November 2012 Archives

More Muslims pay the price of misunderstanding the true, peaceful teachings of Islam -- and yet still no Muslim organization anywhere in the U.S. has any program designed to prevent young Muslims from misunderstanding Islam in this way. "FBI arrests two Pakistani brothers from Oakland Park on terrorism charges," by Scott Hiaasen for the Miami Herald, November 30:

Two Pakistani brothers from Oakland Park have been arrested on terrorism charges, accused of conspiring to deploy explosive weapons against an American target, according to a federal indictment released Friday.

The brothers, 20-year-old Raess Alam Qazi and 30-year-old Sheheryar Alam Qazi, have each been charged with one count of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and one count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. They were arrested Thursday by the FBI and remain in custody at the Broward County Jail.

Between July 2011 and Thursday, prosecutors said, the pair provided transportation, money, lodging and other aid toward a plan to use a large-scale weapon somewhere in the United States. Federal authorities would disclose few details of the ongoing investigation Friday, declining to name the target of the alleged plot, or how close the plan was to fruition....

The case is being investigated by the FBI’s South Florida Joint Terrorism Task Force. Investigators would not say how the terrorist plot was detected, though sources close to the investigation said Thursday’s arrests were not the result of an FBI sting.

Prosecutors said the Qazi brothers were born in Pakistan, but are both naturalized U.S. citizens....

If convicted, the Qazis face a sentence of up to 15 years in prison on the material support charge, and a potential life sentence on the weapon of mass destruction charge.

At the end of the video, Pat Condell calls for a Hatred and Violence in the Qur'an Awareness Month. I'm all for it. Let's start today and go through December.

Hatred -- here's some from the Fatihah, the first sura of the Qur'an:

"Guide us in the straight path, the path of those whom Thou hast blessed, not of those against whom Thou art wrathful, nor of those who are astray." (1:6-7)

The traditional Islamic understanding of this is that the "straight path" is Islam -- cf. Islamic apologist John Esposito's book Islam: The Straight Path. The path of those who have earned Allah's anger are the Jews, and those who have gone astray are the Christians.

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

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

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

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

Doesn't he know that jihad is just paying your taxes and getting up early to get the kids to school?

"Nigeria Boko Haram leader urges global jihad in video," by Tim Cocks for Reuters, November 30:

(Reuters) - The leader of Nigerian Islamist sect Boko Haram praises jihadist movements across the globe and singled out the United States, Britain, Israel and Nigeria as enemies in a new video, according to a translation by the SITE monitoring service.

The 39-minute video "Glad Tidings, O Soldiers of Allah", posted in a jihadist forum, features a speech by sect leader Abubakar Shekau with an unusually international focus for a group that has often seemed more pre-occupied with local gripes.

Unlike previous video speeches, which he delivered in his native Hausa tongue, the one posted on Thursday is in Arabic. Shekau pledges solidarity with Islamist fighters everywhere.

"Nigeria and other crusaders, meaning America and Britain, should witness, and the Jews of Israel who are killing the Muslims in Palestine should witness ... that we are with our mujahideen brothers in the cause of Allah everywhere," he said, according to SITE's translation.

The video appears to confirm the fears of security agents that Boko Haram has ambitions to join forces with other Islamist groups pursuing a more explicitly global, anti-Western agenda - like al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), based in Mali....

The video wishes "glad tidings" on Islamist warriors in "Islamic Maghreb" (the Sahara) and "the Islamic State in Mali", as well as Somalia, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and "usurped Palestine".

He list "martyrs" in the global fight against world powers like Britain and the United States, including Osama bin-Laden.

"Don't think that jihad stops with the death of imams, because imams are individuals," he tells them. "Think how many sheikhs and men were martyred ... Did jihad stop? No. Jihad doesn't stop until Allah wills it to be stopped."

WIDER AMBITIONS

The video ends with footage of fighters undergoing military training, then cuts to weapons and equipment it alleges were taken as spoils from the enemy, SITE's translation says.

Boko Haram's favourite targets are usually local in character: Nigerian security forces, Christian worshippers or any politicians and clerics who speak out against it.

It has only claimed responsibility for one attack on a Western target - a bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Abuja that killed 24 people in August last year - but security analysts fear it could soon carry out more attacks like this....

No surprise here. Sharia denies free speech and equal rights for women, and allows slavery. So this is just more indication of Egypt's slide toward Sharia. "Disputed articles in Egypt's draft constitution," from AP, November 30:

CAIRO (AP) -- An Islamist-dominated panel is voting on Egypt's draft constitution, the country's first charter after the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak. The draft largely reflects the conservative vision of the Islamists, with articles that rights activists, liberals and Christians fear will lead to restrictions on the rights of women and minorities and civil liberties in general.

Omissions of certain articles, such as bans on slavery or promises to adhere to international rights treaties, were equally worrying to critics of the new draft, who pulled out from the panel before the vote.

Here are some of the disputed articles:

- As in past constitutions, the new draft says that the "principles of Islamic law" will be the basis of law. Previously, the term "principles" allowed wide leeway in interpreting Shariah. But in the draft, a separate new article is added that seeks to define "principles" by pointing to particular theological doctrines and their rules. That could give Islamists the tool for insisting on stricter implementation of rulings of Shariah.

- A new article states that Egypt's most respected Islamic institution, Al-Azhar, must be consulted on any matters related to Shariah, a measure critics fear will lead to oversight of legislation by clerics.

- An article underlines that the state will protect "the true nature of the Egyptian family ... and promote its morals and values," phrasing that is vague and suggests state control over the contents of such arts forms as books and films.

- The draft contains no article specifically establishing equality between men and women because of disputes over the phrasing. However, it maintains that a woman must balance her duties toward family and outside work, suggesting that she can be held accountable if her public role conflicts with her family duties. No such article is mentioned for men.

- An article bans insulting or defaming the prophet and messengers, but is vague about what constitutes an insult, raising concerns of restrictions to freedom of expression.

- An article seeking to ensure people's dignity bans "insulting humans", a vague phrasing that rights activists say contradicts freedom of expression.

- An article maintains that the state supports the arts, science and literature and works to implement them in a way that serves society. That has raised concerns that some arts deemed not in the service of society may be restricted or censored....

Like UPI, Mahmoud Abbas is in full projection mode, accusing the foes of jihadis of what the jihadis themselves do. "Abbas: Israeli 'Threats' Won't Deter Us," by David Lev for Israel National News, November 29 (thanks to Voice of the Copts):

Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas said Thursday that he is not afraid of Israel's “threats,” and the he plans to go full-force forward with his attempt to get the UN General Assembly to give a PA state non-voting observer status at the UN. Abbas, speaking in New York, said that the PA had been subject to “extreme pressure” to pull its request for statehood recognition, but that it planned on continuing with the process.

Numerous European countries, including France, have announced that they will support the bid. The U.S., meanwhile, said that it was sharply opposed to the move. With support from third world and Arab countries, the bid is expected to pass easily when it comes up for a vote later Thursday.

Abbas said that Israel had “threatened” him, but that he was not “afraid. If Israel wants to hurt me they can easily do so, because I live under Israeli occupation.” He added that in his opinion, the PA deserved to have a state at this time. “The world has witnessed for the past six years how the PA has developed institutions, political, security, and government, in preparation for this declaration,” he said.

Abbas did not specify how Israel had “threatened” him, but was apparently referring to statements by Israeli officials that Jerusalem would demand international guarantees in future negotiations, and that the statehood bid would “boomerang” on the PA. Speaking on Israel Radio earlier, Government Secretary General Tzvi Hauser said that the PA move will make a final settlement harder to achieve. “This moves breaks the rules of the game and will allow Israel to react in any way it deems necessary in order to protect its interests." Hauser stressed that any deal between Israel and PA needed to be made by direct negotiations, and that involving international bodies in the attempts to arrive at a settlement would not produce anything....

The U.S. should be saying this. But this is, of course, the age of Obama.

"'Canada will not let the Jews or Israel stand alone,'" by Herb Keinon in the Jerusalem Post, November 30:

Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird, who delivered a supportive speech of Israel at the UN before its vote Thursday on the Palestinian statehood, said Friday "the bottom line is we will not let the Jewish people and the State of Israel stand alone when the going gets tough."

Baird, in a phone interview from New York, said he had "absolutely no hesitation" about taking the podium and opposing the Palestinian bid, something he knew was not a popular position in the hall.

The Canadian foreign minister criticized Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for the hostile tenor of his speech.

"Knowing that he had such overwhelming support, this would have been an occasion for him to reach out to the government and people of Israel, to embrace the Jewish people, to talk about his hopes for peace and be magnanimous," he said. "Unfortunately it was a rather aggressive speech that will really do nothing to advance the cause of peace or the peace process."...

What a surprise.

This UPI story is one of the most outstanding examples ever published of mainstream media denial and obfuscation of the nature and magnitude of the global jihad, and its eagerness to carry water for Islamic supremacists. "Study: News stories aid anti-Muslim groups," from United Press International, November 28:

Anti-Muslim fringe groups became more mainstream and got funding after Sept. 11, 2001, in part because of U.S. news coverage, a study published Thursday says.

"Anti-Muslim": UPI apes its Islamic supremacist masters in equating our work to defend the freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and equality of rights of all people with being against Muslims. In reality, it is pro-Muslim, and pro-human in general, to stand for these rights and freedoms. Those who oppose us in our work to defend them are the ones who want Muslims and others to live under oppression and tyranny.

And if any "news coverage" allowed "anti-Muslim fringe groups" to "become more mainstream," it certainly wasn't because of some "Islamophobic" bias in the media, as this ridiculous study appears to be contending. In reality, ever since 2001 the Society of Professional Journalists has had guidelines directing reporters to whitewash Islam and ignore, deny, and downplay any Islamic element in Islamic jihad terror attacks. If "news coverage" led to the rise of "anti-Muslim fringe groups," it was because there were so many jihad terror attacks that even the most whitewashed and vanilla news coverage couldn't keep the truth from getting to the public.

The extremist groups represented a tiny sector of non-governmental organizations but captivated the media with their news releases, leading to major news coverage, which in turn legitimized the groups, attracted donations and connected the groups to powerful conservative think tanks, "The Fringe Effect" study appearing in the December issue of the American Sociological Review said.

If anyone ever "captivated the media," it was the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose Hamas links and unindicted co-conspirator status are never mentioned in articles like these.

"I'm not saying the media had a direct role in facilitating these connections," such as overlapping boards of directors, in which two or more groups share the same directors, sociologist Christopher Bail, author of the study, told United Press International.

Funny he should mention about overlapping boards of directors, since that is common practice among the ever-proliferating number of Islamic supremacist groups in the U.S.

But newspaper and television coverage of fringe groups with messages seeking to inspire Muslim and Islamic fear and anger gave the groups "increased visibility and created the misperception they were mainstream organizations, and this perception enabled them to secure funding and build social networks that they may not been able to do otherwise," said Bail, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assistant sociology professor.

No "fringe groups" inspired "Muslim and Islamic fear and anger," by which this moronic piece apparently means "fear and anger toward Muslims and Islam." Some of the people who inspired "Muslim and Islamic fear and anger" were Amine Mohamed El-Khalifi, the would-be jihad/martyrdom suicide bomber at the U.S. Capitol; Naser Abdo, the would-be second Fort Hood jihad mass murderer; Khalid Aldawsari, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Lubbock, Texas; Muhammad Hussain, the would-be jihad bomber in Baltimore; Mohamed Mohamud, the would-be jihad bomber in Portland; Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square jihad mass-murderer; Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, the Arkansas military recruiting station jihad murderer; Naveed Haq, the jihad mass murderer at the Jewish Community Center in Seattle; Mohammed Reza Taheri-Azar, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Ahmed Ferhani and Mohamed Mamdouh, who hatched a jihad plot to blow up a Manhattan synagogue; Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be Christmas airplane jihad bomber; or the many others like them who have plotted and/or committed mass murder in the name of Islam and are motivated by its texts and teachings, all in the U.S. in the last few years.

By contrast, moderate groups making up the vast majority of civil society organizations hardly made the news, Bail's peer-reviewed study found.

Bail used plagiarism-detection software to compare 1,084 news releases about Muslims from 120 non-governmental organizations with more than 50,000 TV news transcripts and newspaper articles produced from 2001 to 2008.

The software detected similarities between the news releases and news stories reported by The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Times, CBS News, CNN and Fox News Channel.

An odd list. The New York Times but not the Washington Post? This clown is claiming that the New York Times, USA Today and CNN were all "anti-Muslim"? Search the archives here at Jihad Watch for mentions of all three and see how true that is.

The software did not distinguish between stories originated by the news organizations and those generated by news agencies such as UPI.

Bail told UPI this was a shortcoming but did not change the study's findings.

"Anti-Muslim fringe organizations dominated the mass media via displays of fear and anger," while mainstream non-profit groups depicting Muslims as peaceful, contributing members of U.S. society got little coverage, Bail writes in the study.

This clown appears not to grasp the elementary point that a man who sits at home drinking tea is not news, but a man who goes out and robs a bank is news. The job of news organizations, contrary to ever-growing popular belief, is not to make Muslims and Islam look good, but to report on news events. When Muslims riot and kill in the name of Islam, that is news. When Muslims sit at home drinking tea, it is not news, any more than it is when Jews or Christians or Hindus or Buddhists do so.

"As a result, public condemnations of terrorism by Muslims have received little media attention, but organizations spreading negative messages continue to stoke public fears that Muslims are secretly plotting to overthrow the U.S. government," Bail said in a separate statement.

Chief among those "organizations spreading negative messages" is the Muslim Brotherhood, which is dedicated in its own words, according to a captured internal document, to "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house."

And the idea the "public condemnations of terrorism by Muslims have received little media attention" is utterly risible. Every time a Muslim is arrested for a jihad terror plot, the news stories duly quote the local imam and/or the local Hamas-linked CAIR rep saying how shocked he is, and that he doesn't know the guy, or that he tried to talk the guy out of his "extremism." The idea that any Muslim doesn't condemn "terrorism" is what hardly ever gets any play in the mainstream media.

"Institutional amplification of this emotional energy ... created a gravitational pull or 'fringe effect' that realigned inter-organizational networks and altered the contours of mainstream discourse itself," he writes in the study, subtitled "Civil Society Organizations and the Evolution of Media Discourse about Islam since the September 11th Attacks."

When asked by UPI if his research indicated whether the fringe was moving toward the mainstream or the mainstream was moving toward the fringe, he said, "The mainstream appears to be moving toward the fringe."

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, told UPI his advocacy group has "seen anti-Muslim extremists and anti-Muslim hate groups moving toward the mainstream, and they're receiving tremendous funding."

Note that UPI says nothing -- of course -- about how the Council on American-Islamic
Relations is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case — so named by the Justice Department. CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. CAIR’s cofounder and longtime Board chairman (Omar Ahmad), as well as its chief spokesman (Ibrahim Hooper), have made Islamic supremacist statements. Its California chapter distributed posters telling Muslims not to talk to the FBI. But none of this is fit to print.

...."By the time the Koran burning came along, the groups had amassed tens of millions of dollars and had considerable political influence," he said.

...said the well-heeled, Saudi-funded Islamic supremacist. Honest Ibe should come clean and compare Hamas-linked CAIR's budget with AFDI's, and his Rolodex with ours, we will see who has "amassed tens of millions of dollars" and "considerable political influence." But it is in his interests to portray himself and his allies as victims of a big bad "Islamophobic" machine, despite the fact that it is he who has the money and the well-oiled smear machine. For UPI to print this shows how deeply compromised they are.

In "The Republicans, the Democrats, and Grover" in the American Spectator, November 29, Republican dinosaur R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., who is still basking in the glow of his cheerful and cheeky takedowns of Bill Clinton in the 1990s, almost immediately after which his publication crashed and burned with astonishing speed and has never fully recovered, demonstrates the ongoing inability of the Stupid Party to learn from its mistakes or to consider lines of thought that lie outside its established boundaries. In his defense of tax crusader/Muslim Brotherhood enabler Grover Norquist, he doesn't see fit even to mention the mountain of evidence of how Norquist facilitated high-level access for Islamic supremacists who do not have the best interests of our nation at heart:

Now comes upon this happy scene of Republicans holding the line on raising taxes and of Democrats talking gibberish about their preposterous 98 percent of Americans all luxuriating in trillion-dollar budgetary overruns, one Grover Norquist. He is a pleasant barbigerous man of sunny disposition given to homespun truths such as "You can either reform government so that it spends less and works better, or you can raise taxes to keep doing all the things we have been doing that haven't worked very well." Conservatives adore him and many independents do too. There are many reasons to adore Grover. He is optimistic, commonsensical, a friend to all Americans who love their freedoms as secured for them in the Constitution. Moreover, he is adamantly opposed to tax increases. He is the author of the tax pledge that, 20 years ago, his organization, Americans for Tax Reform, began asking Capitol Hill politicians to sign. Most Republicans have and by doing so they have distinguished themselves from the Democrats of whom only one has signed the pledge.

Once again -- remember attack dog Joe Biden's assault on him in the vice-presidential debate? -- Grover is being made out to be a monster, a tyrant forcing congressional Republicans to stand by their pledge not to raise taxes. Actually he has said in his homespun vernacular, "If you want to go to your voters and say I promised you this, and I'm breaking my promise, you can have that conversation," but "You're not having an argument with me. You've made a commitment to your voters." My guess is that most Republicans will stand by their pledge. They know opposition to tax increases is one of the things that makes them Republicans and that in two more years will continue the Republicans' domination of government.

I can only repeat what I wrote here:

Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) has become the latest Republican politician to see the writing on the wall and break with anti-tax guru Grover Norquist. America has voted for socialism, and socialism is what it is going to get, and the statesmanlike Saxby is not going to be the one who stands athwart history and shouts, “Stop!” And yet, as craven as Chambliss’s capitulation to the forces of unrestrained government power is – and it is craven indeed – there is one thing the august Georgia solon has right: it’s time to break with Grover Norquist.

“I care more about this country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge,” Chambliss thundered piously. “If we do it his way, then we’ll continue in debt, and I just have a disagreement with him about that.” In other words, there is no chance whatsoever to rein in the ever-galloping growth of government spending, and so Americans are just going to have to pony up more to feed the socialist leviathan. After all, we can’t expect that people will perform key services like reading our emails or making sure we aren’t drinking sugary drinks for free. And Saxby Chambliss, part of the ever spineless, gutless, clueless, directionless, visionless Republican establishment, is going to make sure they are duly remunerated for their service to Big Brother.

Norquist’s response was an indication of how utterly the anti-tax idol has failed. “Senator Chambliss,” he huffed, “promised the people of Georgia he would go to Washington and reform government rather than raise taxes to pay for bigger government. He made that commitment in writing to the people of Georgia.” Yet while the good people of Georgia may really want to reform government rather than raise taxes to pay for bigger government, the majority of their countrymen do not. In 1984, Walter Mondale’s promise to raise taxes was the kiss of death for his presidential campaign; in 2012, after over twenty years of Grover Norquist’s anti-tax crusade, Barack Obama made raising taxes the linchpin of his campaign, and was decisively reelected.

Not only has Norquist spectacularly failed to convince the American people that an out-of-control megastate that confiscates the fruit of the labors of the industrious is to be rejected; he has also tied the Republican Party to a disastrously self-defeating posture toward Islamic supremacism. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) called Norquist out for this on the House floor in October 2011, saying of the anti-tax hero: “Documentation shows that he has deep ties to supporters of Hamas and other terrorist organizations that are sworn enemies of the United States and our ally Israel.” He pointed out that “around the years 2000 and 2001, Mr. Norquist’s firm represented Abdurahman Alamoudi, who was convicted two years later for his role in a terrorist plot and who is presently serving a 23-year sentence in federal prison.”

Norquist, reported Wolf, “also associated with terror financier Sami Al-Arian, according to Mary Jacoby’s reporting in March 2003, in the St. Petersburg Times. Al-Arian pled guilty in 2006 ‘to a charge of conspiring to provide services to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a specially designated terrorist organization, in violation of U.S. law,’ and is under house arrest, according to a Department of Justice press release. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s ‘paramilitary wing—the al-Quds Brigades—has conducted numerous attacks, including large-scale suicide bombings,’ according to the National Counterterrorism Center.”

These are the kinds of people for whom Norquist opened doors. Norquist, said Wolf, “served as a key facilitator between Al-Arian, Alamoudi and the White House.…In June 2001, Al-Arian was among the members of the American Muslim Council invited to the White House complex.…The next month, the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom — a civil liberties group headed by Al-Arian — gave Norquist an award for his work to abolish the use of secret intelligence evidence in terrorism cases.”

Wolf also pointed out that Norquist tied his anti-tax work to his agitation for Islamic supremacist causes: he “even used Americans for Tax Reform to circulate a petition in support of the ‘Ground Zero Mosque,’ ” which 70% of Americans opposed. “Why would Americans for Tax Reform,” Wolf asked, “circulate a petition in support of the ‘Ground Zero Mosque?’ For the families of those who lost loved ones on 9/11 or during operations in the War on Terror, concerns about the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ were neither a ploy nor a distraction, as Norquist described it.”

Meanwhile, for fear of crossing Norquist and losing his favor, Republicans for years have been turning a blind eye to all his ties to shady Muslim individuals and groups. If they signed his tax pledge, they were effectively pledging also not to make trouble about the access and influence he was facilitating for people linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. Thus was removed the only possible effective counterweight to the Democrats’ active collaboration with Islamic supremacists.

But now Norquist has failed. Taxes are going up. Opposing new taxes is not a winning issue in elections. The Republican Party, after being unable or unwilling to offer a genuine choice, rather than an echo, to the Democrats’ socialist pandering, is in well-deserved ruins. But there may be a silver lining. What is left of the American opposition now has a chance to jettison not only Norquist’s failed tax pledge, as Chambliss has done, but also come out against his enabling of Muslim Brotherhood infiltration. Why should this failed tax crusader continue to hold the loyal opposition hostage?

Of course, there may be a few politicians out there who genuinely oppose Big Government, and want to come out publicly against further tax increases. More power to them, I say, and I hope they have solid job prospects in the private sector. But in the meantime, for their convenience I offer, as an alternative to Norquist’s toxic cocktail of No Taxes Plus Collaboration with Islamic Supremacists, a genuinely pro-freedom tax pledge. Call it the Robert Spencer Tax Pledge. Here it is: “I solemnly pledge to oppose new tax increases, to work to cut existing tax rates, and to oppose Muslim Brotherhood infiltration in our government and the concomitant dismantling of our resistance to the jihad and Islamic supremacism.”

There. I invite any and all politicians to take that pledge. So now Republicans (and Democrats) can’t say they have no alternative to Grover Norquist. It’s time for new approaches, and so here is one.

Meanwhile, a toast to Saxby Chambliss. He may be just another self-serving hack feeding at the public trough, but he has managed to do the right thing, even if by accident: he has thrown off the deleterious influence of the thoroughly compromised Norquist. For that alone, even though he did it for the wrong reasons, he may one day deserve to be called a statesman.

Wednesday night on my weekly ABN program I discussed the latest developments in the war on free speech. Pamela Geller joined me after the first half hour.

It is said that "You can fool some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time." But the Swedish establishment surely tries hard. Now they got caught. The new conservative newspaper Dispatch International is published in English, German, Danish and Swedish, and with Lars Hedegaard, Chairman of the International Free Speech Society, Islam and immigration will not be lied about. And that is what the Swedish unholy marriage of journalists and politicians fear.

From Dispatch International: Massive hacker attack against Dispatch International:

Dispatch International is under attack. During the last week we have been bombarded by attempts to overload the web site, rendering it inaccessible to our readers.

”This is no ordinary Denial of Service attack, that anybody can carry out. The people responsible know what they’re doing and have reasonably high skills,” says Dispatch International’s head of internet security.

A number of experts on IT security have gone through the logs from the 24 hour period when the attack was at its most intense, around November 22. And they have drawn several conclusions, of which the most interesting is that computers belonging to the newspapers Sydsvenskan, Värnamo Nyheter and Norrköpings Tidningar, the radio production company Tredje Statsmakten Media AB and Swedish state television SVT took part in the attack.

“Most of the computers used in the attack have random, dynamic IP addresses. So, these media houses certainly stand out,” says one of the security experts.

Even if there is no way to be sure that persons from these companies have participated actively in the attack, the experts believe is the most likely scenario.

”The alternative is that these major corporations have been hacked, and that would mean this is a very high profile attack. That is very is unlikely. An attack at that level could have wreaked complete havoc with the system, and that didn’t happen this time.”

By the skin of their teeth, Dispatch International’s security team managed to keep the web page online during most of the attack, but the publication of last week’s web paper was severely delayed. If one were to calculate how much money an attack like this is worth in overtime and damage to the paper’s reputation, one would end up with a six-figure amount. Dispatch International has of course reported the attack to the police, who are now investigating suspicions of hacking.

Here is my weekly Jihad Watch segment on Michael Coren's Sun TV show last night.

Pro-palestinian "Allah-u-Akbar" Christmas choir, Leftists demonstrating for "Global intifada", t-shirts promoting sharia 'Only God can judge me', flags with machine guns and hand grenade and red socialist flags -- and stoning of secular law's representatives. As usual: No arrests...

Many thanks for the pictures to the award winning blog Uriasposten.net, Denmark's most read political blog.

Translated by Nicolai Sennels, Ekstrabladet November 22 2012, "Gaza demonstrators threw stones at the police":

Around 800 demonstrators gathered at 17 o'clock at Christiansborg Palace Square. Around 7 o'clock PM half of the demonstration crosses Knippelsbro bridge. ... On the way over the bridge, several demonstrators ran towards Ministry for Foreign Affairs. But they were stopped by the police.

"They were greeted by one of our police bus and threw some stones and firecrackers at the car, but no one was hurt," says Jens Kristiansen.... "Police have not made arrests in connection with the riots."

Allah-u-Akbar in the middle of Copenhagen

Anti-capitalist carrying Adidas bag joins Arabs

Fatah banner with rifles and hand grenade -- Copenhagen 2012

This infidel enjoys his free speech to demonstrate for Global Intifada

This woman breaks the law by covering her face at a demonstration. But nobody was arrested...

Promoting sharia in front of the Danish parliament - only God can judge him...

Red and green -- a popular color combination... Socialists and Islamic supremacists unite

It was about time that those who make their living from free speech (unfortunately in this case not journalists...) stand up for freedom. For some reason the BBC chose to mention Passion for Freedom on their Arab channel, and not the English speaking channel. Is that because the BBC thinks that criticism of Islam is more problematic in the UK than in the Middle East...? Read a review of the PfF exhibition at the Spectator here.

From Dispatch International, read the whole article here: Artists are worried about Islam.

Forty artists from around the world have got together due to their fear that the West is in the process of abandoning freedom. Their exhibition Passion for Freedom in London asks the question: Will our attempt to institute multicultural harmony pave the way for a totalitarian society?

What is freedom? How easy is it to lose it? And how hard is it to get it back? ...

The fact that it is held in the British capital for the fourth consecutive year is not a coincidence.

With the introduction of Sharia courts and a growing number of burqa-clad women on the street, freedom is no longer a matter of course in the country that gave us the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights. Freedom is something that is increasingly called into question.

It is also not a coincidence that several of the organizers behind Passion For Freedom are of Polish / Russian origin. They have experience with more than liberal democracy. "We know the totalitarian by its smell," says Marianna Fox, a 27-year-old designer with roots in Russia. ... "We are concerned to see that so many people take freedom for granted. Too many doesn’t realize how fragile it really is, and we would like to draw attention to this." She stresses that the exhibition focuses on all threats to freedom. Thus China, Cuba and other states where freedom is in difficulty are subject of artistic treatment. ...

