunday Service," by Vento Saudale for the Jakarta Globe, January 22 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Hundreds of people from various radical groups launched a search on Sunday to find the location of the Yasmin church congregation’s service and prevent them from worshiping. The groups even went to the home of one of the worshipers.

Protesters from the Indonesian Muslim Communication Forum (Forkami) and the Islamic Reform Movement (Garis) surrounded the home where the service was held on Jalan Cempaka no. 10, Taman Yasmin complex in Bogor.

“It crosses the line now. The protesters now come to the residential area, which is not a public place,” politician Lily Wahid, the sister of late president Abdurrahman Wahid, said at the scene.

Police were present to safeguard the house, but the worshipers were unable to leave the home because the mob blocked their way out.

The GKI Yasmin church has been illegally sealed off by the city administration on the pretext that the congregation doctored a petition needed to obtain a building permit.

The congregation has since 2008 been forced to hold Sunday services on the sidewalk outside the church and now in the home of parishioners.

According to Article 2 of the existing constitution, which is not likely to budge from the next one, Islam is the religion of state, Arabic the official language, and Sharia the basis for legislation, so the improvised addition to the oath is somewhat redundant. Still, some form of Islamic supremacist touchdown dance was probably inevitable. "Egypt Islamist MP scolded for religious reference," from Agence France-Presse, January 23:

A newly elected Islamist deputy was scolded on Monday for adding a religious reference to the swearing-in oath at the opening session of Egypt's first post-revolution parliament.

The deputies started to be sworn in one by one, pledging to "preserve the safety of the nation and the interests of people and to respect the constitution and the law."

But when ultra conservative lawyer Mamduh Ismail took the microphone vowing to also "abide by the law of God", he was sharply told off by the chair Mahmud al-Saqqa -- the most senior member of parliament.

"Please stick to the text," an angry Saqqa urged Ismail, asking him to repeat the oath several times.

"Mr Ismail, my friend, please stand up and read the oath, and stick to the text," Saqqa pleaded.

Ismail finally agreed, read the oath and then insisted on adding, "and to abide by the law of God."

Egypt's lower house of parliament was holding its first session since a popular uprising ousted veteran president Hosni Mubarak and propelled Islamists to the centre stage of politics.

Will the Islamophobia never end?

"Man in Cardiff counter-terror raid told police he would 'cut your head off and machine gun the lot of you', court told," by Ian Caleb for Walesonline, January 22 (thanks to Twostellas):

A MAN arrested in a police counter-terrorism operation told an officer he would “cut your head off and machine gun the lot of you”, a court has heard.

Mohammed Abdin, 21, will be sentenced in Cardiff Crown Court next month after admitting throwing furniture and threatening officers when they stormed a meeting in Canton Community Centre, Cardiff, on Thursday.

See also: Anti-terror police raid ‘extremist’ meeting in community hall

But despite the sting being prompted by concerns the group were associated with outlawed organisation Muslims Against Crusades, Abdin’s solicitor Derek Gooden argued that a peaceful community group had been wrongfully broken up because of unsubstantiated fears.

Mani Ranauta, prosecuting, told Cardiff magistrates’ court yesterday how Abdin, of Clare Road, Grangetown, Cardiff, already had a four-month suspended sentence for affray he had committed during a protest about 9/11 last year.

“At Canton Community Centre on Thursday, January 19, at 8.10pm, officers arrived with the intent to issue a dispersal order to the group, fearing there was going to be a breach of the peace,” she said.

“When they entered, they were immediately met with hostility.

“Out of the 25 in attendance, 12 were aggressive individuals, with tables and chairs being upturned and thrown in the direction of officers.

“The defendant lunged at the officers several times, in an attempt to grab the camera they were filming with.

“Attempts were made to calm the group down, but the defendant continued, shouting “I’m going to cut your head off and machine gun the lot of you” and specifically pointing at officers saying “I’ve seen your face.”

The court heard that when cautioned, Abdin told an officer: “F*** off you white ****.”

In response, Derek Gooden, defending, said the “flowery words” Abdin had used were prompted by what they believed to be an unwarranted police invasion.

Adding that emotions had clearly been running high as a result of the intrusion, Mr Gooden said: “A number of individuals gathered at a community centre to discuss their religion. There is nothing to suggest there is a link to terrorism, as the local press has indicated.

“Those 25 individuals mentioned included women and children and this was nothing more than a meeting of Muslims to discuss the Qur’an.

“Jewish people were welcome, Catholic people were welcome, Protestant people were welcome, because all they are doing is discussing the Qur’an.”

Referring to the previous count of affray, Mr Gooden said Abdin and a number of individuals were lawfully demonstrating and airing their views, when a larger group of people from the English Defence Front had begun to make their presence felt.

Abdin had then used force to prevent a colleague from being hurt, he said.

“Mr Abdin has not been charged with being part of an extremist organisation. He wasn’t a part of the group for the previous incident, he was merely protesting with them, and there is nothing to suggest otherwise,” he said.

“This was no more than a lawful assembly in a community centre. I hope we are not living in a day where it is unlawful to discuss religion or politics, however distasteful we find the discussion, and have the fear of that being broken up.”

No, we're just living in a day where it is unlawful to threaten to behead police officers.

Muslim men rape Muslim women because they do not dare to go to the police out of fear of their family's "honourable" reaction.

Muslim men rape non-Muslim women because it is their right.

Not only the women are hurt. Islam also perverts men's sexuality and destroys their ability to experience true love, which is based on equality. Violent frustrations and sexual perversion might often be the result.

In Oslo, Norway's capital, 100 percent of rapes are committed by 'non-Western' immigrants. As a result, the female staff at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Oslo has received training in martial arts, and all female employees are wearing alarms -- basically to be able to defend themselves against Muslim rapists.

The latest news is that in Stavanger, Norway's 4th biggest city, nine out of ten rapes are committed by 'men from minority groups'.

The amount of reported rapes in Sweden has increased 186 percent from 2001 to 2010.

In "New Docs Reveal How DOJ Kowtows to Muslim Brotherhood" at The American Thinker today, Pamela Geller reveals the Justice Department's obsequious dealings with Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups in the U.S.:

In what promises to be an enormous document dump, I have received the first in a series of DOJ bundles in response to my FOIA request filed close to a year ago. Specifically, I asked for "records relating to the meeting of the 'Monthly Outreach Meeting' with Muslim and Arab groups at the Civil Rights Division. Specifically, include lists of attendees at each monthly meeting, the agenda of each meeting and any minutes or summary prepared subsequent to each meeting. Please also specifically note the meetings at which the Attorney General of the United States attended."

The principal impact of reading through the material is the sheer bulk of it. Hundreds and hundreds of pages of emails, documenting nearly daily friendly contact, consultation, cooperation and collaboration between the DOJ and Hamas-linked Muslim Brotherhood groups. One thing is clear, the Muslim Brotherhood has fully infiltrated command and control at the Department of Justice civil rights division.

 

The total located on a preliminary search totals 14,100 documents. The Civil Rights Division's Nelson Hermilla complained that "it is not clear in what manner the collection of all five-year's records might contribute to the general public understanding." A knowledgeable Justice Department insider told me: "You couldn't generate 14,000 pages of documents if you asked for communications with lenders or apartment or hotels as part of the Housing Section enforcement activities. There are very few things in Civil Rights that would generate 14,000 pages of anything. It has got to be a treasure trove of information."

Indeed. It is also remarkable that the Justice Department would deny that these records would advance "the general public understanding."

Going through the first batch, what struck me almost immediately was the casual familiarity between ISNA, the ADC, and senior officials of the Department of Justice, all the way up to Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez. They discuss lunch, vacations, job changes -- always with the Muslim Brotherhood groups pushing their narrative, even in these casual exchanges.

Even more striking was the servile demeanor of the Civil Rights Division official Eric Treene, Special Counsel for the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, and the demanding condescension of Muslim Brotherhood operatives. Muslim and Arab operatives treat Treene and Co. like an errand boy, asking them for email addresses of other contacts and setting them to perform the most menial gofer duties. The DOJ even takes lunch orders and picks up the tab, and in some cases asks them how much money they need for a little soiree they're holding. It is astonishing.

In a rational society, these Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups would be marginalized. Instead, the DOJ is playing Stepin Fetchit for them. They're using the DOJ as their legal arm.

The depth and the breadth of the penetration is difficult to fathom until you see all of these documents going back and forth, and the players, who include Nihad "I am in support of the Hamas movement" Awad of Hamas-tied CAIR; Suhail Khan, who accepted an award in 2000 from the now-imprisoned al-Qaeda financier Abdurrahman Alamoudi; and James Yee. James Yee a Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo who was charged with sedition, aiding the enemy, spying, espionage, and failure to obey a general order. He was charged along with three others. The charges were later dropped, when Major General Geoffrey Miller cited "national security concerns that would arise from the release of the evidence." The notorious Yee gave an interview on Syrian television in Arabic, in which he repeated Gitmo detainees' lies of Quran abuse on the part of the U.S. Military.

Those three and many others received a September 8, 2011 letter from Perez touting all the DOJ's actions on behalf of Muslims, including a suit against the city of Lilburn, Georgia for resisting the expansion of a mosque and amicus participation calling for dismissal of a suit brought by Murfreesboro, Tennessee patriots against an Islamic supremacist mosque there....

Read it all.

"Rehnaz was fired at with an AK-47 and received 30 bullets. Her family had termed her death as an accident."

"Honour killing: Victim’s body exhumed on court orders," by Muhammad Sadaqat in the Express Tribune, January 22 (thanks to Answering Muslims):

HARIPUR: The body of a teenaged girl who was allegedly killed in the name of honour was exhumed by a medical team on Saturday after the divisional bench of the Peshawar High Court ordered a re-investigation into the case.

The inquiry team, which included two medical officers, was headed by judicial magistrate Rashid Rauf Swati.

Rehnaz Bibi, 13, was allegedly shot dead by one of her cousins in September 2010. According to reports, Bibi left home to convince the boy she liked to marry her without her family’s consent. However, she was sent back home by his family, who lived in the same village, with the promise to send a proposal for her later.

When her family found out about the incident, her father, who was in Karachi at that time, allegedly asked one of his nephews to kill her.

According to an application filed in Haripur district and sessions court by a local activist Qamar Hayat, Rehnaz was fired at with an AK-47 and received 30 bullets. Her family had termed her death as an accident.

The petitioner claims the police closed the case and allegedly concealed facts pertaining to her murder.

Hayat and other social activists requested an inquiry and postmortem of the victim, upon which Haripur District and Sessions Judge Shaibar Khan ordered the area magistrate to conduct an inquiry through a medical board. However, the victim’s parents obtained a stay order from the court’s divisional bench.

Later, after hearing both sides of the case, the court ordered a re-investigation by an honest and competent DSP. The court also ordered to submit a report within 30 days....

The problem with a law against "outrag[ing] religious feelings or any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs" is that outrage and insult are in the eye of the beholder. Muslims have consistently claimed to be outraged and insulted by any truthful and accurate presentation of Islamic jihad doctrine. Is truth, then, to be outlawed? And what would be the objective of those who want it to be?

An update on this story. "Writers run away after reading out Satanic Verses," from The Indian Awaaz, January 23:

JAIPUR: The four writers, who read out the banned Satanic Verses in violation the law of land, have run away from the Jaipur Literature Festival to undisclosed destination.

They were facing imminent arrest following carrying and reading out extracts from Salman Rushdie's banned novel The Satanic Verses.

William Dalrymple, the co-Director of the Jaipur Literature Festival told the Hindu newspaper that Hari Kunzru, Ruchir Joshi, Amitava Kumar and Jeet Thayil have all left the Jaipur on the advice of their lawyer.

The paper said that the police had gone to Hari Kunzru's room to question him but he had already hurriedly left town.

“What a lot of people don't realise is that even reading from a banned book is against the law. This is part of a piece of absurd and draconian legislation going back to 1867 or thereabouts. I am convinced that the writers who did the readings were not aware that this is a punishable offence and could carry a fairly long prison sentence. You can discuss book, read from other writings by the author, have conversations with him, invite him, but you cannot either possess a copy or publicly read from a book that is banned. That is a punishable offence,” Dalrymple realized after his esteemed guests already committed punishable offence.

Meanwhile noted writer Chetan Bhagat said that organizers of the festival should not make heroes out of people who have been banned.

“Let us not make heroes out of people who have been banned,” said the best- selling author in clear reference to Salman Rushdie.

“They have been banned for hurting people. They have been banned for hurting Muslims. They shouldn’t be banned but they are not heroes,” he said.

“You can say Muslims are backward, aggressive, that’s fine. But they are right to get upset when their god is attacked. I wouldn’t like it if my gods are attacked,” Bhagat contended.

The legal experts say the police should book the authors (who read out portion of the banned book) under sections 153 A (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion) and 295 A (Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings or any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) of the Indian Penal Code and immediately arrest them.

As Salman Rushdie could not make it to the festival due to perceived threat to his life, authors Hari Kunzru, Amitava Kumar and two others used their session at the festival to read from "Satanic Verses", giving clear indications that the festival was organized to create ill will within India..

The controversial book was banned in the India shortly after it was published in 1988, for hurting the sentiments of Muslims....

But hey, now, all of these remarks have surely been "taken out of context." That's what we're always told. "Arab Spring sees rise in anti-Semitism," by Gil Shefler for the Jerusalem Post, January 22:

There has been an increase in anti-Semitism in the Middle East in the wake of the Arab Spring, according to a report set for release on Sunday.

That is the finding of the study Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein is to submit to the government.

“[While] the popular uprisings in the Arab world do not represent a general change in attitude towards Israel, Zionism and the Jews it seems the anti-Semitic discourse and incitement have become more extreme and violent,” the report, which was written by scholars at the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University, says.

“Charges of an international Jewish conspiracy have been a central motif in the anti-Semitic propaganda that has accompanied the Arab Spring uprisings. This motif has been emphasized in each of the countries especially by way of pointing a blaming finger towards Israel, Zionism and Jews conspiring against Arabs and Muslims.”

The paper provides a lengthy list of anecdotal evidence. In Libya, it points at rebel claims that the mother of longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi was Jewish as a way of defaming the slain dictator. In Syria, it cites insults made by the embattled government of Bashar Assad calling opposition forces “an army of donkeys in the service of the Mossad.” And in Egypt it says Muslim scholars have issued edicts forbidding believers to sign agreements with “monkeys,” referring to Jews.

See also: Qur'an 2:62-66; 5:59-60; and 7:166.

The study, however, does not contain numerical data. Eran Sidis, a spokesman for Edelstein, said figures supporting the thesis of the report will be released by the Kantor Center in April.

Edelstein said the report was a sad reminder that anti-Semitism is still alive and well in 2012....

Of course. Nothing uttered frankly to a Muslim audience that has been picked up with alarm by non-Muslims has ever been taken "in context." That only proves that the message changes with the audience.

As Mohammed Hussein noted in his speech, the hadith that says "there is a Jew behind me, come kill him," comes from hadith collections considered reliable by Muslims, including Sahih ("sound," "reliable") Bukhari 4.52.177: "Allah's Apostle 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'."

That doesn't stop our occasional comment-box apologists from throwing these collections under the bus and claiming that Islam depends only on the Qur'an, so these ahadith don't matter. In reality, the Qur'an-only movement is a small set of dissenters. "Israeli leader condemns Palestinian Muslim cleric," by Diaa Hadid for the Associated Press, January 22:

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Palestinians' top Muslim cleric faced sharp Israeli criticism Sunday for a speech in which he quoted a religious text that includes passages about killing Jews in an end-of-days struggle.

Mufti Mohammed Hussein's comments came at a political gathering of supporters of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. He said his remarks were taken out of context and that he didn't incite people to kill Jews. But by speaking at the venue, Hussein appeared to be linking the battle to the conflict with Israel.

"The hour of resurrection will not come until you fight the Jews," Hussein told the gathering, citing a hadith, or saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad. "The Jews will hide behind stones and trees. But the trees and the stones will call: oh Muslim, oh servant of God, there is a Jew hiding behind me so come and kill him."...

The mufti delivered his three-minute speech on Jan. 7 in an Arab neighborhood of east Jerusalem during celebrations of the 47th anniversary of the Palestinian movement Fatah, said Itamar Marcus of Palestine Media Watch, an Israeli watchdog group that tracks incitement.

Marcus' group posted excerpts of the speech on YouTube last week. The comments drew angry reactions from Israelis on Sunday.

"We're talking about a heinous offense that all nations of the world must condemn,"

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement sent to reporters by text message. He asked the Israeli attorney general to launch an investigation.

It is unclear what authority Israel would have since Hussein is appointed to his position by the Palestinian president. There was no immediate comment from Abbas' office.
Hussein, who is based in Jerusalem, said his comments were taken out of context.

"I was speaking about the final signs of the day of resurrection," Hussein said. "I did not incite, and I did not call for killing. We are not, at present, at the end of days."

Even if that were true, passages like these inform how Muslims regard Jews in the present day.

The Quran, Islam's holy book, offers contradictory attitudes toward Jews and Christians. There are texts that enshrine tolerance and respect for other faiths, while others are spiked with hatred and incitement.

See next: Naskh, or abrogation. Search our archives. While the AP is teaching us about religion, here is one giant leap of moral equivalence:

Some extremist rabbis also have found passages in Jewish texts that they believe justifies violence against the Palestinians....

Racing to surrender. "LEAD: US Afghan envoy confirms talking to Haqqani insurgents," from DPA, January 22 (thanks to Wimpy):

Kabul - The US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan on Sunday confirmed a meeting with the Haqqani insurgent group, as signs of a dialogue between the United States and rebels continue to grow.

'We had one meeting with Haqqani network,' Marc Grossman told a news conference in Kabul.

His remarks come after US and the Taliban militants confirmed preliminary talks for opening an liaison office for the Taliban in the Qatari capital of Doha - increasing speculation of an end to the decade-long bloody insurgency in this war-torn country.

'I think, from the Afghan prospective anyway, this is an inclusive process but we will have to see what turns out,' Grossman said, after a two days trip to Afghanistan.

'I am looking forward to the Taliban being clear about breaking ties with international terrorism, denouncing it, distancing them salves from it.'

Grossman however did not say when and where the meeting with the Haqqani network took place.

The Taliban are demanding the release of captives held at the US prison camp at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay.

'We haven't made any decisions and it's no surprise to any of you that this is an issue in the Unites [sic] States of law. We have to meet the requirements of our law,' Grossman said, referring to the demand.

'No decision has been made about this,' he said.

President Hamid Karzai on Saturday said that he personally held a meeting with another insurgent faction, Hezb-i-Islami, recently....

161 Muslim clerics were "not teaching a moderate form of Islam," according to some of the local Muslims. How is it that 161 clerics who had devoted their lives to following and teaching Islam came to misunderstand their peaceful religion so profoundly?

"Sri Lanka 'expels 161 foreign Muslim clerics,'" from the BBC, January 22 (thanks to Joseph):

Sri Lanka has reportedly ordered 161 foreign Muslim preachers to leave the country for flouting visa regulations.

A senior immigration official was quoted as saying that the clerics had no right to preach in mosques because they had arrived on tourist visas.

He also said that some local Muslims had complained that the visitors were not teaching a moderate form of Islam.

The preachers - from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, the Maldives and Arab nations - must now leave by 31 January.

'Laughable idea'

"They have violated immigration laws. A tourist visa is to have a holiday or visit friends and family, and not to preach Islam," Sri Lanka's immigration head Chulananda Perera told the AFP news agency.

Mr Perera said the group belonged to Tablighi Jamaat - an international Islamic movement popular in Sri Lanka and the region.

A Muslim source told the BBC that the movement sends groups of preachers to places of worship, urging Muslims to devote more time to their faith and act more devoutly.

Any idea that they were militant was laughable, the source added....

Of course! But who exactly is laughing?

Out of hatred for the Jews, of course. The claim is dubious, but revealing in many ways. From the Ansar al-Mujahideen site (thanks to Dan):

Allah Almighty says: (And wage war on all of the idolaters as they are waging war on all of you) 36 Surah At-Taubah

Allah have granted a group of our brothers from the lions of Masadat Al-Mujahidin at 8:00 in the day before yesterday Thursday 25 Safar 1433 A.H. corresponding 19 January 2012 to set fire in the forests of Nevada in the Reno region.

And we by this great event and paradigm shift declare the following:

1. we declare our full responsibility of setting fire in the Nevada forests in America.

2. we declare widening the area of war and transferring it currently to inside America and soon to elsewhere.

3. we give the enemies of Islam and the allies of the Jews who occupy the land of Palestine three months beginning from the date of this statement to disown from the Jews who occupy the land of Palestine, and their actions against our Moslem brothers, and we demand the end of their alliances that oppress our rights as owners of the land, or we will be forced to extend our war until it spreads in all the lands that plot with our enemies.

4. we emphasize that targeting the so called Israel and its allies headed by America in every kind of targeting including fighting and all the types of peoples civilian and military is an individual obligation (Fradu Ayin) on every Moslem until the liberation of Palestine, and all their armies are expelled from the Moslem lands, and Allah's Word become the uppermost and religion is all for Allah.