Islam poses a threat to freedom that it is impossible to overlook, says Marianna Fox. "Many of us who work with the exhibition know what it was like under communism. We were young when it collapsed, but we recognize the fear and censorship that stems from Islam today. "We cannot just stand idly by while politicians restrict our freedom of speech and introduce Sharia courts all over Britain. We have to say no. We have to insist on equality before the law and the right for everybody to express their opinions freely. Otherwise we have learned nothing from history, and we are likely to repeat it." ...

Violence against women – or to be specific, female genital mutilation – is also the theme that English-born artist Fiona Dent has taken up. Her painting ”Madonna of Mutilation” depicts a woman with cut and sewn lips. In the accompanying description of the painting the artist asks whether the British politicians and authorities would wake up if every year 24,000 little girls had their lips cut off and their mouths sewn together. "The question is rhetorical; of course they would," says Fiona Dent. But it is obviously a different story when it comes to the more subtle cutting of female genitals. ... "In this country there has not been one a single lawsuit about this matter. It’s a terrible disgrace," says Fiona Dent.

From the Passion for Freedom exhibition:

Yes, he used the word "savage." Will he be roundly denounced as a racist Islamophobe? Will Mona Eltahawy spray-paint the offices of Palestinian Islamic Jihad?

"Palestinian Islamic Jihad Leader Promises 'Savage Round' of Fighting," by John Rossomando for IPT News, November 29 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

A leader of the third-largest Palestinian faction told the Egyptian newspaper El-Balad Thursday that the truce with Israel will be brief and that Palestinians are braced for a "more savage and bloody round" of fighting with Israel.

"We are preparing for a new, more savage round," Dr. Mohammed Al-Hindi, a leading Palestinian Islamic Jihad figure told the newspaper. "We are in a short truce (hudna), the Israeli enemy is preparing for further rounds of war in Gaza."...

An extraordinary voice for truth and free speech. "Bard on the run: Iranian-born scholar still at risk in Holland," by Cnaan Liphshiz for JTA, November 29:

LEIDEN, the Netherlands (JTA) -- Among his many talents, Afshin Ellian has a knack for making people want to kill him.

It’s a trait he demonstrated as a fugitive in his native Iran after the Islamic Revolution; then as a refugee in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he angered secular Stalinists; and finally in Holland, where he lives under 24-hour police protection because of his criticisms of Islam.

Ellian has never been someone to toe the line, however. As many in Europe were rushing to condemn Israel's operation in Gaza earlier this month, Ellian, probably the most famous Iranian in the Netherlands, used his platform at the Dutch magazine Elsevier to blame Hamas “for putting their people in an inhumane position by needlessly waging war.” He has criticized the Western media for ignoring massacres in Arab countries and focusing instead on Israel. And he has drawn death threats from Muslim militants for zingers like this: “Radical Islamists are so determined to prove Islam is the religion of peace that they are willing to kill for it.”

Having found himself in the line of fire so many times, it's unsurprising that the 46-year-old philosopher, poet and law professor dismissed suggestions that he might be deterred by Hamas rockets from carrying through with his first trip to Israel, a country he first heard of as a young political activist in Iran.

“Israel is what I wished Iran would be after the fall of the shah’s regime,” Ellian said in an interview last week at his office at Leiden University. “Its democratic nature is seen as a weakness by the Islamists in power but is a powerful model for young Iranians seeking change. Israel is also a central element -- a made-up enemy -- in the identity of the Iranian Islamic Republic, which oppresses them and has made me stateless. In short, Israel is relevant to my life.”

A refugee from the Iranian revolution, Ellian has a high profile in the Netherlands. The author of several books, some of them on radical Islam, he is also a columnist for Elsevier and appears regularly on Dutch television as a Middle East commentator. His Op-Eds also have appeared in The Wall Street Journal and Der Spiegel.

For a small country, the Netherlands has produced more than its fair share of political provocateurs who live under constant threat of death for their views. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born former parliamentarian, lived for years under armed guard following the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, with whom she collaborated on a piece critical of Islam, before leaving for the United States. The anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders also lives under police protection.

Like Hirsi Ali and Wilders, Ellian came to embrace the Jewish state, both as the adversary of a shared enemy and a model of what a religiously inspired democracy in the Middle East could look like. He first heard of Israel as a teenager in Iran, fleeing the Islamists who would pick out political activists like himself in universities and on the street. His cousin, also an activist, was executed and dumped in a mass grave.

“I was in a bakery and Ruhollah Khomeini, the revolution's spiritual leader, promised that the war with Iraq will lead to Jerusalem,” he said. “The baker and I had no idea where that was. I figured it had to be a village in Iraq.”

In Israel, Ellian delivered a lecture at the University of Haifa organized in part by Irgoen Olei Holland, an association of Dutch immigrants. The event is held each year on Nov. 26, the anniversary of a defiant 1940 speech by Rudolf Cleveringa, a non-Jewish Leiden professor, opposing the expulsion of Jews from academic and public life in Nazi-occupied Holland.

After his flight to Israel was diverted so the KLM crew could disembark -- the airline had barred its employees from the country during last week's fighting -- Ellian wrote that the crew could “learn something about courage from Cleveringa.”

They also could learn something about courage from Ellian himself. The son of two left-leaning intellectuals, Ellian went into hiding soon after Islamists swept to power in Iran in 1979. At 17, he already was hiding with the liberal underground’s shrinking network of safe houses.

“I shacked up in a Christian cemetery one night,” he recalls. “The sexton told me I might as well find a grave.”...

In 1987 he fled again, this time with his wife to Holland, where he set his mind to his studies, earning three master's degrees at the University of Tilburg within six years of his arrival -- a first in the university's history.

“I thought I could finally say anything,” he says of his current home. But danger was still lurking.

In 2000, he received the first of what would become many death threats after he criticized the Prophet Muhammad’s orders to kill critical poets in Medina, among other aspects of Islam. But Ellian would not be silenced. He accused the Iranian regime of “barbarity” and the “silent majority” of Muslims of complicity in the acts of violent radicals. The threats continued....

“I have nothing against Islam,” Ellian told JTA. “But I should be able to criticize it in the same way that I am able to criticize Judaism and Christianity.”

Ellian was placed under 24-hour police protection shortly after receiving his first death threats. Four years later, after the van Gogh murder, security was beefed up considerably at his Leiden office, where he sits behind electronically locked doors.

“I was shocked,” Ellian said. “I fled the Middle East, but the Middle East followed me. I knew that this time I had nowhere else to flee except maybe the moon.”

That's what Gaza became, contrary to all the confident predictions that Israel's withdrawal would usher in a new era of peace, and that's what a Palestinian state would be as well. "Palestinian 'state' wins U.N. recognition," from USA Today, November 29:

The United Nations General Assembly voted Thursday 138-9 with 41 abstentions to grant Palestine non-member state status.

The vote does not settle outstanding issues with Israel or change anything on the ground, say experts.

"We are here for a final serious attempt to achieve peace," Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas told General Assembly delegates before the vote. "Not to end the negotiation processâ?¦ rather to breath new life into the negotiation process."

Vuk JeremiÄ?, president of the General Assembly acknowledged the historical nature of the vote and called on Israeli and Palestinian leaders "to work for peace, negotiate in good faith and succeed."

Israelis say the Palestinian appeal for non-member state status will make peace less likely. Currently the Palestinian Authority has the status of U.N. observer.

Abbas went forward despite appeals to postpone the request, which the United States says will only make negotiations for a permanent state less likely to happen.

"If the Israeli authorities want to threaten my life, they can," Abbas said according to Palestinian news agency Ma'an. "The whole world realizes that the Palestinian Authority, with all its political and security services, and administrative bodies, has been ready to upgrade its status for six years."

The Israeli government did not threaten Abbas' life, but said said that peace is only achieved through negotiations, and not by unilateral declarations that do not take into consideration Israel security needs.

"Israel's hand is always extended in peace, but a Palestinian state will not be established without recognition of the state of Israel as the state of the Jewish people, without an end-of-conflict declaration, and without true security arrangements that will protect Israel and its citizens," he said Thursday.

Ahead of the vote, Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch filed an amendment to a defense bill that would eliminate funding for the United Nations if the General Assembly changes Palestine's status.

"Increasing the Palestinians' role in the United Nations is absolutely the wrong approach, especially in light of recent military developments in the Middle East," he said in a statement. "Israel is one of America's closest allies, and any movement to strengthen one of its fiercest enemies must not be tolerated."

In his speech, Abbas said he"did not come here to de-legitimize a state established years ago, that is Israrel. Rather we are here to affirm a state that must achieve its independence, and that is Palestine."

His bid to seek U.N.recognition was met with "an incessant flood of Israeli threats," he said, including "justification of military assaults and ethnic cleansing,particularly in east Jerusalem."

Israel's occupation "is becoming consistent with an apartheid system" that promotes "racial hatred and incitement," he said. "The window of opportunity is narrowing and time is running out."...

What incredible mendacity and projection.

While other Western nations flirt with introducing blasphemy laws under the guise of "hate speech" codes, the Netherlands, of all places, affirms free speech. "Dutch Parliament Revokes Blasphemy Law," by Frud Bezhan for RFE/RL, November 29:

Insulting God will no longer be a crime in the Netherlands after the Dutch parliament decided to revoke a decades-old blasphemy law from the statute books.

The law, which was drafted in the 1930s, had not been used for half a century, leading legislators to decide there was no longer a need for it.

Discussions over whether to formally abolish blasphemy restrictions in the Netherlands began a decade ago as part of a debate about the limits of freedom of expression.

But Marc Veldt, a media-law lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences in Utrecht, says the November 29 decision was made possible by national elections in September, in which two liberal parties emerged victorious. Far-right and conservative parties, which had opposed lifting the blasphemy ban, took heavy losses in the poll.

Veldt says the move to lift the ban on blasphemy was also an indirect result of the legal case involving anti-Islam Dutch politician Geert Wilders. In June 2011, a Dutch court ruled that Wilders had the right to criticize Islam, even though his opinions insulted many Muslims.

Wilders, who leads the Freedom Party, had described Islam as "fascist" and compared Islam's holy book, the Koran, to Adolf Hitler's autobiography and political manifesto "Mein Kampf." Amsterdam judge Marcel van Oosten said Wilders' statements were directed at Islam and not at Muslims. Van Oosten said the statements were "gross and denigrating" but still "acceptable within the context of public debate."

Wilders said at the time that the verdict was "not only an acquittal for me, but a victory for freedom of expression in the Netherlands."

The decision to abolish the country's blasphemy law has been hailed by activists internationally, who have long called it outdated and a threat to free speech.

Push Back Against Blasphemy Laws

One of them is Padraig Reidy, a news editor at "Index on Censorship," a magazine based in London that is devoted to protecting freedom of expression.

Reidy says many European states still have laws prohibiting blasphemy, although in many cases such legislation has not been invoked for decades. Different European countries have taken their own trajectories on the issue in recent years, making it hard to discern a clear trend.

Britain, for example, scrapped a blasphemy law in 2008, which had made it illegal to insult Christianity. But it has since replaced it with a more general law against incitement to religious hatred.

Ireland introduced a new law in 2010 that makes blasphemy a crime punishable by a fine of up to 25,000 euros ($32,485). The Irish law defines blasphemy as "publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defenses permitted."

Reidy argues that blasphemy laws are no longer relevant in the 21st century. He says there is no place for a law defending religion, which he calls an "ideal." He says it should be people who have rights, not ideals.

"There's no question that blasphemy laws are a severe restriction on free speech. Any push back against blasphemy laws -- [against the notion that ideas] should be protected -- is a good thing. It's very important that blasphemy laws should be repealed," Reidy says....

Indeed.

While the hopelessly compromised American Library Association cravenly capitulates to the foes of free speech, at least one library in Tehran is more hospitable to free thought and a genuine exchange of ideas.

Last Monday evening I spoke at the University of California Irvine, at an event organized by an Iranian ex-Muslim who read my book Islam Unveiled after finding it in a library in Tehran. A printout of some of the listings from that library is above; you can see my books Islam Unveiled and Onward Muslim Soldiers, along with other Islamorealistic books.

When I asked my host how my books could have possibly gotten there, he told me that there were millions of Islamoskeptics and secret apostates in Iran, and they could have gotten the books into the library system there. He also told me that he and other apostates felt quite isolated and threatened in Iran (understandably so) and drew hope from Jihad Watch and other freedom sites, seeing from them that they were not alone.

So while the American Library Association marches on in politically correct lockstep, not daring to entertain any genuine dissent even as they celebrate "Banned Books Week," the truth is more welcome -- quietly, cautiously, but unmistakably -- in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

This is the same wording as in the previous constitution, but under the Muslim Brotherhood it is almost certain to have more teeth than it did under Mubarak. "UPDATE 1-Islam's status unchanged in Egypt draft constitution," from Reuters, November 29:

Nov 29 (Reuters) - An assembly drafting Egypt's new constitution voted on Thursday to keep the principles of Islamic law as the main source of legislation, unchanged from the previous constitution in force under former President Hosni Mubarak.

The issue was the subject of a long dispute between hardline Salafi Islamists and liberals in the assembly which will vote on each of 234 articles in the draft constitution before it is sent to President Mohamed Mursi for approval.

After that, Mursi must put it to a popular referendum.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group that nominated Mursi for the presidency, hopes that quick approval of the constitution will help end a crisis ignited by a decree that expanded his powers.

While Article Two of the constitution - describing the source of legislation - stays the same, the constitution includes new provisions explaining what is meant by "the principles" of Islamic law, known as sharia.

The assembly also approved a new article that states that Al-Azhar, a seat of Sunni Muslim learning, must be consulted on "matters related to the Islamic sharia"....

The process has been plagued by disputes between the Islamists who dominate the body writing the constitution and secular-minded parties who say the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies have marginalised them in the process.

Prominent assembly members including former Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa have withdrawn from the assembly, as have representatives of Egypt's Coptic Church.

Muhammad said: "Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him" (Bukhari 9.84.57). The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law according to all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence. Yet Muslim spokesmen such as Harris Zafar, Mustafa Akyol, Salam al-Marayati, M. Cherif Bassiouni, and Ali Eteraz (among many others) have assured us that Islam doesn't punish apostasy. I expect that Zafar, Akyol, al-Marayati, Bassiouni, and Eteraz will immediately be jetting over to Jakarta to explain to Prof. Dr. Ali Mustafa Yaqub, Chief Imam of Istiqlal Mosque, that he is getting Islam all wrong, wrong, wrong.

"Muslims who said Muslims free to choose religion must tepent [sic] – Chief Imam," by Ahmad Fuad Yahya for the Borneo Post, November 29 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

JAKARTA: Muslims who said that Muslims are free to choose their religion are misguided and need to repent and ask for forgiveness from Allah, said Chief Imam of Istiqlal Mosque here, Prof Dr Ali Mustafa Yaqub.

“They (Muslims) who said this admitted the truth of other religions and had gone astray. Those who said that all religions are equal, can join and leave as they please, can become infidels,” he told reporters here.

Ali Mustafa, a famous Indonesian scholar and hadith expert was commenting on remarks by Lembah Pantai Member of Parliament Nurul Izzah Anwar who quoted a verse form the Quran which means “There is no compulsion in religion” and linked to views on religious freedom for the Malays in Malaysia.

In Malaysia, the Malays are Muslims.

“The verse which means “There is no compulsion in religion” is only directed to non-Muslims as they are not forced to convert to Islam but when they choose to embrace Islam, they must comply with the rules set out by Islam.

Ali Mustafa said those who subscribe to liberal thinking may be reluctant to accept it because it seemed like not supporting freedom of rights.

“Islam does not ask you to embrace it. You can choose to become infidels as it is your right but if you embrace it, follow the rules of Islam. If you embrace Islam but still follow unIslamic rules, then things will go haywire.”

He said although Muslims in Malaysia are not as many as in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim community, Muslims in Malaysia remain as Muslims, especially the Malays.

On another note, Ali Mustafa said Islam forbid Muslims from praying for the destruction of fellow Muslims.

The chief imam said Prophet Muhammad did not pray for the destruction of non-Muslims, what more fellow Muslims....

Muhammad didn't pray for the destruction of non-Muslims? The poet Abu Mayt mocked Muhammad in verse and threw intestines on his back while he was praying. In response, Muhammad prayed: "O Allah! Destroy (the pagans of) Quraish [major tribe in Mecca]; O Allah! Destroy Quraish; O Allah Destroy Quraish..." (Bukhari 4.52.185). He went on to ask for the destruction of several individuals, including Abu Mayt, whom he later had executed.

Gul says he believes in free speech, but "incitement to hate and violence" should not enjoy free speech protections. By this he doesn't mean the hate sermons of imams calling for jihad against Infidels, but the writings of "Islamophobes," including accurate analyses of how jihadists use the texts and teachings of Islam to promote violence and supremacism.

The problem with his distinction between freedom of speech and "incitement to hate and violence" is that what constitutes the latter is a subjective judgment. The person who gets to decide what is "incitement to hate and violence" is the one who holds the power to control the public discourse. If the standard by which such incitement is determined is whether or not Muslims are rioting over something, then to outlaw this "incitement" would be tantamount to saying that all Muslims need do is riot in order to shut up someone who is saying things they don't like.

And that, of course, is Abdullah Gul's real objective: to compel the West to criminalize criticism of Islam and adopt Sharia blasphemy codes, under the guise of criminalizing "hate speech."

As for Gul's claim that "Islamophobia" is akin to antisemitism, the late Christopher Hitchens ably took that claim apart when writing a few years ago about the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero: "'Some of what people are saying in this mosque controversy is very similar to what German media was saying about Jews in the 1920s and 1930s,' Imam Abdullah Antepli, Muslim chaplain at Duke University, told the New York Times. Yes, we all recall the Jewish suicide bombers of that period, as we recall the Jewish yells for holy war, the Jewish demands for the veiling of women and the stoning of homosexuals, and the Jewish burning of newspapers that published cartoons they did not like."

Gul's aim in this is to intimidate people into thinking that criticism of Islamic supremacism leads to the gas chambers, and thus there must be no criticism of Islamic supremacism. The unstated assumption is that if one group was unjustly accused of plotting subversion and violence, and was viciously persecuted and massacred on the basis of those false accusations, then any group accused of plotting subversion and violence must be innocent, and any such accusation must be in service of preparing for their internment and massacre.

The key difference is not only that Muslim leaders worldwide have made their intention to conquer and subjugate non-Muslims very clear, in a way that Jews never did in the run-up to the Holocaust; it is also that anti-jihadists nowhere advocate a "final solution" for Muslims, and never will -- we are merely calling upon them to drop the authoritarian and repressive aspects of Sharia and obey the laws of the Western societies in which they live. This is a movement in defense of freedom and equality of rights before the law.

"Turkish president Abdullah Gul on Syria and Islamophobia," by Haroon Siddiqui in the Toronto Star, November 28:

...Abdullah Gul, president of Turkey, heads a prosperous moderate Muslim democracy when much of the Middle East is roiled by popular revolts against dictatorships and for better economic conditions....

As foreign minister (2003-07), Gul spearheaded Turkey’s unsuccessful bid to join the European Union. Most Turks have soured on the idea, given European resistance, and Turkey’s economy booming and Europe’s tanking.

But it’s a quest that Gul still advocates as essential to keeping Turkey on the path to European liberal standards. At the same time, he’s pained by the West’s Islamophobia.

“It’s the same as anti-Semitism,” he said.

“It reminds us that while the West has high levels of education and income, it has diseases that are not easily curable. The diseases of the East, mainly illiteracy and poverty, are easier to fix than the diseases of the West, such as anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

“Islamophobia poses particular risks in today’s globalized world. It can be costly as well as a menace to world peace, increase risks to the lives of ordinary people and complicate the world political situation.

“Just like the world tackled anti-Semitism, we need to take measures to contain anti-Islamism.”

Gul mentioned the recent short anti-Muhammad film made in the U.S. by a member of the radicalized Egyptian Coptic Christian diaspora and funded by a fundamentalist Christian.

“When we look at the people behind the film and their background, we can see which groups and people they were associated with. This speaks for itself. They are full of hate for Muslims and Islam

“I believe in freedom of speech but I also believe that this discourse of hate, and incitement to hate and violence should in no way be considered part of free speech. If we don’t curb it, it will only lead to graver problems.

“The western world has troops in Afghanistan and is very much engaged in the Middle East. On the other hand, it permits deliberate acts of hate that create security issues, and innocent people from both sides suffer.”

What does he think of the violent protests in parts of the Muslim world against insults to Islam, the Qur’an and Muhammad?

“Islamophobic needling provocations will happen again. They are deliberate. But they must be ignored. The Muslim world should not react in the way it has.”...

Islamic law forbids non-Muslim men to marry Muslim women. That would be haram. But shooting such couples is pleasing to Allah. "Christian man and Muslim girlfriend shot in Zamboanga City," from the Mindanao Examiner, November 29 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Nov. 29, 2012) – Police is searching for two motorcycle gunmen who shot a Christian student and his Muslim girlfriend shortly after they stepped out of a motel in Zamboanga City in the southern Philippines.

Police said the attack had killed the 21-year old man while his girlfriend remains in serious condition. The duo had just flagged down a tricycle when the gunmen opened fire and escaped after the shooting.

The tricycle driver said he ran to take cover after hearing the volleys of fire. The motive of the attack is still unknown, but police is investigating whether the ambush was connected to the personal relationship of the victims.

The relationship between a Muslim woman and a Christian man is considered ‘haram’ or forbidden among many Muslims in the southern Philippines.

19,999 jihad attacks as of this morning. But remember: "Islamophobia" is the far greater problem!

The number increases so quickly, the ad is already out of date.

They wanted her property for a mosque, and ultimately their piety could not be restrained. "Jewish woman brutally murdered in Iran over property dispute," by Ilan Ben Zion in the Times of Israel, November 28:

A 57-year-old Jewish woman was brutally stabbed to death and her body mutilated on Monday by Muslim attackers in the Iranian city of Isfahan, in what her family says was a religiously motivated crime related to a property dispute, Menashe Amir, an expert on Iranian Jewry who spoke with the victim’s family, has told The Times of Israel.

Tuba N., whose family requested not to reveal her last name, was murdered by her Muslim neighbors, who had harassed her family for years in an attempt to drive them from their home and confiscate the property for the adjoining mosque.

“The religious radicals even expropriated part of the house and attached it to the mosque’s courtyard,” Amir said. “The Jewish family appealed to the courts with the help of a local attorney” to seek redress for the conflict, “despite the threats to their lives.”

On Monday, while her husband was in Tehran attending to business matters, “thugs broke into her home, tied up her two sisters who were living with her, and repeatedly stabbed her to death.” Afterward, her attackers allegedly butchered her body and cut off her hands, a sister who witnessed the event told her relatives in the US, who conveyed the information to Amir.

"Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): 'I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instil terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them.'" -- Qur'an 8:12

Of course, if it weren't this, they'd find another pretext for their own jihad mass murders. "Taliban threaten to avenge Kasab death in a month," by Omer Farooq Khan for TNN, November 29 (thanks to Narain):

ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani Taliban faction has claimed that its fighters were holed up in Amritsar and Hyderabad to carry out attacks to avenge 26/11 convict Ajmal Kasab's execution last week.

"We will avenge the death of Ajmal Kasab on Indian soil within a month,'' Ahmed Marwat, a spokesman for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan's Jundullah group told the TOI from an undisclosed location on Wednesday. "His death will not go waste. (Our) group has a number of fighters in Amritsar and Hyderabad Deccan, who will soon take revenge of Ajmal Kasab. With the death of one Kasab, scores of his other comrades are ready for martyrdom.''

Marwat spoke in what seemed like Pashto language's tribal accent spoken in Pakistan's tribal northwest bordering Afghanistan. The region has long been an al-Qaida and Taliban safe haven. The fresh threat comes days after another Taliban faction threatened to avenge Kasab's hanging by "striking Indian targets anywhere".

The Pakistani state and minority Muslim sects — Shiias and Sufis — have so far been the group's prime targets. Thousands of people have been killed since it launched a wave of destabilizing attacks on the country's armed forces, spy agencies, market places and mosques beginning 2009.

The group had taken responsibility for the failed Times Square car bombing attempt in 2010, but retracted days later. Experts doubt its ability to strike overseas, saying the group lacks the sophistication to do so.

Jundullah has been closely tied to Qaida and responsible for sectarian bloodbath across Pakistan. It has claimed responsibility for most of attacks on Shias across Pakistan in the last two years. The group was blamed for September attacks on Karachi's Dawoodi Bohra community that killed 11 people.

Earlier in February, Jundullah massacred 18 Shias from Gilgit-Baltistan after pulling them out of a bus near Rawalpindi. The slain were on their way from Kohistan. Marwat had then claimed responsibility for the attack while claiming to be the group's Karachi-based commander. Media reports say the group has entrenched itself in Karachi.

"Among the most feared militant groups is Jundullah's Karachi chapter, led by Fasihur Rehman, which is responsible for most of the sectarian attacks in the city," said Umar Khitab, a Karachi-based cop. Sources said Jundullah chief Hamja Jofi alias Haji Mumtaz founded the group in 2003 in Waziristan.

And the "world powers" are placing their hopes in a new "window of opportunity" for "diplomacy," even though Iran has made it abundantly clear that it will not be dissuaded from uranium enrichment. "Iran 'will press on with enrichment:' nuclear chief," by Yeganeh Torbati for Reuters, November 28 (thanks to all who sent this in):

(Reuters) - Iran will go on refining uranium "with intensity" and the number of enrichment centrifuges it has operating will rise substantially in the current year, the country's nuclear energy chief was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

The comments by Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, signaled continued defiance in the face of international demands that Tehran halt enrichment to the higher 20 percent fissile purity level, close down its Fordow enrichment plant, and ship out its stockpile of the material.

But he also said Iran would continue and possibly raise its output of reactor fuel using 20 percent enriched uranium - which suggests that less of it might be available for use in what the West suspects is an attempt to develop atom bombs.

Iran says it needs 20 percent refined uranium - as opposed to the lower-grade enrichment to 3.5 percent level needed for nuclear power plants - to turn into fuel for a medical research reactor in Tehran.

It says its nuclear program has purely peaceful purposes.

Diplomacy between Iran and the world powers - the United States, China, Russia, France, Germany, and Britain - has been deadlocked since a June meeting that ended without breakthrough.

Both sides now say they want to resume talks soon, after this month's re-election of U.S. President Barack Obama.

Diplomats expect a new meeting in Istanbul later this year or in January. One diplomatic source said the powers would propose the first half of December but that the following month was more likely.

"We all recognize that there is a window of opportunity and that window is not very big and it is not going to be open for very long," another diplomat said. "The hope is that there will be a meeting (between the powers and Iran) in the near future."

Iran has faced a tightening of Western trade sanctions in the past two years, with the United States and its allies hoping the measures will force Iran to curb its nuclear program.

STOCKPILE

"Despite the sanctions, most likely this year we will have a substantial growth in centrifuge machines and we will continue enrichment with intensity," state television quoted Abbasi-Davani as saying. The Iranian calendar year ends on March 20....

Just a few years ago, Turkey was regularly held up in the mainstream media as proof that Islam and democracy, and even Islam and secularism, could coexist. Numerous commentators from all over the American political spectrum confidently held up Turkey as a model for what the Islamic world in general could and would surely forthwith become. Since then, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has steered Turkey toward Sharia, Islamic Jew-hatred, and a belligerent stance toward the West. But of course all the learned analysts who complacently pointed to Turkey as the model that the rest of the Islamic countries would surely soon emulate are never called to account for the disastrous errors of their analyses.

"Erdogan plans to visit Gaza with Mashaal next week," from the Jerusalem Post, November 28 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):

Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that he plans to visit Gaza next week, Turkish paper Today’s Zaman reported.

Erdogan said he was invited to join Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal's visit to Gaza on December 5, Today’s Zaman reported.

The Turkish prime minister has expressed willingness to visit Gaza several times in the past. Earlier this month, Erdogan told reporters he plans to visit Gaza soon, and that Turkish officials are conducting talks with officials in the Strip in order to make the trip happen, according to Today’s Zaman....

"'They say sharia forbids it,' says Rakiatou Wallet Tannal, an aunt of the newborn girl, referring to Islamic law. 'That's their sharia, not the sharia of Muslims.'"

Unfortunately, that is not the case.

Hadith Qudsi 19:5: "The Prophet said that Allah commanded him to destroy all the musical instruments, idols, crosses and all the trappings of ignorance." (The Hadith Qudsi, or holy Hadith, are those in which Muhammad transmits the words of Allah, although those words are not in the Qur'an.)

Muhammad also said:

(1) "Allah Mighty and Majestic sent me as a guidance and mercy to believers and commanded me to do away with musical instruments, flutes, strings, crucifixes, and the affair of the pre-Islamic period of ignorance."

(2) "On the Day of Resurrection, Allah will pour molten lead into the ears of whoever sits listening to a songstress."

(3) "Song makes hypocrisy grow in the heart as water does herbage."

(4) "This community will experience the swallowing up of some people by the earth, metamorphosis of some into animals, and being rained upon with stones." Someone asked, "When will this be, O Messenger of Allah?" and he said, "When songstresses and musical instruments appear and wine is held to be lawful."

(5) "There will be peoples of my Community who will hold fornication, silk, wine, and musical instruments to be lawful ...." -- 'Umdat al-Salik r40.0

"Islamists silence the musicians who guide rural Mali," by John Thorne for the Christian Science Monitor, November 27 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):

Down a street of red earth near the outskirts of the Malian capital, a family is preparing for the naming ceremony of its newest member – an event now forbidden in their northern home region by Islamist militants who seized control there earlier this year.

"They say sharia forbids it," says Rakiatou Wallet Tannal, an aunt of the newborn girl, referring to Islamic law. "That's their sharia, not the sharia of Muslims."

The stricture hits especially hard for families like Ms. Wallet Tannal's, part of a hereditary caste of bards and storytellers found across West Africa and commonly known by their French name, "griot."

For centuries, griots have directed ceremonies, smoothed over disputes, and served as repositories of history and genealogy. Now in northern Mali they are out of a job. Yet their troubles highlight a larger problem: Having taken control of northern Mali, hard-line Islamists are smothering social interaction with religiously motivated bullying and brutal punishments.

A Sept. 25 report by Human Rights Watch on Islamist repression in northern Mali cited cases of hands amputated for alleged theft, beatings for listening to music, and women flogged for failing to cover themselves in public. At least one couple accused of adultery was reportedly stoned to death.

Until this year, northern Mali was known for music – spare melodies that recall the desert. Tourists went to festivals, men and women mixed freely, and Islam was a personal affair.

"Now there are no more birth [ceremonies], no more weddings," says Wallet Tannal of her family's hometown of Ménaka, on the fringe of the Sahara near Mali's border with Niger. Like most people there, they belong to the Tuareg, a nomadic people akin to North Africa's Berbers....

What is a government agency doing fighting against the First Amendment anyway? It is just another indication of just how imperiled the freedom of speech is in America today, this judgment notwithstanding. "Fighting Anti-Muslim Ads Cost Metro $35K in Attorney Fees," by Will Sommer in the Washington City Paper, November 28 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

Thanks to Metro, "Anti-jihad" blogger Pamela Geller—or her attorney—is now a little bit richer. The transit agency's ill-fated attempt to delay running ads from Geller's American Freedom Defense Initiative group that equated Muslims with savages will cost the agency $35,000 in attorney's fees for AFDI, according to a new email obtained by the Legal Times.

In the email (below), dated Oct. 17, an unnamed associate general counsel for Metro writes to an unnamed recipient, presumably someone with AFDI, that the agency would pay $35,000 in fees and costs. Earlier that month, a federal judge had ruled that Metro had to run the ads, despite Metro's concerns that it would inflame tensions in the Middle East....

"The bombs were supposed to be set off on Moscow's Red Square on New Year's Eve, when it is packed with celebrating crowds, investigators said." In order to maximize the blood and death demanded by Ilyas Saidov's bloodthirsty god.

"Russia jails New Year terror plotter for 15 years," from AFP, November 28 (thanks to Maxwell):

MOSCOW - A Russian court on Wednesday sentenced a suspected Islamist militant to 15 years in a penal colony for participating in a failed plot to stage twin suicide bombings in Moscow on New Year's Eve in 2010.

The Moscow City Court found Ilyas Saidov guilty on several counts of banditry, terrorism, weapons smuggling and murder, including bringing two bombs to the capital to be used by two female suicide bombers in an attack, the Investigative Committee said.

Russian security services revealed the existence of the plot in early 2011, saying it was only avoided because one of the suicide bombers accidentally blew herself up on the outskirts of the city, where the women rented a house on the grounds of a shooting club.

When the first bomber, Zavzhat Daudova, set the bomb off, destroying the building and killing herself, the second female, Zeinap Suyunova, fled Moscow and was later arrested in southern Russia.

Suyunova was sentenced to 10 years in prison in May....

Saidov, a native of the volatile North Caucasus region of Dagestan, was also convicted of crimes preceding the Moscow plot, including killing a top police officer in Dagestan and train bombing, the Investigative Committee said.

Prosecutors had not sought a life sentence for Saidov only because he signed an agreement to help the investigation, a representative of the Prosecutor General said in televised remarks.

Investigators said that Saidov was the one who brought the suicide belts from Dagestan on a bus, hiding them in two gas boilers.

The bombs were supposed to be set off on Moscow's Red Square on New Year's Eve, when it is packed with celebrating crowds, investigators said.

Saidov is the fifth suspect convicted for participating in the Moscow bombing plot, with six more awaiting trial, investigators said....

Here is the latest press release from Hamas-linked CAIR:

CAIR Repudiates Egypt 'Blasphemy' Death Sentences

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 11/28/12) -- The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil liberties organization, today repudiated death sentences handed down by an Egyptian court for charges linked to the anti-Islam film "Innocence of Muslims" that attacked the Prophet Muhammad....

In a statement, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said:

"We repudiate this un-Islamic attempt to impose the death sentence for blasphemy, a sentence that the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) himself never imposed, despite being attacked both rhetorically and physically.

"One Islamic tradition (hadith) states in reference to the Prophet: 'You do not do evil to those who do evil to you, but you deal with them with forgiveness and kindness.' (Sahih Al-Bukhari) Muslims in Egypt and worldwide should choose the same path of kindness and reconciliation followed by the Prophet himself.

"We ask civil and religious authorities in Egypt to honor the legacy of the Prophet by following his example and rejecting these death sentences.

"To do otherwise violates Islamic principles and offers support to those -- like the extremists who produced this despicable film -- who seek to defame Islam and Muslims."...

That all sounds great. The only problem with it is that it isn't honest. It is noteworthy that Awad tacitly acknowledges that Islam does indeed have a death sentence for blasphemy, which most Islamic apologists in the West deny; however, Muhammad did actually have people murdered for insulting him. Awad almost certainly knows this, and the Egyptian authorities undoubtedly do. So when Hamas-linked CAIR asks "civil and religious authorities in Egypt to honor the legacy of the Prophet by following his example and rejecting these death sentences," they're talking to people who believe they're following the "legacy of the Prophet" by imposing the death sentences. There is absolutely no chance that Egyptian authorities will heed CAIR's call, and CAIR knows this.

This makes it clear that Hamas-linked CAIR's repudiation of the death sentences is not designed to bring about any real change in Egypt, but only to lull more Americans into complacency about the reality of the contents of Sharia.

Islam mandates death for non-Muslim subjects of the Islamic state who mention "something impermissible about Allah, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), or Islam" ('Umdat al-Salik, o11.10), and such laws go back to passages in the Hadith and Sira in which Muhammad orders the murders of people who have insulted him, including Abu ‘Afak, who was over one hundred years old, and the poetess ‘Asma bint Marwan. Abu ‘Afak was killed in his sleep, in response to Muhammad's question, “Who will avenge me on this scoundrel?” Similarly, Muhammad on another occasion cried out, “Will no one rid me of this daughter of Marwan?” One of his followers, ‘Umayr ibn ‘Adi, went to her house that night, where he found her sleeping next to her children. The youngest, a nursing babe, was in her arms. But that didn’t stop ‘Umayr from murdering her and the baby as well. Muhammad commended him: “You have done a great service to Allah and His Messenger, ‘Umayr!” (Ibn Ishaq, 674-676)

Then there was Ka'b bin Al-Ashraf. Muhammad asked: "Who is willing to kill Ka'b bin Al-Ashraf who has hurt Allah and His Apostle?" One of the Muslims, Muhammad bin Maslama answered, "O Allah's Apostle! Would you like that I kill him?" When Muhammad said that he would, Muhammad bin Maslama said, "Then allow me to say a (false) thing (i.e. to deceive Kab)." Muhammad responded: "You may say it." Muhammad bin Maslama duly lied to Ka'b, luring him into his trap, and murdered him. (Sahih Bukhari, volume 5, book 59, number 369)

And another incident:

A blind man had a slave-mother [a slave who bore children for him] who used to abuse the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) and disparage him. He [the blind man] forbade her but she did not stop. He rebuked her but she did not give up her habit. One night she began to slander the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) and abuse him. So he [the blind man] took a dagger, placed it on her belly, pressed it, and killed her. A child who came between her legs was smeared with the blood that was there. When the morning came, the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) was informed about it.

He assembled the people and said: I adjure by Allah the man who has done this action and I adjure him by my right to him that he should stand up. Jumping over the necks of the people and trembling the man stood up.

He sat before the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) and said: Apostle of Allah! I am her master; she used to abuse you and disparage you. I forbade her, but she did not stop, and I rebuked her, but she did not abandon her habit. I have two sons like pearls from her, and she was my companion. Last night she began to abuse and disparage you. So I took a dagger, put it on her belly and pressed it till I killed her.

Thereupon the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said: Oh be witness, no retaliation is payable for her blood. (Sunan Abu-Dawud, book 38, number 4348)

And:

A Jewess used to abuse the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) and disparage him. A man strangled her till she died. The Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) declared that no recompense was payable for her blood. (Sunan Abu-Dawud, book 38, number 4349)

(Thanks to Jihad Watch reader Traeh for those last two.)

Likewise Islam QA calls for death for blasphemers, using both Qur'an and Hadith to make its argument. “The scholars are unanimously agreed,” the site explains, “that a Muslim who insults the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) becomes a kaafir [unbeliever] and an apostate who is to be executed. This consensus was narrated by more than one of the scholars, such as Imaam Ishaaq ibn Raahawayh, Ibn al-Mundhir, al-Qaadi 'Iyaad, al-Khattaabi and others.”

Is Hamas-linked CAIR really unaware of these traditions, and of these unanimous rulings of Islamic law, and consensus among Islamic scholars? Of course not. And that is the difference between reform and deception. If they were really "moderates" or "reformers," they'd refer to this material in some way and explain why Muhammad's example in this should not be normative. Instead, they take advantage of the fact the hardly any Americans know anything about this material, and so they know they can lie about it and get away with it.

Except at Jihad Watch.

You can see the sign: the Campus Fire Marshal orders the area to remain clear at all times. And underneath, a festive "Happy Eid" sign. Why there? Because that is where Muslims pray on campus at the University of California Irvine:

You can see the "This Area Is to Remain Clear At All Times" sign in the upper right, partially obscured by the tree. So if the Fire Marshal wants the area to remain clear at all times, why are Muslims praying there? Could it be that the University of California Irvine, which just adopted a divestment from Israel resolution reminiscent of Nazi calls to boycott Jewish shops, has quietly set aside this outdoor, public, conspicuous space for Muslim prayer (so that the Muslim presence on campus would be asserted far more effectively than it would be in an indoor prayer room), and had the Fire Marshall issue his decree so that non-Muslims wouldn't defile the mosque with their presence? (Non-Muslims are forbidden to enter mosques unless invited in for proselytizing purposes.)

Certainly the Muslims are unconcerned about the Fire Marshal's order, and consider the space so permanently theirs that they posted prayer times under the restricted area sign:

The Muslim Brotherhood-linked Muslim Student Association is pushing campuses nationwide to make special accommodation for Muslim students. It looks as if at the University of California Irvine they've succeeded spectacularly.

(Photos thanks to D.)

UPDATE: My informant at UCI has sent me more information:

1) About two years ago I entered this area (there was no Fire Marshal sign). I was approached by members of the MSU and asked to leave the area (they didn't come close to me)... They signaled me and I pretended not to understand. So one of them came closer and told me it was a prayer area and asked me to leave.

2) On Monday [name removed] phoned the UC Irvine Fire Marshal (at my request). We wanted to make sure they had placed the sign (they had). They claimed it was put up four years ago (untrue).

3) They told her that there are many such signs around campus and this area (untrue).

4) They told her they do not enforce the signs! (true)

5) Today [name removed] walked Ring Road (area). He found no other area with Fire Marshal signs.

6) This area also has a patio (benches / to eat and a vending machine). The "Sisters" usually sit at the tables (a few feet from prayer).

And used the opportunity to spread a bit more antisemitic propaganda at the UN, as if there weren't enough there already. It's interesting to note how remarkably similar Mohammad Khazaee sounds to spokesmen for Islamic supremacist groups in the U.S.: the same ridiculous "racism" charge, the same tu quoque, the same claiming of victim status, the same demonizing of Israel. Is Khazaee taking lessons from Hussam Ayloush?

"Iran blasts Canada as ‘racist’ and ‘self-centred’ for moving UN resolution condemning Islamic Republic’s abuses," by Kathryn Blaze Carlson for the National Post, November 28:

Iran called Canada “racist” and “self-centred” at a UN meeting on Tuesday, where it tried to deflect criticism of its own human rights record and balked at a Canadian-led resolution condemning Iranian abuses.

In a statement before the humanitarian affairs committee, Iran’s ambassador to the UN said Canada had “a long list of human rights violations” against immigrants, Muslims, aboriginals and “Afro-Canadian women,” and accused Ottawa of “abusing human rights mechanisms to advance its self-centred political interests.”

“In fact, if any country had to get a resolution, [Canada] would have deserved it more than others because of their unsparing support of a regime [Israel] that has frequently committed genocide in the Palestinian Occupied Territories,” Mohammad Khazaee said in a statement to the UN committee, obtained by the National Post....

The American Freedom Law Center is on the case: "Federal Lawsuit Exposes Massive CAIR Fraud and Cover-up," from the AFLC:

Last Friday, the Law Offices of David Yerushalmi, P.C. and the American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) filed a devastating legal brief supported by hundreds of pages of evidence, asking a federal judge to find the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) liable to five of its former clients for fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The legal brief demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt that CAIR is a criminal organization that deceptively holds itself out to the public as the nation’s largest Muslim-American civil rights organization.

The brief and supporting evidence were filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in two companion cases, Saiyed v. CAIR and Lopez v. CAIR, in which David Yerushalmi is lead counsel. The brief and supporting evidence overwhelmingly demonstrate that CAIR was involved in a massive criminal fraud and cover-up that injured numerous client-victims who had looked to CAIR for legal assistance, yet the CAIR “attorney” allegedly handling their cases was in fact not an attorney.

Yerushalmi, who is also Co-Founder and Senior Counsel of AFLC, commented, “The evidence has long suggested that CAIR is an organization set up by the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas to further its aims of stealth Jihad in the United States,” referring to the fact that CAIR was named by the federal government as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial. “According to the facts that are carefully laid out in our legal brief and fully supported by the record evidence,” Yerushalmi explained, “CAIR has engaged in a massive criminal fraud in which numerous CAIR clients have been victimized, and because of the CAIR cover-up many still don’t realize it. The fact that CAIR has victimized Muslims and non-Muslims alike demonstrates that it is only looking out for itself and its ongoing efforts to bilk donors out of millions of dollars of charitable donations thinking they are supporting a legitimate organization.”

Five former clients of CAIR filed the two lawsuits in federal court alleging common law and statutory fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and intentional infliction of emotional distress against CAIR. These two lawsuits followed an earlier lawsuit which had also alleged that CAIR’s fraudulent conduct amounted to racketeering, a federal RICO crime. In that case, the court dismissed the RICO counts, concluding that CAIR’s conduct as alleged was fraudulent but not a technical violation of RICO. The two civil lawsuits were filed by Yerushalmi on January 6, 2010, and because they arise out of the same facts, the cases were consolidated.

The supporting evidence, which was compiled after more than a year and a half of contentious discovery that involved numerous document requests, motions to compel the production of documents that CAIR was concealing, and multiple depositions of high-ranking CAIR officials, shows that Morris Days, the “Resident Attorney” and “Civil Rights Manager” at the now defunct CAIR-MD/VA chapter in Herndon, Virginia, was in fact not an attorney and that he failed to provide legal services for clients who came to CAIR for legal representation. The evidence also shows that CAIR knew of this fraud and purposefully conspired with Days to keep the CAIR clients from discovering that their legal matters were being mishandled or not handled at all. While Yerushalmi and AFLC represent the five plaintiffs in these two lawsuits, three of whom are Muslim Americans, according to CAIR’s internal documents, there were many more victims of the CAIR fraud scheme.

As set forth in the court filings, CAIR knew or should have known that Days was not a lawyer when it hired him. But, like many organizations accused of wrongdoing, things got worse when CAIR officials were confronted with clear evidence of Days’ fraudulent conduct. Rather than come clean and attempt to rectify past wrongs, CAIR conspired with Days to conceal and further the fraud. To this end, CAIR officials purposefully concealed the truth about Days from the clients, law enforcement, and the media. When CAIR did receive calls from irate clients about Days’ failure to provide competent legal services, CAIR fraudulently deceived them about Days’ relationship with CAIR, suggesting that he was never actually employed by CAIR.

Robert Muise, co-counsel in the lawsuit and Co-Founder and Senior Counsel of AFLC, commented: “The overwhelming evidence marshaled in this case will finally put to rest the myth fabricated by CAIR’s PR machine and perpetrated by a complicit media that this is a legitimate Muslim-American civil rights organization. This lawsuit strips away CAIR’s veil of legitimacy.”

Since Obama has repeatedly condemned this video, don't expect him to stand up for the freedom of speech or say a word about this new advance of Sharia in glorious "Arab Spring" Egypt.

"Egyptian Christians sentenced to death for anti-Islam film," from Reuters, November 28 (thanks to Twostellas):

CAIRO - A Cairo court on Wednesday sentenced to death seven Egyptian Christians tried in absentia for participating in an anti-Islam video that was released on the Internet in September and had prompted violent protests in many Muslim countries.

"The seven accused persons were convicted of insulting the Islamic religion through participating in producing and offering a movie that insults Islam and its prophet," Judge Saif al-Nasr Soliman said....

By which she means not jihad terrorists, but those who report upon and oppose their actions. "Puteri Calls For Stern Action Against Individuals Who Tarnish Image Of Islam," from Bernama, November 28 (thanks to Twostellas):

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 28 (Bernama) -- A Puteri Umno delegate today called on the authority to take stern action against the individuals who belittle or tarnish the image of Islam in the country.

Terengganu Umno Religious Bureau chairman Laila Daud said this was because that individuals could also tarnish the country's sovereignty, shake the political stability and threaten national security.

She said there were political parties, including PAS, which had been manipulating Islamic religious issues, including the proposed hudud laws, just to get the people's support as they knew that the issues were close to the Malays' hearts.

Laila said Umno, on the other hand, had been consistent in upholding Islam even since the pre-Independence era by implementing various physical and spiritual development programmes.

"I truly believe that Umno is the party that has done so much in upholding Islam than PAS," she said when debating the religious motion at the Puteri Umno General Assembly 2012 at Putra World Trade Centre here today.

At the end of her debate, Laila also prayed that leaders of PAS would join their counterparts in Umno in upholding Islam....

That's right -- it was Sunni misunderstanders of Islam who did the deed. How odd that they missed all the peaceful teachings of the Qur'an, in which we must believe on pain of charges of "Islamophobia"! "Car bombs kill 23 Shi'ite Muslims in Iraqi capital," from Reuters, November 27:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Three car bombings killed 23 Shi'ite Muslims during mourning processions in the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Tuesday, police and hospital sources said.

Dozens more were injured in the explosions. They struck during the holy month of Ashura, of special significance to Shi'ites who are prime targets of al Qaeda's Iraqi affiliate and other Sunni Muslim insurgents.

Attacks on Iraqi Shi'ites tend to increase during Ashura, but Tuesday's was the first major one so far this year.

The deadliest attack on Tuesday occurred in the Shuala district, where a car bomb parked outside a Shi'ite place of worship exploded as people were leaving the building, killing nine....

Feel the love. Got this latest death threat in the comments here:

Whenever I see Robert Spenser's face I feel like having my palms around his neck, its a good thing we never meet eye to eye because he would be licking my boots if we ever did. I'm actually a very reserved and polite gent but when I hear that guy's voice or see his face I feel like shutting him up permanently. I actually like debating but this fool isn't worth my time, or anyone's time for that matter, every single word that comes out of his mouth is pure BS. Every single scholar that he cites is either misquoted, mistranslated or a non entity. He spends his entire sad career writing books full of Islamophobic BS, why not discuss all the violence and war passages in the bible, because I assure you there are tons of them. Look at the wars that were started by David and Moses, look at the brutal crusades started by the popes.

"Islamophobia" rampant in the Nile Delta town of Mahalla! "Egypt: dozens wounded in Nile Delta town clashes," from ANSAmed, November 27 (thanks to Insubria):

(ANSAmed) - CAIRO, NOVEMBER 27 - Dozens have been wounded in clashes between Muslim Brotherhood demonstrators and opponents of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi in the Nile Delta town of Mahalla, where protesters are trying to attack the police station, state TV reported Tuesday. (ANSAmed).

Gaza: Media Distortions in Words and Images
by Enza Ferreri

Won't Get Fooled Again, sang The Who.

Apparently many got fooled again and again, maybe because they wanted to.

The mainstream media people and outlets have published and circulated in various ways, including social media, photos and videos purportedly of Israel's Palestinian victims in Gaza which were in fact very doubtful, fake or not what they were described to be.

These are some of the several visual misrepresentations:

1) Hamas has used photos of children and other people wounded or killed in Syria and circulated them through social networks claiming they were Palestinians.

2) Jon Donnison, a BBC journalist, retweeted a dramatic photo of two children, one of whom dead on a stretcher, from an original tweet by Palestinian activist Hazem Balousha with the misleading description "Pain in #Gaza." The BBC reporter did not make any effort to verify the picture’s authenticity. In reality, the photo is from October 28 and the child was wounded in Syria.

Donnison later apologized for the retweet, but, after the original retweet had reached his over 7,000 followers and received almost 100 retweets, the damage was already done. As far as I know, the original Palestinian twitter did not issue any apology.

3) On the first day of the war The Guardian published a grotesque cartoon of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a huge, cruel, nasty-looking, all-powerful puppeteer pulling the strings of the UK's Foreign Secretary William Hague and former Prime Minister Tony Blair, against the background of Israeli missiles and the writing "Vote Likud", hinting that, as BBC's Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen has suggested, re-election is the motive for Netanyahu's strikes in Gaza.

4) Hamas has, as other times before, been caught faking an image of a dead Palestinian child claiming that an Israeli strike was responsible, this time using a 4-year-old boy likely killed by its own rocket fire.

CNN's Sara Sidner ran a full report on the death of the child, Mahmoud Sadallah, strongly implying that he had been victim of an Israeli bomb. Associated Press news agency also used the image.

Even The New York Times had doubts about this. Several sources, including the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, have now reported that the child was in reality not killed by Israel but by a Hamas rocket. Many bloggers exposed and reported the fakery.

In fact, the office of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that "60 of the 703 rockets fired by Hamas and other terror groups since the start of the conflict have fallen on Palestinian civilians. The Israel Defense Force says that 99 rockets in total that were fired at Israel have hit Gaza itself in four days of conflict".

5) As Honest Reporting highlighted in its top 5 media fails, "The footage of a beige jacketed Palestinian man making a miraculous recovery after appearing to be injured in an Israeli airstrike was broadcast not only on the BBC but also on CNN." (video above)

CNN verified the footage with Reuters news agency, from which they had got it, and not receiving a satisfactory answer removed the footage and apologized.

The BBC, on the other hand, defended the footage it too had received from Reuters, claiming that the footage it broadcast was edited from a longer sequence.

This should not be too surprising. As Melanie Phillips says:

"In 2004, prompted by persistent concerns about anti-Israel bias, a report was written by broadcasting executive Malcolm Balen on the BBC’s Middle East coverage. The BBC has spent more than a third of a million pounds resisting legal efforts to force it to publish this report, which remains secret to this day."

In another post Phillips expands on this:

The fact is that broadcasters including the BBC have been falling for Pallywood scams for years, for two reasons. First, a number of the freelances involved in the news agencies supplying these materials are themselves Arab or Muslim partisans or Palestinians under the thumb of, or even supporters of, Hamas; and second, such is the western animus against Israel that western broadcasters simply don’t see what is right there under their noses, that the Palestinian ‘victims’ in these staged tableaux are quite obviously play-acting.

One further thought about the malevolently warped reporting of this latest phase in the Arab and Islamic war against Israel. Among British reporters and commentators, there is a pronounced obsession with the numbers killed on either side. The three Israelis killed this morning were all but brushed aside by reporters hastening to tell us that (at that stage) eleven Palestinians had been killed.

The implication is of course as odious as it is irrational -- that Israel cannot be considered the victim of aggression unless more of its citizens die. It is also odious to suggest some kind of moral equivalence between those killed by acts of aggression in the cause of exterminating a country, and those who are killed by that country in its own self defence.

The implication of the numbers game is that there is no moral difference between aggression and defence. That’s why so much of the reporting seeks to suggest a ‘cycle of violence’ or ‘tit-for-tat’ attacks. But there is no tit-for-tat cycle. There is aggression, and there is defence against aggression; there is attempted mass murder, and there is the attempt to prevent mass murder. Those who claim a ‘tit-for-tat’ cycle are effectively sanitising, and thus helping promote, mass murder.

As I wrote before, there is a certain widespread illogical assumption of direct proportionality between number of casualties and position on the moral high ground, therefore judging the ethicality of actions of Israelis and Palestinians not by what is morally relevant, namely the intended consequences and whether they are aggressive or defensive, but on the irrational basis of which side has had more dead in its midst, which can be, and in this case is, caused by morally irrelevant factors, like the higher or lower level of efficiency and advanced technology of either side's defensive apparatus.

In addition to fake images, the media are replete with "fake words", false assertions and misleading explanations.

I watched the political debate programme Question Time on the BBC, and I had to endure a "discussion" in which the two ends of the spectrum were ranging from the majority-view idea that both Israel and Hamas could find an everlasting peace if they only wanted and we all have to blame ourselves for not doing enough towards that admirable goal, to the claim of a moral equivalence between Iran and Israel  - the usual fare of Muslims and their extreme left allies.