5. we also point out that fighting the Jews and their allies is easy to those who want to repel their evil on the Moslems, and here you see with your own eyes what simple materials can do, that are cheap in your enemy, and how much damages it can inflict in them, so we incite the Moslem Ummah to participate in this blessed work and move their inherent energies for that.

This blessed Gazwa comes within a series of Gazawat that we declared and have previously begun and which will Insha’Allah destroy the edifices of the hateful Jewish occupation, until the Jews return from where they came since they have no place among us, and until the global alliances with the occupying Jews who occupy the land of the Moslems.

May Allah bless the soldiers of Al-Rahman and lions of Tawhid, may Allah aim their shooting and steadfast their feet, and accept from them their jihad and good deeds, because they made the friend happy and annoyed the foe.

And we say to the Jews and their agents this is a disgrace for you in this Dunya, and you have a big punishment in the hereafter, so have tidings with what you hate we have for you more, and do what you want, your cunning won’t benefit you and your scheme won’t benefit you, either we live under the governance of Allah or we seek shade under the Shadow of Allah.

والله أكبر الله أكبر .. ولله العزة ولرسوله وللمجاهدين.
وَاللّهُ غَالِبٌ عَلَى أَمْرِهِ وَلَكِنَّ أَكْثَرَ النَّاسِ لاَ يَعْلَمُونَ.

General command of Masadat Al-Mujahidin

Saturday 27 Safar 1433 A.h.

Corresponding 21 January 2012

The Danish Left won the elections September 15, 2011. The first 100 days in power, they managed to break 100 promises. Up to now the only ones who have benefited from the Left's victory are immigrants and unemployed.

I met the new Danish Church Minister, Manu Sareen, a couple of years ago in a live debate on national TV. During the debate he criticised me for saying that integration of Muslims is not possible. When the cameras were turned off I asked him if he himself really thought that integration of Muslims was possible. He answered, "Sometimes I think yes. Sometimes I must admit that I lose hope."

Sareen does what he can to stay popular within certain circles: "SF wants to rename the Church Ministry," translated from jp.dk:

The Church Ministry should be renamed in order to accommodate the growing population of Muslims in Denmark. This is the wish of the left wing of the Parliamentary Church Committee, said TV2 News.

Instead, Church Ministry should be renamed to Ministry of Philosophy of Life.

- People have all kinds of faiths and philosophies of life, and we must accommodate, says SF Vigsø Pernille Bagge.

Several days ago I wrote here about Eric Allen Bell, who wrote two pieces about the Daily Kos that cut a little to close to the truth about Islam and jihad for the Left's comfort. Bell got a lot of flak in the comments on both pieces, and after writing a third, was banned from writing at Kos altogether.

Here is that third piece, which at this point is still up at Kos, even though Bell is banned. I have always maintained that resistance to the jihad and Islamic supremacism is not a Left/Right issue, but have always been characterized as on the Right or even "far Right" by the mainstream, wholly and solely because I write about Islam and jihad. And here is yet another indication that the Left is simply not interested in standing up for the human rights of the victims of jihad. Just read the comments on this piece at Kos.

Do You Support Human Rights? This this Simple Quiz
by Eric Allen Bell

One thing that nearly all of us in the Liberal community share in common is an ability to care about the welfare of people whom we don't even know.  We find a commonality between us that is rooted in compassion for others and a desire to see the world become a more peaceful place for everyone - even those whom we might often disagree with.  We find cruelty repugnant and we place a high value on the respect for human rights.

In order to get a reality check on where you stand in relation to our liberal values, consider taking this short and challenging quiz.  You might be very surprised to find out where you really stand when it comes to the protection of human rights.

Imagine a man who is the equivalent of perhaps 100,000 Osama Bin Ladens in terms of the violence he conducted in his lifetime in the name of religion.

Know that this savage individual had personally beheaded several hundred people and ordered the beheading of many, many more.

Don't take my word for it.  Do your own research and see that he had people tortured.

Know that he ordered people to be stoned for adultery.

Consider that he owned human slaves.

Note that he married a 6 year old girl and consummated the marriage when she was only 9 years old.  According to his own scriptures, he had sex with a child.

Research if you can to verify these facts - that this man invented a religion which he spread by killing people.  He was a warmonger who explicitly ordered his followers to kill Christians, Jews and other non-believers of his "religion of peace".

Note that he left behind a "holy book" which, if taken literally (and it is commanded that this book be taken literally) tells his followers that men are to have dominance over women and that they can "strike" a woman if she disobeys.

Note that where the legal system he created is being practiced in the world, women are punished for being raped - often by being stoned to death or being forced to marry their rapist.

Know that according to this man's invented religious legal system, homosexuals are to be executed by hanging.

Note that most of the religiously inspired acts of terrorism in the world today are done is his name in accordance with the teachings and legacy he left behind.

Look up the word "Al-Insān al-Kāmil" which means that "the person who has reached perfection".  To his 1.67 billion followers in the world today this man is the ideal man.

As disgusting as this might all sound, do your homework and you will find that what is being presented here are facts.

Take some solace in knowing that fortunately the vast majority of those who follow this man do not emulate his violent behavior.

That said, consider that in Iran, Saudi Arabia and many other countries the more violent interpretation of this man's "holy book" are law.  Women who live under these oppressive religious systems have very few rights and those who speak out against this tyrannical system are often imprisoned, tortured or killed.

Observe that in Tunisia and Libya, where oppressive dictators have been overthrown, this man's brutal and demoralizing religious legal system is being implemented.  Also note that it appears that Egypt is in all likelihood voting in by a majority a radical party that has been the mother ship of many terrorist organizations and will soon be instituting this same oppressive system of religious law.

Note that in many countries where the majority of people follow this man's religion, women are second class citizens (like segregation in the American South) forced to cover themselves in public, and the penalty for not doing so can be imprisonment, lashings, beatings and even death.

Be aware that one of the primary objectives of this man's religion is to spread this system of religious cruelty throughout the entire world, by force if necessary, just as this "prophet" tried to do himself and commanded his followers to do once he was gone.

Consider that in Pakistan, a country mostly controlled by its radical religious military, they have nukes.

Note that in this "religion of peace" the penalty for apostasy is death.

Take your pulse and see if you are already outraged, not at the information provided thus far, but at the messenger who has presented this information.

Now chose which one of the following options best describes your response:

A) That is sad and heartbreaking and I am outraged that anyone would follow this person.  I am willing to speak out against these and any other injustices in the world today.

B) I heard a Republican say something like this once and all Republicans are bad, therefore you are bad.

C) I don't care because none of this affects me personally.  

D) I care, but I fear alienation from my peers when it comes to saying anything about this.  It seems unfair, but I don't want to risk being judged by others.

E) The person who wrote this blog is a bigot and an Islamophobe who should be banned from Daily Kos.

Now ask yourself, do I have the courage and conviction to stand up for human rights even when so many people in my peer group are inclined to accept the tyranny of this system of violence and even demonize me for taking a stand?

DISCLAIMER: The author of this quiz is not a Republican, does not belong to any hate groups, is not advocating hate in any way, believes most Muslims to be peaceful, opposed George W. Bush and the needless and horrible invasion of Iraq and is an active and vocal member of the OCCUPY movement.  My concern is with human rights and what I perceive to be a growing threat which, when mixed with the arrogant and belligerent US foreign policy, will almost definitely lead to a world war if we do not do more to educate ourselves about the threat from within (the US government and its war-hungry Military Industrial Complex) and the threat abroad - that being the rapid
expansion of Islamic fundamentalism.

OUR LIBERAL VALUES:
Should include:
Objecting to the mistreatment of women.
Objecting to the mistreatment of homosexuals
Objecting to torture.
Objecting to false imprisonment.
Valuing individual autonomy.
Objecting to human rights abuses.
Supporting Democratic values.
so - WHO ARE YOU, REALLY?

This is nothing new, of course, but only a continuation of an already well documented phenomenon. As Ronald Reagan once said, if you want more of something, subsidize it.

And if you want behavior to be repeated, reward it. "A third of inmates at Feltham youth jail are Muslims... and more convert to get better food," from the Daily Mail, January 21 (thanks to Zulu):

A third of inmates at one of Britain’s most notorious youth jails are Muslims and the religion is attracting a large number of converts.

There are 229 Muslims out of a total of 686 youngsters detained at Feltham Young Offenders’ Institution in West London, according to Ministry of Justice figures.

There are now so many worshippers at Friday prayers that they have to be split between Feltham’s mosque and its gym.

Sources claim that converts are attracted by the chance of better food and a more comfortable regime.

But there are also fears that some are being radicalised.

During Ramadan, Muslim prisoners are given food in separate hot and cold containers so they can eat what they choose at the end of their daylight fast.

A source revealed: ‘Over the last few years there has been a huge surge in those attending Muslim services.

‘The popularity of the faith has surprised people. We are seeing a large number of inmates converting to Islam.'

He added: ‘There is a difference between mainstream believers and extremists, but the fear is that some in the jail are being radicalised.

'Others convert for protection or to have what they believe is an easier lifestyle.’

Prison insiders say most non-Muslims are locked up during Friday prayers because so many guards are needed to monitor the lunchtime service.

The Ministry of Justice said: ‘The Prison Service is committed to ensuring the religious needs of prisoners of all faiths are met.’

Asia Bibi is already frail, and a reported beating at the hands of a prison guard did not help. Authorities seem to be half hoping she will die in prison so they will be spared the fallout on one hand of carrying out her sentence, or on the other, of releasing her.

Qari Salam let himself be used by fellow Muslims who promised to "chase her through hell," and as a result, an innocent woman has been sentenced to death and dumped in a Pakistani jail after a show trial with no attorney or a chance to make a statement. The judge feared the wrath of Islamic supremacists who wanted her dead.

Salam is not ready to retract his charges, however, still believing that "it will bring me a better place in heaven."

Does Barack Obama know the name of Asia Bibi? Do Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, or Ron Paul? Anyone in a potential position to deal with foreign policy regarding Pakistan certainly should. "Aasia Bibi’s case: Weighed down by guilt, blasphemy accuser mulls pulling back," from the Express Tribune, January 21 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

A guilty prayer leader prowls the narrow, fetid streets of Ittanwali village in Nankana district.

At the forefront of a popular, polarising case, Qari Salam ostensibly regrets filing a blasphemy charge against an impoverished Christian woman, Aasia Bibi.

The source of his guilt – realisation that the case was not based on facts but on hyped religious emotions and personal bias of some village women.

Aasia has been languishing in Sheikhupura jail since a sessions court awarded her death sentence for insulting Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

Support from London

Qari, according to some of his close friends, was now thinking of not pursuing the case anymore and expressed his desire to some of his friends, only to find himself in a difficult situation when activists of a religious organisation ‘convinced’ him not to change his mind.

“We will chase her through hell … don’t worry about the money, hiring best lawyers,” Salam told The Express Tribune, quoting the son of Khatm-e-Nabuwat’s London chapter’s leader.

The leader’s son flew in to Nankana from London after hearing that Salam might not go to Lahore High Court (LHC) when the review petition against Aasia’s conviction is taken up.

Salam himself, however, denied he ever thought of backtracking from his stance.

“How can I change my mind,” he said. “I believe it will bring me a better place in heaven. It gives me pleasure, it is my pride,” Salam told The Express Tribune.

Salam said Khatm-e-Nabuwat had hired Mustafa Chaudhry as counsel to fight his case in the higher court, and were ready to go to an extent to seek death for Aasia.

Counsel seek bail

While bullets may have silenced Aasia’s lone supporter, former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer, they have faltered in the face of the silent resolve of her counsel.

Despite death threats from religious right [sic], Aasia’s lawyers are now planning to seek bail for her from LHC.

Lone supporter? Why no mention of Shahbaz Bhatti, who was also assassinated?

“Yes, we are ready to file a bail application and will be moving ahead with it in a couple of weeks,” said Rai Ajmal, one of the two lawyers who were Aasia’s counsel in Nankana court which sent her to gallows in 2010.

A review petition against the verdict filed by Rai, and a fellow lawyer Sardar Khan Chaudhry, is pending before the LHC and there are little chances that it can be taken up for at least another three years.

Rai said the LHC is still hearing review petitions filed in 2006-07, and judges are reluctant to use their discretionary powers to take up Aasia’s case on a priority basis due to its controversial nature.

Aasia’s review petition was filed in 2010 and, according to sources in the LHC, it will purportedly not be taken up before 2015, while Aasia languishes in jail.

The first incident described below was blamed on Salafists, who also just won 25% of parliament. The second was attributed both to members of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists, who together will control 75% of parliament, and stand to control the drafting of the next constitution.

As one can see, they're already working together. More on this story. "Egyptian extremists against Copts, two wounded, houses burned and churches attacked," from Asia News, January 21:

Cairo (AsiaNews) - Anti-Christian violence continues in Egypt, according to local sources, the episodes are linked to the attempt of fundamentalist Islamic fringe - Salafis - to block the vote of the religious minority in the next election. On 19 January, a mob attacked the Coptic Christian community of the village of Kebly-Rahmaniya, near the town of Nag Hammadi, Qena governorate, Upper Egypt. The assailants, chanting "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great) attacked and burned down houses, huts, shops and businesses (click here to see the video). The raid was also caused two injuries: a 16 year old boy, struck by a bullet and a 40 year old man with facial injuries.

Witnesses quoted by Assyrian International News Agency (AINA) report that Egyptian security forces did not intervene promptly to repel the onslaught and defend the Christians. Even the teams of firefighters delayed their intervention, arriving only 90 minutes after the assault, and when most of the buildings were already in flames. A source adds that a hut belonging to a Coptic Christian was burned to make room for the construction of a mosque. Moreover in the area there are now 300 Muslim places of worship, compared to only one Christian church even though Christians are 50% of the local population.

According to the Copts, the anti-Christian violence is related to the upcoming parliamentary elections: the Salafis, in fact, want to prevent the religious minority from voting which, with its 20 thousand members, can shift the balance of power in the area. The Copts are close to the Muslim moderate wing, which opposes the Islamist front. A witness confirmed that "no Copt from Rahmaniya-Kebly could vote" and that "the Salafis will win the elections."

In a second incident, which also occurred January 19, the Salafists and Muslim Brotherhood - together - broke into the church of Abu Makka in Bahteem, Qaliubia, informing members of the congregation that the place of Christian worship is illegal. An extremist also said that the 1,300 square meter building "is perfect for building a mosque and a hospital." The local bishop was to inaugurate the church and celebrate the first Mass, has suspended all ceremonies for security reasons, sparking the anger and disappointment of the whole congregation.

Sharia forbids the construction of new churches or the repair of existing ones.

They have owned the property for 125 years, but according to the prior report -- surprise! -- the local government decided it was government property.

The land is now worth a great deal. Local authorities have found that, as Hedy Hedley Lamarr declared in Blazing Saddles: "Unfortunately there is one thing standing between me and that property: the rightful owners."

"Lahore, Catholics go to court against the "blasphemous" demolition of their institute," by Jibran Khan for Asia News, January 21:

Lahore (AsiaNews) - The Catholic community of Lahore is up in arms against the illegal demolition of the "Gosha-e-Aman", a "place of peace" that welcomed Christians and Muslims, last January 10 by the provincial government of Punjab. One victim has decided to take the case to court by filing a written complaint against the Development Authority and other officials involved in the affair. Meanwhile, it appears that one of the police officers present during the demolition of the building (Malik Ahmed Raza Tahir), was in charge of security in Gojra in August 2009, when a Muslim mob attacked the local Christian minority, resulting in seven dead - burned alive – and the burning of several homes and properties.

Speaking to AsiaNews, the archbishop emeritus Mgr. Lawrence Saldanha condemned the demolition decided by the authorities, the prelate emphasizes that we are in the presence of "ancient institution, worthy of respect," owned "by the Church in peace for 125 years" and used "for charitable purposes."

The faithful have dubbed this past January 10 "Black Tuesday" and demand the restitution of property and compensation for damage, if not, they warn, protests will continue until the authorities meet their demands. The institute "Gosha-e-Aman", founded in 1887, is surrounded by two acres of land, worth a total of billions of rupees. Inside there was a home for the elderly, a girls' school, a convent and a chapel for prayer. The dispute relating to the possession of the building and surrounding area had long been the center of a lawsuit, it seems the demolition was triggered by a woman - converted to Islam - who in the past sought shelter in the center.

Catholic Christian leaders and government officials have expressed solidarity with the victims, in search of a makeshift shelter that can accommodate them in the coming weeks. In Lahore Catholics, Anglicans, Protestants and non-governmental organizations have strongly condemned the abuse by the local government. Zenobia Richards, 61, one of the victims of the demolition, has launched a lawsuit by filing a petition to the High Court, citing the authority for urban development, along with other officials. She worked 24 years for Caritas Pakistan and lived in "Gosha-e-Aman". "It was a center of peace - she says - a lot of memories bind me to that place. That's why I wanted to bring a case against those who demolished the building, which I call home. "

During demolition operations, the workers also destroyed a statue of the Our Lady and several copies of the Bible: "I used to pray in this place," adds Zenobia (pictured, on the rubble of the building) and that's why "I intend to cite the crime of blasphemy "because they" desecrated a church and religious material in my house". "This is not just a piece of land - she adds - but the emotions, feelings, rights of minorities in Pakistan." She says she is "not afraid" and points the finger at the Punjab Minister for Minorities: “I will fight for my rights, "she concludes, confirming today that she has filed an appeal in court.

Archbishop Saldanha, archbishop emeritus of Lahore, speaks of "clear violation of the rights of minorities." The prelate told AsiaNews that the government "is short of funds" and is looking for "easy targets to fill the budget deficit." He adds that Catholics can and should continue in the protest and "appeals to the international community: I myself have spoken to the Department for religious freedom in Canada." The Archbishop hopes that international pressure "will have a positive impact and that the land mafia will fail in their criminal intent."

"Islamist daily Vakit called it 'homosexual propaganda' by a gay lobby bent on 'legitimizing perversion through their so-called art.'" Remember, they're talking about a film about an honor killing. Vakit doesn't seem to mind the honor murder; it's the immorality that upsets them.

"Gay 'honor killing' movie shakes Turkey up," by Ece Toksabay for Reuters, January 20 (thanks to Anne Crockett):

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - On a hot summer's day in 2008, 26-year-old physics student Ahmet Yildiz was shot dead when he popped out from his Istanbul apartment to buy ice cream.

The main suspect in the killing, a fugitive still wanted by Turkish police, is Yildiz's father, who could not accept that his only son was in a homosexual relationship.

The case, widely believed to be Turkey's first gay "honor killing", has inspired a movie "Zenne", which opened on January 13 and explores gay sexual identity and prejudice in overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey.

"We had the movie idea in mind right after our dear friend Ahmet was killed," said Caner Alper, writer and co-director of the movie. "His story needed to be told."

Yildiz was born into a wealthy religious family in the ancient city of Sanliurfa, in Turkey's impoverished and conservative southeast, but moved to cosmopolitan Istanbul during his university years, seeking more freedom as a gay man.

In Istanbul, Yildiz started a new life and made new friends; he also began a gay relationship and eventually moved in with his boyfriend, who witnessed Yildiz's murder from the window of their apartment on the Asian side of the city divided by the Bosphorus Strait.

In the movie, Yildiz's character is encouraged to come out of the closet by a male belly dancer, or zenne, and a German photographer who has moved to Istanbul after a personal crisis in Afghanistan, where he accidentally caused the death of several children during a photo shoot. Both are fictional characters.

In real life, Yildiz's coming out as a gay man was seen as an affront in his deeply patriarchal and tribal family, even though his parents adored him, a cousin, Ahmet Kaya, told the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey.

LOOKING FOR A "CURE"

Yildiz's father had urged him to return to their village and to see a doctor and an imam to "cure" him of his homosexuality and get married, but Yildiz refused.

"Ahmet loved his family more than anything else and he was tortured about disappointing them," Kaya was quoted as saying in the foundation's report.

After he was killed, the family did not claim Yildiz's body for a proper Islamic burial -- an indication of the deep shame the family felt and that they had ceased to consider him one of their own. He was buried instead in a "cemetery for the nameless."...

Remember this? Pamela Geller and I dedicated the Aqsa Parvez Memorial Grove in Israel, in memory of a girl whose father and brother murdered her in an honor killing and who was then buried in an unmarked grave.

Islamist daily Vakit called it "homosexual propaganda" by a gay lobby bent on "legitimizing perversion through their so-called art."

Despite being the only suspect, Yildiz's father is still at large and is being tried in absentia.

Friends and activists, who have attended some of the hearings wearing masks bearing Yildiz's portrait, say the authorities lack the will to find the perpetrator.

Alper and Mehmet Binay, co-directors of the movie and together as a gay couple for 14 years, said they heard their friend Yildiz receive death threats from his family over the phone.

Yildiz filed an official complaint but failed to receive any protection, they said.

"Honor killings," or crimes carried out against mostly women and young girls seen to have tainted the family's name, are not uncommon in Turkey, particularly in poor and rural areas.

The European Union, which Turkey wants to join, has repeatedly urged Ankara to take a tougher stance against such crimes.

MILITARY PRACTICES

Turkey is often held as an example in the Middle East for marrying Islam and democracy, but Turkish gay activists say Ankara's human rights record is far from perfect.

One practice particularly abhorred by rights groups is the method by which gay men can be exempted from the required 16-month military service: they have to prove their homosexuality in medical tests and are compelled to provide photos of them having sex with other men.