And on the BBC Radio 4's Any Questions member of the audience Stephen Bedford asked: "Despite all the foreign aid and support Israel has spectacularly failed to get on with its neighbours. Does Israel deserve a future?". Douglas Murray made these sharp comments in The Spectator's blog:

The same could be said of absolutely any and every country in the region. But I doubt that the Mr Bedfords of this world would ask whether these countries ‘deserve to have a future.’ And this isn’t a despotism we are speaking about, but an ally and a democracy. How does hatred like this become so mainstream?

Well, one reason is that so many British politicians, including Britain’s favourite idiot granny Shirley Williams, tell them lies about Israel which the BBC allows to go out uncorrected. Here is Shirley Williams in reply to the bigoted question with which (unlike the excellent two conservative voices on the panel) she had absolutely no problem.

[Liberal Democrat] Shirley Williams told the audience that Gaza is ‘a slum’ and then went on to say the following:

‘It’s crowded out to the gills. It’s full of people struggling to find a box in which to live. It’s full of people who see their land slowly eaten up by more and more Israeli settlements.’

What settlements? What ‘slow eating up’? Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005. There is not a Jew in Gaza. Not a Jewish family, not a Jewish settlement, not a Jewish house, not a Jew. The place is – as the Palestinians have said they would like the West Bank to be if it comes under their full control – wholly and absolutely Judenrein. The last Jew in Gaza was Gilad Shalit. Does Shirley Williams think he was there building settlements for five years, rather than holed up in captivity as a hostage of Hamas?

Hamas and Palestinian activists' propaganda did - from their perverse viewpoint - a terrific job. The media didn't.

Enza Ferreri is an Italian-born, London-based author and journalist. She has been a London correspondent for several Italian magazines and newspapers, including Panorama, L'Espresso, La Repubblica.

An incisive analysis of media bias and whitewashing of the Muslim Brotherhood from Sultan Al Qassemi at Felix Arabia: "Western media is the new Al Jazeera Arabic," November 27:

Over the past 24 hours Western channels have been repeatedly saying that Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsy has "agreed to limit|" his news powers. This is simply untrue. Not even by a long shot. Morsy gave himself unprecedented powers over the past few days resulting in demonstrations and clashes that killed two young Egyptians. Morsy is now the absolute ruler of Egypt supported, once again, by the US government and media channels. Previously Morsy's blind support came from Al Jazeera Arabic but we are now seeing Western media being complicit in the same folly. The New York Times had this headline: "Seeming Retreat by Egypt Leader on New Powers" here's a page grab from @MarwaFarag in case they change it. Then Washington Post ran "Egypt’s Morsi appears to accept some limits on his power", again untrue (this misleading headline was republished in The Independent). The BBC's otherwise capable reporter misreports that "Morsy & the MB are keen on doing everything they can to diffuse the situation" (excuse me?) and then she says Morsy appeared to "have limited the the scope of the big powers that this decree has given him". I recorded a video of it here. The Guardian published "Morsi's compromise fails to quell protesters" but its professional journalist Matthew Weaver promptly corrected the headline when I alerted him.

This is all despite Morsy's spokesman Yasser Ali saying after Morsy's meeting with the judges that there was 'no change to the constitutional declaration'. No where did I read the word "compromise".

But what explains this lax in standards by the Western media when it comes to the coverage of Morsy? Adel Iskandar asks on Facebook if this was "an honest mistake from the Times or a little Muslim Brotherhood waxing?" and that he is "worried this seemingly innocuous mistake is intentional."

Read it all.

It was all a joke, doncha know. Hey, listen, I got one for ya -- this one'll really kill ya.

Genocidal Muslim pro-Hitler Facebook posts here.

"Norwegian youth leader seen encouraging anti-Semitic speech," from the Times of Israel, November 27 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):

(JTA) — Aspiring Norwegian politician Khalid Haji Ahmed said he was only joking when he wished “best of luck eight times over” to activists who wrote on Facebook that they wished Adolf Hitler could kill more Jews.

Screen shots made by Hamar Arbeiderblad, a local newspaper, show Ahmed responding on Facebook to a post that read “Damn Jew whores, wish Hitler could come back and shower you some more.”

The Facebook conversation took place last week between members of the Workers’ Youth League, Norway’s largest youth movement, which is affiliated with the country’s ruling Labor Party.

Ahmed, the youth movement’s regional secretary in southeast Norway, is quoted as telling the news site Nettavisen that his comment was “ironic.”...

We all know CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN or Fox wasn't going to do it. "Imam’s Terrorist Ties Exposed by Local News Station," from Judicial Watch, November 26 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

While the Obama Justice Department tours the nation condemning unfounded discrimination against Muslims at their place of worship, a local Florida news station uncovers an imam’s ties to a blind sheik behind the first World Trade Center bombing in the early 90s.

Not surprisingly, the administration’s campaign to combat mosque intolerance is being heavily promoted while the shocking imam terrorist story gets swept under the rug. We only know about it because a central Florida reporter took the time to dig around and uncover the Orlando-area imam’s disturbing ties to an extremist group behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

The imam’s real name is Marcus Robertson but he goes by Abu Taubah and he preaches the Quran at the Masjid Al-Ihsaan Mosque in East Orange County. He also has an extensive criminal record, according to the news report. Imam Tubah is actually a convicted felon who has murdered people, attempted assassinations, taken hostages and tried to kill police officers. Last year, on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he planned an attack on U.S. military personnel overseas, according to prosecutors.

Authorities say Imam Taubah has deep ties to Islamic terrorists and that he was a bodyguard to Omar Abdel Rahman, the blink sheik behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The Egyptian-born militant Islamist was convicted after the ’93 attack of plotting to bomb several New York City landmarks and is currently in prison.

Hundreds of miles away in Miami last year, the feds raided a mosque with terrorist ties albeit under Obama’s new rules of engagement to assure cultural sensitivity towards Islam. A Pakistani imam named Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan and his relatives were charged with providing financial and material support to the Pakistani Taliban, which is associated with Al-Qaeda and has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks against American interests. Khan founded an Islamic school that supports the Taliban’s jihad while living in Pakistan and continued controlling and funding it as an imam in Miami, according to the federal indictment.

Considering these cases and others around the U.S., is it any wonder why some Americans may seem suspicious that a number of new mosques are popping up all over the country? The Obama Administration claims they are suffering unwarranted intolerance from what one top Department of Justice (DOJ) official calls “islamophobes.” In fact, a day after the Orlando terrorist imam story broke, the assistant attorney general in charge of the DOJ’s bloated civil rights division damned Muslim prejudice at the opening of a new mosque in Tennessee.

Addressing worshipers at the grand opening of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez said, “without question we are seeing real challenges to the civil rights of Muslim Americans,” especially in mosques. He referred to the offenders as “islamophobes” and assured that his agency is taking action, investigating over 800 incidents involving threats targeting Arabs, Muslims, Sikhs and south Asians. The DOJ is also working with state and local prosecutors in “numerous non-federal criminal prosecutions,” Perez said.

Perez will be one of those condemned by history.

This is a rare victory for common sense. Its rejection of this politically motivated, manipulative coinage is a decisive rejection of the Islamic supremacist manipulation of language in order to intimidate people into being afraid to resist the global jihad.

"AP nixes 'homophobia', 'ethnic cleansing,' by Dylan Byers for Politico, November 26 (thanks to Neil):

The Associated Press has nixed "homophobia," "ethnic cleansing," and a number of other terms from its Style Book in recent months.

The online Style Book now says that "-phobia," "an irrational, uncontrollable fear, often a form of mental illness" should not be used "in political or social contexts," including "homophobia" and "Islamophobia." It also calls "ethnic cleansing" a "euphemism," and says the AP "does not use 'ethnic cleansing' on its own. It must be enclosed in quotes, attributed and explained."...

Here is yet another example of how criminal and obscene it is for the Left, Islamic supremacists in the West, and the mainstream media constantly to behave as if these people have the moral high ground. "Hamas: Killing Jews is worship of Allah," by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik for Palestinian Media Watch, November 27 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

During the eight-day military conflict between Hamas and Israel, Hamas broadcast various ideological messages on its official Al-Aqsa TV station. One recurring message called for the killing of Jews, which Hamas defined as a religious Islamic act in worship of Allah. During one music video, these words were shown on the screen:

"Killing Jews is worship that draws us close to Allah"

The following are additional lyrics from the video which boasted of "terrifying the Jews" and glorified Hamas' military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades:
"[Oh] lovers of the trigger:
Killing the occupiers [Israelis] is worship that Allah made into law...
Arabic text on sign: 'Killing Jews is worship that draws us close to Allah'
Arise, oh determined men. The color of [the Martyr's] blood protects the land.
Oh masked one wearing a keffiyeh (i.e., Arab head scarf), terrifying the Jews... call out in Zionism's face: 'Muhammad's army has begun to return.'"...

"Interreligious dialogue" for Islamic supremacists means nothing more or less than spreading Islam. Note also the OIC chief Ihsanoglu's emphasis on the need for the West to abandon the freedom of speech. "Saudi King Opens Religious Tolerance Center in Europe to 'Spread the Message of Islam,'" by Patrick Goodenough for CNS News, November 27 (thanks to Tom):

A new Saudi-funded, Europe-based center for interreligious dialogue will be “a good medium to spread the message of Islam,” says the government-appointed imam of Mecca’s Grand Mosque – a man who has stoked controversy in the past by calling Jews “monkeys and pigs” and Christians “cross worshippers.”

“The formation of this center in the West with King Abdullah’s support gives a strong message that Islam is a religion of dialogue and understanding and not a religion of enmity, fanaticism and violence,” the International Islamic News Agency quoted Sheikh Abdul Rahman al-Sudais as saying.

Sudais was reacting to the launch Monday of the new King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Center for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID) in the Austrian capital, Vienna.

Lending international legitimacy to the Saudi king’s latest religious tolerance initiative, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was among those who attended the opening.

In his remarks, Ban asserted that too many religious leaders have “stoked intolerance, supported extremism and propagated hate” rather than tolerance, adding, “We must all do better in reaching out across boundaries.”

The center’s first-day program included an inaugural symposium, during which the head of the Islamic bloc of nations accused non-Muslims of “Islamophobia” and urged Western governments to enact and enforce laws against it.

“Islamophobia leads to hate crimes and as such, it generates fear, feelings of stigmatization, marginalization, alienation and rejection,” said Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu.

“The net result is heightened anxiety and rising violence. Islamophobia is also an assault on people’s identity and their human dignity.”

According to an OIC statement on his address, Ihsanoglu proposed actions to remedy the situation:

“[T]he West must define hate crimes broadly and address the information deficit as well as enact adequate legislation and implement this legislation effectively. In conjunction with national legislation, they should also implement international commitments and agreed norms.”

The OIC has set up an “observatory” to monitor Islamophobia, which it also defines as a contemporary form or racism.

The observatory’s most recent annual report, released this month, covers incidents including Qur’an burning in Afghanistan and Florida, and the U.S. House Homeland Committee’s hearings on radicalization in the American Muslim community, and the notorious YouTube video denigrating Mohammed....

And so soon after he posed as a passionate and convinced Zionist during his third debate with Romney. Over at PJ Media I discuss the glee among Israel's enemies:

Barack Obama pressured Israel to accept the current ceasefire agreement with Hamas that was devised by Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi, and Israel’s worst enemies are thrilled.

Hamas declared November 22, the day the truce went into effect, a “national holiday of victory.” Israel National News reported that “mosques in Gaza City blared through their loudspeakers: ‘Allahu Akbar (G-d is great), dear people of Gaza, you won. You have broken the arrogance of the Jews.’”

A Hamas sheikh, preaching at the funeral of one of those killed in Gaza, declared that Hamas had just won a great victory, one that would prove to be “the first nail in the coffin of Israel.” The Financial Times noted that “on Friday, the midday prayers were dominated by declarations of victory, with some preachers drawing a line between the latest conflict and the Prophet Mohammed’s victory over the infidels.”

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad crowed: “Zionists have reached the dead point and have no other alternative but officially recognizing and bowing to the absolute right of the Palestinian nation.” The speaker of Iran’s Parliament, Ali Larijani, agreed, saying: “The victory of Gaza highlights the necessity to continue resistance and Jihad against the Zionist regime. With their patience and perseverance, the people of Gaza showed that the only way to confront the Zionist regime is Jihad and resistance.” The secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Saeed Jalili, said that “accepting defeat after eight days means that the Zionist regime is becoming increasingly weak,” and that the “counter-resistance is getting stronger.”

Meanwhile, Moussa Abu Marzouk, Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal’s deputy, has already stated obliquely that Hamas has no intention of keeping to the terms of the ceasefire anyway. Marzouk rejected calls for Hamas to stop amassing weapons, saying: “These weapons protected us and there is no way to stop obtaining and manufacturing them.”

Yet the truce terms require, according to the Voice of America, “‘all Palestinian factions’ to stop all hostilities toward Israel from Gaza, including rocket fire and attacks along the Gaza-Israel border.” So if the truce forbids them to fire upon Israel, what is Hamas going to do with all these weapons? Or is Marzouk signaling that Hamas has no intention of keeping the truce at all?

For its part, Islamic Jihad was eager to emphasize that the jihad against Israel would go on. “The battle with the enemy has not ended,” a masked jihadist from the group maintained. “Our choice in fighting and getting weapons to defend our people is going on.”

Another indication that the jihad against Israel will flare up again soon enough came from the imprisoned Saudi Sheikh Nasser bin Hamad Al-Fahd, who praised the jihad bombings in Riyadh in 2003 and was jailed shortly thereafter. In a fatwa posted last week on a jihadi website, al-Fahd declared, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute, that “the Jews are the leaders of the infidels and the greatest enemies of Islam and the Muslims in the present age,” and that therefore Muslims who waged jihad warfare against Jews everywhere would be discharging “one of the most important duties and greatest virtues.” Al-Fahd added that “any guarantees of protection granted them by tyrannical and infidel governments are meaningless, especially when the Jews are attacking Muslims as they please.”

Al-Fahd may be in prison, but his view of the jihad against Israel as a religious obligation incumbent on every Muslim is not by any means restricted to him alone. So many Muslims worldwide share it that even in far-off Indonesia, a Muslim group last week began offering “jihad registration forms” to those believers who wished to wage jihad against Israel.

Muslim Brotherhood leader Muhammad Badie, meanwhile, reminded the world that “jihad is obligatory” for Muslims, and dubbed truces with Israel a “game of grand deception.”

Indeed. There is more.

A totalitarian-style convergence of party and state? "Claims Muslim Brotherhood are rounding up activists," from Daily News Egypt, November 26 (thanks to Lookmann):

The Egyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR) has claimed that members of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) are rounding up people and handing them over to the security forces. It is alleged that they are targeting people they believe to have been involved in attacking Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) headquarters.

Malek Adly, a lawyer for ECESR said, “the MB are making lists and taking people from the street.” He reported that MB members have been moving in large groups and forcibly taking people to the central security forces, who transfer them to the police to be arrested.

Adly said “the people who are picked up are charged with attacking MB members, the police or the FJP buildings.” He added, “the ECESR have sent legal assistance to help these people and we have been successful in securing their release.”

Mahmoud Ghozlan, a spokesperson for the MB denied these reports and said “I can’t imagine they would carry out the task of the police. The most they could do is tell the police their names.” He added, “people lie and accuse the MB of things a lot.”

Waleed El Haddad, a spokesperson for the FJP said, “these reports are just rumours. We would not take people to the police; we would report it to the police and let them deal with it.”

Adly reported “this has been happening in Beheira, Port Said, Suez, Ismailia and Alexandria.” The ECESR tweeted on Sunday that their lawyers were able to secure the release of 26 people in Alexandria who claim to have been arrested in this way.

Adly believes this is in response to the destruction of FJP offices around the country, which began on Friday and has continued since then. Protesters marched on the headquarters of President Mohamed Morsy’s party to demonstrate against the constitutional declaration he made on Thursday night. Muslim Brotherhood members helped in protecting the headquarters from the protesters.

That's right: first Big Bird, now Grover. My piece at Atlas Shrugs this week:

Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) has become the latest Republican politician to see the writing on the wall and break with anti-tax guru Grover Norquist. America has voted for socialism, and socialism is what it is going to get, and the statesmanlike Saxby is not going to be the one who stands athwart history and shouts, “Stop!” And yet, as craven as Chambliss’s capitulation to the forces of unrestrained government power is – and it is craven indeed – there is one thing the august Georgia solon has right: it’s time to break with Grover Norquist.

“I care more about this country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge,” Chambliss thundered piously. “If we do it his way, then we’ll continue in debt, and I just have a disagreement with him about that.” In other words, there is no chance whatsoever to rein in the ever-galloping growth of government spending, and so Americans are just going to have to pony up more to feed the socialist leviathan. After all, we can’t expect that people will perform key services like reading our emails or making sure we aren’t drinking sugary drinks for free. And Saxby Chambliss, part of the ever spineless, gutless, clueless, directionless, visionless Republican establishment, is going to make sure they are duly remunerated for their service to Big Brother.

Norquist’s response was an indication of how utterly the anti-tax idol has failed. “Senator Chambliss,” he huffed, “promised the people of Georgia he would go to Washington and reform government rather than raise taxes to pay for bigger government. He made that commitment in writing to the people of Georgia.” Yet while the good people of Georgia may really want to reform government rather than raise taxes to pay for bigger government, the majority of their countrymen do not. In 1984, Walter Mondale’s promise to raise taxes was the kiss of death for his presidential campaign; in 2012, after over twenty years of Grover Norquist’s anti-tax crusade, Barack Obama made raising taxes the linchpin of his campaign, and was decisively reelected.

Not only has Norquist spectacularly failed to convince the American people that an out-of-control megastate that confiscates the fruit of the labors of the industrious is to be rejected; he has also tied the Republican Party to a disastrously self-defeating posture toward Islamic supremacism. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) called Norquist out for this on the House floor in October 2011, saying of the anti-tax hero: “Documentation shows that he has deep ties to supporters of Hamas and other terrorist organizations that are sworn enemies of the United States and our ally Israel.” He pointed out that “around the years 2000 and 2001, Mr. Norquist’s firm represented Abdurahman Alamoudi, who was convicted two years later for his role in a terrorist plot and who is presently serving a 23-year sentence in federal prison.”

Norquist, reported Wolf, “also associated with terror financier Sami Al-Arian, according to Mary Jacoby’s reporting in March 2003, in the St. Petersburg Times. Al-Arian pled guilty in 2006 ‘to a charge of conspiring to provide services to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a specially designated terrorist organization, in violation of U.S. law,’ and is under house arrest, according to a Department of Justice press release. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s ‘paramilitary wing—the al-Quds Brigades—has conducted numerous attacks, including large-scale suicide bombings,’ according to the National Counterterrorism Center.”

These are the kinds of people for whom Norquist opened doors. Norquist, said Wolf, “served as a key facilitator between Al-Arian, Alamoudi and the White House.…In June 2001, Al-Arian was among the members of the American Muslim Council invited to the White House complex.…The next month, the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom — a civil liberties group headed by Al-Arian — gave Norquist an award for his work to abolish the use of secret intelligence evidence in terrorism cases.”

Wolf also pointed out that Norquist tied his anti-tax work to his agitation for Islamic supremacist causes: he “even used Americans for Tax Reform to circulate a petition in support of the ‘Ground Zero Mosque,’ ” which 70% of Americans opposed. “Why would Americans for Tax Reform,” Wolf asked, “circulate a petition in support of the ‘Ground Zero Mosque?’ For the families of those who lost loved ones on 9/11 or during operations in the War on Terror, concerns about the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ were neither a ploy nor a distraction, as Norquist described it.”

Meanwhile, for fear of crossing Norquist and losing his favor, Republicans for years have been turning a blind eye to all his ties to shady Muslim individuals and groups. If they signed his tax pledge, they were effectively pledging also not to make trouble about the access and influence he was facilitating for people linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. Thus was removed the only possible effective counterweight to the Democrats’ active collaboration with Islamic supremacists.

But now Norquist has failed. Taxes are going up. Opposing new taxes is not a winning issue in elections. The Republican Party, after being unable or unwilling to offer a genuine choice, rather than an echo, to the Democrats’ socialist pandering, is in well-deserved ruins. But there may be a silver lining. What is left of the American opposition now has a chance to jettison not only Norquist’s failed tax pledge, as Chambliss has done, but also come out against his enabling of Muslim Brotherhood infiltration. Why should this failed tax crusader continue to hold the loyal opposition hostage?

Of course, there may be a few politicians out there who genuinely oppose Big Government, and want to come out publicly against further tax increases. More power to them, I say, and I hope they have solid job prospects in the private sector. But in the meantime, for their convenience I offer, as an alternative to Norquist’s toxic cocktail of No Taxes Plus Collaboration with Islamic Supremacists, a genuinely pro-freedom tax pledge. Call it the Robert Spencer Tax Pledge. Here it is: “I solemnly pledge to oppose new tax increases, to work to cut existing tax rates, and to oppose Muslim Brotherhood infiltration in our government and the concomitant dismantling of our resistance to the jihad and Islamic supremacism.”

There. I invite any and all politicians to take that pledge. So now Republicans (and Democrats) can’t say they have no alternative to Grover Norquist. It’s time for new approaches, and so here is one.

Meanwhile, a toast to Saxby Chambliss. He may be just another self-serving hack feeding at the public trough, but he has managed to do the right thing, even if by accident: he has thrown off the deleterious influence of the thoroughly compromised Norquist. For that alone, even though he did it for the wrong reasons, he may one day deserve to be called a statesman.

Longtime Jihad Watch readers may notice that I have posted the following information before. And I will continue to post it, as long as the near-universal denial and obfuscation continues, which I expect will be until right around the time that hell freezes over.

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.

The Palestinian Authority gives pardons or suspended sentences for honor murders. Iraqi women have asked for tougher sentences for Islamic honor murderers, who get off lightly now. 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."

In light of all this, until authorities get the courage to tell the truth about honor killing, there will be many more such murders.

"Man featured in Aamir Khan's show on honour killing murdered," by Dwaipayan Ghosh and Pervez Iqbal Siddiqui for TNN, November 27 (thanks to Block Ness):

NEW DELHI: Five months after a young couple appeared on Aamir Khan's television show, Satyamev Jayate, and talked about the threat to their lives because they had married without their parents' consent, the man was shot dead near his village in western Uttar Pradesh on Thursday evening, allegedly by his wife's brothers.

Abdul Hakim, 28, and his 26-year-old wife Mehwish, both Muslims hailing from families with different social standing, had been living under the protection of an NGO in Delhi since May last year. About 15 days ago, Hakim and his wife, who is nine months pregnant, went to meet his ailing mother near Adoli village in Bulandshahr district. He was shot there, while on his way home from the local police station.

The couple, who were neighbours at Adoli, ran away together two years ago after marrying secretly in June 2009. According to Mehwish, her family was opposed to the match because Hakim was poor and belonged to the 'lower' Fakir community. Hakim's father was earlier allegedly killed by Mehwish's family in the village, although it was shown as suicide in police records.

"They would not let us live in peace and now they have taken their revenge," she said on Monday.

"The couple was scared even before coming to the show," Aamir Khan told reporters in Jaipur. "We didn't force anyone to come to the show. The incident is highly unfortunate and shameful."

UP police, meanwhile, have spun an elaborate theory saying the killing was an act of "personal enmity" going back to the time when the couple was in Delhi. But Mehwish and her Delhi-based shelter-providers, Love Commandos, said it was a clear case of murder involving her brothers.

Bulandshahr circle officer Lal S Yadav said Hakim was a victim of a family feud that had its roots in Delhi. "The girl's family had come to accept the marriage. Nothing indicates this murder is linked to the couple's marriage," he claimed.

Yadav added that Hakim's nephew, Salman, had entered into a brawl on June 6 and the alleged killers wanted him to take back the police case lodged against them. "Hakim's death was a result of this feud," said Yadav.

The couple, after a 12-year courtship, had secretly married on June 5, 2009. They kept living with their respective parents till Mehwish's family fixed her marriage for November 11, 2010. The couple then eloped on October 29. Till then, exchanging letters across a brick wall was the only source of communication between the two.

Mehwish's family then announced a bounty on the couple's capture. In May 2011, the pair started living in a shelter in Delhi provided by Love Commandos, an organization that works to eradicate 'honour killings'. This was the first time they had returned to their village, where Hakim also had a police case lodged against him of kidnapping Mehwish.

The nation became aware of the couple's struggles when they were featured in Aamir Khan's Satyamev Jayate on June 3.

"On June 30, the National Commission for Women ordered UP police to protect the two. But this directive was ignored. They asked Hakim to come down to Bulandshahr to record his statement. When he refused, they never contacted him again," Sanjoy Sachdev, chairman of Love Commando, said. The area SSP, however, offered to review his security.

Meanwhile, a girl was born to the couple bringing fresh hope that relations between the two families would normalize. But that was not to be.

"I didn't know people of my own village had arranged for weapons to kill us. I am the next target," a shocked Mehwish said.

Hakim's family had moved to Bhargardi village, 2km away from Adoli. But his father, Abdul Hafiz, refused to leave his ancestral house and stayed back. On July 6, 2011 Hakim's nephew Salman visited an ailing Hafiz to know about his well-being and on his way home, he was allegedly assaulted by Mehwish's relatives. When Salman reported the matter to the police, a non-cognizable report was lodged.

Enraged over the police case, the accused allegedly reached the house of an ailing Abul Hafiz, hanged him upside from a tree right outside his house and assaulted him in full public view. When Abdul Hafiz's wife Shahooran, who had come to stay with her ailing husband, intervened, she too was assaulted. Hafiz died hanging from the tree. The police, however, saw the incident as suicide.

The couple was on the run when Mehwish gave birth to a baby girl who was now a year-and-a-half. In August 2012, when Mehwish got pregnant for the second time, she reached Bhargardi village to stay with Hakim's family for the delivery. Hakim used to visit her once or twice a week. On November 20, Hakim visited Mehwish when he was informed that people were on the lookout for him.

Hakim lodged a complaint with the local police the same day but no action followed. On Noveber 22, he was walking back after buying medicines for his wife when he was intercepted by three persons who shot him dead in public view around 4.30pm.

Aamir Khan said he is aware of the incident and would speak to the authorities to ensure the safety of the rest of the family. He described the murder as "disturbing and unfortunate". "I will speak to government authorities in UP to help and ensure the family is safe. The culprits must be brought to book. The case must be registered on basis of facts," the actor said.

The glories of the Arab Spring just keep getting more glorious. Barack Obama's foreign policy is heading the Middle East and the world to blood and ruin, and all Mitt Romney could say during the foreign policy debate was "I agree with the President."

"Egypt’s top Islamist expects assassination of liberal figures," from al-Arabiya,November 26 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

A senior member of Egypt’s former militant Islamist group al-Gamaa al-Islamiya has warned that liberal politicians and intellectuals who oppose President Mohammed Mursi’s latest constitutional declaration could face a campaign of targeted assassinations starting from December.

Nageh Ibrahim, the ideologue of the Gamaa al-Islamiya, which took up arms against ousted president Hosni Mubarak's regime in the 1980s, told Al Arabiya that his expectation “was based on an analysis of the political situation not on information.”

He said recent escalation of violence in different parts of the country, including successive attacks on security forces in Sinai, attacks on Muslim Brotherhood offices and on mosques, point to a possible bloody reaction against liberals.

Ibrahim first made his statement in an interview with the London-based Asharq al-Awsat, saying targeted assassinations against prominent liberals would be a “natural reaction” to violence and mistrust, and political polarization in Egypt.

And while he supported President Mursi’s latest decrees to consolidate his powers by making his decisions irrevocable by the judiciary, Ibrahim called for the president to include more civil and liberal figures in his government and take their demands into consideration when making decisions.