In the movie, two characters undergoing one such examination are forced to wear make-up and dress in women's clothes, while doctors perform anal examinations.

According to Article 17 of the health regulations of the Turkish Armed Forces, homosexuality is considered a "psychosexual deviance."

"Turkey is going through a democratization process, and the army needs to enter this phase, too," said Binay.

"We don't live in a dream world and we don't expect it to happen all of a sudden in such a deep-seated institution, but at least they could stop the humiliating practices against gay men."

Turkish rights groups reported 24 killings of gay and transsexual individuals in the last two years. In most cases, courts reduced the sentences or the perpetrators were not found....

These are the people who will be drafting the next constitution. A democracy is only as good as the values that inform its participants. "Islamists secure top spot in new Egypt parliament," by Marwa Awad and Lin Noueihed for Reuters, January 21:

CAIRO (AP) - Final results on Saturday showed that Islamist parties won nearly three-quarters of the seats in parliament in Egypt's first elections since the ouster of authoritarian president Hosni Mubarak, according to election officials and political groups.

The Islamist domination of Egypt's parliament has worried liberals and even some conservatives about the religious tone of the new legislature, which will be tasked with forming a committee to write a new constitution. It remains unclear whether the constitution will be written while the generals who took power after Mubarak's fall are still in charge, or rather after presidential elections this summer.

In the vote for the lower house of parliament, a coalition led by the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood won 47 percent, or 235 seats in the 498-seat parliament. The ultraconservative Al-Nour Party was second with 25 percent, or 125 seats.

The Salafi Al-Nour, which was initially the biggest surprise of the vote, wants to impose strict Islamic law in Egypt, while the more moderate Brotherhood, the country's best-known and organized party, has said publicly that it does not seek to force its views about an appropriate Islamic lifestyle on Egyptians.

They have voted it in on themselves.

The two parties are unlikely to join forces because of ideological differences, but both have a long history of charity work in Egypt's vast poverty-stricken neighborhoods and villages, giving them a degree of legitimacy and popularity across the country in areas where newer liberal parties have yet to get a foothold.

Muslim Brotherhood lawmaker Mohammed el-Beltagi said the new parliament represents "the wish of the Egyptian people."

Egypt's elections commission acknowledged that there were voting irregularities, but the vote has been hailed as the country's freest and fairest in living memory.

The liberals who spearheaded the revolt that toppled Mubarak struggled to organize and connect with a broader public in the vote, and did not fair as well as the Islamists.

The Egyptian bloc, which is headed by a party founded by Christian telecom tycoon Naguib Sawiris, said it won 9 percent of the seats in parliament. Egypt's oldest secular party, the Wafd, also won around 9 percent.

The results leave the liberal groups with little ability to maneuver in parliament, unless they choose to mobilize the street in protests or work on key issues with the dominant Islamist groups, said Mohamed Abu-Hamed, the deputy leader of the liberal Free Egyptians Party.

The Brotherhood has refused to join recent street protests, saying that elections and the new parliament are the best ways to respond to demands that the military transfer power immediately to a civilian authority....

Translation: Hey, we've got a good thing going here.

There is nothing "moderate" about the Maldives, where religions other than Sunni Islam are forbidden. The government appeared willing to consider a variety of measures toward further Islamization of the nation when protesters demanded concessions ranging from a complete ban on alcohol and pork to a ban on direct flights to Israel.

That appears only to have emboldened the protesters, who, together with opposition members in government, seem to be trying to summon the zephyrs of the "Arab Spring" to the Maldives. "More arrests in Maldives as protests spread," from Agence France-Presse, January 21:

Dozens of anti-government activists were arrested in the Maldivian capital Male, the opposition said Saturday as the government accused them of whipping up religious extremism.

Opposition parties said police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of activists on Friday night and that dozens were detained, raising to 82 the number of arrests in the past four days.

"The police detain people and release them after a few hours," opposition spokesman Mohamed Shareef said adding that a total of 82 had been arrested during the past four days.

Maldivian authorities said the protesters had attacked government facilities, including two police vehicles and vandalised the home of a government minister during the protests.

The government said six journalists and staff of the state-run national television broadcaster had been attacked by anti-government protesters while private media organisations accused the government of intimidating them.

Anti-government activists have been keeping up pressure on President Mohamed Nasheed who initiated the arrest Monday of the head of the country's criminal court on charges of misconduct and favouring opposition figures.

A senior figure in the opposition Dhivehi Qaumee Party (DQP), Mohamed Jameel, was also re-arrested on Wednesday as police investigate him and the party for allegedly spreading hate-speech.

The government has accused Jameel, a former justice minister, of making public remarks that Nasheed was working under the influence of "Jews" and "Christian priests" to weaken Islam in the Maldives.

The government on Wednesday raised fears of Islamic extremism taking hold in the Indian Ocean atoll nation, which is best known for its upmarket tourism and as a destination for honeymooners.

Honeymooners might consider Key West or Hawaii instead. Or Intercourse, Pennsylvania. Or a cold day in Hell, Michigan, where a snowball's chances are rather good just now.

The foreign ministry said it was "extremely concerned" by an increase in extremist rhetoric used by the government's rivals that could lead to "stigmatization, stereotyping and incitement to religious violence and hatred".

There have been anti-Semitic protests recently about the transport ministry's decision to allow direct flights from Israel, while a restaurant that hung up Christmas decorations in 2010 was also targeted.

All of this is supposed to usher in a paradise under Sharia, just as soon as they can kill and terrorize enough people who would stand in the way. "Scores dead as assailants target northern Nigerian city," by Nima Elbagir and Hassan John for CNN, January 21:

Lagos, Nigeria (CNN) -- Nigeria imposed a 24-hour curfew Saturday in the northern city of Kano after assailants killed scores of people and wounded others in a hail of gunfire and coordinated bombings of eight government sites.

A military official told CNN that at least 156 people were dead and feared the number would rise.

"The hospitals are not equipped to deal with the influx and severity of the injuries, so we are expecting that figure to go up further," the official said.

Nwankpa Nwankpa, a Red Cross information officer in the capital, Abuja, said 50 people were injured in the attacks. He said that search and rescue operations are underway and volunteers are working to assist the injured.

The attacks targeted several police stations, barracks and the building housing the assistant inspector general of police in Kano, Nigeria's second largest city.

A passport office, state security headquarters and the immigration office were also hit, police said.

Terrified residents barricaded themselves in their homes, said Rev. Murtala Mati of the Christian Association of Nigeria.

"The government is really trying but we are afraid ... we are all scared," he said.

During the attack, assailants entered a police station, freed detainees and bombed it, authorities said. They later canvassed the area in a car led by motorcycles, spraying targets with gunfire.

Islamist group Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the blast in a phone call to the Daily Trust, according to journalists at the newspaper.

Nigeria closed its borders Saturday with Cameroon and Niger, whom it has accused of allowing the militants to move freely into Nigeria.

The government has put in place a state of emergency, and a large deployment of troops has been sent to the north of the country....

Boko Haram's conduct suggests it wants an open civil war between Christians and Muslims, which would make it easier for it to claim territory and impose Sharia.

One of them earlier explained: "My intention was to do my duty as a Muslim, to inform people of God’s word and to give the message on what God says about homosexuality."

There are still many Muslims in Britain who believe the same way. Ultimately the U.K. is going to opt for multiculturalism, adopt Islamic law regarding gays and drop prosecutions like this, thereby leading to the brutalization of innocent people, or else reject it decisively. But the confrontations between British law and Sharia are just beginning.

"Three Derby men guilty over gay hate leaflets," from the BBC, January 20:

Three men have been found guilty of a gay hate crime after handing out leaflets calling for homosexual people to be given the death sentence.

Ihjaz Ali, 42, Kabir Ahmed, 28 and Razwan Javed, 27, were found guilty of stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation.

They distributed a leaflet titled Death Penalty? at a mosque and through letterboxes, Derby Crown Court heard.

As I've written before about Reza Aslan, one of the most unfortunate aspects of the politically correct straitjacket that binds contemporary public discourse is that deceitful mediocrities and intellectual flotsam and jetsam who aren't capable of independent thought or of defending their own positions except with lies and scorn, are lauded and lionized by the clueless and compromised elites, solely because they parrot currently fashionable opinions.

This applies in spades to Omid Safi, a professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Safi published a hot, steaming pile of Islamic dawah in the Huffington Post yesterday -- does the HuffPo publish wit and wisdom from Jewish or Christian apologists singing the glories of their religions? In it, he writes this:

If we look at a fellow human being, and only imagine the worst case scenario -- that the human in front of us "might cause mischief" -- we are imitating the manners of the Quranic angels. If we look at a fellow human being, and assert our own superiority over them, we are following the manners of Satan. It was Satan that looked at the human being and said: "I am better than this!"

I couldn't help but smile as I recalled Omid's self-important, pompous, arrogant mien in our exchange a few years back -- and his libelous claim about me: "He is a hateful man, who has personally threatened me and my family with death. These are not people who are interested in serious scholarly debate."

The irony is thick: when I invited him to debate, he responded with scorn. Then he falsely claimed I had threatened him with death while saying that I was "a hateful man." I beg to differ, Omid: what is hateful is falsely claiming that someone has committed a felony and refusing to retract when challenged.

Following the manners of Satan, eh, Omid?

Anyway, Safi is just another example of the many odious mediocrities who are accorded respect and given university positions solely because they hold the accepted politically correct opinions, not because they have any intellectual capabilities or, in Safi's case, any regard for ethics or honesty whatsoever.

Video courtesy Answering Muslims.

It is no accident or coincidence that Muslims commit 91 percent of honor killings worldwide. A manual of Islamic law certified as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy by Al-Azhar University, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam, says that "retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right." However, "not subject to retaliation" is "a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring's offspring." ('Umdat al-Salik o1.1-2). In other words, someone who kills his child incurs no legal penalty under Islamic law.

Syria in 2009 scrapped a law limiting the length of sentences for honor killings, but "the new law says a man can still benefit from extenuating circumstances in crimes of passion or honour 'provided he serves a prison term of no less than two years in the case of killing.'" And 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."

Nonetheless, the media drumbeat is constant: honor killings have nothing to do with Islam. And so they continue, as no one ever challenges Muslim authorities to do anything to stop them.

Why would Abdullah al-Sabah think he might be murdered for exercising his freedom of conscience? After all, Muslim spokesmen such as Salam al-Marayati, M. Cherif Bassiouni, and Ali Eteraz (among many others) have assured us that Islam has no death penalty for apostasy.

Unfortunately, in doing so they fool credulous Westerners, but they disagree with Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, who said, "Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him" (Bukhari 9.84.57). And all the schools of Islamic law still teach that death is the proper penalty for apostates.

In a sane world, this would be an international human rights issue, with calls from the UN to protect apostates from Islam. But this is not a sane world.

"Kuwait: The prince's mysterious conversion," by Marco Tosatti for Vatican Insider, January 16 (thanks to Jerry Newcombe):

According to reports, a Kuwaiti royal prince has become a follower of Jesus Christ. In an audio file posted with his name, he affirms that if he is killed because of a recording he made where he talks about his conversion, he firmly believes that he will meet Jesus Christ face-to-face. The news comes from Middle Eastern sources which state that al-Haqiqa – a Christian satellite TV channel in Arabic that transmits Christian religious programmes – broadcast an audio file attributed to the Kuwaiti prince, identified as Abdullah al-Sabah. The al-Sabahs are the royal family of Kuwait, a country rich in oil. The name Abdullah (servant of God) frequently appears in the Emir’s family tree.

In his audio file, Abdullah declared: “First of all, I fully agree with the distribution of this audio file and I now declare that if they kill me because of it, then I will appear before Jesus Christ and be with him for all eternity.” In this statement, the prince demonstrates his awareness of the fate in store for a martyr of the faith, according to Christian doctrine. The television channel stated that Abdullah is a member of the royal family, and that he recently renounced his faith in Islam and became a Christian, without specifying which particular branch of Christianity he had chosen. After stating his full name, the prince declared: “I will accept whatever they do to me, because the truth in the Bible has guided me towards the right path.”

In the audio file, Abdullah talks about the Islamic groups that are winning the elections in Egypt and declares: “Islamic communities have always wanted to attack in different parts of the world but God has preserved the world and still protects it. This is why we have recently seen disagreements appearing among Islamic groups who are now fighting with each other. They are about to divide further into different groups.”

Mohabat News, a Christian Iranian website which has been following the fate of Christian minorities in the Middle East closely and which has monitored Abdullah’s statement, confirms that this news was published briefly by Arabic news agencies and also by the Iranian state news agency. Some independent websites with Shiite leanings denied the reports and quoted another Kuwaiti prince, Azbi al-Sabah, who said: “There’s no one by that name in the Kuwaiti royal family.” In actual fact, the name Abdullah does not appear on the list of the 15 members of the royal family who rule this small, extremely wealthy country in different capacities: from the Sheikh down to Princess Nijirah al-Sabah, who testified in the US Congress under the assumed name of "Nurse Nayirah" on the humanitarian situation in the country after the invasion by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and just before the Gulf War. That isn’t to say that this high-profile convert is not hidden somewhere within the extended family, under a different name.

In Kuwait the overwhelming majority of the population is Muslim (only 4% is Christian) and the country’s Constitution states: “Islam is the official religion of the country and Sharia is the main source for legislation.”...

From Yahoo News:

NEW YORK, Jan. 20, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A prominent international human rights organization is calling upon the United Nations and the international human rights community to act quickly and decisively to save the Christians of Syria, who are being increasingly threatened and victimized by Islamic supremacists.

Stop Islamization of Nations (SION) notes with sorrow the one hundred dead in Syria in the recent and ongoing series of kidnappings and murders of Christians. SION President Pamela Geller said in a statement: "We deplore the manifest lack of respect for human life and the dignity of the human person. We call upon the United Nations Security Council and UN Commission on Human Rights to schedule an immediate meeting to discuss how to protect the Christians of Syria."

Geller added: "We call upon Muslim groups in the U.S. and the Middle East to condemn these killings in word and deed, instituting programs in mosques and Islamic schools to teach Muslims that the lives of non-Muslims must be respected as equal in dignity and value to those of Muslims. We call upon the centers of Islamic authority and education to repudiate the specifications in Islamic law that set the value of a non-Muslim's life as less than that of a Muslim, and call upon the international human rights community to focus on those inherently discriminatory laws as a human rights abuse."

SION is an international umbrella organization dedicated to defending human rights, religious liberty, freedom of conscience and the freedom of speech against Islamic supremacist intimidation and attempts to bring elements of Sharia to the West.

The confirmed list of Board of Advisors for SION currently includes Dr. Ali Sina, the renowned ex-Muslim author and founder of FaithFreedom.org; Dr. Wafa Sultan, the ex-Muslim human rights activist and author; the German pro-freedom activist Stefan Herre of Politically Incorrect; the Israeli author Dr. Mordechai Kedar; the Hindu human rights activist Babu Suseelan; and Anders Gravers of Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE). More prominent pro-freedom activists will be added to the Board shortly.

A worldwide summit of SION freedom activists is currently being organized; location, date and other details will be announced in the coming weeks.

SION establishes a common American/European coalition of free people determined to stand for freedom and oppose the advance of Islamic law, Sharia. Islamic law is not simply a religious system, but a political system that encompasses every aspect of life; is authoritarian, discriminatory, and repressive; and contradicts Western laws and principles in numerous particulars. SION respects Muslims as fellow human beings and rejects Islamization as a comprehensive political, religious, cultural and social system of behavior and ideology.

SION stands for:

-- The freedom of speech - as opposed to Islamic prohibitions of
"blasphemy" and "slander," which are used effectively to quash
honest discussion of jihad and Islamic supremacism;
-- The freedom of conscience - as opposed to the Islamic death
penalty for apostasy;
-- The equality of rights of all people before the law - as
opposed to Sharia's institutionalized discrimination against
women and non-Muslims.

A foremost objective of SION is to establish a network of free nations that work to free the oppressed and to call worldwide attention to the persecution, slaughter and subjugation of non-Muslims and free women enslaved by the Sharia. SION will act only through democratic and non-violent means, and categorically rejects all acts of violence and vigilantism. It aims to preserve the fundamental freedoms and rights articulated in the Constitutions of the Western democracies, the U.S. Bill of Rights, and the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

SION will also work to winning back the culture, with a particular focus on the academic world, as the Islamic teaching of history is based on faith and Sharia, not on the Western objective criteria of truth. In the West, history must be taught according to the truth, not according to the dictates of ideology.

SION also offers diversity and sensitivity training to corporations and government agencies at the local, state and national levels. This diversity training is designed to help these entities understand the jihad threat in all its different manifestations, including Islamic supremacist cultural initiatives to assert Islamic law and practice in the American workplace. It helps them protect their business practices in the face of demands for special accommodation for Muslim employees.

Give guns to large numbers of people with no durable sense of loyalty to unbelievers, whom they have been brought up since childhood to despise and to be prepared to fight, and there's going to be some unfriendly "friendly fire." That much should be obvious, but it is too politically incorrect to acknowledge.

Western policy in the Muslim world has been a "trust fall" writ large. "Afghanistan’s Soldiers Step Up Killings of Allied Forces," by Matthew Rosenberg for the New York Times, January 20:

KABUL, Afghanistan — American and other coalition forces here are being killed in increasing numbers by the very Afghan soldiers they fight alongside and train, in attacks motivated by deep-seated animosity between the supposedly allied forces, according to American and Afghan officers and a classified coalition report.

A decade into the war in Afghanistan, the report makes clear that these killings have become the most visible symptom of a far deeper ailment plaguing the war effort: the contempt each side holds for the other, never mind the Taliban. The ill will and mistrust run deep among civilians and militaries on both sides, raising questions about what future role the United States and its allies can expect to play in Afghanistan.

Underscoring the danger, a gunman in an Afghan Army uniform killed four French service members and wounded several others on Friday, according to an Afghan police official in Kapisa Province in eastern Afghanistan, prompting the French president to suspend his country’s operations here.

The violence, and the failure by coalition commanders to address it, casts a harsh spotlight on the shortcomings of American efforts to build a functional Afghan Army, a pillar of the Obama administration’s strategy for extricating the United States from the war in Afghanistan, said the officers and experts who helped shape the strategy.

The problems risk leaving the United States and its allies dependent on an Afghan force that is permeated by anti-Western sentiment and incapable of combating the Taliban and other militants when NATO’s combat mission ends in 2014, they said. [...]

But the most troubling fallout has been the mounting number of Westerners killed by their Afghan allies, events that have been routinely dismissed by American and NATO officials as isolated episodes that are the work of disturbed individual soldiers or Taliban infiltrators, and not indicative of a larger pattern. The unusually blunt report, which was prepared for a subordinate American command in eastern Afghanistan, takes a decidedly different view. The Wall Street Journal reported on details of the investigation last year. A copy was obtained by The New York Times.

“Lethal altercations are clearly not rare or isolated; they reflect a rapidly growing systemic homicide threat (a magnitude of which may be unprecedented between ‘allies’ in modern military history),” it said. Official NATO pronouncements to the contrary “seem disingenuous, if not profoundly intellectually dishonest,” said the report, and it played down the role of Taliban infiltrators in the killings.

The coalition refused to comment on the classified report. But “incidents in the recent past where Afghan soldiers have wounded or killed I.S.A.F. members are isolated cases and are not occurring on a routine basis,” said Lt. Col. Jimmie E. Cummings Jr. of the Army, a spokesman for the American-led International Security Assistance Force. “We train and are partnered with Afghan personnel every day and we are not seeing any issues or concerns with our relationships.”

The numbers appear to tell a different story. Although NATO does not release a complete tally of its forces’ deaths at the hands of Afghan soldiers and the police, the classified report and coalition news releases indicate that Afghan forces have attacked American and allied service members nearly three dozen times since 2007. [...]

... “U.S. soldiers’ perceptions of A.N.A. members were extremely negative across categories,” the report found, using the initials for the Afghan National Army. Those categories included “trustworthiness on patrol,” “honesty and integrity,” and “drug abuse.” The Americans also voiced suspicions about the Afghans being in league with the Taliban, a problem well documented among the Afghan police.

“They are stoned all the time; some even while on patrol with us,” one soldier was quoted as saying. Another said, “They are pretty much gutless in combat; we do most of the fighting.”....