“Had the president included representatives of the civil powers in the new government, he would not have had so many enemies,” Ibrahim said.

“This has to be done before Egypt becomes divided, not only politically but possibly geographically as well.”

He warned that if Mursi backtracks on his decisions, the country would plunge further into turmoil.

But his statement on the assassination of liberals drew sharp criticism from his colleague Essam Derbala who is chairman of al-Gamaa al-Islamiya’s Advisory Council and member of the group’s political wing Construction and Development Party.

Derbala described Ibrahim’s statements as “irresponsible” and not representative of the group’s or the party’s opinion.

“This is a very bad timing for issuing such statements,” Derbala was quoted as saying by the Egyptian newspaper al-Mesryoon. “This would promote divisions in the Egyptian society and spread fear of Islamist groups.”...

No kidding, really?

Ramadan Shallah, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad top dog, was once a professor at the University of South Florida, brought there by Sami al-Arian, the once and future poster boy for Islamic victimhood who was in reality an Islamic Jihad operative himself.

"AP Interview: Leader of Gaza's Islamic Jihad says Iran has praised group for fight with Israel," from Associated Press, November 26:

CAIRO – A Palestinian militant leader says Iran's president has called him to praise the performance of his group, the Islamic Jihad, in the recent fighting against Israel.

Ramadan Shallah told The Associated Press that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad offered congratulations on Sunday in phone calls to him and to Hamas' prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh.

Shallah says Iran supported Palestinians "military and financially" during the eight-day fighting....

All hail the hudna! "IDF Kills Suspected Gaza Terrorist after Stabbing," by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu for Israel National News, November 26 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Soldiers killed a suspected Gaza terrorist early Monday after he broke into a Jewish home and stabbed a girl before fleeing.

The IDF discovered a hole in the nearby Gaza security fence, and footprints from the area matched the shoes of the intruder, who had escaped to the Moshav Sde Avraham's greenhouses after he tried to kill the girl.

Soldiers caught up with him and tried to arrest him, and then shot and killed him when he tried to escape.

The wounded girl is in fair condition. She was stabbed in her family’s home in Moshav Sde Avraham, originally named Yesodot HaDarom. It is a southern community adjacent to Gaza and was founded in 1982 by victims of the expulsion from the Yamit communities in Sinai that was part of the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty in 1979.

"The Nawasi brigade...claims to be under the authority of the Ministry of Interior." Sharia descending upon brave new democratic "Arab Spring" Libya: "Extremists threaten mutilation and death for seized ‘homosexuals,’" from Libya Herald, November 26 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Extremists say they will execute a dozen men they allege are homosexuals, whom they abducted last Thursday at a private party in Tripoli’s Ain Zara district.

A body calling itself the ‘Private Deterrent Force’, which is believed to be part of the extremist Nawasi militia group, has posted images of the men on their Facebook page. One picture (above) shows them, heads covered, standing with their hands against a wall.

At the time of writing, the picture had received 315 ‘likes’ and had received comments such as “flog them hard”, “lets see the bullets”, and “ride them like camels”.

Accompanying text describes the men as “the third sex” and says that they are to be mutilated and executed.

The posting has also attracted comment from Human Rights Watch Libya, which has asked for the men to be treated humanely and handed over to the civil authorities. HRW Libya has also shared the image on their Facebook page, pointing out that the men are over 18 and were at a private party.

The Nawasi brigade has previously been linked to the desecration of Sufi shrines in Tripoli and claims to be under the authority of the Ministry of Interior.

How odd that a site that purports to give answers about Islam from learned imams would so misunderstand Islam as to think that apostates from Islam and those who say something impermissible about Islam should be put to death. Of course, there is no real misunderstanding here, but that is what Islamic apologists in the West would have us believe: that Islam is benign and completely compatible with Western principles of human rights, and only those who misunderstand it think otherwise.

In any case, this ruling is pertinent today, as it explains why Muslims react with such fury and violence to perceived "insults" to Muhammad: in accord with his example, they consider verbal attacks on Islam even worse than physical ones, and believe that those who perpetrate such perceived attacks must be put to death. "Some of the rulings on apostasy and apostates," from Islam QA (thanks to Paul):

I am happy to have found this website of yours. I was born a Muslim and I learned a lot of Islamic teachings after I reached adolescence. I am trying to understand my religion.

I have read in some of your answers on the issue of apostasy that the punishment for the apostate is to be put to death. But I have read on another website that the apostate who is to be put to death is the one who wages war on Islam (muhaarib).

I am more inclined towards the second opinion.

The reason for that is that I have friends who were born in Muslim families and who have Muslim names, but some of them do not know how to do wudoo’ or how to pray, but they acknowledge the Shahaadatayn.

Can we regard these people as apostates and thus put them to death?.

Praise be to Allaah.

Firstly:

The Muslim should not incline more towards one scholarly opinion rather than another just because it is in accordance with his whims and desires or his reasoning. Rather he has to accept the ruling based on evidence from the Qur’aan and Sunnah. It is essential to put the texts and rulings of sharee’ah before all else.

Secondly:

Apostasy (riddah) and going out of Islam are things that may be done in the heart, on the tongue or in one's actions.

Apostasy may take place in the heart, such as disbelieving in Allaah, or believing that there is another creator alongside Allaah, or hating Allaah or His Messenger (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him).

Apostasy may take the form of words spoken on the tongue, such as defaming Allaah or the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him).

Or apostasy may take the form of outward physical actions, such as prostrating to an idol, mistreating the Mus-haf, or not praying.

The apostate (murtadd) is worse than one who is a kaafir in the first place.

Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah said, refuting the pantheistic belief of the Baatinis:

It is well known that the kaafir Tatars are better than these (Baatinis), because the latter are apostates from Islam, of the worst type of apostates. The apostate is worse than one who is a kaafir in the first place in many aspects.

Majmoo’ al-Fataawa, 1/193

Secondly:

Not every Muslim who falls into kufr is a kaafir and apostate. There are reasons why a Muslim may be excused and not judged to be a kaafir, for example: ignorance, misunderstanding, being forced, and making mistakes.

With regard to the first, a man may be ignorant of the ruling of Allaah, because he lives far from the Muslim lands, such as one who grows up in the desert or in a kaafir land, or has only recently come to Islam. This may include many of those Muslims who live in societies where ignorance prevails and knowledge is scarce. These are the ones concerning whom the questioner is confused as to whether they are to be judged as kaafirs and executed.

The second reason is if a person interprets the ruling of Allaah in a manner not intended by the Lawgiver, such as those who blindly follow the people of bid’ah (innovation) in their misinterpretations, such as the Murji’ah, Mu’tazilah, Khawaarij and the like.

The third reason is if an oppressor overwhelms a Muslim and will not let him go until he makes a blatant statement of kufr out loud in order to ward off the torture, when his heart is at ease with faith.

The fourth is when words of kufr come to one's lips without meaning it.

Not everyone who is ignorant about wudoo’ and prayer can be excused, when he seed the Muslims establishing prayer and praying regularly, and he can read and hear the verses on prayer. What is preventing him from praying or from asking about how it is done and what its essential conditions are?

Fourthly:

The apostate is not to be put to death immediately after he falls into apostasy, especially if his apostasy happens because of some doubt that arose. Rather he should be asked to repent and he should be offered the opportunity to return to Islam and resolve his doubts, if he has any doubts. Then if he persists in his apostasy after that, he is to be put to death.

Ibn Qudaamah said in al-Mughni, 9/18:

The apostate should not be put to death until he has been asked to repent three times. This is the view of the majority of scholars, including ‘Umar, ‘Ali, ‘Ata’, al-Nakhaii, Maalik, al-Thawri, al-Awzaa’i, Ishaaq and others. Because apostasy comes about because of doubt, and cannot be dispelled in an instant. Time should be allowed for the person to rethink the matter, and the best length of time is three days.

End quote.

The saheeh Sunnah indicates that it is essential to put the apostate to death.

Al-Bukhaari (6922) narrated that Ibn ‘Abbaas said: The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “Whoever changes his religion, put him to death.”

Al-Bukhaari (6484) and Muslim (1676) narrated that ‘Abd-Allaah ibn Mas’ood said: The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “It is not permissible to shed the blood of a Muslim who bears witness that there is no god except Allaah and that I am the Messenger of Allaah, except in one of three cases: a soul for a soul (i.e., in the case of murder); a previously-married person who commits zina; and one who leaves his religion and separates from the main body of the Muslims.”

The general meaning of these ahaadeeth indicates that it is essential to put the apostate to death whether he is waging war on Islam (muhaarib) or not.

The view that the apostate who is to be put to death is the one who is waging war on Islam (muhaarib) only is contrary to these ahaadeeth. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said that the reason why he should be put to death is his apostasy, not his waging war against Islam.

Undoubtedly some kinds of apostasy are more abhorrent than others, and the apostasy of one who wages war against Islam is more abhorrent than that of anyone else. Hence some of the scholars differentiated between them, and said that it is not essential to ask the muhaarib to repent or to accept his repentance; rather he should be put to death even if he repents, whereas the repentance of one who is not a muhaarib should be accepted and he should not be put to death. This is the view favoured by Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah (may Allaah have mercy on him).

He said:

Apostasy is of two types: ordinary apostasy and extreme apostasy, for which execution is prescribed. In both cases there is evidence that it is essential to execute the apostate, but the evidence indicating that the sentence of death may be waived if the person repents does not apply to both types of apostasy. Rather the evidence indicates that that is allowed only in the first case – i.e., ordinary apostasy – as will be clear to anyone who studies the evidence that speaks about accepting the repentance of the apostate. In the second type – i.e., extreme apostasy – the obligation to put the apostate to death still stands, and there is no text or scholarly consensus to indicate that the death sentence may be waived. The two cases are quite different and there is no comparison between them. It does not say in the Qur’aan or Sunnah, or according to scholarly consensus, that everyone who apostatizes in word or deed may be spared the death sentence if he repents after he is a captured and tried. Rather the Qur’aan and Sunnah, and scholarly consensus, differentiate between the different kinds of apostates.

Al-Saarim al-Maslool, 3/696

Al-Hallaaj was one of the most well known heretics who were put to death without being asked to repent. Al-Qaadi ‘Iyaad said:

The Maaliki fuqaha’ of Baghdad at the time of al-Muqtadir were unanimously agreed that al-Hallaaj should be killed and crucified because of his claim to divinity and his belief in incarnation, and his saying “I am al-Haqq [God],” even though he outwardly appeared to adhere to sharee’ah, and they did not accept his repentance.

Al-Shifa bi Ta’reef Huqooq al-Mustafa, 2/1091.

Based on this, it is clear that what the questioner says about the apostate not being killed unless he is waging war on Islam is mistaken, and the differentiation that we have quoted from Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah may dispel any confusion and make the matter clearer.

Waging war against Islam is not limited only to fighting with weapons, rather it may be done verbally such as defaming Islam or the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him), or attacking the Qur’aan, and so on. Waging verbal war against Islam may be worse than waging war against it with weapons in some cases.

Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah said:

Muhaarabah (waging war against Islam) is of two types: physical and verbal. Waging war verbally against Islam may be worse than waging war physically – as stated above – hence the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) used to kill those who waged war against Islam verbally, whilst letting off some of those who waged war against Islam physically. This ruling is to be applied more strictly after the death of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him). Mischief may be caused by physical action or by words, but the damage caused by words is many times greater than that caused by physical action; and the goodness achieved by words in reforming may be many times greater than that achieved by physical action. It is proven that waging war against Allaah and His Messenger (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) verbally is worse and the efforts on earth to undermine religion by verbal means is more effective.

Al-Saarim al-Maslool, 3/735

Fifthly:

With regard to not praying, the correct view is that the one who does not pray is a kaafir and an apostate. See question no. 5208.

And Allaah knows best.

As I said here, the Vatican has entered a very, very dark age. It is understandable, if not forgivable, for the Maronite Patriarch, Bechara Boutros Rai, to play the dhimmi and appease Hizballah, since he lives in Lebanon. However, the Vatican in entertaining Iranian envoys (the second largest diplomatic corps at the Holy See) and tacitly supporting the jihad against Israel has less excuse. The crocodile may indeed eat the good cardinals last, but eat them it will.

"Op-Ed: Exposé: the Vatican Welcomes Iran," by Giulio Meotti in Israel National News, November 25:

Iran has a large diplomatic corps at the Vatican, considering that it is a Moslem country. And that is not all.

Hizbullah's officials, the Shiite terrorist group based in Lebanon, were hosted in Rome by the Vatican during the recent ceremony for the election of six new cardinals. Among the new cardinals is the Lebanese [Maronite] Patriarch, Bechara Boutros Rai.

As head of Lebanon’s [Maronite] Catholic Church, Rai recently sent his envoy, Father Abdo Abou Kassem, to Teheran to attend a conference in support of the Palestinian Arab Intifada and of a “Zionist-free middle east”. The conference was attended also by Hizbullah ideologue, Mohammad Raad, and by the Hamas’ leader Khaled Meshaal.

Cardinal Rai recently said in Paris that he supports Hizbullah's war against Israel: "Only when the international community exerts pressure on Israel to vacate the occupied Lebanese territory and Israel allows Palestinians in Lebanon to return to their homes, can Hizbullah be asked to hand over its arms because they will no longer be needed". It is not clear from the Cardinal's remarks to which Lebanese territory he was referring, since Israel, in compliance with the UN, had withdrawn from its Lebanon buffer zone years earlier. Rai said his statements reflected the policy of the Vatican.

The coming of an Hizbullah delegation in Rome these days is part of a strong friendship that the Vatican is building with Iranian authorities. It might also be an explanation why during his trip in Austria, Pope Benedict chose not to address the Iranian nuclear question in a key speech to world diplomats in Vienna, which is the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Cardinal Rai recently said in Paris that he supports Hizbullah's war against Israel.
The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and the Organization for Culture and Islamic Relations just held their eighth meeting in Rome, under the joint chairmanship of the Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran and Iranian Mohammad Bagher Korramshad. The theme of the meeting was "The Catholic and Muslim cooperation to promote justice in the contemporary world".

An official note says that "the participants were pleased and honored to be received at the end of the meeting by Pope Benedict XVI, who greeted and encouraged them to continue on the path of authentic and fruitful dialogue".

A delegation of clergy members of Iran’s Islamic Consultative Assembly also visited the Vatican in Rome. They met with top Catholic officials. “We held talks with the Vatican’s culture minister over the conditions and the popular uprisings in the region and the Vatican minister said that popular uprisings are inspired by the Islamic Revolution in Iran”, a member of the parliament’s Clerics Commission, Hojjatoleslam Hossein Ebrahimi, told Fars News Agency.

Iran has a surprisingly large diplomatic corps at the Vatican (only the Dominican Republic has more diplomats accredited to the Holy See) who have a monthly meeting with the Pope's advisers. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a high-level delegation to Rome, headed by Mahdi Mostafavi, the president of the Islamic Culture and Relations Organization in Tehran, a former foreign minister and one of Ahmadinejad’s trusted men and “spiritual advisers”, with whom he meets “at least twice a week”....

And their Leftist fellow protesters, of course, took it all in stride. More genocidal Muslim Jew-hatred, this time in Eurabia: "Vienna protesters call for 'death to Jews,'" by Benjamin Weinthal in the Jerusalem Post, November 26 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Anti-Israel demonstrators gathered on Friday in the heart of Vienna, protesting Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense and chanting slogans calling for the murder of Jews and bashing the Jewish state.

Israel’s eight-day military operation to stop Hamas rocket fire from entering the country prompted two fiercely anti-Israel protests in the Austrian capital.

Samuel Laster, an Israeli journalist who lives in Vienna, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday that he heard a contingent of 15 to 20 Austrian Islamists chanting in Arabic, “Death to the Jews.”

Laster first reported on the call to eliminate Jews on his website die juedische (“the Jewish”).

Speaking from Vienna by phone, he told the Post that a “mix of Austrian leftist radical extremists and Islamists” appeared at the protest. He estimated that at least 400 anti-Israel protesters, including Salafists, Muslim Brotherhood members and Palestinians, took part in the demonstration.

The demonstrators marched to the federal chancellor’s office.

The anti-Israel activists yelled “Freedom for Palestine” and “Down with Israel,” and a group of Austrian Muslims blasted repeatedly in Arabic “Death to the Jews.” Laster said the Austrian authorities, including the domestic intelligence agency (Verfassungschutz), must increase their efforts to combat “Islamic extremism.” He criticized the lax approach of Austrian police officials who waved off the anti-Jewish rhetoric as merely a protest against Israel....

At an earlier demonstration during the war, Austrian Islamists and Leftists screamed slogans calling for the destruction of the Jewish state. According to a report on November 16 on the Vienna news website Heute.at, protesters invoked slogans including “We are against the two-state solution” and “We are for a Palestine that is free from the West Bank and reaches to the Mediterranean and Israel will be wiped out.”

Heute.at reported that a large segment of the protesters were of Turkish and Arabic descent and yelled “Allahu akbar.”...

The page seems to have been taken down now, but I was able to get these screenshots before it was. (Thanks to Jason for the heads up.) Note the enthusiastic support from Muslims in the comments for the initial genocidal posting by "sunnah."

Counter-jihadists are frequently accused of being in league with neo-Nazis and with echoing their sentiments. This is one of the most cynical elements in the Islamic supremacists' propaganda arsenal, since in reality neo-Nazis generally support the jihad, and Hitler and his genocide are wildly popular in countries like Turkey and Egypt, where Mein Kampf is a perennial bestseller. The Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, lived in Berlin during the war, raised up a Muslim division for the Waffen SS, and made pro-Nazi broadcasts in Arabic. Their Jew-hatred unites them.

At Frontpage today, Jamie Glazov interviews Pamela Geller about the hypocrisy of the media uproar over her use of the word "savage" to describe Islamic jihadists:

FP: Pamela Geller, thank you for joining FrontPage interview today.

Pamela Geller: Thank you, Jamie.

FP: Pamela, you have placed ads nationwide saying: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad.”

These ads have attracted a great deal of controversy. How Come?

PG: Jamie, this ad touched off a nationwide firestorm, with pundits and activists all over the country excoriating me for using the word “savage” to describe Islamic jihadists and supremacists. Leftists and Islamic supremacists denounced them as “racist” and “offensive.” For example, Ahmed Rehab of the Hamas-tied Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) recently denounced the ad on Chicago television, saying that since jihad is central to Islam, therefore “Defeat Jihad” means “Defeat All Muslims.” Then he says that because the ad refers to all Muslims, it is racist. These are two immense leaps of logic. We’re always told that the vast majority of Muslims reject jihad violence, but now suddenly when it comes to my ads, to refer to jihad means to refer to all Muslims. And of course Islam is not a race, and Muslims are not all members of a single race.

Rehab was not the only one. Dhimmi Jewish groups joined in as well. Leftist Christians and Jews put up counter ads. And most notoriously, CNN “journalist” Mona Eltahawy attacked the ad and my associate Pamela Hall with a can of spray-paint in the New York subway. She has since then stoutly defended her action on the grounds that my ad was “racist.” After her little act of fascism she had the gall to claim that she was merely exercising her freedom of speech.

However, recently the hypocrisy and double standards of the leftists and mainstream media has become clear. It turns out that using the word “savage” is not always racist and offensive.

FP: Really? When is the word “savage” not racist and offensive?

PG: Last Wednesday both the New York Post and the New York Daily News ran cover photos of “Palestinian” Muslims dragging the corpses of accused Israeli collaborators behind their motorcycles. Both used the caption “Savages.” And that wasn’t all. In Tunisian citizen Souhir Stephenson’s “Tunisia, a Sad Year Later,” published a week earlier in the New York Times, she wrote: “Tourism is dwindling. Who wants to vacation among bands of bearded savages raiding embassies, staking their black pirate flag over universities or burning trucks carrying beer?”

“Bearded savages.” This appeared in the Times just six weeks after the paper ran a piece calling my American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) subway ads “potentially inflammatory” and quoting Muneer Awad of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) calling me “a bigot and a racist” for the ad.

FP: What is the difference between the New York Times’s use of the word savage and your use of it?

PG: Or Hillary Clinton’s, for that matter? In a statement on September 12, she used the same word to characterize those who had attacked our consulate in Benghazi and murdered Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other American officials: “This was an attack by a small and savage group — not the people or Government of Libya.”

FP: Why is Clinton’s use of the word savage inoffensive but your use of the word is “racist”?

PG: It’s clearly hypocritical, Jamie. In all of these instances, we are all describing the same barbarians: Islamic jihadists who glory in violence and murder. So why is my ad unacceptable, but no one is angry with the New York Post, the Daily News, Souhir Stephenson or the Secretary of State?

My use of the word “savage” has been widely decried as “racist” and “dehumanizing.” Critics have invoked the use of the term to describe Native Americans and others in attempts to prove that any use of it is clear evidence of racist and even genocidal inclinations. But is any and every use of the word “savage” really some kind of thinly veiled call for genocide? Nonsense. Franklin Delano Roosevelt called the Nazis “savages.” And they were. Would Muneer Awad call him “a bigot and a racist” as well?

Read it all.

On this week’s Glazov Gang, Jamie's guests were Bill Whittle, the conservative commentator, Tommi Trudeau, producer of films and music videos, and Leon Weinstein, author of “Capitalism 101.”

The Gang Members discussed Israel vs. Hamas. The discussion focused on the pitfalls of the “ceasefire” and the strategy Israel must pursue to successfully protect itself from its jihadist enemies.

Egyptian secular democracy, such as it was, is not going quietly. "Egypt clashes escalate over President Morsi's power grab," from CBS News, November 25:

CAIRO Supporters and opponents of Egypt's president on Sunday grew more entrenched in their potentially destabilizing battle over the Islamist leader's move to assume near absolute powers, with neither side appearing willing to back down as the stock market plunged amid the fresh turmoil.

The standoff poses one of the hardest tests for the nation's liberal and secular opposition since Hosni Mubarak's ouster nearly two years ago. Failure to sustain protests and eventually force Mohammed Morsi to loosen control could consign it to long-term irrelevance.

Clashes between the two sides spilled onto the streets for a third day since the president issued edicts that make him immune to oversight of any kind, including that of the courts.

A teenager was killed and at least 60 people were wounded when a group of anti-Morsi protesters tried to storm the local offices of the political arm of the president's Muslim Brotherhood in the Nile Delta city of Damanhoor, according to security officials.

It was the first reported death from the street battles that erupted across much of the nation on Friday, the day after Morsi's decrees were announced. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, identified the boy as 15-year-old Islam Hamdi Abdel-Maqsood.

The tensions also dealt a fresh blow to the economy, which has suffered due to the problems plaguing the Arab world's most populous nation since Mubarak's ouster.

Egypt's benchmark EGX30 stock index dropped 9.59 percentage points Sunday in the first trading session since Morsi issued his decrees. The losses were among the biggest since the turbulent days and weeks immediately after Mubarak's ouster in a popular uprising last year. The loss in the value of shares was estimated at close to $5 billion.

The judiciary, the main target of the edicts, has pushed back, calling the decrees a power grab and an "assault" on the branch's independence. Judges and prosecutors stayed away from many courts in Cairo and other cities on Sunday.

But the nation's highest judicial body, the Supreme Judiciary Council, watered down its opposition to the decrees on Sunday. It told judges and prosecutors to return to work and announced that its members would meet with Morsi on Monday to try to persuade him to restrict immunity to major state decisions like declaring war or martial law or breaking diplomatic relations with foreign nations....

"We have one common enemy and everybody knows that." Except the learned analysts who make policy in Washington.

"Iran Tries to Choke Israel with Free Oil Offer to Jordan," by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu for Israel National News, November 25 (thanks to Voice of the Copts):

Iran is trying to close surround Israel on three sides with its “axis of evil” by offering free oil to Jordan.

Iran and Syria, through its Hizbullah ally, threatens Israel on the northern border, and the Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood alliance south of the border allowed massive rocket and missile attacks on Israel until the ceasefire last week after Operation Pillar of Defense.

Festering economic problems, a growing Palestinian Arab population and paralleled opposition to the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty have made the kingdom ripe for Iran to step in, which it did last week.

“My country is ready to supply the kingdom with free oil and energy for the next 30 years, in return for trade deals and agreements regarding religious tourism between the two countries,” Iranian Ambassador to Jordan Mustafa Zadeh said.

“We have one common enemy and everybody knows that,” the senior Iranian official added, which was a clear reference to the United States and Israel, according to an Al Hayat article translated and published by Al Monitor.

Jordan is burdened with a $21 billion deficit, but the temptation of free oil was termed a “big risk” by several Jordanian sources....

Apologists for the Islamic Republic in the U.S. such as Reza Aslan of the mullahs' lobbying group, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), have denied that he said this in the past, claiming that it was "mistranslated." The problem for them is that he keeps saying it. "Ahmadinejad again calls to 'wipe Israel off the map,'" from Elder of Ziyon, November 24 (thanks to Lachlan):

From the official Iranian Mehrnews Arabic site:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that resolving the Palestinian issue does not need war, but requires a unified Islamic decision to remove the Zionist entity off the map.

Again, this is the official translation from Iran, and it has been copied by many Arabic newspapers.

Sharia in action. Less "extremist" Sharia entities don't have a different version of Sharia; they just don't enforce all of its provisions. "Foreign jihadists join north Mali Islamists," from AFP, November 25 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

AFP - Dozen of Algerian jihadists have arrived in the Malian city of Timbuktu to support armed Islamist groups who are imposing an increasingly brutal version of sharia law in the vast northern areas under their control, security sources said Sunday.

The latest influx of foreigners joining the Al-Qaeda linked Islamists was revealed as interim authorities in Bamako postponed a key conference to plan the country's transition back to democracy and tackle the crisis in the occupied north....

As plans for the internationally-backed intervention force take shape, reports have increased of Sudanese, Algerian and other west Africans joining the jihadists' ranks.

"Dozens of Algerian jihadists arrived in Timbuktu this weekend to reinforce the AQIM (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) camp," a regional security source told AFP.

He said the fabled city of Timbuktu was "increasingly becoming the headquarters of AQIM in northern Mali."

Regional security sources said in early November that dozens of young Europeans and Africans living in Europe had also attempted to join the Islamists in northern Mali.

On Friday a suspected French jihadist was arrested on the border between Mauritania and an area of northern Mali.

"The arrival of more and more Islamist reinforcements" is to be expected, a Malian security source said on Sunday....

And in the north, Islamists backed by the regional Al-Qaeda franchise soon seized full control, ousting the more secular Tuareg to pursue their goal of running the region according to a severe form of sharia law.

Married couples have been stoned, thieves have had their arms amputated and smokers and drinkers have been whipped.

A resident of Timbuktu, a former local government official, denounced the toughening of sharia in the city.

"Now, the Islamists are going through houses to confiscate televisions," he told AFP on condition of anonymity. "Yesterday (Saturday) they took at least 25 television sets. Today they began rummaging through houses near the grand mosque."

Two weeks ago the jihadists began going door-to-door to arrest women who were not wearing veils.

Also on Sunday, three Congolese citizens were arrested in Timbuktu after refusing to listen to an Islamic sermon because they are Catholic, a local government official told AFP.

"They were thrown into one of the Islamists' prisons in Timbuktu," he said.

According to him the three men were attempting to illegally enter Europe via the Malian desert but had been stuck in northern Mali after it was occupied by armed Islamist groups....

No surprise here. This is what a truce is for: "If Muslims are weak, a truce may be made for ten years if necessary, for the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) made a truce with the Quraysh for that long, as is related by Abu Dawud" ('Umdat al-Salik, o9.16).