The Liberated One, the apostate from Islam who writes from a Muslim country, is back with a blistering post on women in Islam:

Hello, friends. First of all I apologize for being out of sight for nearly a week, as I had been really busy at work, and also had my parents visiting me and my brothers from Pakistan. While they were here staying with me, I could not but help feeling really sorry for them, especially my mother. She covers herself in that black garb and thinks that those women who do not are committing a major crime in the eyes of Allah and Mohammed and those women (actually an indirect insinuation in my direction) will surely be the fuel of the hell fire. I really feel so sorry for my mom and most of my Muslim friends who don the hijab and consider women like us not completely Muslim, and most of the Muslim men consider non-Muslim women and non-hijabi women as mere whores. Believe me when I say that no one suffers as much in this world as the Muslim women, in fact the mother of all believers Ayesha said the exact same words. Islam is heaven for Muslim men, but a hell for the believing women…. I know this and so does every Muslim women on the face of the earth, whether she lives in Pakistan or Iran or Afghanistan or Indonesia or Saudi or Algeria or Turkey…

Engaging in their own form of Stockholm Syndrome, most Muslim women publicly defend the very laws that enslave them. Like my mother, some of my friends and colleagues do. They actually justify the evil misogynistic rules of Islam and say it is for the betterment of the Muslim women. Many Muslims claim that “Islam honors women,” just as they claim that Islam is a “Religion of Peace.” The truth however, is just the opposite. Islam does not honor women, but rather, holds their very lives in absolute bondage. There is no age limit for marriage of girls under Sharia. A man can pay a dowry and sign a marriage contract with the parents of a toddler girl and consummate the marriage at age 9 just because their pedophiliac prophet Mo did that, and they think in doing that, they are just following the Sunnah. According to the Shariah, the adulterer will be stoned to death, but not many people are aware that this rule applies mostly for women, because men are allowed to have sex with their sex slaves and concubines. Even if a man and woman are caught having sex and four witnesses are also present, the punishment for women is digging up a hole and inserting her in up to her chest and then stoning her to death, whereas a man is just stoned while he is standing. And if he manages to escape, he is lucky, but a woman is not even allowed a chance to escape.

Read it all.

The last great hope of the West here is that Libya will be a "moderate" Islamic regime. In Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, Western governments have kept hoping to see the emergence of a model Sharia regime that will operate as Sharia has been advertised to them -- not what Sharia is, but what it could, would, should be according to academic exercises removed from how Sharia has been practiced and enforced for over a millennium.

The motto of Western governments in their policy toward the Muslim world could well be the words of the woman at the end of the article: "We all want Sharia, but not the one they're talking about."

Accordingly, Sharia never works as advertised, but it does work according to its design. Unfortunately, it is a politically correct article of faith that the publicity and substance are one and the same. Caveat emptor: "war is deceit."

We tried to tell you. "Libyan Islamists rally to demand sharia-based law," from Reuters, January 20:

(Reuters) - Hundreds of Libyan Islamists rallied on Friday to demand that Muslim sharia law inspire legislation in what organizers called a response to the emergence of secular political parties after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi's dictatorship last year.

Assembled by Islamist political and religious groups, mostly young and bearded men holding up copies of the Koran demonstrated in squares in the capital Tripoli, the eastern city of Benghazi and in Sabha in the southern desert.

In Tripoli's Algeria Square, Islamists burned copies of the "Green Book," Gaddafi's eccentric handbook on politics, economics and everyday life, to underline that the Koran should be the country's main source of legislation.

By contrast, a group of secularists who have staged a sit-in in the square for more than a month chanted: "We want a civil state."

The Islamist demonstrators encompassed members of the conservative Muslim Brotherhood and harder-line Salafis, who both back strict versions of Islam, and relative moderates who prefer a civil state simply inspired by sharia.

The protests offered a glimpse into Libya's political future in which Islamist and secularist parties are expected to vie for seats in a national assembly scheduled to be elected in June to draft a constitution for the North African country.

Experts believe the Muslim Brotherhood is the most organized political force and could emerge as the leading political player in Libya after Gaddafi, who harshly suppressed Islamists during his 42 years in autocratic power.

Western powers are coming to accept that the advent of democracy in the Arab world means bringing Islamists to power. They have become the biggest election winners in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco over the past few months.

The chairman of Libya's ruling National Transitional Council (NTC), Mustafa Abdul Jalil, promised in October to uphold Islamic law. "We as a Muslim nation have taken Islamic sharia as the source of legislation, therefore any law that contradicts the principles of Islam is legally nullified," he said.

The deputy central bank governor said last month a law regulating Islamic banking would be issued in the first quarter of 2012, but stressed that both conventional and Islamic banks would be allowed to operate in Libya.

Islamists in Algeria Square held up placards demanding a financial system respecting Islam's ban on interest and calling for a constitution derived from sharia's legal and moral codes.

"We want to run our life according to Islamic principles, be it the economy, politics or our relations with other countries," said Abdul Basit Ghuwaila, a preacher at a Tripoli mosque. "Most people think Islam is just about harsh penalties."

Ghuwaila, 49, said sharia should not govern all Libyan law, but insisted that legislation should not contradict it.

Nour al-Zintani, a participant in the month-long sit-in for a secular state, said the majority of Libyans wanted Islam to be a part of their life but not a strict interpretation of it.

"We all want sharia," she said, standing next to her teenage daughter, both of them wearing a Muslim headscarf, "but not the one they're talking about, the one that rejects women. We want a moderate Islam that gives women their rights."

Surprise! It's a self-serving, dysfunctional organization. "In memoir, ex-Muslim Sister paints an unflattering picture," by Noha El Hennawy for Al Masry Al Youm, January 16 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

As the Muslim Brotherhood strives to project the image of a moderate and democratic political organization, a book featuring the angry account of a former member has hit the market.

"The Memoirs of a Former Sister: My Story with the Muslim Brotherhood" is the testimony of Intissar Abdel Moneim, an Alexandria-based novelist and author. With a compelling style and sharp language, the book takes the reader on a journey exploring the internal politics of the 83-year-old organization, placing special emphasis on discrimination against female members.

Throughout her work, Abdel Moneim decries the sisters’ internalization of oppression as women are socialized in a way that compels them to accept male dominance within the organization — and the household.

Early in the book, Abdel Moneim condemns what could be interpreted as the Brotherhood’s exploitation of the permissibility of polygamy in Islam.

“One of the areas where the Brothers have exploited the idea of blind obedience and submission is polygamy,” she writes, adding that a brother would take second and third wives for no valid reason. “When the [first] wife complains, a session is held for her where other sisters would remind her of the importance of obedience, patience and submission to God’s will and to [the husband]’s will,” she writes.

To understand the roots of the subjugation of women, Abdel Moneim unpacks the writings of Hassan al-Banna, the group’s late founder. Here, the author summons her courage and puts forth a vehement critique of the group’s canonized leader, who is rarely questioned, even by the most vocal ex-brothers.

Banna's teachings sought to limit women to "catering to their husbands' desires and to reproduction," Abdel Moneim writes.

The book dismisses Banna's dictum that there is no need to invest heavily in girls' education and that women should be trained only to serve as housewives and mothers. Abdel Moneim feels that this sentiment is contradictory to true Islam.

“It is true that Islam says that a woman’s primary role is to raise children, but it does not say that this is her only role and that she should not do anything beyond it. Neither the Koran nor the Sunna [Prophet Mohamed’s sayings and deeds] nor the sayings of the prophet’s companions and successors barred her from learning any sciences. The matter has been left for her to decide, according to her needs and circumstances," writes Abdel Moneim.

Unfortunately, the situation does not need explicit statement in the Qur'an or Sunna for a critical mass of other parameters to make it the logical conclusion of certain attitudes and behaviors. For example, the obsession with control of women (Qur'an 4:34), and the paranoia in Muslim societies about purity and honor work against women's independence.

She goes on to criticize Banna's insistence that men and women should be separated. With a scathingly sarcastic tone, the author argues that Banna’s view portrays humans as if they are mere animals who have little control over their impulses.

“You cannot by any logic perceive all people as mere female and male sex organs that roam the streets looking for the moment of intercourse like cats," the book reads. Abdel Moneim attributes Banna’s rigid outlook to his rural background.

This outlook still shapes the group’s perception of women’s roles within the organization and in the society at large. It justifies why the Muslim Sisters' division cannot operate independently from the Brothers, why no woman is admitted into the group's highest bodies, namely the Shura Council and the Guidance Bureau, and why the group will not acknowledge a woman's right to rule, according to the book. [...]

... the author bashes the Brotherhood’s internal dynamics, arguing that it is based on nepotism rather than merit. To substantiate her claim, she refers to her personal experience recounting that she was not easily admitted into the group because she was not the daughter, the sister or the wife of one of the Muslim Brotherhood's heroic or wealthy figures. For both men and women, such family ties are required to facilitate one’s upward mobility within the organization, according to Abdel Moneim.

Meanwhile, the author coins the phrase “the Muslim Brotherhood’s classism” to describe the full submission of rank-and-file members to their leaders. She borrows the analogy put forward by a former Muslim Brotherhood leader who drew parallels between the organization and an electricity-providing company that needs lots of workers (rank-and-file members) and few engineers.

“It is illogical for a worker to bypass his master or demand that his position be improved even if he proves himself,” Abdel Moneim writes. “Otherwise, he will be violating the group’s charter and instilling divisions. This is probably the Muslim Brotherhood’s interpretation of George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm.’” [...]

Yet the book has not failed to cause a stir. Earlier this month, the Muslim Brotherhood rushed to sue the privately owned Al-Fagr newspaper for running a sensational review of the book that accused the organization of abusing women sexually and politically....

He may have thought he was legally safe keeping it in terms of divine wrath, and that undoubtedly will undoubtedly be argued in court, but the lack of specificity actually lends itself to incitement.

The suspect has apparently not restricted it to, say, brimstone falling from the sky, but leaves open the possibility of a Muslim believer making himself the vehicle of Allah's wrath against unbelievers. The direct identification of specific figures in Norwegian politics and imagery of bombings and casualties -- of human acts of violence -- further supports the impression that he is urging a hit on specific people. "Suspect arrested over Islamist threat video," from The Local, January 20:

A 21-year-old man will face a remand hearing on Friday following his arrest on suspicion of having posted a hateful video to the internet calling on Allah to destroy members of the Norwegian government and royal family.

The suspect will appear in front of Skien district court in south-eastern Norway at 1pm on Friday.

The man, a Norwegian citizen with a Central American family background, was arrested at his home in the town at 11pm on Wednesday by officers from the Telemark police service and the domestic police intelligence agency, PTS.

He faces preliminary charges of threatening state officials and incitement to terrorism.

The suspect’s lawyer, John Christian Elden, said his client admitted to being behind the video but did not believe it contained any threats.

“He was not previously known to police, and he doesn't think he has done anything illegal, even though he admits that he’s the one who posted the video,” said Elden.

A link to the video was posted in the early hours of Tuesday morning in a Facebook group with 1,600 members called ‘Demonstrasjon: Norske soldater ut av Afghanistan’ [Demonstration: Norwegian soldiers out of Afghanistan]. The group’s aim is to gather protesters for a rally outside the Oslo parliament on Friday.

The number of group members has dropped to below 1,300 since the video appeared there.

In the video, images of Crown Prince Haakon, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre are accompanied by a song in Arabic that contains the words: “Oh Allah, destroy them, and let it be painful”.

The clip, which is just over four minutes long, also features pictures of Norwegian soldiers and injured children. It ends with the sound of an explosion and a picture of a Norwegian vehicle in flames.

Sharia forbids the propagation of non-Islamic faiths, and Sudan's president Bashir had promised an intensified enforcement of Sharia alongside a campaign of cultural and linguistic Arabization. This is simply par for the course. "Sudan Threatens to Arrest Church Leaders," from Compass Direct News, January 18:

KHARTOUM, Sudan, January 18 (CDN) — Sudan’s Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowments has threatened to arrest church leaders if they carry out evangelistic activities and do not comply with an order for churches to provide their names and contact information, Christian sources said.

The warning in a Jan. 3 letter to church leaders of the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church (SPEC) arrived a few days after Sudan President Omar al-Bashir told cheering crowds on Jan. 3 that, following the secession of largely non-Islamic south Sudan last July, the country’s constitution will be more deeply entrenched in sharia (Islamic law).

“We will take legal procedures against pastors who are involved in preaching or evangelistic activities,” Hamid Yousif Adam, undersecretary of the Ministry of Guidance and Religious Endowment, wrote to the church leaders. “We have all legal rights to take them to court.”

Sources said the order was aimed at oppressing Christians amid growing hostilities toward Christianity.

“This is a critical situation faced by our church in Sudan,” said the Rev. Yousif Matar, secretary general of the SPEC.

Another church leader said the order was another in a series of measures by the government to control churches.

“They do not want pastors from South Sudan to carry on any church activities or mission work in Sudan,” he said.

Sudanese law prohibits missionaries from evangelizing, and converting from Islam to another religion is punishable by imprisonment or death in Sudan, though previously such laws were not strictly enforced. The government has never carried out a death sentence for apostasy, according to the U.S. State Department’s latest International Religious Freedom Report.

Christians are facing growing threats from both Muslim communities and Islamist government officials who have long wanted to rid Sudan of Christianity, Christian leaders told Compass. They said Christianity is now regarded as a foreign religion following the departure of 350,000 people, most of them Christians, to South Sudan following the July 9, 2011 secession.

Sudan’s Interim National Constitution (INC) holds up sharia as a source of legislation, and the laws and policies of the government favor Islam, according to the state department report. Christian leaders said they fear the government is tightening controls on churches in Sudan and planning to force compliance with Islamic law as part of a strategy to eliminate Christianity.

As he has several times in the past year, Al-Bashir on Jan. 3 once again warned that Sudan’s constitution will be more firmly entrenched in sharia.

“We are an Islamic nation with sharia as the basis of our constitution,” he told crowds in Kosti, south of Khartoum. “We will base our constitution on Islamic laws.”

His government subsequently issued the decree ordering church leaders to provide names and contact information of church leaders in Sudan, sources said. Christian leaders said the government is retaliating for churches’ perceived pro-West position.

Muslim scholars have urged heavy-handed measures against Christians to Al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity in Darfur.

And protected by the OIC and Arab League.

Recently two extraordinary articles have appeared at the Daily Kos -- extraordinary because, to the rage and dismay of many of that site's commenters and regular readers -- they depart from the standard Leftist line that Islamic jihad violence has nothing whatsoever to do with Islam, even if jihadists invoke Islamic texts and teachings to justify that violence, and that only greasy Islamophobes think otherwise.

The articles are "Loonwatch.com and Radical Islam" and "How and Why Loonwatch.com is a Terrorist Spin Control Network," both by Eric Allen Bell, who is so far from being a "right-wing Islamophobe" that he made a documentary about the "Islamophobia" supposedly being suffered by the proponents of a huge new mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee -- and is far enough to the Left to get space to write at the Daily Kos.

Yet Bell had the intellectual honesty to make this entirely true observation about the hate and defamation site that is the subject of his pieces: "But for LoonWatch.com any criticism of the Koran or of violent Jihad - even those criticisms that might have some legitimacy to them - even of radical Islam, are branded as Islamophobia and anyone who dares to raise questions about the nearly constant acts of Jihad going on increasingly around the world today is labeled a 'Loon' - thus the title of their blog, LoonWatch.com."

Since I am the subject of obsessive attention at Loonwatch, I am mentioned in the original article as well as in the followup, which Bell wrote after Islamic supremacists and their Leftist tools rounded upon him with predictable and ludicrous charges that he is a right-wing anti-Muslim bigot. I have a few disagreements with his view of me and of the jihad threat in general. He says I have some kind of religious agenda here, which anyone who reads this site will know is false. While I am a religious believer, Jihad Watch is not a religious apologetics site, but a non-sectarian site seeking to provide the context for a broad coalition of people of all perspectives -- atheists, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims of conscience -- who are threatened by Islamic jihad. He dismissively distances himself from my colleague Pamela Geller, ignoring her courageous and pioneering work in, among many other things, raising awareness about the human rights abuses in Islamic law, such as honor killing and the death penalty for apostasy. And he seems to be a bit credulous in accepting the smooth deceptions of Muslim Brotherhood-linked forces behind the building of many mega-mosques around the country, and about the stealth jihad in general.

Nonetheless, I was intrigued by Bell's capacity for independent thought, which is such a rare commodity these days, and willingness to acknowledge that there is a problem within Islam, which is even rarer, so I sent him a note, telling him: "I predict that you will not find anyone on the Left who will be willing to consider the 'correlation between some of the violent passages in the Koran and the Hadiths and many of the acts of brutality being carried out by radical Muslims in the world' [that's a quote from one of his Kos pieces]. However, I do not now and never have considered my work 'right-wing': if defending civilized values against institutionalized violence and religiously justified savagery is 'right-wing,' the Left has a great deal to answer for."

I got this email back from Eric Allen Bell, and he has kindly allowed me to publish it here:

Mr. Spencer -

Very good to hear from you. I made a short documentary called "Not Welcome" (http://www.NotWelcomeDocumentary.com) regarding the backlash against construction of a mosque in Murfreesboro, TN. What inspired me to make that film was the same feeling I have now about what is going on in the greater Islamic world. It was my conscience - a sense of justice.

That said, in the process I absorbed a whole lot of information from traditionally liberal sources. I have only recently come around to a hopefully more expansive point of view. When I finally read one of your books for the first time, I kept waiting for the part where you would prove yourself to be a "Loon" so that I could stop reading, but that never happened :)

I watched the documentary, "Islam: What the West Needs to Know" and wanted so badly to prove wrong what I had seen and heard - but I could not. This was not only humbling but it has caused me to really rethink and rethink the possibility that perhaps the truth is not politically correct.

And more is still being revealed. When I made "Not Welcome" most of the arguments against Islam I heard among the people of Murfreesboro, TN were religiously motivated. People would actually say to me that "America is a Christian nation" and they believed it said this in the Bible. The leaders of the movement were Christian Zionists. It was ugly, and yet their concerns were not entirely unfounded.

So I decided to keep the focus of the film on America and look for ways to convey a message about what I perceive to be a real enemy at home. At that time I did not perceive a real threat to America in the way of "creeping Sharia" and so I left that alone.

But as I watch with great disappointment the developments that have followed the so-called "Arab Spring" I am very, very concerned. Islamism is clearly on the rise, they have weapons, they are not rational and I am concerned.

It means a lot to me to hear from you directly like this. I apologize if in fact I have mis-characterized where you are coming from. In my own defense, the anti-mosque crowd in Murfreesboro, TN were a very nasty bunch - and they love JihadWatch ;) So, perhaps I wrongly judged you by some of them, and if that is the case I am very sorry. I will continue to read your blog and continue to research.

I admire your courage and conviction in being one of the only truth tellers out there about the dangers of Islam, your willingness to use your name and put your picture on your blog, your fearlessness in posting the Mohammed cartoon.

Please feel free to contact me anytime. My sense is that this war of words with Loonwatch (who now have several Islamic websites backing them up and putting my name out on the street) has only just begun.

Peace,

Eric Allen Bell

On a related note, Loonwatch's chief figure, "Danios," has just passed up no fewer than four separate opportunities to debate me -- three hosted at universities and one on ABN -- despite his years of bravado and false claims that I was ducking him. He claimed he wanted to debate the laughable thesis that Judaism and Christianity are just as violent as Islam -- as if armed terror groups worldwide were justifying killing people by quoting the words of Moses and Jesus, killing apostates from Judaism and Christianity, boasting about the imminent conquest and subjugation of non-Jewish and non-Christian lands, etc.

But although I was agreeable and he was full of false bluster about how I was avoiding debating him, ultimately he was too afraid to step up and actually agree to a debate. And I don't really mind, for while it would have been satisfying to defeat him, I doubt anyone would have been enlightened by a couple of hours of him calling me fat, ugly, stupid, and evil, which Reza Aslan-like spittle is essentially all that he and his site can muster in response to the truths I present. They can't actually refute them.

Rainn Wilson raises awareness about "Islamophobia"

The clownish boy and deceptive Islamic supremacist Reza Aslan is becoming more comic all the time: now he's giving a talk about "Islamophobia" in collaboration with an actual comedian, as opposed to the unintentional comedian that he himself is. Rainn Wilson, who plays Dwight on the situation comedy/mockumentary The Office, is appearing with Reza at an event about "forcing kids to grow up learning that a certain religion is evil or should be hated."

No, Wilson and Aslan don't mean Islamic leaders who preach on TV that "Jews are a cancer in the body of planet Earth...Getting rid of these Jews is a must" and "Praise be to you, our Lord. You have made our killing of the Jews an act of worship." Oh, no. They don't say anything about preachers like that at all. Wilson and Aslan instead will focus upon those who are resisting such preachers and others like them, and trying to defend the principles of free speech, freedom of conscience and equality of rights for all. For Reza Aslan, to defend such principles equals "forcing kids to grow up learning that a certain religion is evil or should be hated."

In reality, no one is saying that "a certain religion is evil or should be hated" except Muslim imams worldwide who say that regularly about Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism and more. And in fact, FBI statistics show that there is no "Islamophobia." In fact, many "anti-Muslim hate crimes" have been faked by Muslims, and Jews are eight times more likely than Muslims to be the victims of hate attacks.

That makes this "Islamophobia" lecture by Rainn Wilson and Reza Aslan the equivalent of Dwight's fire drill in the video above: raising awareness about something that doesn't exist in the first place, or insofar as it does, is self-inflicted.

"Education Under Fire with Reza Aslan and Rainn Wilson," from USC's Academic Culture Assembly, January 17:

A really cool event is coming up that ACA is sponsoring. Put on by ACA and the Office of Religious Life, Education Under Fire is a documentary that exposes many issues with forcing kids to grow up learning that a certain religion is evil or should be hated. A panel discussion will follow featuring Reza Aslan and Rainn Wilson.

UPDATE: Jihad Watch reader Gravenimage informs me that Rainn Wilson is a Baha'i, and that Education Under Fire is a documentary about the persecution of Baha'is in Iran, and the Iranian regime's practice of denying them an education.

So then why is Reza Aslan there? He does criticize the Iranian regime on occasion, but his membership on the Board of NIAC, which Iranian freedom fighters have identified as a front group for the regime, betrays his agenda. Note also the fact that ACA is advertising the showing of a film about the persecution of the Baha'is not by mentioning the Baha'is, but by speaking more generally about children learning that "a certain religion" is evil. That makes it extremely likely that Aslan is going to relate the persecution of the Baha'is to "Islamophobia," and make sure that truth-telling about that persecution doesn't lead to any criticism of Islam, despite the fact that Islamic intolerance is the chief reason why the Baha'is suffer in the Islamic Republic.

Will Reza prove me wrong in this, and instead focus only on the persecution of the Baha'is? I hope so. But his track record does not inspire confidence in that regard.

Ireland, of course, has been in financial trouble, and appears willing to chase after the "next big thing" at the expense of principles to see some income. In all likelihood, Sharia finance will eventually bubble and burst like every other wave of irrational exuberance in the financial sector, and economies that pursued it will be left to deal with the mess left behind. That includes an unpredictable range of potential consequences resulting from having given Sharia a foot in the door. "Ireland may be first EU state to sell Islamic bond," for Elffie Chew for the Irish Examiner, January 20:

IRELAND plans to become the first European nation to sell sovereign sukuk — Islam-approved financial certificates — as its equal tax treatment for Islamic-finance products attracts investors. The Government has agreements with more than 60 countries to avoid double taxation on Islamic transactions, Micheál Smith, the south-east Asia director of IDA Ireland, said.

Islamic finance assets around the world may rise about 16% to €1,240 billion this year, Raj Mohamad, managing director at Five Pillars, a consulting firm based in Singapore, told Bloomberg Television yesterday.

While plans to sell sukuk by Britain, France and Luxembourg have stalled, Mr Smith said Ireland will push ahead with a sale.

"Ireland will be going back to the bond market and a sukuk is an option when conditions are right. We also hope to form more working groups with Muslim countries such as Malaysia to build up a critical mass of expertise as the objective is for Dublin to become a centre of excellence for Islamic finance."

Ireland introduced tax legislation for products that comply with Islam’s ban on interest in 2010, Mr Smith, who is based in Singapore, said.

The Central Bank has a Shariah team overseeing its Islamic funds, which total about €390m under management.

The Irish Stock Exchange listed its first sukuk in 2005 and Ireland is a popular choice for sales because the nation offers a "relatively inexpensive" and timely listing process, he said.

The Government last sold bonds in September 2010, the year it had a deficit that was the highest as a percentage of gross domestic product in the developed world. The Department of Finance estimates the ratio dropped to 10.1% of GDP in 2011 from 31% the previous year.

CIMB Group Holdings, the world’s biggest sukuk arranger, said this week that it got approval to set up the first Shariah-compliant equity funds from Malaysia in Ireland.

Ireland’s bid to become an Islamic finance hub received a boost in October when Goldman Sachs Group got approval from the nation’s central bank to list its $2bn (€1.55bn) sukuk programme. The planned sale has attracted criticism among Islamic scholars, with some saying the proceeds may not be used according to Shariah law.

CIMB-Principal Islamic Asset Management, based in Kuala Lumpur, chose Ireland for its Islamic equity funds because there’s no double taxation and no withholding tax on interest payments, Jim McCaughan, chief executive of US-based venture partner Principal Global Investors, said on Monday.

An initial investment of $20m (€15.5m) will be put into three funds that will open for subscription next month, he said.

"We expect interest from Europe, Malaysia and more importantly the Persian Gulf and other Muslim countries," Mr McCaughan said. "People are getting wealthier and want to diversify their funds."

Global sales of sukuk, which pay asset returns instead of interest, total €4.7bn this year, compared with €500m in the same period in 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Offerings reached a record $36.3bn last year, surpassing the $31bn raised in 2007.

The difference between the average yield for sukuk and the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, narrowed two basis points to 299 basis points yesterday, according to the HSBC/Nasdaq Dubai US Dollar Sukuk Index.

The average yield has climbed nine basis points, or 0.09% point, this year to 4.08%.

Shariah-compliant bonds have dropped 0.1% in 2012, according to the HSBC/Nasdaq index, while debt in developing markets declined 0.2%, JPMorgan Chase & Co’s EMBI Global Composite Index shows.

The Bloomberg Malaysian Sukuk Ex-MYR Index of foreign currency Islamic debt sold by companies in Malaysia rose 0.5% this year to 104.919 yesterday. The gauge increased 5.9% in 2011.

Britain cancelled what would have been the first sukuk sale by a Western government last February, saying the debt didn’t offer value for money. Luxembourg ruled out a plan to sell Islamic bonds in 2011 because the government saw no need to raise additional funding. France has legislation in place to facilitate a sale and has yet to proceed with an issue.

Ireland has a Muslim population of 30,000, according to a Department of Finance document covering the nation’s Islamic industry issued in March 2010. Roman Catholics make up 87% of Ireland’s population.

The Islamic Cultural Centre for Ireland and the Immigrant Council of Ireland have all called for more Shariah-compliant initiatives, the report said.

"There’s been no objection to Islamic products being sold in Ireland," said Mr Smith, who is also a director in charge of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations at the IDA.

The European debt crisis provides an opportunity for Islamic finance to grow given it is rooted in ethics and religion, according to Nik Norzrul Thani, the chairman of Malaysian law firm Zaid Ibrahim & Co.

"What Ireland is doing is a step in the right direction," Nik Norzrul said in an interview in Kuala Lumpur.

"Ireland’s ambition to be a Shariah-compliant hub is a recognition that Islamic finance isn’t only for Muslims."

Now when will the United States follow suit? Probably not as long as Barack Obama is President; after all, these attacks are happening with increasing frequency, and yet after every one, U.S. officials affirm our commitment to keep training these jihadis-in-waiting.

"France deplores 'assassination' of troops as it threatens to pull out of Afghanistan," by Ben Farmer and Henry Samuel in the Telegraph, January 20 (thanks to all who sent this in):

France has suspended all operations with the Afghan army and threatened to withdraw its forces early from the country after an Afghan soldier shot dead four French troops.

Alain Juppé, France's foreign minister, said the unarmed soldiers had been victims of an "assassination," and President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered an immediate review of security for troops training Afghan soldiers.

The killings during a training exercise at the Gwan military base in Kapisa province followed a similar attack last month when an Afghan soldier shot and killed two members of the French Foreign Legion.

Friday's attack wounded a further 15 and brought the total French death toll in the Afghan campaign to 82. The Afghan attacker was captured alive.

Scores of Nato troops have been shot dead in recent years by their Afghan partners raising fears of widespread Taliban infiltration and underlining the tense relations on the ground between the allies.

Gérard Longuet, defence minister, and the army's chief of staff are due in Afghanistan to investigate recruitment policy in the Afghan army, Mr Sarkozy said.

"If we are not satisfied with the level of security, we will draw the consequences," he said. "I will go so far as to order an early withdrawal of our troops. We are there as friends of the Afghan people. We cannot accept that an Afghan soldier fires on French troops."...

In Eurabia, you see, they expect they can get a Sharia-compliant loan. Where, pray tell, are the wealthy Arab states? The West, of course, will give in to blackmail about the threat of instability without aid, while Egypt's brethren in the region could apparently care less. "IMF loans are usury, says Salafi party," by Hamdi Dabash for Al Masri Al Youm, January 19:

The Salafi Nour Party has criticized the government for plans to borrow from international financial institutions rather than implementing an austerity plan.

“We are against usurious deals,” said party spokesperson Mohamed Nour. “Before borrowing, we should know where we stand financially,” he added, pointing out that there are some LE1 trillion in the private funds of government institutions, in addition to the money that was siphoned abroad by the former regime.

Nour also said that if Egypt borrows the US$3.2 billion loan that it is negotiating with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the interim government of Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzouri will have to stay on until the budget deficit recovers, which means it would burden the next government with the interest of the loan.

“Why borrow if we have money?” Nour wondered. “And if we don’t have it, where did it go?”

“European banks lend in accordance with the Islamic Sharia,” Nour claimed. “Why don’t we borrow from them?”

Will the Islamophobia never end?

"Muslims in Egypt Burn Christian Homes and Shops, Attack Church," by Mary Abdelmassih for AINA, January 20 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

(AINA) -- A Muslim mob attacked Copts today in the Upper Egyptian village of Rahmaniya-Kebly, Nag Hammadi, Qena province, destroying and torching their homes, straw huts and shops, while chanting Allahu Akbar. No one was reported killed or injured (video). According to reports, security forces were present but did not intervene and the fire brigade arrived 90 minutes late.

An eye-witness said that a straw hut belonging to a Copt was torched to clear the area for a mosque. There are more than 300 mosques in the village and one church.

According to Coptic residents, the reason behind the violence was the parliamentary elections. The Salafists wanted to prevent Copts, who number more than 50% of the inhabitants (20,000), from voting because they intended to vote for two moderate Muslims and not the Salafi candidates. "No Copt from Rahmaniya-Kebly was able to vote today, so the Salafists will win the elections," said a witness. Copts were forcefully prevented from voting.

US-based WAY TV, which covered live today's Rahmaniya attacks, called commander Osama, head of security at Rahmaniya, who said "everything was OK" -- despite live pictures on TV of the burning homes. Joseph Nasralla of WAY TV spoke to security and made them aware that the videos of the fires were being broadcast in the U.S. and Middle East, which caused the immediate dispatch of security vehicles. By late evening the violence had stopped.

Joseph Nasralla is the courageous human rights activist who has spoken at our AFDI/SIOA Freedom Rallies at Ground Zero on September 11, 2010 and September 11, 2011.

In another incident today, a large number of Salafis and members of the Muslim Brotherhood entered the Abu Makka church, in Bahteem, Shubra-el-Khayma, Qaliubia province, and informed the congregation that the church has no licence and no one should pray in it. One Muslim said the 1300 square meter church would be suitable for a mosque and a hospital....

Christians are identified with the relatively secular Alawite Assad regime; if it falls to an Islamic supremacist regime, life for the Christian community in Syria will get very hard. Iran wants to keep its client regime in place, but now the Saudis are agitating for the U.S. to aid the protesters, as this will lead to a Sunni Islamic supremacist regime and keep the Shi'ites from gaining too much power in the region. So we will soon see whether Barack Obama is more interested in kowtowing to the Saudis rather than the Iranians, but so far, in holding back from supporting the Syrian protesters, he has been firmly in the mullahs' camp.

"Christians in Syria targeted in series of kidnappings and killings; 100 dead," from Barnabas Aid via the Pakistan Christian Post, January 19:

Damascus: January 19, 2012. (Barnabas Aid) The Christian community in Syria has been hit by a series of kidnappings and brutal murders; 100 Christians have now been killed since the anti-government unrest began.

A reliable source in the country, who cannot be identified for their own safety, told Barnabas Aid that children were being especially targeted by the kidnappers, who, if they do not receive the ransom demanded, kill the victim.

And the source provided detailed information ¨some of which cannot be made public for security reasons¨ about incidents that have taken place since Christmas. Two Christian men, one aged 28, the other a 37-year-old father with a pregnant wife, were kidnapped by the rebels in separate incidents and later found dead; the first was found hanged with numerous injuries, the second was cut into pieces and thrown in a river. Four more have been abducted, and their captors are threatening to kill them too.

Two Christians were killed on January 15 as they waited for bread at a bakery. Another Christian, aged 40 with two young children, was shot dead by three armed attackers while he was driving a vehicle.

These latest reports are reminiscent of the anti-Christian attacks that have become commonplace in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion, and heighten concerns about the future for Christians in Syria as the anti-government protests there continue....

A Western-backed military campaign in alliance with the Syrian rebels against the Assad regime is looking increasingly likely, and this could be devastating for the Church in Syria. Christians in Syria have enjoyed a considerable measure of freedom and protection under President Assad; if he falls, there could be a repeat of the tragic near-extermination of the Church in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.

On January 6, 2012, the Council of Evangelical Churches in Baghdad was dissolved, signaling another nail in the coffin for Christianity in Iraq. The once sizeable Christian minority there has been reduced to no more than a few hundred thousand today....

"I have now been informed by intelligence sources in Maharashtra and Rajasthan that paid assassins from the Mumbai underworld may be on their way to Jaipur to eliminate me." Although he remains largely clueless about the jihad threat, Salman Rushdie has for decades now been the most visible symbol of the violent Islamic intolerance for free speech regarding Islam. Islamic supremacists have never forgiven him for his (largely unreadable) novel, and they never will.

"Rushdie cancels India visit after death threat warning," by Henry Foy for Reuters, January 20 (thanks to Java):

(Reuters) - Salman Rushdie will not attend a literature festival in India after authorities warned the controversial author he was a potential target of assassins at the event, following threats of protests from Muslim groups at his planned appearance.

Opposition from some Indian Muslim groups erupted this month after Rushdie was invited to attend Asia's largest literature festival, and senior Muslim leaders called on the government to prevent the 65-year-old author from entering the country.

"I have now been informed by intelligence sources in Maharashtra and Rajasthan that paid assassins from the Mumbai underworld may be on their way to Jaipur to eliminate me," Rushdie said in a statement read out by the festival producer.

"While I have some doubts as to the accuracy of this intelligence, it would be irresponsible of me to come to the festival in such circumstances."

The British-Indian author, whose 1988 novel the Satantic [sic] Verses is banned in India, was due to speak on the first day of the five-day Jaipur Literature Festival but organisers removed his name from the schedule last week.

Rushdie would instead participate via a video-link, festival director William Dalrymple told Reuters on Friday....

The festival's directors had previously asserted that the invitation to Rushdie still stood after rescheduling his planned appearance after Muslim leaders in Jaipur threatened to protest.

"The Muslims of Jaipur were planning a protest against Rushdie. Since he is not coming, we have cancelled it," Abdul Haq Shamshi, member of the Jaipur Jama Masjid committee told Reuters.

"If he is deceiving us, and if he comes, we will protest at a minute's notice," he said, adding that thousands of protesters would take to the streets if the author arrived in the city....

The Center for American Progress is the extraordinarily well-funded hard-Left organization that published a highly deceptive and misleading report on the Muslim Brotherhood neologism "Islamophobia" last year. It is no surprise that it would turn out to be antisemitic as well, given its energetic water-carrying for Islamic supremacists and jihadists.

And now its antisemitism has gotten to be too much even for the notoriously anti-Israel Obama White House.

An update on this story. "White House troubled by ‘anti-Semitic think tank,'" by Benjamin Weinthal for the Jerusalem Post, January 20 (thanks to Wimpy):

BERLIN – The media firestorm unleashed by allegedly anti- Semitic bloggers at a prominent think tank affiliated with the US Democratic Party resulted Thursday in a White House Jewish affairs official terming the situation at the Center for American Progress to be “troubling.”

According to a Washington Post online article on Thursday, Jarrod Bernstein, the new White House liaison with the Jewish community, told Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, that what was unfolding at CAP was “troubling,” and, “that [the attitude toward Israel at the think tank] is not this administration.”

The Washington Post wrote that the Cooper met last week with Bernstein to convey the Wiesenthal Center’s worries about CAP’s hostility toward Israel and American supporters of the Jewish state.

CAP is a Washington-based policy organization that serves as a source of Middle East ideas for President Barack Obama and the party.

Zaid Jilani had blogged for the Center for American Progress’s ThinkProgress website; he used Twitter to call US supporters of the Jewish state “Israel Firsters” and compared Israel to the former apartheid regime in South Africa.

A CAP employee who said her name was Amanda told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday that Jilani was no longer employed by ThinkProgress.

Jilani’s biography and photo no longer appear on the ThinkProgress website “About” section. His Twitter feed no longer identifies him as a reporter for ThinkProgress. His last CAP blog posting was on January 12.

E-mail queries and telephone calls to senior CAP representatives, including Faiz Shakir, editor-in-chief of ThinkProgress, were not returned.

Cowards.

The Jerusalem Post exclusively obtained an e-mail in January in which Shakir described Jilani’s words charging supporters of Israel with dual-loyalty as “terrible anti-Semitic language.”

As a result of the alleged Judeophobia at CAP, the Jerusalem Post has learned from a Democratic Party source that CAP has introduced a new social media policy to monitor and prevent prejudicial writings. CAP declined to confirm the existence of the new policy.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee have all termed the anti-Israeli rhetoric of Jilani and fellow CAP writers Eli Clifton, Ali Gharib, Matt Duss and Ben Armbruster to be infected with Jew-hatred and discriminatory policy positions toward Israel.

Duss, CAP’s Middle East Progress director, wrote on ThinkProgress that “the entire Israeli occupation” of the Gaza Strip is “a moral abomination” comparable to the former Jim Crow South in the US.

Armbruster, who has attacked Jewish critics for pointing out alleged anti-Israel and anti-Semitic tirades from CAP writers, wrote “no comment” in an e-mail response to a query last week.

The think tank has been engulfed in the affair since December, electrifying the blogosphere and print and online publications in the US and Israel...

According to her article, shortly after a Jewish NGO slammed CAP for trafficking in hatred of Israel on its website in December, “Six days later, President Obama met for coffee with the man who oversaw the offending content — Faiz Shakir, the site’s editor-inchief.”...

"He is suspected of having blasphemed against Islam." Islamic Tolerance Alert from modern, moderate Indonesia: "Indonesian atheist faces jail after Facebook post," from AFP, January 20 (thanks to Kenneth):

PADANG, Indonesia — An Indonesian civil servant who declared himself an atheist on Facebook was arrested and is now facing jail for blasphemy after being attacked by an angry mob, police said Friday.

Alexander An, 30, who wrote "God doesn't exist" on his Facebook page, was beaten by a mob of dozens on Wednesday in his hometown in Pulau Punjung, West Sumatra province.

"He is suspected of having blasphemed against Islam," local police chief Chairul Aziz told AFP.

"The man told police investigators that if God really exists and has absolute power, why didn't he prevent bad things from happening in this world."

An said on his Facebook page that he was brought up as a Muslim, like the vast majority in Indonesia, where blasphemy is a punishable crime carrying a maximum five-year prison term.

Dozens of locals stormed into his office after a heated debate with them on Facebook over religion, police said.

An was also an administrator of a Facebook group promoting atheism with 1,243 followers. His postings no longer appeared online following his arrest.

That's the handy thing about conspiracy paranoia: it doesn't have to make sense. Never mind multiple, corroborating sources of the images. The incident occurs around 30 seconds into the video. "Egypt’s Military Ruler Told Carter Video of Soldiers Stomping on Woman Was Fake," by Robert Mackey for the New York Times, January 19:

During a conversation with former President Jimmy Carter last week, Egypt’s current head of state, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, claimed that widely circulated video images of soldiers beating, stripping and kicking a female protester on the pavement of Tahrir Square last month were entirely fake.

The abuse of the woman, whose black cloak was pulled back to reveal her blue bra as soldiers used force to disperse protesters on Dec. 17, was captured in raw video that was broadcast by a private Egyptian television channel.

Within hours, more video of the attack on the woman was posted online by activists, who edited the images to highlight the abuse of the woman.

A Reuters photograph of one soldier stomping on the woman’s chest, which was printed on the front page on an Egyptian newspaper, has become an icon of the struggle for an end to military rule in Egypt. Outraged by the incident, thousands of Egyptian women took to the streets of Cairo three days later, waving images of the attack on the woman.

As the Moroccan-American journalist Issandr El Amrani points out on his blog, The Arabist, Mr. Carter described the general’s apparently unsubstantiated claim in a report on his recent trip to Egypt published online this week.

In a section of his report detailing “a thorough discussion” with Field Marshal Tantawi, the head of Egypt’s ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, Mr. Carter wrote:

Since the overthrow of King Farouk in 1953, Egypt has been governed by military leaders, who have accumulated and maintained full political and military power and substantial control over economic and commercial affairs. Despite the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak, the military has retained an overwhelming portion of its historic authority. Only pressure from the revolutionary forces on the streets has resulted in grudging concessions.

I was received with a friendly welcome as I congratulated the military leaders for what seemed to be a successful election, and then asked a number of questions. It seemed that the SCAF had full confidence that there would be accommodation to their demands by the Muslim Brotherhood and their coalition partners as the new government is formed. Instead of the reported 12,000 mostly political prisoners being held for trials in military courts, the Field Marshal stated that there were no more than 3,000, all of whom were guilty of criminal acts and being tried in civilian courts. He stated that the widely promulgated videos showing military attacks on demonstrators and a woman “with the blue brassiere” were all falsified. He said the soldiers were actually helping the woman re-clothe herself with what was provocative attire.....

Since Atris Hussein almost certainly believes that "there is not a catastrophe in the world that is not the handiwork of the Jews," this paranoid lunacy probably seems perfectly reasonable to him.

"Swede arrested in Thai terror probe claims he was set up by Mossad," from Fox News, January 19 (thanks to Kenneth):

BANGKOK -- A Swedish man of Lebanese descent accused of planning a terror attack in Bangkok says he is innocent and claims Israeli intelligence service Mossad set him up.

Atris Hussein, 47, who was charged Monday with violating a weapons control law after a large amount of fertilizer and ammonium nitrate -- which can be used to make a bomb -- was found in a property he rented, told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet he was, "100 percent innocent."

"A lot of the material police found in my storage facility had been placed there, most likely by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad," Hussein told the newspaper from Bangkok Remand Prison, where he is being held.