"'Satellites show Iran moving quickly to rearm Hamas,'" from the Jerusalem Post, November 25:

Israeli intelligence satellites have spied the loading of rockets and other material in Iran believed to be destined for the Gaza Strip, the UK-based Sunday Times reported, citing Israeli officials.

According to the report, Iran began preparing the weapons shipment around the same time Israel and Hamas negotiated a cease-fire late last week.

The shipment is said to include Iranianmade [sic] Fajr-5 medium-range rockets, the same model that was fired toward Tel Aviv and Jerusalem during Operation Pillar of Defense, the Sunday Times reported.

Last month, following an air attack on a weapons plant near Khartoum, the Defense Ministry’s director of policy and political-military affairs accused Sudan of acting as a transit point for weapons shipments to Gaza. Amos Gilad accused Khartoum of aiding and abetting terrorism, and said the Sudanese regime was “supported by Iran” and was used as a route to transfer weapons to Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip via Egypt....

The official added that Tehran would act to re-arm Hamas and other Gaza groups quickly, as it sees them as a necessary part of its response to a possible Israeli attack against Iran.

How they must laugh at the endless credulity of the kuffar.

From Palestinian Media Watch:

On Nov. 22, one day after Hamas and Israel brokered a ceasefire, Hamas broadcast the following music video:

"Destroy the throne of Zion, the house of absolute evil
Raise the banner of victory
Be like the fire of a volcano
Repeat in the name of your Jihad: Death to Israel!
With blood and fire, resist until freedom
Defeat the soldiers of aggression the enemies of humanity."
[Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), Nov. 22, 2012]

Islamic Jihad exudes class. "Online Indiscretion Leads to Islamic Jihad Texting Threats to Israeli Soldiers During Operation Pillar of Defense," by Zach Pontz for the Algemeiner, November 25:

During Operation Pillar of Defense threatening text messages were sent to the cell phones of IDF reservists and soldiers and the army now knows why: A soldier from their unit posted the sensitive information to the internet.

According to an article on Israel Channel 2′s website, during the operation Islamic Jihad published to its website that the terrorist organization was able to send thousands of SMS messages threatening Israeli civilians, reservists and military officials.

During Operation Pillar of Defense the IDF adjusted online personnel procedures to include “no posting of any information about the operation, including the locations of forces, names, units – with an emphasis on social networking.” It also warned not to “open messages with attached files or links from unfamiliar addresses and do not answer calls from an unrecognized number.” It said “especially during the operation, the enemy is investing considerable effort in search of information about the IDF on the web…”

You talkin' to me?

The first was the glorious democratic "Arab Spring." "Gaza victory second wave of Islamic awakening: Iran cmdr.," from Press TV, November 25:

A senior Iranian commander says the victory of Palestinian resistance fighters in the eight-day war with Israel marks the second wave of Islamic awaking in the region.

Commander of Iran's volunteer Basij forces Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi on Friday hailed the unity among Palestinian factions and the contribution of other Muslim nations to end the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.

“Nations realized more than ever before that they need to come on to the stage and exhaust all their power and capacities,” Naqdi told a pro-Palestinian gathering in Tehran.

“The heroic nation of Lebanon and the Gaza Strip gallantly stood up and the people of Syria have well performed their obligation by their intelligence and maintaining the resistance front. Today it is the Egyptian people’s turn to complete the task, and they also have taken high steps,” he stated....

Will Morsi act? Does he care to? "Islamic Terrorists Bomb Egyptian-Gaza Border Base," by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu for Israel National News, November 25:

Islamic terrorists destroyed part of an Egyptian security building at Rafiah Saturday night, challenging Cairo’s control over the Sinai after the ceasefire with Israel. No one was injured in the explosion at the base, under construction n the Egyptians side of Rafiah, the smuggling capital of Gaza.

The attack came 48 hours after Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi granted himself extensive new powers, which were challenged by Cairo's judiciary.

A separate explosion injured three people further south in the Sinai, where Egypt is building a facility to help it protect the pipeline that ships natural gas to Israel and Jordan. Terrorists have bombed the pipeline more than a dozen times the past two years in an effort to scuttle the agreement to sell gas to Israel.

Saturdays night’s bombing underlined Egypt’s difficulty in re-asserting control over the Sinai, where Hamas terrorists from Gaza, along with Bedouin allies and Al Qaeda-linked terrorist cells, have carved out regions of authority. They have staged increasingly frequent terrorist attacks on Israel. Several Israelis have been killed in the attacks....

Britain's new export: jihad. "Bakri Says Training UK Islamists for 'Jihad' in Syria at Lebanon Camp," from Naharnet, November 25:

Four British Islamist extremists are being trained to fight in Syria at a camp run by radical Islamist preacher Omar Bakri in northern Lebanon, Britain's The Sun newspaper reported on Sunday.

Bakri boasted of his “military-style courses for Islamic fanatics on the lawless border with Lebanon,” The Sun said.

In an interview with the newspaper, Bakri revealed one recruit was a computer programmer in his 20s from London, while another was a Midlands-based IT worker.

And he claimed: “Others like them will follow.”

“Of the four, two of them have Syrian connections. But they are all born in UK and have professional backgrounds,” Bakri added.

“After their training they will do their duty of jihad (holy war) in Syria and maybe Palestine.”

Bakri, 52, came to Britain in 1986 and stayed until 2005, during which time he praised the 9/11 attacks....

Will the Islamophobia never end? "Bombing on Nigerian church leaves 11 dead," from AGI, November 25 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

(AGI) Kaduna, Nov. 25 - Yet another bloody Sunday for the Christians in northern Nigeria, with 11 people killed in a bombing on a church near Kaduna and three more killed in an ambush as they were going to mass in Kano. Once again, the group likely to be behind the attacks is al Qaeda-linked Boko Haram, which carried out several other attacks in this region.

In Jaji, 30 km from Kaduna, two suicide bombings struck the protestant church of St Andrew's, inside the barracks. Shortly after mass, one suicide bomber drove a minibus, loaded with explosives, against the church. About ten minutes later, when a group of soldiers and civilians had gathered on the spot, another terrorist detonated a car bomb, which left 11 killed and about 30 injured. Most of the victims were members of the Church choir. It is not clear how the bombers managed to enter the barracks, considering the massive measures taken to prevent Boko Haram attacks.

In the Muslim-majority state of Kaduna, several attacks on churches have been attributed to the Islamic fundamentalist group. In October, a suicide bombing left eight dead and about 100 wounded in another region of the state. In the outskirts of Kano, two men on a motorbike opened fire on a car with a Christian couple and their child on board, as they were going to mass. The woman and the child were killed immediately, while the man died in hospital. The couple's other child, in the car too, was unharmed. Motorbike assaults are frequently used by Boko Haram. The suspicion that Boko Haram is behind these attacks is based on the fact that they came the day after the Nigerian government announced it would offer rewards - for a total of $1.7 mn - to whoever will provide useful information for capturing the 19 leaders of the terrorist group. The list features the main leader, Abubakar Shekau, the reward for him being $250,000; the reward for those who will help the local authorities arrest Shekau's four main aides (Habibu Yusuk, Khalis Albarnawai, Momodu Bama e Mohammed Zangin) is $125,000. . .

Pat Condell tells the truth again.

After demonstrators took to the streets to protest the new pro-Sharia Brotherhood dictatorship. Showdown in Cairo: "Embattled Morsi calls out his backers," by Paul Gallagher in the Independent, November 25:

The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has called for a mass demonstration in Cairo this week to show support for the embattled President, Mohamed Morsi, who is facing widespread protests over his controversial decree granting him extensive new powers.

In a statement published on its website, the Brotherhood also called for demonstrations in public squares across the country after early evening prayers today.

The latest blow to Mr Morsi came yesterday when the Supreme Judicial Council, Egypt's highest body of judges, called the move by the President to grant himself near-absolute power an "unprecedented assault" on the judiciary.

Through their statement, the judges joined a growing list of leaders and activists from Egypt's political factions, including some Islamists, who have denounced the decree Mr Morsi says is necessary to "protect the revolution". The council's move reflects the anger within the judiciary.

Mr Morsi has accused pro-Mubarak elements in the judiciary, many of whom were appointed by the former president, of blocking political progress. In the past year, courts have dissolved the lower house of parliament as well as the first panel drafting the constitution, both led by the Muslim Brotherhood....

Parties opposed to the decree have called for a protest on Tuesday in Cairo, though in a different square from the one where the Brotherhood called on its supporters to gather.

It's Muharram, the month sacred to Shias, which means that for many Sunnis, who consider them Rafidite dogs, heretics, apostates from the true faith, it is time to murder them. "Muharram in Pakistan: bomb during a Shiah procession," from Asia News, November 24 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

The attack occurred in an area where Sunni extremist groups proliferate, linked to al Qaeda. For Sunni fundamentalists, the Shiite festival is a heresy. For the holy month of Muharram, other attacks are feared above all in Islamabad, Karachi and Quetta.

Peshawar (AsiaNews/Agencies) - A roadside bomb exploded while a Shiah procession was passing by. The attack occurred in the town of Dera Ismail Khan, in an area with large number of Sunni militants. The bomb was placed in a trash can and left seven dead and 17 injured. The police have placed many cities of Pakistan under surveillance, fearing further attacks during the month of Muharram, the month sacred to Shiahs, who in it memorialize the martyrdom of Ali, Muhammad's son-in-law, the foundation of their tradition.

Two days ago there was another attack in Rawalpindi.

President Asif Ali Zardari has condemned the attack.

The attack today took place in the north-west part of the country, where there are many groups of Sunni extremists linked to al Qaeda. For Sunnis, Shiahs are heretics and must be eliminated.

The Pakistani security services expect more attacks during the month of Muharram, which began on November 15 will last until December 13. These days around the 24th are the culmination of the festival (ashura).

The cities most at risk are Islamabad, Karachi and Quetta. In Karachi at least 5,000 policemen will be engaged in the controls for the next two days.

But other members of the mosque turned them in. Now if they would do the same on a regular basis worldwide when jihadis are plotting attacks on the kuffar, we might be making progress. Sunni-Shi'ite Jihad Comes to Australia: "Men arrested after mosque 'threat,'" from Nine News, November 25 (thanks to James):

Two suspected Muslim extremists have been arrested at a mosque in Sydney's south after threats were allegedly made against worshippers.

Police say two men are in custody after an operation at the mosque in Arncliffe, in Sydney's south, on Sunday afternoon.

They said one man was removed from the mosque around 1.15pm by "members of the congregation" before being arrested by police stationed outside.

Another man was arrested outside the mosque, police told AAP.

They did not specify the nature of the arrests.

A witness at the mosque who does not want to be named, said he saw members of the congregation drag a man wearing Islamic clothing from the building around 1.00pm (AEDT).

The witness said worshippers hauled the man out of the mosque and took him "down the street", before police arrived and apprehended him.

He said the man appeared to be an Anglo-Saxon Australian and said he thought he may have been a Wahabi extremist.

Jamal Daoud of the Social Justice Network said he was contacted by a member of the Muslim community who said two Wahabi extremists had threatened Shia Muslims gathered to observe the day of Ashura at the Masjid Fatima Al Zahrah mosque.

"We have information that two men were arrested when they attempted attacking masses of Shia Muslims remembering the Ashura in Arncliffe," Mr Daoud said.

He said the action came after calls for violence against Shia were made on Facebook on Saturday.

Mr Daoud said worshippers at the mosque called police when they became suspicious of attempts by the two men to use their mobile phones.

The leading spokesman for genocide of the Jews in the world today is thrilled with the outcome of the recent conflict. Thanks once again are due to Barack Obama. "Gaza conflict shows Israel must 'bow' to Palestinian rights: Iran," from Reuters, November 24:

(Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the head of the Hamas government in Gaza on Saturday that eight days of cross-border fighting showed that Israel had no choice but to "bow" to Palestinian rights, according to Iran's IRNA news agency.

The Iranian-backed Hamas has basked in what it called a victory against Israel after an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire on Thursday ended the conflict in which 163 Palestinians and six Israelis were killed.

IRNA said Ahmadinejad, in the rare telephone call with Ismail Haniyeh, praised the Palestinian "resistance and perseverance".

"Zionists have reached the dead point and have no other alternative but officially recognizing and bowing to the absolute right of the Palestinian nation," IRNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying, referring to Israel.

The agency's English website did not elaborate but Ahmadinejad has previously said that Israel was an alien body in the Middle East.

Israel's arch-foe Iran, which has an alliance with Hamas, had referred to Israeli strikes as "organized terrorism". The exiled leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, on Wednesday thanked Shi'ite Iran for what he described as arms and funding.

In September, Ahmadinejad told the U.N. General Assembly in New York that Israel has no roots in the Middle East and would be "eliminated", ignoring a U.N. warning to avoid incendiary comments.

Hamas's founding charter also calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.

Islamic law forbids Christians to build new churches or repair old ones. Sharia Alert from modern, moderate Indonesia: "Muslims threaten churches in W. Sumatra," by Syofiardi Bachyul Jb for The Jakarta Post, November 24 (thanks to Twostellas):

Although the dust from the persecution of minority Shiite Muslims in Sampang, Madura, has not settled, another religious controversy has emerged, this time in West Pasaman, West Sumatra.

A mob numbering in the hundreds and grouped under the banner of the Islamic Organizations Communication Forum (FKOI) descended on two churches on Tuesday: Stasi Mahakarya and GPSI (Gereja Pentakosta Sion Indonesia).

Those in the crowd threatened to use force to stop the congregations from building additional structures in their compounds, nailing wooden boards outside the churches.

However, the mob was not able to come too close to the houses of worship, which were guarded by nearly 200 police officers and Indonesian Military (TNI) troops.

West Pasaman Regent Baharuddin said on Friday that he would ensure the safety of all religious followers to perform divine services. “Not a single stone will be thrown at other religious followers in West Pasaman. I assure you of that,” Baharuddin told The Jakarta Post by telephone on Friday.

Baharuddin’s support for religious freedom was tempered by his support for the protestors, who, before visiting the churches, forced several cafes they said were selling alcoholic drinks to close. “I thank them for helping the government to discipline the cafes. Also, the church needs to seek permits before expanding its building.”

FKOI chairman Achmad Namlis said that organization’s efforts were made only to remind the churches to obtain permits before launching new construction projects.

“This is not the tyranny of the majority. We’ll let the Christians perform their rituals as long as they don’t breach regulations,” Achmad, who is the chairman of the local Muhammadiyah chapter, said.

Rev. Bernard, a pastor at one of the churches, said that two Islamic organizations had rejected the permit he applied for three years ago. “We will soon prepare the documents to get the permit,” Bernard said....

See the disconnect between how Muslims understand jihad in the Islamic world and the soothing nonsense Islamic supremacist spokesmen pump out in America: Hamas-linked CAIR's Ahmed Rehab babbles about jihad being paying your taxes and getting up early to take the kids to school, while Larijani knows that it means warfare against the Infidel state of Israel (and, eventually, other Infidel states as well).

"Iran, Lebanon urge continued support for Islamic resistance," from Iran's government-controlled Press TV, November 24:

Following the victory of the Palestinian resistance movement over Israel in the recent war on the Gaza Strip, Iran and Lebanon have urged continued support for the Islamic resistance in Lebanon and Palestine.

“The victory of Gaza highlights the necessity to continue resistance and Jihad against the Zionist regime (Israel). With their patience and perseverance, the people of Gaza showed that the only way to confront the Zionist regime is Jihad and resistance,” Iran’s Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani said after a meeting with his Lebanese counterpart Nabih Berri in Beirut on Friday.

He slammed the stance of certain Muslim countries on Palestine, adding, “Political gesture will not resolve the Palestinian people’s problem. The Palestinian people would like Muslim countries to provide them with real help.”

Larijani emphasized that support for such movements in the region is a matter of honor for Iran as they are resisting against Israel’s expansionist nature.

The top Iranian parliamentarian expressed optimism about political developments in the region and said Tehran would stand by Palestine and Lebanon.

Berri, for his part, expressed hope that the Palestinian resistance movement’s victory against Israel would be a turning point for regional countries to support resistance....

More chest-thumping from the lovers of death. "Gaza perceives victory over weaker Israel," by Tobias Buck for the Financial Times via Zawya, November 23:

..."People rushed to the shop as soon as it opened," said Abu Wassim, the owner of Alqadi Famous Sweets in Jabalya. His store sold four times more baklava, knaffeh and other sugary delights than on normal days. "In your country, when you celebrate a victory, you open a bottle of alcohol," he said. "Here, we go and buy sweets."

In Gaza, they have been treating the end of the latest bloody clash between Israel and Hamas as a Palestinian victory. Of that they have no doubt.

On Wednesday night, thousands celebrated spontaneously in the streets, minutes after the ceasefire announcement. On Thursday, declared a national holiday by the Gaza authorities, there were victory parades and rallies. On Friday, the midday prayers were dominated by declarations of victory, with some preachers drawing a line between the latest conflict and the Prophet Mohammed's victory over the infidels....

"We saw the Israelis panicked and bleeding," said Ahmed Youssef, a senior Hamas official. "We have always been under attack alone. We have always been bleeding alone. But this time the Israelis suffered just as we suffered."...

Majid Nofal, a butcher in Jabalya, insisted Israel had been exposed over the past 10 days as a "fragile state". Israel was forced to ask for a ceasefire out of weakness, he said. And because of fears that a ground invasion of Gaza would have resulted in heavy Israeli casualties.

"For sure my picture of Israel has changed," he said. "We always thought that Israel is fragile. But the resistance of the last few days has made us confident of this fact. Inshallah, Israel will soon disappear."...

As he shuffled away, a Hamas sheikh began his eulogy of Mohammed Jamal. He praised his martyrdom, saying the dead man and his family would be guaranteed a place in heaven. And the latest clash with Hamas's enemy had been a great victory, he said, "the first nail in the coffin of Israel".

Thought experiment: imagine that Abu Usamah at-Thahabi is not a Muslim cleric, or even a Muslim at all. Imagine Abu Usamah at-Thahabi as a non-Muslim saying exactly the same things about gays. Do you think he would be speaking at Brunel University? Or anywhere?

"London university to host anti-gay extremist Islamic preacher," by Scott Roberts for Pink News, November 22 (thanks to Lachlan):

Brunel University in Uxbridge, west London, has been criticised for allowing a cleric who supports the killing of gay people to attend a student event.

Abu Usamah at-Thahabi is due to make a speech on campus at Brunel’s Islamic Society on Tuesday 27 November.

His extreme views have already been documented in a Channel 4 programme and by the Centre for Social Cohesion.

Thahabi previously urged that gay people should be punished with death.

“Do you practice homosexuality with men? Take that homosexual man and throw him off the mountain,” Thahabi was recorded as saying in the Dispatches programme.

“If I were to call homosexuals perverted, dirty, filthy dogs who should be murdered, that’s my freedom of speech, isn’t it?”

The controversial preacher was caught on camera addressing worshippers at Green Lane Mosque in Birmingham.

He also mocked Western attitudes towards women and attacked Christians and Jews.

Following the broadcast, Thahabi was interviewed by Channel 4 News, where he refused to reject the comments.

Earlier this year, the cleric was prevented from speaking at the University of Warwick’s Islamic Society, following a backlash by students....

Yet the truce terms require "'all Palestinian factions' to stop all hostilities toward Israel from Gaza, including rocket fire and attacks along the Gaza-Israel border." So what is Hamas going to do with all these weapons? Or is Marzouk blithely signaling that Hamas has no intention of keeping the truce at all? After all, why not? What's the downside for them? The dhimmis in the U.S. and Europe will still rush to fulfill Hamas's every demand, no matter what. "AP Interview: Hamas No. 2 rejects Gaza arms halt," by Mohammed Daraghmeh for the Associated Press, November 24:

CAIRO (AP) — Gaza's ruling Hamas will not stop arming itself, the No. 2 in the Palestinian group told The Associated Press on Saturday, signaling tough challenges ahead for indirect negotiations between Israel and the Islamist militants on a new border deal for Gaza.

The talks are being brokered by Egypt, which also helped forge a cease-fire deal that ended eight days of Israel-Gaza fighting earlier this week....

Moussa Abu Marzouk, deputy to Hamas' top leader in exile Khaled Mashaal, said talks on a further easing of restrictions are to be held in Cairo on Monday. Hamas and Israel do not meet directly and the indirect talks are held through Egyptian intermediaries.

An Israeli security official has said Israel would likely link a significant easing of Gaza's border blockade to Hamas' willingness to stop arming itself. Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment Saturday.

However, Abu Marzouk rejected such demands. "These weapons protected us and there is no way to stop obtaining and manufacturing them," he said in an interview at his office on the outskirts of Cairo.

Hamas officials in Gaza have said they have developed a local arms industry. Meanwhile, Mashaal has said the group has received weapons from Iran since Israel's last Gaza offensive four years ago.

Hamas smuggles such weapons into Gaza through tunnels under the border with Egypt....

"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)." -- Bukhari 7.62.88

Muslims take this seriously and imitate Muhammad in this. Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine: "Marriage before puberty (nine full lunar years for girls) is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed."

The Ayatollah Khomeini himself married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight. Khomeini called marriage to a prepubescent girl "a divine blessing," and advised the faithful: "Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house."

The Qur'an also allows for marriage to pre-pubescent girls, stipulating that Islamic divorce procedures “shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated” (65:4).

Thus this news should come as no surprise to anyone -- except those who have bought the deceptive line of Islamic supremacists in the West, that Aisha was actually nineteen, etc.

"Activists slam marriage of 12-year-old in Malaysia," from AFP, November 23 (thanks to Lachlan):

KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysian activists on Friday slammed the wedding of a 12-year-old to her 19-year-old boyfriend, renewing their calls for the government to outlaw child marriages.

Nur Fazira Saad and Fahmi Alias married last week in northern Kedah state after the girl's father agreed to the union and an Islamic court granted permission, The Star daily reported.

"It is better for them to get married rather than doing something improper," Saad Mustafa, the girl's father, was quoted as saying.

But Ratna Osman, executive director of activist group Sisters in Islam, described the young couple's marriage as "shocking".

"I don't understand why this is allowed in a country like Malaysia... We are talking about a developed country," she told AFP. "The concern is that this is a child being married off... No parents should be doing this."

Child marriages are not uncommon in the conservative Southeast Asian country, where 60 percent of the population of 29 million people are Muslim.

Two years ago, the marriage of a 14-year-old Muslim girl to a 23-year-old schoolteacher triggered similar calls for reform.

Girls below the age of 16 must obtain the permission of Islamic courts, which regulate civil matters for Muslims. But activists say such permission is too readily granted.

There was another outcry in October when two men, aged 19 and 22, were released on probation after courts convicted them of statutory rape.

In both cases the girls, aged 12 and 13, had not been forced, lawyers said....

Oh, well, then!

"Badie declared that 'jihad is obligatory' for Muslims. But he also said that taking up arms would be the 'last stage,' only after Muslims achieved unity." And somehow, when he speaks about jihad being obligatory, he knows that his hearers will know he is talking about warfare against unbelievers, and won't think he is talking about dropping off the kids at school.

"Egypt Brotherhood leader blasts peace with Israel," from the Associated Press, November 22 (thanks to Block Ness):

CAIRO (AP) — The top leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood denounced peace efforts with Israel and urged holy war to liberate Palestinian territories on Thursday — one day after the country's president, who hails from the movement, mediated a cease-fire between Israelis and Palestinians to end eight days of fierce fighting.

Projection Alert:

"The enemy knows nothing but the language of force," said Mohammed Badie. "Be aware of the game of grand deception with which they depict peace accords," he said in a statement carried on the group's website and emailed to reporters.

His statement was a sharp deviation from the role played by President Mohammed Morsi in the last week. Egypt's role in brokering the deal has been hailed by U.S. officials....

Badie declared that "jihad is obligatory" for Muslims. But he also said that taking up arms would be the "last stage," only after Muslims achieved unity. "The use of force and arms while the group is fragmented and disconnected, unorganized, weak in conviction, with faint faith — this will be destined for death."

In the meantime, he called on Muslims to "back your brothers in Palestine. Supply them with what they need, seek victory for them in all international arenas." Badie's title — General Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood — also implies a leadership role in the Islamist group's sister movements across the world....

The Israeli authorities will rue the day. "Israel eases Gaza border restrictions after Hamas truce deal," from the Associated Press, November 24:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Gaza residents said Saturday that Israel has eased some border restrictions as part of its truce with the Palestinian territory's Hamas rulers, allowing farmers to visit land near its security fence and letting fishermen head further out to sea.

The Egyptian-brokered cease-fire ended eight days of cross-border fighting that claimed 166 Palestinian and six Israeli lives, according to health officials.

As part of the deal, Israel and Hamas are now to negotiate a further easing of the Gaza border blockade, first imposed by Israel and Egypt after the Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2007....

The truce is to lead to a new border deal for Gaza, with Egypt hosting indirect talks between Israel and Hamas. Israel has shunned Hamas as a terrorist group and refuses to negotiate with it directly.

Israeli demands that Hamas halt weapons smuggling into Gaza, while Hamas seeks free movement for people and goods in and out of Gaza.

After the Hamas takeover in 2007, Israel and then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak sealed Gaza to isolate the Islamic militants and make it harder for them to govern.

The restrictions have since been eased because of international pressure on Israel and because of regime change in Egypt. Both Hamas and Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, elected earlier this year, are members of the region-wide Muslim Brotherhood movement.

Before the Nov. 14 start of the fighting, Gaza received most of its consumer goods through an Israeli cargo crossing, while Israel banned virtually all exports and travel from Gaza, preventing the area's battered economy from bouncing back.

Items restricted by Israel, such as construction materials, were brought into Gaza through smuggling tunnels from Egypt, along with weapons for Hamas....

As Pamela Geller has quipped in connection with many similar stories, "Queers for Palestine" could not be reached for comment. But what Rubina Nasir has enunciated here is straight Sharia. Is Britain going to make pro-Sharia statements punishable by fine? Or just continue in its present state of denial and unreality until it is no longer possible to do so? "Muslim radio station fined for saying gay people should be tortured," from the Telegraph, November 23 (thanks to George):

A Muslim radio station has been fined £4,000 after a presenter said gay people should be 'tortured'.

Ofcom upheld two complaints from listeners about Leeds based Radio Asian Fever after presenter Rubina Nasir hit out at homosexuality and mixed faith marriages.

She said that homosexuals should be 'beaten up' and that a Muslim marrying a non-Mulslim was on 'the straight path to hellfire'.

The presenter, known as 'Sister Ruby', said: "What should be done if they do it? [practise homosexuality].

"If there are two such persons among you, that do this evil, the shameful act, what do you have to do? Torture them; punish them; beat them and give them mental torture."

"Allah states, 'If they do such a deed [i.e. homosexuality], punish them, both physically and mentally.

"Mental punishment means rebuke them, beat them, humiliate them, admonish and curse them, and beat them up. This command was sent in the beginning because capital punishment had not yet been sent down."

She was while giving her interpretation of a Qur'anic verse and Ofcom got an independent translation from the original Urdu into English.

In a broadcast the following day she focused her attention on another Qur'anic verse and said it was critical of mixed-faith marriages.

She said: "What happens when a Muslim man or woman get married to a Mushrak [a follower of another religion).

"Listeners! Marriage of a Muslim man or woman with a Mushrak is the straight path to hellfire.

"Have my sisters and brothers, who live with people of bad religions or alien religions, ever thought about what would become of the children they have had with them - and the coming generation?