The father of four, who worked as a hairdresser in Gothenburg for 10 years before moving back to his native Lebanon, claims he was only involved in regular business activities involving the import and export of ice packs, paper and fans.

"The [ice packs] contain ammonia," Hussein said. "We've never traded in fertilizer. It must have been placed in our storage facility by someone, probably Mossad."

However, Thai police believe Hussein has links to the Iranian-backed, Lebanon-based militant group Hizbollah. They claim Hussein told officers that he and another man arrived in Thailand late last year with plans to stage an attack in Bangkok.

He allegedly told police that the bomb plot was called off when authorities caught wind of it.

Hussein, who used to run a business selling miniature trees, denies all the allegations and believes he was singled out because he is a Shiite Muslim and because of his political beliefs.

"I voted for the Social Democrats when I lived in Sweden," he said. "That may have made me look suspicious in the eyes of Mossad. They had an eye on me."

On PJ Media (via RaymondIbrahim.com), I document that all too familiar pattern: appease Muslims by compromising Christmas in the West, even as Christmas under Islam is a time for increased Christian persecution:

Earlier I discussed how mosques, some of which breed radicalization and serve as terrorist bases, flourish in America, while churches are increasingly targeted and destroyed in the Muslim world, especially the Middle East, the cradle of Christianity.

This pattern—religious appeasement of Muslim minorities in the West, religious hostility for Christian minorities under Islam—continues and manifests itself in other ways.

Consider Christmas. The same appeasement that allows a "victory mosque" to be erected near Ground Zero, where jihadists killed some 3,000 Americans, compromises one of Christianity's most important events.

For instance, a "Montreal suburb has decided to remove a nativity scene and menorah from town hall rather than acquiesce to demands from a Muslim group to erect Islamic religious symbols." Contrast this with Iran, where many churches were "ordered to cancel Christmas and New Year's celebrations as a show of their compliance and support" for "the two month-long mourning activities of the Shia' Moslems," a reference to the bloody flagellations and self mutilations Shias perform in memory of Imam Hussein during Ashura.

Likewise, the University of London held Christmas service featuring readings from the Quran—Islam's holy book that unequivocally condemns the Incarnation, which is precisely what Christmas celebrates. Meanwhile, Islam's clerics in the West proclaimed things like "saying Merry Christmas is worse than fornication or killing someone," since doing so is to "approve of the biggest crime ever committed by humanity": the belief that God became man on Christmas. As the cleric makes clear, these are not his words, but rather the words of Islam's most authoritative clerics.

Nor are these just words. Around the Muslim world, Christmas time for Christians is a time of threats, harassment, and fear. One can point to any number of Muslim attacks on Christians to prove this—whether churches attacked, burned, or forced into closure; whether Muslim converts to Christianity beat, killed, or imprisoned; whether Christians abused on "blasphemy" charges; or whether just sheer violence and killings of "infidel" Christians. (See "Muslim Persecution of Christians" for a list of December's abuses alone).

More telling, however, are the attacks that specifically targeted or revolved around Christmas...

Hazem Shuman quotes the genocidal hadith about how Muslims can hasten the coming of Judgment Day by killing Jews. He invokes Muhammad's massacre of Jews at the Khaybar oasis in Arabia. These things indicate that his genocidal hatred of the Jews is based on the texts and teachings of Islam, and must be addressed as such. Addressing this genocidal Jew-hatred with charges of "Islamophobia" against those who point out Hazen Shuman's evil words won't do the trick.

"Egyptian Cleric Hazem Shuman: These Jews Are a Cancer in the Body of Planet Earth, Getting Rid of Them Is a Must," from MEMRI, September 9, 2011 (this is the date the clip ran on Egyptian TV; MEMRI just posted it), with thanks to Wimpy:

Following are excerpts from an address by Egyptian cleric Hazem Shuman, which aired on Al-Rahma TV on September 9, 2011.

Hazem Shuman: What was our response when six Egyptians were killed by Jews on the border? Was the Jewish ambassador summoned? No. Was he expelled from Egypt? No. Was the Egyptian ambassador recalled from Israel? No. So what was the response? Brothers, this is about the honor of the people. I am talking to the Jews in the name of 85 million Egyptians, who hate them from the bottom of their hearts.

[...]

I address them on behalf of 85 million Egyptians, whose hearts beat with hatred for the Jews, and with the knowledge of what the Jews did to us and of how Allah warned us about them...

I tell them that the battle is bound to come, Allah be praised. The Prophet Muhammad, whose words are divinely inspired, said: "Judgment Day will come when the Muslims fight the Jews." That means that the Muslims will be the ones who engage [in fighting]. It's not just any battle. He said: "The Muslims will fight the Jews, and the stones and the trees will say: Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him." Even the stones and the trees hate them. The battle is bound to come.

[...]

Jews will be Jews, guys. The Jews of today are the Jews of Khaybar, who tried to poison the Prophet Muhammad. They are the Jews of Banu Nadhir, who tried to kill the Prophet Muhammad. They are the Jews of Banu Qaynuqa', who tried to lift up a Muslim woman's dress. Jews will be Jews. We know what you are like, you Jews, and we know your hatred toward the religion of Allah, toward the servants of Allah, and toward the Muslims worldwide.

Qur'an 5:82 tells him that the Jews are the Muslims' worst enemies.

You will be vanquished, Allah willing, but it will not be us who will vanquish you. It will be Allah. Just like He used wind to vanquish you in the War of the Ahzab, and like He used fear to vanquish you in the Battle of Khaybar, Allah will vanquish you again.

It wasn't a "battle," it was a massacre. The Jewish farmers were going out to tend their fields when Muhammad and the Muslims showed up and started killing them.

Today, 92% of the world's film industry is in your hands, 90% of the world's famous actors are Jews, and 90% of the giant news networks, like CNN, are in Jewish hands.

[...]

Oh nation of Muhammad, Allah says to you: If you fear war with the Jews, brace yourselves for war with Allah. It is either a war with the Jews or a war with Allah. Allah says that the entire nation could be replaced if it is not prepared to sacrifice its blood for the sake of Palestine.

[...]

My message to all the Jews is that the battle is bound to come and you will be vanquished. Allah has promised that you will be vanquished and that we will prevail. I tell you that our Prophet Muhammad, whose every word we believe and whose light we follow - the moment he signed the Hudaybiyya Treaty with Mecca, the first thing he did after the battle with the Quraysh tribe, only 20 days after signing the Hudaybiyya Treaty, he took his army and attacked Khaybar.

Why, oh Messenger of Allah? Because these Jews are a cancer. These Jews are a catastrophe. There is not a catastrophe in the world that is not the handiwork of the Jews. These Jews are a cancer in the body of planet Earth, and if permitted, it will spread and infect the entire body. Getting rid of these Jews is a must.

...on the list of the 100 most popular conservative blogs, that is. The list is at deathby1000papercuts (DBKP), and is based on Alexa rankings (thanks to Joe).

"... the plot involved up to 16 Islamist officers, both active and retired, raising fears about the prevalence of hardliners in the upper ranks of the 140,000-strong military."

"Islamist coup plot foiled in Bangladesh, says army," by Shafiq Alam for Agence France-Presse, January 19:

The Bangladesh army said Thursday it had foiled a plot last month by some "religiously fanatic" Islamist officers to overthrow the elected government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

"We have unearthed a heinous conspiracy to overthrow the democratic government through the army," army spokesman Brigadier General Masud Razzaq said in a written statement.

"The attempt has been thwarted with the whole-hearted efforts of army soldiers," the statement said, adding that the plot had been fomented by Bangladeshi expatriates in touch with "religiously fanatic army officers".

Hasina's government, which came to power in early 2009, made changes in June last year to bolster the secular character of the Bangladesh constitution, although Islam was retained as the state religion.

The move sparked a series of angry protests by Islamic activists in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, one of the world's poorest countries with a long history of coups and counter-coups.

Razzaq told local media that the plot involved up to 16 Islamist officers, both active and retired, raising fears about the prevalence of hardliners in the upper ranks of the 140,000-strong military.

Two retired officers including a colonel have been arrested and will be presented before a court of inquiry set up on December 28, while an alleged "co-planner" called Major Syed Ziaul Haq, a serving officer, is on the run.

Syed Ashraful Islam, the spokesman of the ruling Awami League party and an influential minister, said anyone found guilty would be handed "exemplary" punishment.

"There is no room for conspiracy in the army. Those who are involved in such conspiracy will be given exemplary punishment," he told reporters.

Giving details about the alleged plot, Razzaq said that Ziaul had circulated emails to different serving officers detailing a plan to overthrow the government on January 9-10.

The outlawed Islamist group Hizbut Tahrir, banned in Bangladesh in 2009 after it was linked to a car bomb on a politician, was accused of helping to circulate the messages.....

Islamic jihadists are clamoring for a new genocide of the Jews, and the world's guardians of human rights are wringing their hands over "Islamophobia."

"Déjà Jew," by Aaron D. Rubinger in the Jerusalem Post, January 18 (thanks to Rosanne):

...80 years ago, our people were being verbally abused and brutally assaulted in public places. And now it seems to be happening all over again. Viviane Teitelbaum, a minister in the Brussels Regional Parliament, related an incident that occurred this past November involving a 13-year old Jewish girl in Brussels. The girl was brutally assaulted at her school, resulting in her hospitalization for multiple injuries including a concussion. The attackers were not members of the Third Reich’s SS, but a group of female Muslim students at the same school. The ringleader pronounced her to be a “filthy Jew!” Apparently, in the weeks prior to the attack, the girl’s father had approached the authorities and the school with complaints that there had been threats made by fellow classmates against his daughter. Upon hearing that his concerns were simply brushed aside, I immediately thought of Yogi Berra’s famous gaff: “This is like déjà vu all over again!”

2 generations ago, some Jews sought to protect themselves by masquerading as Aryans. In an interview conducted in November, a Parisian mother related how the fear of being physically attacked by Muslim extremist thugs means that it is “not rare at all today” for French Jewish students to attempt to pass themselves off as Muslim - with some even going as far as to fast on Ramadan. One case in point was a Jewish girl of North African descent who for years was successful in this deception, until finally she was “exposed” when Muslim girls caught her eating matzah in the bathroom during Pesah. After her classmates beat her viciously, they invited their male Muslim friends to their school to participate in a gang rape....

Rick Perry is expected to drop out of the presidential race in less than a half-hour's time, at 8AM (11AM EST).

Grover Norquist may be more responsible than anyone else for Muslim Brotherhood access to the highest levels of power in the U.S. While it is hard for any Republican candidate to avoid Norquist altogether, so all-pervasive is his influence and power, Norquist is clearly much closer to Perry than to other candidates. Perry and Grover Norquist held a joint press conference in March 2011. Perry appeared at a fundraiser for Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform group. More: Norquist actively campaigned for Perry back in 2009. More still: Perry was investigated by the Texas Ethics Commission in 2004 for allegations that he illegally used campaign money to finance a trip to the Bahamas. In the course of this investigation, it came to light that along on the Bahamas trip at his own expense was Grover Norquist. Perry and Norquist are clearly not just casual acquaintances. Which other candidates have fundraised for Norquist? Which have vacationed with him?

Then there was the whole business of the Perry/Aga Khan curriculum on Islam for Texas schools, a complete whitewash of Islam and jihad that was initiated and officially sanctioned by Perry himself. The Perry campaign obviously realized how damaging the curriculum could have been to their man's chances, and so deleted it not only from the web, but also from the Google cache. All the while, a creepy cadre of Perrybots on the web energetically spread misinformation and disinformation about the curriculum.

I am so glad to see him go.

The fig leaf of moderation the Muslim Brotherhood has put on drifts lazily and embarrassingly to the ground. They have tried to put on a friendly face, and many in the West have been taken in by the ruse, but the Ikhwan simply cannot sweep eight decades of supremacist and antisemitic rhetoric under the rug and expect no one will find it. In fact, it doesn't seem like they are trying all that hard to do so. "'Muslim Brotherhood site rife with anti-Semitism'," by Oren Kessler for the Jerusalem Post, January 19:

The Arabic website of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is rife with anti- Semitic and anti-Israel content, according to a recent report by a US-based media monitoring group.

The report found that the Islamist group’s website, Ikhwanonline.com, regularly features articles denying the Holocaust and warning Muslims against the covetous and exploitative nature of the “Jewish character.” Other articles extol jihad and martyrdom, condemn Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel and denounce negotiations as means for regaining lands lost by Islam.

The study was published last week by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a non-profit group that monitors and translates Arabic and Farsi media. Based in Washington, it was founded in 1998 by Yigal Carmon, an Israeli former intelligence official, adviser and diplomat.

The Brotherhood has emerged as the biggest winner from the overthrow of former president Hosni Mubarak, taking some 45 percent of votes in recent elections for the lower house of parliament. In the 11 months since Mubarak’s ouster, however, the Brotherhood has issued contradictory signals over its willingness to maintain the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty.

Early this month Dr. Rashad Bayoumi, its deputy leader, told Arabic media the group would never recognize the Jewish state.

“This is not an option, whatever the circumstances, we do not recognize Israel at all. It’s an occupying criminal enemy.”

A week later, Essam Al-Arian, deputy leader of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), assured The New York Times the party would in fact honor the agreement.

MEMRI’s latest report, however, gives no indication the Brotherhood has changed the virulently anti- Semitic, anti-Western rhetoric that has characterized the movement for more than eight decades.

One common motif on the Brotherhood’s site is “Jewish character” and its supposed history of sowing evil in the world.

In May 2010, following Israel’s Gaza flotilla raid, a writer named Mahmoud Abd Al-Rahman wrote on the website, “For ages, human society has faced the problem of the Zionist Jewish character. All nations and cultures are in agreement over the nature of the disease intrinsic in the Zionist character... namely sanctification of money, sex, robbery, interest and treachery.”

“We saw this in pharaonic Egypt, and in the Canaanite, Amalekite, Babylonian, Persian and Roman [eras],” he wrote. “During the pharaonic era, it was written on the tomb of [the pharaoh] Marnephtah, ‘The Egyptians have annihilated the Zionists.’”

Did the Ikhwan's account say "Zionists," or "Jews?"

Since Mubarak’s exit the Brotherhood has sought to to position itself to Western media as a moderate, pragmatic movement dedicated to promoting a prosperous, tolerant Egypt. But the last 11 months have seen no appreciable change in tone when addressing their constituents in their native language.

That is key. Many policymakers can't seem to stomach the possibility that they are being lied to.

There is much, much more. Read it all.

Needless to say, this kind of conspiracy paranoia and nuclear weapons do not go together very well. "HIV created by West to enfeeble third world, claims Mahmoud Ahmadinejad," by Ahmad Vahdat for the Telegraph, January 18:

The radical Iranian leader added to his reputation for outlandish statements with the clam that African states were being false [sic] told that immoral behaviour was the source of epidemics.

His language seems like it would downplay the spread of the virus through heterosexual acts, which are the main vehicle for the spread of the HIV virus in Africa:

"Today there is this outstanding question that why so many killer viruses, including the HIV virus, have spread all over the world. Many so-called experts say the spread has come as a result of vices and immoralities but we see that in the centre of the places that these viruses have emerged these immoral acts have not been reported," he said. "Then how is it that at the same time in some African countries they find these viruses?

Sure. Nobody's spreading the virus through sexual activity of any kind. Just like he said there are no gay people in Iran. Is he saying there aren't any in Africa, either?

"It is obvious that the African countries must be plundered of their wealth and resources. The major powers and despots are behind the development of these diseases so they could then sell their drugs and medical equipment to the poor countries".

Iran¹s Health Minister Fatemeh Vahid Dastjerdi has also said that Iran¹s profit margin from its oil production is only five percent of its total sale price, whereas pharmaceutical firms¹ profits is 20 percent for each drug they sell.

President Ahmadinejad has previously said that Israel in its present form should be wiped off the face of the map and suggested that the September 11 attacks on the US were planned from within.

"There's still a tendency to see these things in Sunni-Shia terms. But the Middle East is going to have to overcome that." - Condoleezza Rice, January 2007.

Yes, somehow, there's still a tendency to see the Sunni-Shi'ite conflict as a conflict between Sunnis and Shi'ites. We have seen outbreaks of persecution of Shi'ites in Pakistan, and this case only further drives home the point that while the conflict originated in the Middle East, it is a religious conflict that transcends geography. Hence the difficulty over the past millennium or so in "overcoming that."

Perhaps they could call it progress if both parties just accused each other of Islamophobia, put out some petulant press releases, and sued one another. "East Java: a growing tension between Sunni and Shiite, fears of a conflict," by Mathias Hariyadi for Asia News, January 19:

Jakarta (AsiaNews) - In the province of East Java there is a growing tension between the majority Sunni and minority Shiite Muslims. Human rights and interfaith dialogue activists have launched appeals for calm and call the police to ensure safety. However, a local fringe of the Nadhlatul Ulama (NU) - the most important moderate Muslim movement in Indonesia – is also invoking the intervention of the police to arrest the leader of the Shiite communities on the island of Madura. They claim he must be "kicked out" from the area, because he foments sectarian divisions and promotes a distorted view of Islam.

Since January 17 tension between Sunnis and Shiites in the island of Madura has been growing, which could lead to a "conflict" open. The Nu leader of the province of East Java (Pwnu Jatim) Kiai Hajj Mutawakil Alallah appeals to the police to "arrest" Kiai Hajj Tajul muluk, religious leader of the Shiite community in Nangkernang, in the sub-district Ombeg, Sampang regency, Madura. Police, they say, should not only target those who continue – since the end of 2011 - to attack the Shiite community of Madura, but also those who promote interfaith discord and, in particular, Tajul muluk whose teaching is "illegal" as defined by the same Nu and members of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI).

Meanwhile, several groups committed to defending human rights activists and interfaith dialogue, unlike the Sunni leader Kiai Hajj Mutawakil Alallah, ask the police to protect the security of Shiite leader Tajul muluk and restore peace within the Islamic community. Aan Anshori, Nu a young scholar of East Java, does not hide their concerns.

Indonesia, he explains to AsiaNews, shows more flaws in the protection of religious freedom and the province of East Java is revealed as the "most violent" territories of the archipelago, as evidenced by the wave of violence against the Ahmadis. He concludes: since the death of former president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid, the "spirit of tolerance is in steep decline."

It will lead to democracy, freedom and stability in the region, he says.

Oh, really? And where exactly has the rule of Islamic law -- Sharia, not secular rule such as has prevailed in Turkey since the 1920s, or the Arab nationalist mixture of Western secular law and some Islamic law that has prevailed in many Muslim Arab countries for the last half-century or so, up until the "Arab Spring" -- ever led to democracy? Ever? Again, secular Turkey was established in the context of a rejection of political Islam, not an embrace of it.

And where has Sharia ever led to freedom for women or non-Muslims? Ever? And stability? Where have Sharia states ever been centers of regional stability?

Jimmy Carter continues to aid and abet the forces of oppression. "Carter asks U.S. to support Islamic rule in Egypt," from Aswat Masriya, January 19 (thanks to Twostellas):

Former American President, Jimmy Carter, has called out for the U.S. to support Islamic rule in Egypt, pointing out that it will lead to democracy, freedom and stability in the region.

Carter also told the CNN that Egypt is currently embracing freedom, explaining that it finally now has a real chance to elect a democratic government that protects human rights.

Asking for Americans’ support, the Former President hopes that the U.S. will not reject the Egyptian people’s choice like they did after the Palestinian elections - where Hamas was isolated after their winning.

“We must not repeat that grave mistake with Egypt. I think we could have established peace in the region if we had accepted and supported the people’s choice in Palestine. That is the lesson we have learnt... and Egypt’s choice should be given a chance,” Carter said.

The devil cannot endure to be mocked, and predictably enough, Islamic supremacists are waxing indignant about this innocuous commercial.

You can click CC for captions. In this clip, some Israeli TV stars travel to Iran, thinly disguised as Muslim women, in order to find the fan they've heard they have there. While there, they encounter a Mossad agent who tells them that he watches their show on his tablet. One of the TV stars presses a button on the tablet, and boom! The Iranian nuclear plant behind them goes up in smoke.

Ha. I am sure it happened exactly this way.

Video thanks to Carl in Jerusalem, who has more on this here.

Yes, it's a video, but it's audio only

Muslim and Leftist spokesmen continue to run from debate from me, and try to save face among their followers by falsely claiming I'm ducking them. Above all, their cretinous venom -- the attacks on my personal appearance, i.e., I'm funny-looking so I must be wrong -- show up the bankruptcy of their position. They have nothing, and they know it. "Negotiations" are ongoing for a debate with one of these Leftist creeps, but his utter lack of any capacity for basic civility is already disqualifying.

For a civil debate, check out this exchange I had Tuesday night with David Goldman, the pundit formerly known as "Spengler." Goldman and I had an unfriendly exchange a few years back, but Tuesday night's was better, and perhaps informative. You be the judge of that.