"Where the filth of shirk (the sin of following another religion) is present, where the dirt of shirk is present, where the heart is impure, how can you remove apparent filth. How many arrangements will you make to remove the apparent filth?

"We are saying that Mushraks have no concept of cleanliness and uncleanliness."...

Because they are the worst enemies of the Muslims, according to the Qur'an (5:82). "Saudi Mujahid Sheikh: Jihad Against The Cursed Jews Everywhere Is A Supreme Duty," from MEMRI, November 23 (thanks to Lachlan):

On November 16, 2012, the "Global Jihad" website (aljahad.com/vb) posted a fatwa by the Saudi mujahid sheikh Nasser bin Hamad Al-Fahd mandating jihad against the Jews. Al-Fahd has been incarcerated in Saudi Arabia since 2003 for praising the Riyadh bombings in May of that year. In 2004, the Saudi media reported that he had recanted his jihadi ideology, but subsequently he published a communiqué stating that he had been forced to do this and that he did not regret anything he had done before his arrest.[i]

In response to the question whether it is permissible to kill Jews and harm their interests everywhere, even outside Palestine, and whether this counts as jihad, the sheikh replied that the Jews are the leaders of the infidels and the greatest enemies of Islam and the Muslims in the present age. Therefore, jihad against Jews everywhere is "one of the most important duties and greatest virtues," and any guarantees of protection granted them by tyrannical and infidel governments are meaningless, especially when the Jews are attacking Muslims as they please. Al-Fahd stressed that, when jihad against Jews outside of Palestine is more harmful than beneficial, Islam does not permit it; however, the only ones who can determine whether this is the case are the mujahideen, not "those who shirk jihad."...

Because it's not about land, it's about Islam. "Indonesian Hard-Liners Register Volunteers to Wage Jihad Against Israel," by Ronna Nirmala for the Jakarta Globe, November 23 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

The Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) distributed registration forms to volunteers willing to wage jihad against Israel at a protest in front of the US Embassy on Friday.

The hard-line group said they already had some volunteers — including FPI paramilitary commander Munarman — and that they planned to send FPI members to Palestine regardless of visa requirements.

“They will, insha Allah [God willing], depart with other volunteers,” FPI deputy chief Bernard Abdul Zabbar said on the sidelines of Friday’s protest. “Whether they permit us to go or not, we will still help volunteers who wish to go. We have many friends who will help us whether the state allows us to go or not.”

FPI members distributed the forms to the 5,000 protestors who gathered to demonstrate outside the US Embassy in Jakarta. The protestors denounced the United States for failing to side with Palestinians and burned photos of US President Barack Obama, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The hard-line group also handed forms to police officers tasked with securing the area, Alfian Tanjung, another deputy chief of the FPI, told the Indonesian news site liputan6.com.

“We’re offering jihad registration forms to FPI members and police officers,” Alfian said.

Last Saturday, November 17, at the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Restoration Weekend in West Palm Beach, Florida.

See also Pamela Geller's superb remarks here.

Islamic apologists in the West maintain that female genital mutilation has nothing to do with Islam, and that only greasy Islamophobes think otherwise. But eventually Muslims themselves get around to vindicating every last charge that greasy Islamophobes have ever made about Islamic belief and practice.

"Circumcision is obligatory (for every male and female) (by cutting off the piece of skin on the glans of the penis of the male, but circumcision of the female is by cutting out the bazr 'clitoris' [this is called khufaadh 'female circumcision'])." -- 'Umdat al-Salik e4.3, translated by Mark Durie, The Third Choice, p. 64

"It happens at night: Genital mutilation in Egypt," by Cornelia Wegerhoff for Deutsche Welle, November 22 (thanks to Lachlan):

Despite being legally banned, female genital mutilation in Egypt is on the rise, causing lifelong pains, health problems and even death for the women who undergo it. Islamists are pushing to legalize the procedure again.

Umm Mohamed lives in a part of Cairo where others dump their garbage. The 47-year-old Muslim woman has experienced many hardships in her life. Putting on a brave face, she says she is used to being daily surrounded by dirt and misery. But what really hurts, she admits, is the pain she personally had to endure 35 years ago.

When Mohamed was 12, nearly all parents from the quarter where she lived brought their daughters of the same age to a hair dresser. "We didn't know why," she says, "but we were all very excited, as each girl had just been given a new, white dress."

In celebration of the day, the girls' hands had been painted with henna. They were ever so proud. But then came the moment of shock: "Suddenly this man, who was really a stranger to us, started to undress us," she recalls. "Then he got out his razor blade." All the girls underwent the procedure which mutilated them for life - without narcotics and without even minimal hygene standards.

'How can my family do this to me?'

Mohamed bled for three days. When it didn't stop, her father went to the local baker for some ashes to cover up the wound. But the dirt only made everything worse. "I still remember asking myself how my family could do this to me," Mohamed says, tears clouding her eyes. Another girl from her neighbourhood, she adds, even died after the procedure.

And that girl was hardly alone. As the number of deaths rose, Egypt banned female genital mutilation (FGM) by law in 2008. Medical practitioners and midwives, who traditionally perform the procedure in the countryside, now do so at the risk of imprisonment. Issuing an Islamic legal opinion, a so-called fatwa, Egypt's Grand Mufti has also clarified that female genital mutilation is against the Islamic value system.

Yet in doing so he has contradicted legal rulings endorsed by al-Azhar (quoted above) and the words of Muhammad himself. Muhammad is depicted in the Hadith as not condemning it, but merely cautioning against going overboard: "A woman used to perform circumcision in Medina. The Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said to her: Do not cut severely as that is better for a woman and more desirable for a husband." - Sunan Abu Dawud 41.5251

This raises the question of whether the Grand Mufti's condemnation was honest, or was for Western consumption.

But since the revolution, Umm Mohamed says she has seen a new increase in female genital mutilations.

During the Mubarak regime people used to fear punishment, but these days the medical practitioners in her quarter don't even bother to hide their actions any more: "During the day, they circumcise little boys, and the girls they do at night for twice the money," Mohamed says angrily. "Everybody knows this."

Mustering her courage as a simple woman, Mohamed went to the police station to make a report. "But the officers told me that they had other things to worry about," says the mother of three, who was able to save her own daughter the painful mutilation.

Umm Mohamed openly addresses what for most Egyptian woman is a taboo: Most victims live in chronic pain and have problems with their sexuality, and they also face serious health problems both during pregnancy and giving birth.

Omayma Idris, a Cairo-based gynaecologist, says that more than 90 percent of all married Egyptians today are thought to have undergone mutilation. After the prohibition, she says, one could see a decline, "but since the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists are in power in Egypt, the numbers are on the rise again; they encourage families to do it again."

Not even the deeply religious Muslims in Saudi Arabia mutilate girls and women, she adds.

Islamists push for legalization

Salafists and representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood - the political home of Egypt's President Mohamed Mursi - want to see female genital mutilation legalized again. Their push for legalization alerted the German advocacy group for women's rights, Terre des Femmes, which collected 12,000 signatures against the practice in Egypt.

The group presented the signatures together with a petition to the Egyptian ambassador in Berlin at the beginning of November.

In several places around the country, Islamists have already created precedents, according to Mervat Tallawy, president of the National Women's Council for Egypt. A few weeks ago, she learned about the Muslim Brotherhood using buses as mobile clinics in the rural Minia province.

"The mutilation of girls had been offered as a sort of health service, free of charge," Tallawy says. And the buses, she adds, had stickers with the logo of the "Party for Freedom and Justice" - the political branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi (c) Spencer Platt/Getty Images Pressure groups ask President Mursi to explicitly condemn FGM

Following the incident, the National Women's Council contacted the local governor and the Ministry of Health in Cairo. But a spokesperson of the Muslim Brotherhood flatly denied all charges and, in turn, accused the villagers of misusing the logo.

Tallawy laughs bitterly laugh about that. Villagers, she says, lead very simple lives and many can barely read. She doesn't think they're capable of such forgery. But what she does believe to be more likely is that the Muslim Brotherhood is funding illegal mutilation procedures in the countryside.

"That's child abuse and a barbaric act," Tallawy says with disgust. "But as long as the Egyptian president doesn't explicitly condemn such actions, the fundamentalists are going to carry on and lead us back into the Middle Ages. I have no idea where their hatred for women comes from."

Really?

Of course it isn't. Only ever-blinkered Western analysts think it is. "Islamic Jihad: Gaza ceasefire not end of battle," from Xinhua, November 22:

GAZA, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- The armed wing of Islamic Jihad movement said Thursday that the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip does not mean an end to the conflict.

"The battle with the enemy has not ended," declared a masked gunman from al-Quds brigades.

"Our choice in fighting and getting weapons to defend our people is going on," he told at a press conference in Gaza City.

The ceasefire announced Wednesday night ended a week of cross- border violence between Israel and Palestinian armed groups led by Islamic Hamas movement, which controls Gaza.

The gunman noted that his group lost 10 fighters in the Israeli aerial offensive and fired 620 rockets and missiles towards Israeli cities.

Hamas took the credit for firing more rockets, including several that reached the outskirts of Jerusalem and some Israeli cities....

...who are the very people they should be seeking to neutralize if they have any interest in turning post-Assad Syria into anything like a genuine democracy. But it is much more likely to become yet another Islamic state. "Syria's new opposition in race to convince skeptical Islamists," by Erika Solomon and Mariam Karouny for Reuters, November 22 (thanks to AINA):

(Reuters) - Syria's new opposition leaders are struggling to win over powerful Islamist rebel combat units, whose radical elements question whether the "hotel warriors" of the fledgling coalition can offer their fighters any real support.

Islamists have established themselves as the most effective, best armed and fastest growing units in the 20-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

Many of them are wary of the National Coalition for Syrian Opposition and Revolutionary Forces, set up earlier this month in an attempt to unify Assad's fractured opponents and win greater international support.

"They are the hotel warriors, we are the men in the trenches. No one should be allowed to marginalize us, politically or militarily. These coalitions are just fighting over us and not for us," said Yassir al-Karaz, a leader in the rebel Tawheed Brigade in northern Aleppo province.

Most rebels are conservative but politically moderate and willing to work with diverse opposition groups. But they were left to their own devices for months in an uprising they dubbed an "orphan revolution" and the challenge to bring them into the fold is made bigger by the rising role of radicals, including al Qaeda-style fighters in Syria.

The problem for the new coalition is maintaining the backing of this crucial bloc of Syrian fighters on the ground while bolstering support from Western powers wary of funding a movement that may be linked to extremist groups.

While the coalition has won formal recognition from Turkey, France, Britain and Gulf Arab states, the response from many Islamist fighters has been skeptical or downright dismissive.

"We are with the coalition - for now. We want to see what it is going to do for us," said a fighter from one of the biggest Islamist brigades in the capital Damascus.

"It is known that we want weapons, we want a no-fly zone. Can it do that? We will see. We are not going to wait forever. With or without them, we are fighting and we are going to win."

The Islamists have grown increasingly influential through the course of a civil war in which 38,000 people have been killed, but won minimal aid from Western powers. Radical groups such as the secretive Jabhat al-Nusra and independent foreign fighters have also gained a foothold....

What a surprise. "Hypocrisy exposed: U.N. ignored Israel's repeated pleas to act against Hamas rockets, then rushed to stop Israel's self-defense," from UN Watch, November 22 (thanks to Blazing Cat Fur):

GENEVA, Nov. 22 -- Although this past week saw U.N. agencies and high officials rushing to intervene the moment Israel began to defend its civilian population from hundreds of Hamas rocket attacks, letters published by UN Watch show that the same U.N. actors repeatedly turned a blind eye while Israel pleaded for action.

Russian ambaasador Vitaly Churkin, who for nearly two years now has blocked any U.N. Security Council action to stop the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad from murdering more than 30,000 of his own people, lashed out this week at "procrastination on Gaza."

In reality, it has been the procrastination, indifference and inaction of Russia and its Security Council allies that gave Hamas the green light to bomb Israeli civilians, finally prompting Israel's belated response.

On at least 20 separate occasions this year, the Israeli government turned to the U.N. concerning Palestinian rocket attacks, in identical letters sent to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council.

Israel urged the United Nations to act, and, at a minimum, to speak out and condemn the attacks.

“Inaction today could help ignite an escalation of conflict tomorrow,” Israel warned, while exercising astonishing measures of restraint that no country facing a similar onslaught of rockets has ever shown. Yet we are unaware of any U.N. action taken in response....

Barack Obama promised several years ago to defend the right of women to wear hijab in the U.S., which no one was contesting. But will he stand up for these women who are being victimized for not wearing it? Don't hold your breath.

"Iraq’s unveiled women face rising crackdown," by Dina al-Shibeeb for Al Arabiya, November 22 (thanks to AINA):

Iraqi women who do not wear the Islamic headscarf, commonly known as the hijab, are increasingly coming under crackdown as conservative Islam gradually permeates the Iraqi political scene.

For Al Arabiya as well as for Western media outlets, you're "conservative" if you support Sharia and "right wing" if you oppose Sharia.

“Day after day, I am seeing more indicators that there is discrimination against women who choose not to wear hijab in Iraq,” Hanaa Edwar, General Secretary of the non-government organization, Iraqi Al-Amal Association, told Al Arabiya.

Edwar, also founder of Iraqi Women’s Network, sounded the alarm about attempts to force women to wear the hijab, especially in government offices.

Head of Iraq’s Ministry of Women, Ibtihal Kasid al-Zubaidi, ordered in January that women working in government offices dress “modestly.” Zubaidi axed tight pants, short skirts and colorful clothes.

Zubaidi, who segregated genders in her ministry, was lambasted as "anti-female" and her ministry described as an "anti-women ministry."

Edwar’s Iraqi Women Network, made up of 18 civil society organizations, protested against Zubaidi’s policy, describing it as seeking to curb women’s civil liberties.

More women are approaching Edwar to file their complaints about government institutions and even TV channels belonging to religious political which enforce strict dress code and gender segregation.

Edwar, a member of the High Preparatory Committee for National Congress of Iraq, said that there is an interference even with the way some women wear their scarves. She said, they were forced to cover their chin as well.

“There is no legal restraint over the power of a boss or a manager who thinks he or she can control how an employee should dress,” she said, adding “this has become exaggerated.”

Sexual harassment is on the list, Edwar warned, with widowed or divorced women being the number one target.

“How many high-ranking bosses have to resign because of this,” she said, in reference to CIA Director David Petraeus’s scandal that forced him to step down.

On Wednesday, Iraq’s Minister of Education, Ali Al-Adeeb warned university professors who “financially blackmailing male students and immorally harassing female students.”

The frustration over sexual harassment prompted some women to speak out during a Ministry of Interior conference last month.

“A number of women from the media came and boldly expressed their frustration in front of interior ministry officials about sexual harassment even from the highest of all ranks,” she said....

“In Iraq, we never had temporary marriage. This is clearly an imported phenomenon from Iran,” she said.

While in Shiite Islam, temporary marriage is allowed, it was rarely practiced nor was culturally accepted in Iraq as the conventional, permanent type of marriage was prevalent.

Other waves of conservatism in Iraq included the ministry of education banning music and arts in late 2010. The ban was lifted in Jan. 2011 as a more liberal new education minister took office.

Late September, human rights groups in Iraq voiced frustration at a wave of assaults on nightclubs and other alcohol-serving places.

Last night on my weekly appearance on Michael Coren's Sun TV show.

Once Assad is gone, with American aid to those rebels deemed pro-American (who knows by what calculus), this materiel will be used against Israel. "Rebels flying black Islamist flag seize artillery base in Syria’s Deir al Zour province," by David Enders for the McClatchy Newspapers, November 23:

MAYADIN, Syria -- After a siege that lasted nearly a month, Syrian government soldiers abandoned an artillery base in the town of Mayadin Thursday morning, handing anti-government rebels in southeastern Deir al Zour province a key victory that will allow them to move next to the airport near the provincial capital, one of the last positions the Syrian military controls in the province.

“Then we are going to Damascus!” rebels shouted on Thursday afternoon as they hoisted a black flag above the captured base, which had been a livestock feed plant before the Syrian military took it over....

The flags that were hoisted by the rebels at the base were not the one used by rebels groups that have pledged allegiance to the secular Free Syrian Army. Rather it was a black flag flown in particular by Islamist groups that are heavily involved in the fight against the government in this province. One building at the captured base flew the flag of Jabhat al Nusra, a group of fighters that have called openly for the establishment of a Syrian state based on Islamic law and that some fear has ties to al Qaida....

And he can say this openly, without any fear that anyone in Washington will take him seriously or do anything about it. "Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Calls for Jihad to 'Free PA,'" by Chana Ya'ar for Israel National News, November 23 (thanks to Voice of the Copts):

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is calling for a jihad (“holy war”) to liberate the Palestinian Authority areas. "Jihad is obligatory” for Muslims, top Islamic cleric Mohammed Badei said, adding that peace deals with Israel are a “game of grand deception".

Badei added that there have been enough negotiations and that the “enemy knows nothing but the language of force.” The Muslim Brotherhood and its members – of which Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi is one – do not recognize and refuse to hold direct talks with the State of Israel.

The call came just one day after the Brotherhood's former presidential candidate, who won the national election in June, sealed a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza's ruling Hamas terrorist organization.

Brokered by Morsi and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the agreement officially went into effect at 9:00 p.m. Wednesday night.

Under the ceasefire, no terrorist group is to fire any rocket, missile or mortar shell at southern Israel. The Israeli army is to cease air strikes, and open the Gaza border crossings....

"The Palestine News Network (PNN) reported the mosques in Gaza City blared through their loudspeakers: 'Allahu Akbar (G-d is great), dear people of Gaza, you won. You have broken the arrogance of the Jews.'" So how long do you think it will be before the rockets start landing in Israel again?

"Hamas Declares Nov. 22 Gaza Public Holiday," by Chana Ya'ar for Israel National News, November 22 (thanks to Voice of the Copts):

The Hamas terrorist organization has declared November 22, the day after its ceasefire was signed with Israel, as a public holiday in Gaza.

"The Palestinian government announces that Thursday 22nd November is a national holiday of victory and an official holiday,” read a statement issued by Hamas. Hamas invited “all citizens to celebrate this occasion and visit the families of the martyrs and the wounded and those affected by the violence and to affirm national solidarity.”

Gaza shops reopened Thursday, some for the first time in a week, since the assassination by Israel of Izz a-Din al-Qassam leader Ahmed Jabari, the head of the Hamas military wing....

For hours after the ceasefire between Gaza and Israel went into effect, Wednesday at 9:00 p.m., terrorists continued to fire missiles at Israeli communities, including the city of Be'er Sheva as well as towns along the Gaza border.

But by morning the skies were quiet, with the exception of noise from the mosques of Gaza. The Palestine News Network (PNN) reported the mosques in Gaza City blared through their loudspeakers: 'Allahu Akbar (G-d is great), dear people of Gaza, you won. You have broken the arrogance of the Jews.”

Including "immunity for the Islamist-dominated panel drafting a new constitution from any possible court decisions to dissolve it," thereby removing a significant obstacle to Egypt's becoming a Sharia state. "Egypt's Morsi grants himself far-reaching powers," from the Associated Press, November 22:

CAIRO — Egypt's president on Thursday issued constitutional amendments that placed him above judicial oversight and ordered the retrial of Hosni Mubarak for the killing of protesters in last year's uprising.

Mohammed Morsi also decreed immunity for the Islamist-dominated panel drafting a new constitution from any possible court decisions to dissolve it, a threat that had been hanging over the controversial assembly.

Liberal and Christian members withdrew from the assembly during the past week to protest what they say is the hijacking of the process by Morsi's allies, who they saw are trying to push through a document that will have an Islamist slant marginalizing women and minority Christians and infringing on personal liberties. Several courts have been looking into cases demanding the dissolution of the panel.

The Egyptian leader also decreed that all decisions he has made since taking office in June and until a new constitution is adopted and a new parliament is elected — which is not expected before next spring — are not subject to appeal in court or by any other authority. He also barred any court from dissolving the Islamist-led upper house of parliament, a largely toothless body that has also faced court cases.

The moves effectively remove any oversight on Morsi, the longtime Muslim Brotherhood figure who became Egypt's first freely elected president last summer after the Feb. 11, 2011 fall of autocrat Hosni Mubarak. They come as Morsi is riding high on lavish praise from President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for mediating an end to eight days of fighting between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers.

Morsi not only holds executive power, he also has legislative authority after a previous court ruling just before he took office on June 30 dissolved the powerful lower house of parliament, which was led by the Brotherhood. With two branches of power in his hands, Morsi has had repeated frictions with the third, the judiciary, over recent months.

"Morsi today usurped all state powers & appointed himself Egypt's new pharaoh," pro-reform leader Mohamed ElBaradei wrote on his Twitter account. "A major blow to the revolution that could have dire consequences."...

Yet during the "Arab Spring" ElBaradei freely entered into talks with the Brotherhood. Surely he must have seen where it was all going to lead. Or apparently is he just as willfully blind as the learned analysts of the West.

Yes, but the weakness is on the part of Barack Obama and Netanyahu, not the Israeli people. "Iran claims Israel accepting ceasefire is sign of weakness," from AGI, November 22 (thanks to Inexion):

(AGI) Tehran, Nov. 22 - According to the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Israel accepting a ceasefire in Gaza shows that the Jewish state has grown "increasingly weak". In a statement to Irib news channel, Saeed Jalili said "accepting defeat after eight days means that the Zionist regime is becoming increasingly weak". Mr Jalili also congratulated the Palestinians on the ceasefire as that "means that counter-resistance is getting stronger". He also added that Iran will continue to proudly support groups fighting the Jewish state and urged Palestinians to stay united, as the "only path to freedom for Palestine". . .

Official Iranian TV calls for the arrests and prosecution of those it thinks are behind the Muhammad video. That in itself is nothing new, but this tag quote beside the article is: "The 'Innocence of Muslims’ was designed to stir up anti-Islamic sentiments, and it succeeded, with hundreds injured and many killed as a result. Now a British based faith group has published a briefing paper on the impact of the film and exposes the individuals involved who have tried to obscure their true identities."

Read that again. "The 'Innocence of Muslims’ was designed to stir up anti-Islamic sentiments, and it succeeded, with hundreds injured and many killed as a result." Now recall who was doing the injuring and the killing. Was it "Islamophobes" inflamed by this movie? No, it was enraged Muslims, rioting and killing innocent people for this perceived "insult" to their prophet. Hundreds were injured and many were killed because Muslims chose to react violently to this video, not because of the video itself. No one was forcing them to react this way.

But what Iran's Press TV wants to establish is the idea that when Muslims riot and kill, it is up to non-Muslims to change their behavior to placate and pacify them -- and Barack Obama fed into this notion by jailing the filmmaker and repeatedly denouncing this video and blaming it for the Benghazi consulate attack even when he knew better.

The Press TV agenda is clear: it wants the U.S. to criminalize criticism of Islam. What is more disquieting is the Obama Administration's willing cooperation in this agenda, and the general indifference of the American people to what is happening.

"Anti-Islam film rooted in Islamophobia," by Amina Taylor for Press TV, November 20:

The Innocence of Muslims was designed with one thing in mind; to spread anti-Islamic bile across the globe.

Now a British organization has researched the aftermath and individuals at the heart of Islamaphobic propaganda. The director of Faith Matters explains why the briefing paper was commissioned.

The men at the heart of the provocative release have been exposed as Nakoula Basseley Nakoula.

Steve Klein, Joseph Nasralla Abdelmasih and Morris Sadek. All four have been unmasked as working closely with extremist groups in America with several men having a professional working relationship with Terry Jones, the pastor who has threatened to burn the Qu’ran [sic]. Nakoula has been the only one arrested but only for breaching his bail conditions on an unrelated charge.

The individuals behind the film have shown no remorse or apologized for the catastrophic fall-out from their project of hate. The great worry here is that suitable lessons highlighted by the film’s release have seemingly not been learnt.

Ensuring that there is no repeat of something like the Innocence of Muslims and that states recognize provocation and act to protect its citizens is crucial.

There is real concern that the individuals who so expertly ignited a firestorm have so far escaped punishment fitting their crime but now they have been suitably unmasked it makes tracking their activities, and those of others like them easier to do.

Thanks, once again, to Barack Obama. "Gaza leader Haniyeh thanks Iran for helping make Israel ‘scream with pain,’" by Aaron Kalman in the Times of Israel, November 22:

After emerging unscathed from eight days of fighting with Israel, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh thanked Egypt and Iran on Thursday for their support in helping make “Israel scream with pain,” he said.

Haniyeh, who heads Hamas in Gaza, hailed the previous night’s ceasefire as a victory, despite what Israel called heavy losses for the terror group during Operation Pillar of Defense.

Though it had been threatening a ground operation, Jerusalem said Wednesday night it would give an Egypt-brokered truce a chance to work, ending a week of heavy rocket fire on the south of Israel.

It was “the resistance and strength of the Palestinian people that stopped Israel from sending troops into Gaza,” Haniyeh said at a celebration in Gaza Thursday, which was declared a holiday for Palestinians.

“The idea of attacking Gaza is gone and, with the help of God, will never return,” Haniyeh said.

During Operation Pillar of Defense, Israel struck some 1,500 targets and killed some 170 Palestinians, according to the Israel Defense Forces. Over 1,500 rockets were launched from Gaza to Israel’s southern city, and six people were killed.

The strength of the Palestinians was the basis for the latest victory, and now “it’s a sign of pride to the whole world,” Hamas’s leader said. We “did not raise a white flag. Israel screamed with pain from what the resistance did to it. I thank everyone who provided us with arms and money, especially Iran.”

Haniyeh also thanked Egypt for aiding the Palestinians. Egypt of today was not like that of yesterday and “Israel was mute in face of Egypt’s position” during the fighting, he said.

“Israel entered this war with the intent of preparing the ground for a regional war” which would help its leaders during the upcoming elections, Haniyeh said, but added that Jerusalem was ill-prepared to face down Gazan fighters. “Israel was surprised at the response of the resistance movements, their accuracy and the ability to strike in the center of the country with such force.”

“The enemy was hit and shocked because it thought [killing Ahmed Jabari] and attacking from the air would be a surprise — but the surprise was that of the resistance, the depth and determination in the field up until the last minutes,” Haniyeh told the crowd.

“The resistance changed the rules of the game, and the idea of invading Gaza is gone forever,” Hamas’s leader said. ”The resistance can stand even stronger. Our enemy doesn’t know our character. Today a new stage has started in the victory of this people and nation,” he said.

Growing frustration with the unwillingness of leaders -- any leader -- to confront the jihad. "Soldiers spell out critique of Netanyahu as a ‘loser’ for not using ground forces in Gaza," by Aaron Kalman in the Times of Israel, November 22 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

The IDF Spokesman’s Office said Thursday it was looking into a photograph circulating widely on Facebook in which 16 IDF soldiers arranged their uniformed bodies on the sand, to spell out the Hebrew words “Bibi loser” — in a deft physical critique of Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu’s failure to send ground troops into Gaza during the just-ended Operation Pillar of Defense.

Netanyahu warned throughout the operation that a wider military assault on Hamas might be about to unfold. The IDF called up tens of thousands of reservists and deployed large troop contingents close to the Gaza border, and some troops were reportedly ordered more than once to gear up for an incursion, only to be ordered to stand down at the last moment.

“We were twice ordered to gear up and told that we are going in, and then we were called back to Israel,” one soldier said Thursday; others said they had even opened border gates before being told to return....

Many commenters on the photo said that the soldiers should be court-martialed; many others empathized with the soldiers’ evident sense of frustration at having been wound up for battle and then wound down, calling Netanyahu a coward and criticizing the prime minister for preventing the IDF from “getting the job done” and “giving it to Hamas.”...