"The Great Debate: David Goldman vs. Robert Spencer — on The Jamie Glazov Show," from FrontPage, January 16:

Join the Jamie Glazov Show that aired on Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 8-9 pm Pacific (11-12 pm EST) on Blog Talk Radio. This week we featured:

David P. Goldman, the author of the new book, How Civilizations Die (and Why Islam is Dying, Too). After 9/11, he began writing weekly essays at Asia Times Online under the byline “Spengler.” After joining the masthead of First Things magazine early in 2009, he revealed his identity and devoted himself to writing, mainly on politics and strategy, but also publishing essays on religion, classical music, literature and mathematics.

and

Robert Spencer, the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the author of ten books, including two New York Times bestsellers, The Truth About Muhammad and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (both Regnery).

To listen to the program, click here.

Or go to: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/radio-jihad/2012/01/18/the-jamie-glazov-show

Egypt: Islamic supremacist talk show host assaults liberal Muslim guest
by Mark Alexander

Islamic supremacists in Egypt have been tirelessly working for the last 15 years to change their image in the public square into that of a peaceful, God-fearing group that builds hospitals and feeds the poor. They are doing all they can to distance themselves from their terrorist activities of the past. However, the Bible warns us to “be careful of wolves in sheep’s clothing,” and that is what these modern day Islamic supremacists are: wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Perhaps you have heard of Sheikh Khalid el Gindi, a modern day Islamic supremacist televangelist who wears no beard, no long galabeya, or slippers. He wears nicely tailored Western suit, is clean-shaven, and is full of rhetoric of love for the Christian minority.

Khalid el Gindi has his own show on the Al Azhari Channel, a TV channel funded by Al Azhar University, which is itself funded by the Egyptian taxpayer. It is a channel dedicated to educating Muslims about Islam.

Doctor Sayid El Qimini, Doctor of Cultural Studies, received his degree from the University of Southern California after graduating with his Masters from Ain Shams University in Cairo. He has a list of published books attacking Islamic supremacist ideologies, asserting that which is detested by Islamic supremacists: the idea that the Quran is not right for all places and for all times. He also holds the country’s highest literary award.

Dr. Qimini was asked by the Al Azhari Channel and the producer of Khalid El Gindi’s show to come on regarding a dispute that had emerged between Dr. Qimini and Gindi. The show was to be moderated by Siliman Fudel, a true Islamic supremacist who travels around the world debating Western thinkers on Islam. When Dr. Qimini arrived at the station, he waited over three hours in the lobby, where he claims the heat was purposely turned off. This method was used by the station, according to Dr. Qimini, to get him fired up or worked up in time for the show. He was shamefully not introduced as a Doctor by the host, and he commented on that lack of respect shown by the channel.

What ensued after that was a demeaning attack on Dr. Qimini’s character. The host showed clips of interviews from other channels, manipulatively edited by Al Azhari in an attempt at character assassination of Dr. Qimini. At one point in the show, a debate began about whether the Quran was fit for all places and for all times, at which point the moderator, Siliman Fudel, became enraged and attacked Dr. Qimini, claiming falsely that he didn’t really have a doctorate and that there were cases filed against him on charges that he had faked getting a doctoral degree.

Then Khalid El Gindi attacked Dr. Qimini, using language and rhetoric that is unfit and disrespectful. Dr. Qimini rebuked Gindi, removed the microphone from his jacket, and stated that he had had enough and was leaving. After that, when Al Azhari was no longer broadcasting, Dr. Qimini was viciously assaulted by the moderator, Siliman Fudel, who grabbed a mug and slammed it on the back of Dr. Qimini's head while he was not looking. Dr. Qimini dropped to the floor. One of the production crew members turned on his mobile video camera and filmed the entire assault. Other members of the production crew, according to mobile footage, ran over to protect Dr. Qimini from the blind rage of Siliman Fudel.

Dr. Qimini was rushed to the hospital and later filed a lawsuit against Siliman Fudel. The investigation is now pending. No charges have yet been brought against Fudel by the prosecutor’s office.

Since the attack, Dr. Qimini has been invited onto several media channels to explain to viewers his positions on religion and politics, his respect for Islam, and his idea that certain suras of the Quran need to be modernized, because times have changed.

Will Siliman Fudel be prosecuted in the new Egypt? Or will attacks on liberals continue to be excused by prosecutors with Islamic supremacist tendencies?

No Sharia for him, but no presidency, either

Newt Gingrich's unhappy ex is just about to torpedo his presidential run, but I am glad to see he slipped in a few more home truths before departing the national stage. Hamas-linked CAIR is, surprise of surprises, lying about the nature of Sharia. It teaches the things they say it does, broadly interpreted, but also denies the freedom of speech, mandates death for apostates, and institutionalizes discrimination against women and second-class status for non-Muslims. Western apologists for Sharia such as Islamic Republic shill Reza Aslan lie about Sharia when they claim it is so multiform that it has no particular character that anyone can point to; in reality, wherever and whenever Sharia has been implemented, historically and today, it has looked pretty much the same, and has contained the elements of Sharia that Western Islamic supremacist spokesmen routinely deny are essential to it.

Don't believe me? Fine. Show me evidence of any Sharia state -- not a majority-Muslim state, but a Sharia state -- that did not have as part of its basic law the oppressive items I listed above, and many more. I'll be right here, at director[at]jihadwatch.org.

"Group blasts Gingrich for limiting hires to Muslims who renounce Shariah law," by Joy Lin for FoxNews.com, January 18 (thanks to Nawid):

The largest Muslim civil liberties group in the United States on Wednesday condemned Newt Gingrich for saying he would only hire Muslims to his administration if they renounced the use of Islam's Shariah law as a tool for U.S. government.

Calling Gingrich "one of the nation's worst promoters of anti-Muslim bigotry," the Council of American Islamic Relations suggested the Republican presidential candidate is a segregationist.

"Newt Gingrich's vision of America segregates our citizens by faith. His outdated political ideas look backward to a time when Catholics and Jews were vilified and their faiths called a threat," said CAIR Legislative Director Corey Sayolor [sic] in a statement.

"The time for bias in American politics has passed and Newt Gingrich looks like a relic of an ugly era," Sayolor said.

CAIR said the release was prompted by the candidate's remarks Tuesday in Columbia when, asked if he would ever endorse a Muslim running for president.

"It would depend entirely on whether they would commit in public to give up Shariah," Gingrich said.

"A truly modern person who happened to worship Allah would not be a threat, a person who belonged to any kind of belief in Shariah, any effort to impose it on the rest of us, would be a mortal threat," Gingrich told the crowd, adding that he's "totally opposed" to Shariah law being applied in American courts and favors a federal law that "preempts" its use.

This month, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down an Oklahoma ban on the application of "Sharia law" and "international law" in courts.

Pointing to the religious freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment, CAIR defends Shariah law as a set of beliefs that "teaches marital fidelity, generous charity and a thirst for knowledge," and mandates that Muslims respect the law of the land in which they live.

Gingrich had a different interpretation of Shariah law, pointing to the, "rising Islamization of Turkey has been accompanied by a 1,400 percent increase in women being killed."

"When you look at the application of Shariah in places like Iran, when you look at churches being burned in Nigeria and Egypt, and that the decline of Christians in Iraq from a million, 200 thousand when the Americans arrived to about 500,000 today, I think it depends entirely on the person," he said.

"If they are a modern person integrated in the modern world and they are prepared to recognize all religions, that's one thing. On the other hand, if they're Saudis, who demand that we respect them while they refuse to allow Christians to worship in Saudi Arabia, that's something different," he continued.

Later in the day during a question and answer session in Aiken, S.C., Gingrich also called the Ground Zero mosque "a deliberate and willful insult to the people of the United States who suffered an attack by people who are motivated by the same thing."

"I think the time has come for us to have an honest conversation about Islamic radicalism. I don't think we should be intimidated by our political elites, and I don't think we should be intimidated by universities who have been accepting money from the Saudis and who, therefore, now have people who are apologists for the very people who want to kill us," he said.

Indeed.

This ought to complicate Hamas' attempts to reconcile with Fatah, though, as this report notes, it could also conceivably result in an even more virulent jihadist conglomerate with which Israel would be expected to negotiate. "Hamas, Islamic Jihad debate joining forces," from Agence France-Presse, January 18:

Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the two main Palestinian Islamist movements, are holding talks about merging their two factions, sources from both movements said Tuesday.

They could call it Even More Islamic Jihad.

At a meeting with top officials from Islamic Jihad, Gaza's Hamas-affiliated prime minister, Ismail Haniya, called for "opening a serious dialogue to achieve the merger of the two movements," his office said in a statement.

Islamic Jihad confirmed that talks to merge the two factions were already underway.

"An in-depth dialogue has actually begun, both internally and externally, with the aim of uniting," Islamic Jihad spokesman Daud Shihab told AFP, referring to the group's leadership which, like Hamas, is based in both Gaza and Damascus.

All previous attempts to merge the two Islamist movements had ended in failure, Shihab noted.

He indicated that the current talks were taking place "at the highest level" among the leaders of both factions in Gaza and Damascus, as well as among Islamist prisoners currently being held in Israeli jails.

Uniting the two movements would be "in the interest of both the Palestinian cause and the future of the Palestinian liberation movement, particularly in light of the Arab Spring," Shihab said.

The latest statements represent the first time for Hamas and Jihad to speak publicly about merging.

The two factions have long held opposing views on government, with Jihad boycotting the last Palestinian elections in 2006 that were swept by Hamas.

The initiative to explore a merger comes as Hamas and its Fatah rival, which dominates the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, struggle to implement a reconciliation deal signed in April 2011 that has made little progress on the ground.

There are also moves to reform the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which is internationally recognised as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, to allow Hamas and Islamic Jihad to join it.

It also comes in the wake of a series of electoral successes for Islamist parties in Egypt and Tunisia following the political upheavals brought on by the Arab Spring.

As was the case with Egypt, weren't the Salafists and their sympathizers in Libya supposed to be a Tiny Minority of Extremists? We tried to tell you. "In Libya, a Fundamentalist War against Moderate Islam Takes Shape", by Steven Sotloff for Time, January 18:

The Libyan revolution has not been kind to Mahmud al-Arabi. Last March, forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi ransacked his grocery store in Zuwara after he fled to Tunisia, stealing about $6,000 worth of supplies. When he returned in September, facing mounting debts, al-Arabi turned to selling beer and liquor — an illegal enterprise in a country where alcohol has been banned for four decades. His new business drew the attention of Islamist rebels who helped to overthrow Gaddafi. After they threatened the store's landlord, they blew up Arabi's shop. Out of money and out of work, Arabi spends his days in his trailer home lamenting the turn his country has taken. Says he, "I got nothing but suffering from this revolution."

Throughout this country, Libyans are discovering that their hard fought battle to win freedoms is at risk. Puritanical Muslims known as Salafis are applying a rigid form of Islam in more and more communities. They have clamped down on the sale of alcohol and demolished the tombs of saints where many local people worship. The small town of Zuwara near the Tunisian border, dominated by a heterodox Muslim sect despised by the Salafis, is quickly becoming the battlefield for competing visions of Libya's future.

Arabi's trailer sits on the outskirts of the town, surrounded by crushed Heineken beer cans. Inside, bowls strewn around the floor capture the rain drops that leak through the porous ceiling. "I prefer selling alcohol to begging," he says, explaining how he lost his entire savings during the revolution. After Gaddafi loyalists took the town, he was a wanted man for supporting the anti-regime fighters and had to be smuggled to Tunisia at a cost of 3,500 dinars. "I lost everything in my store and had no money. So I decided to sell alcohol."

He shows off a room with 3,000 small cans of Heineken beer and a dozen liquor bottles. "Business was very good," he boasts. "I had more than a hundred customers a day who bought Absolut [Vodka], J&B and [Johnny Walker] Red Label." But when the Salafis came knocking, Arabi knew his days as an alcohol vendor were numbered. "They said this was a Muslim village where alcohol is forbidden," he relates. "I didn't want any trouble with them and agreed to stop selling alcohol at the store. But the Salafis weren't satisfied with that and destroyed it."

It is not only Arabi who has faced the Salafis' wrath. The estimated 200-to-400 members of the local Salafi movement have demolished shrines belonging to adherents of the Ibadi sect, long considered heretics by orthodox Sunni Muslims. In the town's cemetery, large blocks of stone surround what was once a mausoleum. The large conical shaped structure that once adorned it now lies collapsed in the debris. Salafists are intolerant of other strands of Islam and have physically attacked Muslim minorities in other parts of the Arab world such as Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Many Muslims frequent the shrines of saints, believing they have powers of intercession with the divine. Salafis, however, believe these are pagan rites that must be obliterated from Islam. "The situation has gotten much worse lately," says Ibadi Sheikh Walid Darder. "We may have not had political rights under Gaddafi, but we did not live in fear of going to the mosque."

Throughout Libya, Gaddafi's fall has emboldened Salafis, who were persecuted and imprisoned under the now deceased leader. They have increased their public presence, taken over mosques, and even hoisted the flag of al-Qaeda over the courthouse in Benghazi where the revolution began eleven months ago. In the capital of Tripoli, Salafis have destroyed more than six shrines. In one incident, dozens swarmed mausoleums belonging to two Muslim mystics and dug up their bodies so that worshippers could no longer visit their tombs. They also burned the relics around the shrines.

Arabi however is not concerned with the destruction of obscure tombs he does not frequent. "I just want my life back," he pleads. "I fought in the mountains here against Gaddafi. My payback is blowing up my shop," he says, turning to dump a bowl full of rainwater on the soggy field outside his trailer.

What a torture chamber Guantanamo is, eh? It's so horrifically draconian that the terrorized, tortured prisoners lounge around reading the propaganda that their own side, the avowed enemies of the United States, puts out.

Meanwhile, a French judge is seeking access to Guantanamo in order to confirm allegations prisoners have made of Qur'ans being desecrated there. This dhimmi judge should ask himself this question: if Gitmo is so lax and politically correct and clueless that al-Qaeda literature can make its way there, is it really likely to be the kind of place where rogue "Islamophobic" American troops fiendishly desecrate Qur'ans in defiance of official U.S. policy?

"U.S.: Al Qaeda magazine got into Guantanamo cell," by Richard Lardner for the Associated Press, January 18 (thanks to Kenneth):

FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) — A copy of a magazine published by an arm of al Qaeda made its way to a terror suspect at the Guantanamo Bay prison, leading to an inspection of cells and a contentious new policy requiring special review teams to examine correspondence between prisoners and attorneys, U.S. prosecutors said Wednesday.

Navy Cmdr. Andrea Lockhart told a military judge during a pre-trial hearing that a copy of Inspire magazine got into a cell. She provided no details on who received the magazine or how. But she said the breach showed that prior rules at the base governing mail review were not adequate. Yemen’s al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula launched the online, English-language magazine in 2010. An early issue contained tips to would-be militants about how to kill U.S. citizens.

Lockhart is part of the U.S. team prosecuting the case against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi national charged with orchestrating the attack in 2000 on the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors. Al-Nashiri, 47, is considered one of the most senior al Qaeda leaders. He has been held at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006 after spending several years held by the CIA in a series of secret prisons.

How mail between Guantanamo prisoners and their attorneys should be handled consumed several hours of the al-Nashiri’s pre-trial session on Tuesday and Wednesday. At issue is whether even a cursory examination of the legal correspondence violates the attorney-client privilege.

The dispute reflects the untested nature of this latest attempt to resume the military tribunals at Guantanamo. The prosecution of al-Nashiri is already underway and the U.S. is preparing to prosecute five other prisoners accused in the Sept. 11 attacks, yet defense lawyers and government prosecutors are still fighting to establish basic legal ground rules....

The question asked in this headline is never answered in the article. The AP can't bring itself to consider the possibility that Moeed Abdul Salam read the Qur'an and Sunnah and was "radicalized" in that way. "Why did boarding school graduate join al-Qaida?," by Chris Brummitt and Gene Johnson for AP, January 18 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Moeed Abdul Salam didn't descend into radical Islam for lack of other options. He grew up in a well-off Texas household, attended a pricey boarding school and graduated from one of the state's most respected universities.

What? But doesn't poverty cause terrorism? Isn't that what the learned analysts always tell us? Was Moeed Abdul Salam simply a Misunderstander of Islam?

But the most unlikely thing about his recruitment was his family: Two generations had spent years promoting interfaith harmony and combating Muslim stereotypes in their hometown and even on national television.

Salam rejected his relatives' moderate faith and comfortable life, choosing instead a path that led him to work for al-Qaida. His odyssey ended late last year in a middle-of-the-night explosion in Pakistan. The 37-year-old father of four was dead after paramilitary troops stormed his apartment.

His Nov. 19 death went largely unnoticed in the U.S. and rated only limited attention in Pakistan. But the circumstances threatened to overshadow the work of an American family devoted to religious understanding.

And his mysterious evolution presented a reminder of the attraction Pakistan still holds for Islamic militants, especially well-educated Westerners whose Internet and language skills make them useful converts for jihad....

It is not clear to what extent Salam's family knew of his radicalism, but on his Facebook page the month before he died, he posted an image of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American al-Qaida leader who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen, beside a burning American flag.

He had also recently linked to a document praising al-Awlaki martyrdom and to a message urging Muslims to rejoice "in this time when you see the mujahideen all over the world victorious."

After his death, the Global Islamic Media Forum, a propaganda group for al-Qaida and its allies, hailed Salam as a martyr, explaining in an online posting that he had overseen a unit that produced propaganda in Urdu and other South Asian languages....

The family, originally from Pakistan, immigrated to the U.S. decades ago. Salam's father was a pilot for a Saudi airline, and the family eventually settled in the Dallas suburb of Plano. Their cream-colored brick home, assessed at nearly $400,000, stands on a corner lot in a quiet, upper-class neighborhood....

Salam went on to study history at the University of Texas at Austin and graduated in 1996. His Facebook profile indicated he moved to Saudi Arabia by 2003 and began working as a translator, writer and editor for websites about Islam....

Back in the United States, Salam's mother is a prominent resident of Plano, where she is co-chairwoman of a city advisory group called the Plano Multicultural Outreach Roundtable, as well as a former president of the Texas Muslim Women's Foundation....

Salam's brother, Monem Salam, has traveled the country speaking about Islam, seeking to correct misconceptions following the 9/11 attacks. He works for Saturna Capital, where he manages funds that invest according to Islamic principles — for example, in companies that do not profit from alcohol or pork. He recently moved from the company's Bellingham, Wash., headquarters to head its office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

After the 2001 attacks, he and his wife made a public-television documentary about his efforts as a Muslim man to obtain a pilot's license. They also wrote a column for The Bellingham Herald newspaper that answered readers' questions about Islam....

Officers said they pushed through the flimsy door, and Salam killed himself with a grenade when he realized he was surrounded.

The Islamic media group and the al-Qaida contact in Karachi disputed that account, saying Salam was killed by the troops....

Neighbor Syed Mohammad Farooq was woken by an explosion. Minutes later, one of the troops asked him to go inside the apartment and see what had happened, he said.

"He was lying on the floor with blood pooling around him. One of his arms had been blown off. I couldn't look for long. He was moaning and seemed to be reciting verses from the Koran," he said. "I could hear the children crying, but I couldn't see them."

Hours later, Salam's wife and father-in-law, a lawyer in the city, came to collect the children from the apartment in Gulistane Jauhar, a middle-class area of Karachi, Farooq said. On the night he died, Salam led evening prayers at the small mosque on the ground floor of the apartment building.

"His Koranic recitation was very good," said Karim Baloch, who prayed behind him that night. "It was like that of an Arab."

Has there ever been a time when one group of people openly exposes its animosity for another group of people—even as this second group not only ignores the animosity, but speaks well, enables, and legitimizes the first group?

Welcome to the 21st century, where Western politicians empower those Muslims who are otherwise constantly and openly denouncing all non-Muslims as enemies to be fought and subjugated.

Consider this video of Sheikh Yassir al-Burhami, a top-ranked figure in Egypt’s Salafi movement which won some 25% of the votes in recent elections. He makes clear a point that, in a different era, would be thoroughly eye-opening—that all notions of peace with non-Muslims are based on circumstance: when Muslims are weak, they should be peaceful; when strong, they should go on the offensive.

Discussing “the analogy between Egypt’s Christians and the Jews of Medina,” Burhami pointed out that Muslims may make temporary peace with infidels, when circumstance calls for it:

The Jews of Medina represent a paradigm—laid by the prophet [Muhammad]—that shows how Muslims should deal with infidels. The prophet’s methods of dealing with infidels are available for Muslims to replicate depending on their situation and their capabilities. The Prophet in Mecca dealt with the infidels in a certain way, so whenever Muslims are vulnerable they should deal with the infidels in this same manner.

Burhami is referring to the famous Mecca/Medina division: when Muhammad was weak and outnumbered in his early Mecca period, he preached peace and made pacts with infidels; when he became strong in the Medina period, he preached war and went on the offensive. This dichotomy—preach peace when weak, wage war when strong—has been instructive to Muslim leaders for ages.

After quoting Koran 4:77, “Refrain from action, uphold prayers, and pay your zakat,” Burhami continues:

In many infidel countries, such as occupied Palestine, we instruct Muslims to do just that [follow Koran 4:77]. Today in Gaza, we do not tell Muslims to launch rockets everyday and so destroy the country, but we tell them “Refrain from action and respect the truce.” When the Prophet first arrived in Medina, he made conciliation with the Jews, conciliation without jizya [i.e., equal-term conciliation without forcing Jews to pay tribute and live as second-class dhimmis]—this is a pattern that can be followed whenever circumstances dictate. However, when they breached the covenant he fought them and ultimately imposed jizya on the People of the Book [Jews and Christians]. Nor is this Sura [Koran 9:29] abrogated; it is acknowledged and agreed upon.

Burhami exposes much here, beginning with the Koran verse he quotes: when weak, Muslims are to “refrain from action”—but “pay your zakat,” which, among other things, funds the jihad. Also, as Muhammad made peace with the Jews of Medina, without making them submit to jizya (tribute to be paid “while utterly subdued”), so too are Palestinians allowed to make temporary peace with Israel. In both cases, circumstance—namely, Muslim weakness—justify it. But, when capability allows, Koran 9:29—which calls for jizya and subjugation, and which Burhami quotes as having abrogated the other peaceful verses—takes over.

Burhami’s conclusion:

Yes we can deal with those Christians [Egypt’s Copts] as the Jews were dealt with in Medina; it is an option. The Prophet made the Hudaybiya Reconciliation with the infidels and held a truce for ten years, that is also an option…. So, it is legitimate to choose from examples set by the Prophet, depending on what suits the situation of Muslims now.

In short, Muslims may be tolerant of Egypt’s Copts now, and not collect jizya and place them in dhimmitude, until they are more capable—just like Palestinians may make peace with Israel now, till they are more capable of waging an offensive. Indeed, Dr. Mohamed Saad Katatni—the secretary general of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, which won 40% of the votes—reportedly said that Copts would not pay jizya now, implying that the idea of collecting tribute from subdued “dhimmi” Copts is very much alive among the Brotherhood, only dormant till a more opportune moment.

One may argue that Sheikh Yassir al-Burhami—“one man,” a “radical”—is not representative of “true Islam.” The problem, however, is that all his arguments have been made countless times by countless Muslims, including the most authoritative, throughout the ages. For instance, the late Yasser Arafat evoked Hudaybiya as representative of “peace” with Israel.

And yet, despite all this—despite the fact that this video is a drop in the bucket of evidence—here is the West, making the way clear for people like Burhami to power in the name of “democracy,” regardless that pacts, smiles, and handshakes over cups of coffee exist solely when circumstance, in this case, Muslim weakness, dictates.

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

This is an unconscionable infringement on the freedom of speech, and an indication of the dismal state of affairs in England today: a conference on Sharia and human rights in a London university is canceled after an Islamic supremacist thug photographs and threatens the participants that he will kill them if they say anything he dislikes about Muhammad.

English authorities should have arrested this man and should be keeping him and the group he was with under close scrutiny. They should have provided police in sufficient numbers both to allow this conference to go on, and to protect the participants and their families, as well as to track down and prosecute the Muslim thug and his comrades. Yes, this would be a huge expense. It would also be a statement: that this kind of thuggery will not be tolerated, and the freedom of speech will be protected.

It was ironic that this happened at a One Law For All conference. One Law For All is the project of Maryam Namazie, who is just another kind of freedom-hating thug. Her opposition to Sharia does not stem from a commitment to genuinely free societies, for as a Marxist, although she may oppose those who behead people while shouting "Allahu akbar" and post the video to YouTube, she doesn't oppose those who enslave people in gulags and shoot them in the back of the head for being "enemies of the people." Her opposition to Sharia is not a fight for freedom; Hitler and Stalin fought each other, too, but that didn't make either one of them freedom fighters.

Indeed, Namazie has targeted those who are actually working to protect the freedom of speech and the principle of equality of rights of all people against Sharia and Islamization. She has libeled me and others with outright lies, which she refuses to retract, about what we have said and what we stand for. She has retailed Palestinian jihadist propaganda about Israel, claiming that it engaged in "genocide" in Gaza -- thereby spitting in the face of all genuine victims of genocide and advancing an antisemitic lie that was crafted in aid of the jihad against Israel.

And so one gang of thugs has targeted another. The freedom of speech should in all cases be protected, but the conflict between these Muslim thugs and Maryam Namazie's gang is not one between the enemies of freedom and its defenders. It's just a turf war.

"Islamist stops university debate with threats of violence," from the National Secular Society, January 17 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

A talk on sharia and human rights by NSS Council Member Anne Marie Waters' at Queen Mary University of London was cancelled at the last moment because of an Islamist who made serious threats against everyone there.

Ms Waters was due to give a talk on behalf of the One Law for All Campaign on 16 January but before it started, a man entered the lecture theatre, stood at the front with a camera and filmed the audience. He then said that he knew who everyone was, where they lived and if he heard anything negative about the Prophet, he would track them down.

The man also filmed students in the foyer and threatened to murder them and their families. On leaving the building, he joined a large group of men, apparently there to support him. Students were told by security to stay in the lecture theatre for their own safety.

Jennifer Hardy, President of Queen Mary's Atheism, Secularism and Humanism Society, who organised the event said: "This event was supposed to be an opportunity for people of different religions and perspectives to debate, at a university that is supposed to be a beacon of free speech and debate.

"Only two complaints had been made to the Union prior to the event, and the majority of the Muslim students at the event were incredibly supportive of it going ahead. These threats were an aggressive assault on freedom of speech and the fact that they led to the cancellation of our talk was severely disappointing for all of the religious and non-religious students in the room who wanted to engage in debate."...

Keystone Kops, Nigerian edition. It will be harder to capture Sokoto a second time. "Top Nigerian cop suspended over suspected sect member escape," from Agence France-Presse, January 17:

Nigerian authorities on Tuesday suspended a top police officer for alleged negligence in the escape of a suspected member of the Islamist Boko Haram sect arrested over a deadly Christmas bomb attack.

The principal suspect, Kabiru Sokoto, who was arrested on Saturday, was handed over to a police commissioner for further investigation. He was then ordered to be taken to Abaji, near Abuja, for further investigation, police said in a statement.

"In the course of undertaking this important procedure, the policemen on escorts with the suspect were attacked by the suspected sect gang members and in the process the suspect was freed," it said.

"The police view this development as a serious negligence on the part of the commissioner of police and have since queried and suspended him from duty," it added.

The identity of the senior police officer was not disclosed.

He and members of his team will be prosecuted if a criminal case is established against them, it also said.

At least 44 people, mostly worshippers, were killed during the attack on Saint Theresa's Roman Catholic Church in Madalla, outside Abuja, on Christmas Day. Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for the attack....

"Somewhat unsurprisingly the threats perpetrated by extremist Muslims cover an array of appalling crimes including obscene sexual offences ... [the women] are frequently accused of 'destroying Islam' or “corrupting our women'."

Qur'an 4:34 makes violence against disobedient women lawful. Whatever other rationalizations one trots out, at the end of the day, Allah says you can hit (yes, hit) your wife. Here, again, is the allegation that any change to improve the lot of women will only serve to corrupt, create prostitutes, and so on.

The home is a microcosm of society. If one believes there can only be either tyranny and fear, or licentiousness, it is not the building block of a free and democratic society. "The New Muslim suffragettes of the United Kingdom," by Charlotte Rachael Proudman for the Independent, January 18 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

An increasing number of Muslim women activists are receiving death threats, fatwas and even hate-mail from extremist male and female Muslims. Their crime: Rescuing fellow Muslim women from violent and life threatening situations.

With heightened media sensitivity surrounding forced marriage, honour based violence and domestic violence we are all too aware of the suffering experienced by vulnerable and marginalised Muslim women. But we know little about the Muslim women activists who risk their lives to fight for the rights of oppressed Muslim women. These women are the New Muslim Suffragettes (NMS) of The United Kingdom.

As wives and mothers themselves, they stand alone in their communities and apart from other prominent Muslim organisations, in offering sanctuary and support for vulnerable and marginalised women. The NMS provide refuge, advocacy and access to the British legal and welfare system for women whose daily lives consist of beatings, imprisonment, torture and even marital rape, as well as the mental health ramifications that unfold over time.

In fact there has been an exponential growth in Muslim women activists in the form of charitable women rights organisations. These organisations have emerged post 9/11 as a response to misogynist and extremist views which are contaminating the Muslim community. Like the suffragette movement in the late 19th and early 20th century, Muslim women activists are collectively gaining momentum in fighting for women’s rights in oppressive and patriarchal contexts. But facing fierce patriarchal resistance - akin to that experienced by the early Suffragettes – sympathy for the NMS does not always convert to action.

In seeking justice for Muslim women whose human rights have been eroded through hyper-conservative interpretations of Islam, the NMS turn to British Law. But in affording marginalised Muslim women their rights the NMS are perceived by extremist Muslims as “feminists”, a term loaded in the Muslim world with connotations of modernity, resistance and westernisation, and perhaps more importantly a term which challenges the patriarchal underpinning of Islam dictated by extremist Muslims.

So they face a backlash in the form of persecution, intimidation and death threats. Fearing for their lives the NMS are forced into hiding and prevented from undertaking the very work they set out to achieve – to highlight and prevent the gross abuse of human rights many Muslim women suffer. Instead the NMS risk becoming the vulnerable and marginalised Muslim women that they originally set out to help and support. It’s time for the public to be aware of the plight of the NMS in the United Kingdom. This is their story.

My mobile phone rang, I could hear heavy breathing and a deep male voice – “I know where you live, I’m going to find you, and then I’m going to chop your legs off for taking my daughter away from me”. This NMS received this threat along with a threat to bomb her car after she rescued a young woman from forced marriage and domestic violence. Fearing for her life, this NMS must check her car for bombs each day and cannot leave her home without a panic alarm.

For the NMS, life has become intolerable. Sara Khan, from the counter-extremist and gender equality consultancy Inspire and Shereen Williams from the Henna Foundation spoke about the persecution perpetrated against them and work colleagues often directed at family members. According to Diana Nammi founder of the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (IKWRO), the main motive behind the death threats is an extremist belief that the work of the NMS is shaming and dishonouring the Muslim community, particularly in cases where women are supported by the NMS in seeking legal redress for the wrongs inflicted upon them often by their own family members.

Somewhat unsurprisingly the threats perpetrated by extremist Muslims cover an array of appalling crimes including obscene sexual offences, which have become an increasing problem in the blogosphere and according to Shaista Gohir (MBE) the NMS are frequently accused of “destroying Islam” or “corrupting our women” and like the Suffragettes over a century ago – they are accused of being “mad”. While these accusations may appear banal and mundane to secular ears, they are devastating to women activists of faith who are accused of being apostates. In this case, these accusations lead to threats of Shaista Gohir’s throat being slashed...

Sahar Gul's other option would have been jail, though police sent her back to her abusers. About 80% of the 115 or so girls known to be in Afghan jails are there for the "moral crime" of running away from home. It is a sick society where one can only hope to choose one form of punishment as sanctuary from another.

Many of those who resist enhanced legal protections for women will invoke Sharia. Above all, Allah has made striking (yes, striking) disobedient women lawful in Qur'an 4:34. The letter and spirit of that verse continue to cause and rationalize untold suffering.

"Tortured Afghan child bride slowly recovering," from Agence France-Presse, January 17 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

KABUL — The Afghan child bride who was tortured in an attempt to force her into prostitution is slowly recovering but is still hardly able to speak, a nurse told AFP during a visit to the girl's bedside Thursday.

Sahar Gul, 15, who was burned and beaten and had her fingernails pulled out was found last month in the basement of her husband's house in northeastern Baghlan province, where she had been locked in a toilet for six months.

"Since the past few days, Gul can walk very slowly, she can eat and talk in a frail voice," said nurse Latifa Mirzad at the Wazir Akbar Khan hospital, as the bruised and battered girl looked on silently.

"She is hardly able to speak of her ordeal but sometimes she says in a weak voice 'my father in-law and mother-in law have beaten me'."

Gul's case was taken directly to President Hamid Karzai by a delegation from the Afghan Women's Network on Wednesday.

"The president assured his full support to strictly punish the perpetrators of the crime against Sahar Gul so that nobody can commit such a crime in the future," said the network's Lema Anwari.

Karzai pledged in a statement after the delegation's visit to take action against the "cowardly" perpetrators of violence against women.

The president said that he always took measures as soon as he heard about cases of violence against women, and would continue to take the issue seriously so that the culprits were brought to justice.

When? Sahar's husband was reported to be serving in the Afghan National Army. Why can't they find him?

According to figures in an Oxfam report in October, 87 percent of Afghan women report having experienced physical, sexual or psychological violence or forced marriage.

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission logged 1,026 cases of violence against women in the second quarter of 2011 compared with 2,700 cases for the whole of 2010.

One version of homegrown terrorism: when Muslim immigrants and their children and grandchildren send their salaries, social benefits, black market money and money earned from robberies, thefts and handling stolen goods to Muhammad's copycats. This is a case in which being an economic refugee and supporting terrorism are the same. "Terrorist groups get millions from Denmark," translated from Danish National Radio, January 17:

Training camps for terrorists, weapons and other aspects of the planning of terrorist activities cost money. Therefore, terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab are happy to receive money from generous donors worldwide. ... PET (the Danish secret police) estimates that about 20 million kroner are collected annually in Denmark to finance terrorist groups abroad. ... PET estimates that the groups that enjoy the millions of Danish terror kroners include groups in conflict zones such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Palestine and Somalia. That is to say that organizations such as al-Qaeda, Taliban, al-Shabaab, Hamas and Hezbollah may be among those benefiting from the money that is collected in Denmark.

Malmø in Sweden is famous for its many Muslims, killings and bombs (at least 22 bombs in the last three years). Malmø has become a Scandinavian Baghdad, and an expanding, uncontrollable and violent Sharia zone.

In the "youth neighbourhood" (Muslim ghetto) Sevedkvarteret, Seved Quarter, being a postman is now too dangerous. Being a non-Islamic authority and wearing symbols (signs, uniform) representing other non-Islamic authorities is dangerous in such places. Being a postman in Sevedkvarteret is now a "Muslim-only" job: "Crime stops postmen in Malmo area," translated from Politiken, January 16:

Threats and violence have now forced the Swedish postal service to give up delivering letters in a part of Malmø.

Postmen simply stay away from Sevedkvarteret (Seved Quarter). Instead, local residents in the area are hired to ensure that letters and packages reach the recipients.

This comes after several problems in the district, which led to postmen being equipped with attack alarms.

After a failed robbery, Packet Post has been escorted into the area by guards from the security company G4S, and has left packages in a kiosk where recipients had to pick up their mail.

Initially, the locals will be in charge of distribution for six months. The service is therefore seeking two individuals from Seved Quarter who will assume the managerial position.

The Post Office's decision to avoid Seved town comes at a time when Malmø is struggling with a wave of brutal crimes.

Within the last few months, six people have been killed in Malmø in a series of murders that has highlighted the problems that the city has, among them gang crime and relatively easy access to weapons.

The killings have led the Swedish Police Board to aid the Malmø police in investigating the killings. Band Officers from many police districts are now deployed in the city to fight the lawlessness.

According to the newspaper Expressen, 30 additional homicide investigators have been sent to the city, which has also been reinforced with 30 extra street cops.

Simultaneously, a special task force, Focus Malmø, is now attempting to put pressure upon the 70 senior gang members, who, according to the authorities are governing the criminal community in the city.

It is almost nothing to do with Islam or jihad, but I have a new article up at Crisis Magazine this morning: "The Other Successors of Peter: The Patriarchs of Antioch."

This is the third piece in a series I'm writing there on Eastern Christianity. The first two were "Requiem for the Third See of Christendom" and "We Are Non-Roman Catholics."

Taunting the weak. "U.S. drone that crashed in Iran goes miniature," by Thomas Erdbrink for the Washington Post, January 17 (thanks to Benedict):

TEHRAN — For the American government, the crash of the RQ-170 drone in Iran was an embarrassment. For the Iranian government, it was a propaganda victory.

And for at least one company, according to state radio, it could be a windfall.

An Iranian firm, seeking to capitalize on the frenzy that followed the crash of the drone — and American calls to have it returned — is now producing miniaturized toy versions of the craft. Most of the toys, which come in several colors and are made of Iranian plastic, have already been snapped up by Iranian government organizations, according to the group that manufactures them.

At least one model — a pink one — has been reserved for President Obama.

“He said he wanted it back, and we will send him one,” said Reza Kioumarsi, the head of cultural production at the Ayeh Art group....

Here it is from Yahoo News:

NEW YORK, Jan. 17, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The human rights organizations Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) and Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) are joining together to create a new global force determined to defend free societies globally: Stop Islamization of Nations (SION).

SIOA and SIOE are the foremost organizations in America and Europe dedicated to defending human rights, religious liberty, freedom of conscience and the freedom of speech against Islamic supremacist intimidation and attempts to bring elements of Sharia to the West.

At the helm of SION as its founding President is the internationally renowned human rights activist and Executive Director of SIOA, Pamela Geller. The founder of the Stop Islamization movement worldwide, Anders Gravers, explained: "Pamela Geller was chosen for the leadership because when she took over SIOA she transformed it from a little-known group to a mass movement in the USA. Her groundbreaking work included her freedom bus ad campaign, her anti-honor killing taxi ad campaign, and most of all in her marshaling of nationwide resistance to the mosque on Ground Zero, which even the President supported. She is the right person to bring synergy into our SIO movement, and I have full confidence in her." Vice President is the acclaimed bestselling author and Islam expert, Robert Spencer.

The confirmed list of Board of Advisors for SION currently includes Dr. Ali Sina, the renowned ex-Muslim author and founder of FaithFreedom.org; Dr. Wafa Sultan, the ex-Muslim human rights activist and author; the German pro-freedom activist Stefan Herre of Politically Incorrect; the Israeli author Dr. Mordechai Kedar; the Hindu human rights activist Babu Suseelan; and Anders Gravers of Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE). More prominent pro-freedom activists will be added to the Board shortly.

A worldwide summit of SION freedom activists is currently being organized; location, date and other details will be announced in the coming weeks.

SION establishes a common American/European coalition of free people determined to stand for freedom and oppose the advance of Islamic law, Sharia. Islamic law is not simply a religious system, but a political system that encompasses every aspect of life; is authoritarian, discriminatory, and repressive; and contradicts Western laws and principles in numerous particulars. SION respects Muslims as fellow human beings and rejects Islamization as a comprehensive political, religious, cultural and social system of behavior and ideology.

SION stands for:

-- The freedom of speech - as opposed to Islamic prohibitions of
"blasphemy" and "slander," which are used effectively to quash
honest discussion of jihad and Islamic supremacism;
-- The freedom of conscience - as opposed to the Islamic death
penalty for apostasy;
-- The equality of rights of all people before the law - as
opposed to Sharia's institutionalized discrimination against
women and non-Muslims.

A foremost objective of SION is to establish a network of free nations that work to free the oppressed and to call worldwide attention to the persecution, slaughter and subjugation of non-Muslims and free women enslaved by the Sharia. SION will act only through democratic and non-violent means, and categorically rejects all acts of violence and vigilantism. It aims to preserve the fundamental freedoms and rights articulated in the Constitutions of the Western democracies, the U.S. Bill of Rights, and the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Immediate SION actions will include publicizing the names of politicians, academics, journalists, artists and their networks that promote the Islamization of Western policy and culture. The organization intends to make the public aware of the issues involved and the implications of this Islamization for Western freedoms, and engage in public discussion and debate on these questions.

SION will also work to winning back the culture, with a particular focus on the academic world, as the Islamic teaching of history is based on faith and Sharia, not on the Western objective criteria of truth. In the West, history must be thought according to the truth, not according to the dictates of ideology.

SION also offers diversity and sensitivity training to corporations and government agencies at the local, state and national levels. This diversity training is designed to help these entities understand the jihad threat in all its different manifestations, including Islamic supremacist cultural initiatives to assert Islamic law and practice in the American workplace. It helps them protect their business practices in the face of demands for special accommodation for Muslim employees.

Today on FrontPage Magazine (via RaymondIbrahim.com), I discuss the Nigerian jihad against Christians, which, as JW readers know, only gets more savage by the day:

The New Year's resolution for "Sunnis for Da'wa [Islamization] and Jihad"—also known as Boko Haram, or "Western education is forbidden"—is to create a Christian-free Nigeria, beginning, naturally, with the north, where Muslims outnumber Christians.

Right at the start of 2012, Boko Haram issued an ultimatum giving Christians living in northern Nigeria three days to evacuate or die—an ultimatum the group has been living up to, so much so that Nigeria's President Jonathan recently declared a state of emergency.

This, of course, is not to say that Boko Haram has not been long targeting Christians, as the New York Times—which all but apologized for the group's terrorism—would have it.

Boko Haram and other Muslims have been terrorizing Nigerian Christians for years, killing thousands of them, and destroying hundreds of their churches. Just last November, hundreds of armed Muslims, many from the group, invaded Christian villages, "like a swarm of bees," killing, looting, and destroying. At the end of their four-hour rampage, at least 130 Christians were killed. Forty-five other Christians in another village were slaughtered by another set of "Allahu Akbar!" screaming Muslims.

Likewise, another jihadi attack from last November, enabled by "local Muslims," left five churches destroyed and several Christians killed: "The Muslims in this town were going round town pointing out church buildings and shops owned by Christians to members of Boko Haram, and they in turn bombed these churches and shops." In one instance, a local Muslim pleaded with Boko Haram members not to burn down a particular church—not out of altruism, of course, but rather because that Muslim's home was adjacent to the church, and might also have caught fire. The church was spared....