"The resistance groups have achieved a historic victory and paved the way for the battle of liberating Palestine." Thanks to Barack Obama.

"Hamas declares 'victory' after cease-fire," by Khaled Abu Toameh in the Jerusalem Post, November 21 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Hamas reacted to the Egyptian-brokered cease-fire agreement that was announced Wednesday by declaring “victory” over Israel.

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip reacted to the announcement by taking to the streets to celebrate Hamas’s “victory.”

Similar celebrations were also reported in some West Bank cities late Wednesday.

Drivers honked their cars and women ululated while others handed out candies to express their joy over the cease-fire agreement. Palestinian gunmen fired shots into the air in Gaza City while others kissed the ground in a sign of jubilation.

Palestinians also chanted slogans in support of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip.

Sources in the Gaza Strip said that the Hamas leadership instructed its members to abide by the cease-fire and to stop firing at Israel.

“History will mention that Gaza once hit Tel Aviv and Jerusalem with rockets,” boasted a Hamas activist in Gaza City.

“Today we triumphed. This is a victory from Allah.”

Ahmed Bahr, a senior Hamas official, welcomed the cease-fire agreement.

“The resistance groups have achieved a historic victory and paved the way for the battle of liberating Palestine,” he said.

Bahr praised the Egyptians, Qataris and Turks for their role in achieving the cease-fire agreement.

In a press conference in Cairo Wednesday night, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said that the cease-fire required the opening of all Gaza crossings.

The Popular Resistance Committees also declared victory and claimed that Israel had succumbed to its conditions for a cease-fire.

“The occupation and its army were forced to accept our conditions for a cease-fire,” said Abu Ataya, spokesman for the PRC. “This is a great victory.”

Ataya said that the Palestinian armed groups have taught Israel “a lesson that it would not forget for a long time.” He also warned that the Palestinian groups would respond to any [Israeli] violations of the cease-fire agreement.

But remember: Islam respects women's rights! That's why women are virtual slaves in the nation that prides itself most on scrupulous adherence to Islamic law. "Electronic tracking: new constraint for Saudi women," by Assaad Abboud for AFP, November 22:

RIYADH — Denied the right to travel without consent from their male guardians and banned from driving, women in Saudi Arabia are now monitored by an electronic system that tracks any cross-border movements.

Since last week, Saudi women's male guardians began receiving text messages on their phones informing them when women under their custody leave the country, even if they are travelling together.

Manal al-Sherif, who became the symbol of a campaign launched last year urging Saudi women to defy a driving ban, began spreading the information on Twitter, after she was alerted by a couple.

The husband, who was travelling with his wife, received a text message from the immigration authorities informing him that his wife had left the international airport in Riyadh.

"The authorities are using technology to monitor women," said columnist Badriya al-Bishr, who criticised the "state of slavery under which women are held" in the ultra-conservative kingdom.

Women are not allowed to leave the kingdom without permission from their male guardian, who must give his consent by signing what is known as the "yellow sheet" at the airport or border....

Saudi Arabia applies a strict interpretation of sharia, or Islamic law, and is the only country in the world where women are not allowed to drive.

In June 2011, female activists launched a campaign to defy the ban, with many arrested for doing so and forced to sign a pledge they will never drive again.

No law specifically forbids women in Saudi Arabia from driving, but the interior minister formally banned them after 47 women were arrested and punished after demonstrating in cars in November 1990.

Last year, King Abdullah -- a cautious reformer -- granted women the right to vote and run in the 2015 municipal elections, a historic first for the country.

In January, the 89-year-old monarch appointed Sheikh Abdullatif Abdel Aziz al-Sheikh, a moderate, to head the notorious religious police commission, which enforces the kingdom's severe version of sharia law.

Following his appointment, Sheikh banned members of the commission from harassing Saudi women over their behaviour and attire, raising hopes a more lenient force will ease draconian social constraints in the country.

But the kingdom's "religious establishment" is still to blame for the discrimination of women in Saudi Arabia, says liberal activist Suad Shemmari.

"Saudi women are treated as minors throughout their lives even if they hold high positions," said Shemmari, who believes "there can never be reform in the kingdom without changing the status of women and treating them" as equals to men....

That will never happen as long as Islamic law reigns supreme in Saudi Arabia.

Expressing their hatred of those whom the Qur'an designates the "worst enemies" of the Muslims (5:82). "Jewish pupils attacked outside school in Paris," from the JTA, November 22 (thanks to David):

(JTA) -- Students and faculty of a predominantly Jewish school near Paris have reported two attacks and one break-in in the space of 48 hours. The first attack against students of the ORT high school in Montreuil, an eastern suburb of the French capital, occurred on Nov. 19 just outside the institution’s gates, according to a statement issued by the school. Six young men started hitting a small group of students “in a very determined way and without any provocation or even exchanging words.”

Pupils who rushed to their schoolmates’ aid – including one non-Jewish ORT student of Turkish descent -- also were attacked, according to ORT. The attackers slammed one of them, Nathan M., against a parking meter. “He was severely beaten by the attackers, who fractured his nose and broke several of his teeth,” according to ORT’s report on the incident. Police were called to the scene but the attackers had already left.

The following day, a 17-year-old Jewish female ORT student was attacked verbally and physically in a Metro station. The girl said she was waiting for a friend at Montreuil station when she was approached by a group of five men who she described as “north African.” The report said the five men, one of them wearing a keffiyeh, a traditional Arab headdress, shoved her and told her to keep quiet or they would push her on the rails when the Metro train comes “like they did in Gaza.”

A third incident was discovered the same day, when security guards tried to detain a man in his thirties who was spotted on school premises. He ran away after telling the guards he was Muslim and that his presence there showed they had security failures, the report said.

Indeed.

There are plenty of reasons not to be thankful this year: the consolidation of the power of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Sharia entities all over the Middle East and North Africa, the ongoing Islamic war against the freedom of speech, the Obama Administration's apparent determination to aid and abet both of those things, the new jihad against Israel, and so much more.

But today is a day to give thanks, and so let us not focus on those things, but rather upon those individuals who never would have flourished in a strict Sharia state such as the Islamic supremacists are laboring to impose upon the world, and for their achievements that are likewise not consonant with Islamic law. In other words, give thanks today for champions of the freedom of speech, for women who have achieved great things, for those who have moved our souls with music or representational art -- anything outlawed under Islamic law. For it may be that there will not be many more who join those singular individuals, as Sharia continues to advance in the West. The time to celebrate them is now.

And remember the fight is by no means over. As you give thanks for the blessings you have received, resolve to give thanks for them. Now is the time for new approaches that bypass the mainstream media straitjacket and force the public debate onto issues they want to ignore. That is what we do at the American Freedom Defense Initiative. Help AFDI keep fighting. Every dollar you contribute to us goes to the fight. We don’t draw salaries. We don’t have expensive offices or a huge staff (in fact, we don’t have an office or a staff at all).

DONATE NOW TO THE MOST EFFECTIVE FREEDOM FIGHTERS IN THE WAR OF IDEAS. Donate via Paypal to writeatlas@aol.com or tax-deductible to director@jihadwatch.org.

Yet still no Islamic organization in the U.S. offers any strategy to prevent "radicalization" of converts. Now, why is that? "2 of 4 Calif. Terror Suspects Were New Islamic Converts," by Gillian Flaccus for the Associated Press, November 21:

(UPLAND, Calif.) — Three of the young men swept up in a federal terrorism probe grew up in the Southern California suburbs where they played pick-up basketball, ran for homecoming court and sparred in video games with neighborhood kids — a far cry from the wannabe terrorists described by the FBI.

Two of the men converted to Islam less than two years ago and the third, an American-born Vietnamese Muslim, drifted into the orbit of the alleged terror cell as recently as September after a game of paintball. He also is an unemployed high school dropout and new father.

The rapid evolution from suburban teen to aspiring jihadist alleged in court documents blindsided family members, but experts who study homegrown terrorism said the case highlights the susceptibility of new converts to radicalization, particularly among the young.

Conversion to Islam requires just a single statement of faith, but the newly faithful must then choose among a universe of competing interpretations of Islam, many overtly political and easily available on the Internet.

“To convert to Islam you just have to make one statement of faith: ‘There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his messenger.’ But these people did that and then they feel they are Muslim,” said Muhamad Ali, an assistant professor at the University of California, Riverside, and an expert in Islamic studies.

They don't just "feel" they are Muslim. If they say the shahada in front of a Muslim male witness, then they are Muslim, by every definition of Islam.

“They might pray five times a day, they might fast, but they don’t see Islam in a comprehensive way. Education and understanding are critical and one of the challenges in the United States is to make sure that these converts are in the right hands.”

What are the "right hands"? What is a "comprehensive way"? In any case, in reality, no mosque or Islamic school in the U.S. offers any program to keep converts away from the al-Qaeda understanding of Islam.

According to court documents, the four men arrested late last week in what the FBI called a homegrown terror cell weren’t in the right hands.

Two of the men, Miguel Alejandro Santana Vidriales, 21, and Ralph Deleon, 23, converted after meeting 34-year-old Sohiel Omar Kabir in an Ontario, Calif., hookah bar. The naturalized U.S. citizen from Afghanistan introduced them to the radical Islamist doctrine of the U.S.-born extremist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed last year in an American airstrike in Yemen, according to court files unsealed this week.

Kabir later returned to Afghanistan but continued to talk with the Southern California men on Skype. He was taken into custody last weekend.

The fourth defendant, 21-year-old Arifeen David Gojali, joined the group in September after they played paintball together to sharpen their skills, according to court documents.

The father of a baby girl had moved out of his parents’ home two months ago and drifted away as he fell under the sway of Deleon, who was a charismatic and popular worshipper at the mosque the two attended, Gojali’s younger sister told The Associated Press....

All four men are facing charges of providing material support to terrorists, which can carry a maximum 15-year prison sentence.

Authorities won’t say how the investigation began, but at least two members of the group shared their beliefs on Facebook and held Skype phone calls with Kabir — all of which was recorded by an FBI informant or captured by agents monitoring their activity.

Covert FBI agents had conversations with Santana online, where he expressed his support of jihad and desire to join al-Qaida, authorities said....

“The imams should reach out. They have to make the mosques interesting and attractive to young generations and try to understand their psychology, try to address their concerns and have a dialogue,” said Ali, the UC Riverside professor.

“They cannot just say ‘Islam is a religion of peace’ and do nothing. To me, this is a really a challenge for imams, to really address the issue,” he said. “They cannot deny it’s happening, even though it’s a very small minority.”

Indeed. But they will not be doing anything by making mosques "interesting and attractive to young generations." They would have to undertake a radical reinterpretation of the passages of the Qur'an and Hadith that enjoin violence against unbelievers, and a rejection of the mainstream Islamic understanding of those passages. And that is not going to happen.

No one seems to have said, "Hey, we have to do something to keep Muslims from getting the idea that they're serving Allah by murdering Infidels." Notice how instead, these regular mosquegoers are simply "not Muslim" if they plot violence in the name of Islam. That is akin to the non-Muslim analysts whose definition of how someone becomes an "Islamist," as opposed to an ordinary Muslim, by strapping on a bomb vest. And re entrapment, see here. "SoCal terror suspects met at Pomona mosque," by Rob McMillan for KABC, November 21:

POMONA, Calif. (KABC) -- The four local men who were arrested on terror charges all worshipped at a mosque in Pomona, where they apparently met. Reaction from mosque members was mixed.

Sohiel Omar Kabir, 34, formerly of Pomona, Ralph Deleon, 23, of Ontario, Miguel Alejandro Santana Vidriales, 21, of Upland and Arifeen David Gojali, 21, of Riverside, are named in an FBI criminal complaint with pages and pages of evidence about their alleged plan to travel to Afghanistan and start violent jihad.

"If somebody does that, he's crazy, he's not normal," said Gamal Atia.

Atia says if the charges are true, they're reprehensible because Islam is about peace.

"If somebody tried to do that, he's really bad, and he's not Muslim," he said.

But there are others at the mosque, like Aaron Gaulding, who do not believe the charges and think the men were set up.

"They were wonderful young men," Gaulding said. "FBI entrapment is what I believe. The FBI has violated our civil rights and freedom of religion because he had come in here and prayed with us."

Gaulding was referring to the man working undercover for the FBI - a man who was paid more than $250,000 by the FBI to provide information about the suspects' activities. Gaulding thinks it was that confidential source who set up the four men as terrorists.

"If they're guilty of anything, it's just simply being of youth, naïve," he said, adding that he didn't think the men were capable of such an attack.

In PJ Media this morning I discuss why the "two-state solution" should be abandoned forever.

As yet another round of the relentless jihad against Israel opens up, it’s useful to consider: would the two-state solution now taken for granted and offered by both parties really bring peace?

The need to establish a Palestinian state wasn’t even a point of controversy during the last election campaign. The Democrat Party platform read: “A just and lasting Israeli-Palestinian accord, producing two states for two peoples, would contribute to regional stability and help sustain Israel’s identity as a Jewish and democratic state.” For his part, Mitt Romney promised to “recommit America to the goal of a democratic, prosperous Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with the Jewish state of Israel.”

But would a Palestinian state really stop the rain of rockets into Israel? Judging from the fact that so many of those rockets are coming from Gaza, it looks as if the dreaded, notorious, much-maligned object of frenzied Leftist and Islamic supremacist propagandizing, the Israeli “occupation,” was much more conducive to peace than independent or even semi-autonomous Palestinian entities. For before Israel withdrew voluntarily from Gaza in 2005, rockets were not flying into Israel in anything like the numbers they reached after the withdrawal. Around 35 rockets were fired into Israel in 2001; by 2006, the number had grown to 1,777 – almost all from Gaza.

Yet at the time of the withdrawal, pundits and politicians the world over predicted that the withdrawal would herald the dawn of a new age of peace between Israel and the Palestinian Muslims. Palestinians, we were told, would finally be able to turn away from war and live normal lives. Publishing magnate Mortimer Zuckerman tried to facilitate that return to normalcy by spearheading the purchase (for $14 million) of greenhouses the Israelis had constructed in Gaza; he gave them to the Palestinians so that they would have places to work. Instead, they turned them into weapon-smuggling tunnels.

Why would an independent Palestinian state be any different from post-withdrawal Gaza? Would such a state really bring, at long last, peace between Israel and the Palestinians – and, for that matter, “contribute to regional stability”? Egyptian Muslim cleric Muhammad Hussein Ya’qoub answered that question in January 2009, when he said on al-Rahma TV:

If the Jews left Palestine to us, would we start loving them? Of course not. We will never love them. Absolutely not. The Jews are infidels – not because I say so, and not because they are killing Muslims, but because Allah said: ‘The Jews say that Uzair [Ezra] is the son of Allah, and the Christians say that Christ is the son of Allah. These are the words from their mouths. They imitate the sayings of the disbelievers before. May Allah fight them. How deluded they are.”

The quotation is from the Qur’an (9:30). Ya’qoub explicitly rules out what is conventional wisdom in the U.S.: that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Muslims is simply over land, and can ultimately be resolved if only the right formula could be found. He goes even farther, saying that if all the Jews left “Palestine,” Muslims should still hate them, because it is their responsibility before Allah to do so. “It is Allah,” continued Ya’qoub, “who said that they are infidels. Your belief regarding the Jews should be, first, that they are infidels, and second, that they are enemies. They are enemies not because they occupied Palestine. They would have been enemies even if they did not occupy a thing. Allah said: ‘You shall find the strongest men in enmity to the disbelievers [sic] to be the Jews and the polytheists.’”

There is more.

What a surprise. "Obama pushed Israel to accept Egyptian cease-fire agreement friendly to Hamas," by Neil Munro for the Daily Caller, November 21:

President Barack Obama pressured Israel’s prime minister to adopt a cease-fire agreement with Hamas that was pushed by Hamas’ Egyptian ally, according to a White House statement released on Wednesday.

Obama “commended [Israel’s] Prime Minister for agreeing to the Egyptian ceasefire proposal – which the President recommended the Prime Minster do,” said the 12.31 a.m. EST statement from the White House.

The cease-fire terms released by Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi’s office do not mention any binding curbs on its ally Hamas, nor any guarantees that would prevent another wave of Hamas rocket attacks against Israel....

In contrast to the applause given to Morsi, the White House statement about Obama’s phone call with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was guarded.

“The President expressed his appreciation for the Prime Minister’s efforts to work with the new Egyptian government to achieve a sustainable ceasefire and a more durable solution to this problem,” said the statement, which did not include any mention of Obama thanking Netanyahu for agreeing to the cease-fire proposal....

Of course not.

And oddly enough, while there he somehow never imbibed the True, Peaceful Teachings of Islam. "Terrorism Arrests: Mosque’s members, neighbors react," by David Olson for the Press Enterprise, November 21:

A man who prayed at the same mosque as one of the Inland terrorism suspects arrested last week said he hoped Arifeen David Gojali is sent to jail if he really was plotting to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

“Muslim or not Muslim, he should go to jail” if he is guilty, said Gamal Atia, who has worshipped at Masjid al-Sabireen Cham American Muslim Community in downtown Pomona for 11 years.

Atia, 55, of Pomona, said he regularly saw Gojali pray at the mosque with his parents and brother.

“He's a good person,” Atia said. “They're nice people. I'd see him on Friday and in the evenings sometimes.”...

If Gojali is guilty, “I'm very, very sorry,” Atia said. “This is not our religion. Islam is a religion of peace.”

Atia said people shouldn't blame Islam for the actions of a small number of extremists, just as all Christians shouldn't be blamed for the actions of Timothy McVeigh, who blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 and injuring more than 600. McVeigh was raised Catholic but before he was executed in 2001 identified as agnostic, according to news reports.

This is the usual boilerplate. It never discusses the fact that jihadis use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence, in a way that no one uses the texts and teachings of Christianity.

Atia said that if Gojali is guilty, people should focus on him as an individual, not as a Muslim.

“It's not the religion,” he said. “It's the people who are crazy.”

His comments echoed those by Inland Islamic leaders on Tuesday, who said they worried that the arrests of the four suspected terrorists would increase fear of Muslims. They condemned terrorist acts and said that if the men are guilty, they weren't following Islamic teaching.

The men — Sohiel Omar Kabir, 34, a former Pomona resident who had moved to Afghanistan; Ralph Deleon, 23, of Ontario; Miguel Alejandro Santana Vidriales, 21, of Upland; and Gojali — were arrested last week after an FBI investigation found they had been plotting to join the Taliban and al-Qaida and wanted to attack U.S. bases in Afghanistan....

The imam of the mosque, who Atia said he knows only as Imam Kassem, is from Cambodia or Vietnam. He's been gone for about three weeks, apparently for a trip to Southeast Asia, Atia said....

The tan-and-cream-colored building does not have a sign identifying it as a mosque. The only indications it is an Islamic center are a parking lot sign that says, “For Imam Parking Only” in front of a space near the entrance doors, and Arabic writing in a side window.

Melkus has been in the neighborhood almost every weekday morning over the past four years to auction properties at the nearby Los Angeles County courthouse.

He said he's never noticed anyone enter or leave the building.

Mike Bee, who also works at the courthouse almost every weekday morning and parks near the mosque, said the arrest of Gojali worries him.

“I'll probably be more cautious,” said Bee, 47, of Los Angeles. “There could be terrorists in there. This just gives me a reason to believe there are more of them out there, for sure.”

Maria Gonzalez, whose morning walk takes her past the mosque every day , said she typically sees about eight people milling about before or after the dawn prayers.

Gonazalez [sic], 58, said in Spanish that she and her neighbors had long been nervous of seeing men in Islamic skullcaps at the mosque.

“We were afraid,” she said. “I thought they might be terrorists.”

Now that she knows a mosque worshipper was arrested on terrorism, she's even more nervous.

“You can't tell who it is who wants to kill people,” she said....

Stephanie Reyes, 24, who lives about two blocks from the mosque, said she was never worried about extremists at the Islamic center — until now.

Until now!

Shameful and unconscionable. Not a word about how Hamas launches attacks from civilian areas in order to provoke civilian casualties they can use for propaganda purposes. Not a word about how the Palestinian propaganda machine publishes faked footage of civilian deaths. Not a word about the indiscriminate rocket attacks against Israeli civilians. Not a word about how "Palestinians" celebrate the mass murders of Israeli civilians by passing out candy.

The Vatican has entered a very, very dark age.

"The Vatican on Gaza: Israel is a Baby-Killer,” by Giulio Meotti for Israel National News, November 21 (thanks to exdemexlib):

Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Vatican Council for Culture, commenting on the war between Israel and Hamas, delivered a severe attack on the Jewish people: “I think of the ‘massacre of the innocents’. Children are dying in Gaza, their mothers’ shouts is a perennial cry, a universal cry”.

The Catholic Church high official equated Israel’s operation in Gaza against terror groups with the New Testament story of Herod’s slaughter of Jewish babies in his effort to kill Jesus.

Ravasi, who is one of the most popular Catholic cardinals and the director of the Church’s policy on culture, called Israelis baby-killers in a shameless form of anti-Semitism which subtly accuses the Jewish State of trying to murder the new Jesus, symbolized by the Palestinian people.

The Vatican official’s modern blood libel against Israel was delivered during the presentation of Pope Benedict’s new book about the life of Jesus. However, Ravasi's theme – the Jews as Herod, who killed all the innocent babies because his heart was set on killing Jesus – was much beloved by Medieval organizers of pogroms.

The vicar-general of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, William Shomali, said on Vatican Radio that “what is happening in Gaza now is a vicious circle of violence”. The auxiliary bishop then declared that “it’s difficult to know who started it”. How difficult?

A few weeks ago, in an interview with the Catholic magazine Famiglia Cristiana, Shomali claimed that “hatred of Christians” is the Talmud itself. "The Talmud, the holy book studied by the ultra-orthodox, more highly venerated than the Bible itself, invites religious hatred, speaks badly of Jesus, and even worse of Mary and, in general, of Christians,” the bishop said, adding that “in Israeli schools, love for the other is not taught, but rather the destruction of the other”....

Shomali retails this ridiculous nonsense but I expect he has nothing at all to say about the hatred of and contempt for Jews and Christians in the Qur'an.

They celebrated on September 11, 2001, too.

Video thanks to Jim Hoft.

Allowing Hamas to gather strength. Why this is a bad idea here. "Israel-Gaza Ceasefire: Hamas And Israel Reportedly Agree To Truce," from Reuters, November 21:

GAZA, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Israel and the Islamist militant group Hamas agreed on Wednesday to a Gaza ceasefire deal, said a Palestinian official with knowledge of Egyptian mediation between the two sides....

Savages glorying in blood and death.

Video thanks to the IDF, via Twitter.

"In Gaza, Palestinians cheered and celebrated on hearing the news, announced from mosque loudspeakers along with Koranic songs about victory." But...but...the Palestinian war against Israel has nothing to do with Islam! All the learned analysts always tell us so!

"Tel Aviv bus bombing wounds at least 21," by Edmund Sanders for the Los Angeles Times, November 21 (thanks to Twostellas):

GAZA CITY -- A bomb attack on a Tel Aviv public bus Wednesday injured at least 21 people -- three seriously -- shattering the sense of security in Israel's second-largest city and raising questions about the fate of cease-fire talks underway to end the violence in the Gaza Strip.

The noon-time attack took place on a bus on a busy downtown street. Early reports from witnesses said a man was seen running toward the bus, throwing a bag inside and running away.

Israel police launched a massive manhunt and raised security levels nationwide, fearing additional attacks might take place.

It was unclear whether the attack was related to the ongoing clashes between Israel and the Gaza-based Islamist group Hamas, but police suspected that it was a terrorist attack.

In Gaza, Palestinians cheered and celebrated on hearing the news, announced from mosque loudspeakers along with Koranic songs about victory.

"Israel has refused the truce and they want to escalate the violence, so we will have to escalate as well," said bank employee Hesham Akram, 27, in central Gaza City. "This way, Israelis will feel more insecure so they will give in to our demands for freedom."

Hamas officials did not claim responsibility for the attack, but praised it. Hamas-owned radio said the bombing was a sign that Palestinians in Israel and the West Bank were rising up to support Gazans in the clash with Israel....

Pamela Geller reminds us: "In my extensive coverage of the savage Muslim attacks on the West in Mumbai, India, the obsession with targeting the small little Jewish Chabad house from the inception of the planning was shocking. The Jewish Chabad house was part of a larger attack on hotels and public buildings across Mumbai that resulted in the deaths of at least 166 people. But for the Muslim terrorists themselves, Nariman House was different. It was the only Jewish target, and the Muslim terrorists were told by their central command in Pakistan that the lives of Jews were worth 50 times those of non-Jews. The organizers had sought it out with care. Their handlers would emphasize to them the importance of killing Jews."

"India executes last surviving Mumbai attacker, sparks celebrations," by Kaustubh Kulkarni and Naeem Abbas for Reuters, November 21 (thanks to all who sent this in):

(Reuters) - India secretly hanged the lone survivor of the Pakistan-based militant squad responsible for a rampage through Mumbai that killed 166 people, sparking celebrations days before the fourth anniversary of the assault on the financial capital.

Pakistan national Mohammad Ajmal Kasab was the enduring image of the bloody assault, which traumatized India and raised fears of copycat attacks on foreign cities. Pictures of the boyish gunman wearing a black T-shirt and toting an AK-47 rifle as he strode through Mumbai's train station were published around the world.

Kasab was executed on Wednesday morning amid great secrecy, underscoring the political sensitivity of the November 26, 2008, massacre, which still casts a pall over relations between nuclear-armed rivals Pakistan and India.

"All the police officers and personnel who lost their life in the battle against the terrorists have today been served justice," Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said after Kasab was hanged in a jail in Pune, southeast of Mumbai.

Kasab was charged with 86 offences, including murder and waging war against the Indian state, in a charge-sheet running to more than 11,000 pages.

It was the first time a capital sentence had been carried out in India since 2004. There was celebration on the streets of Mumbai and other cities as news of the execution spread, but militant groups in Pakistan reacted angrily, as did residents of his home village of Faridkot.

People set off fireworks and handed out sweets in Indian cities. Some held up photos of Kasab with a rope noose superimposed over his head.

Attack survivor Vishnu Zende, who was working at Mumbai's train station where nearly 60 people were killed, said the execution brought it all back.

"When I heard the news of Kasab's execution today, I remembered those horrifying moments of the attack," Zende said.

"My eyes were filled with tears."

An effigy of Kasab was hung by the neck from the entrance gate of the station by a right-wing local party. A crowd of about 30 shouted "Pakistan murdabad" (death to Pakistan) as they beat the effigy, which had shoes hung around its shoulders.

In Pakistan, a senior commander of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group, which India blames for the assault on Mumbai, called Kasab a hero and said he would inspire more attacks.

"To die like Kasab is the dream of every fighter," the commander told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.

The Pakistan Taliban said they were shocked by the hanging.

"There is no doubt that it's very shocking news and a big loss that a Muslim has been hanged on Indian soil," Taliban spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan told Reuters.

TICKET TO HEAVEN

Kasab was buried inside the prison where he was hanged, officials said. He was quiet and seemed nervous before the execution, a prison guard told the NDTV network. He prayed and asked if his family had been informed, which they had.

India said it would hand over the body to Pakistan if asked. Talking to Reuters from Faridkot, Kasab's aunt said she was proud of him and wanted his body back. A schoolmate remembered a boisterous child who loved karate "but never harmed anyone". Villagers threw stones and slapped around journalists who went to the village in the province of Punjab....

In a video of his interrogation by Indian police, Kasab said his trainers and handlers had assured him prior to the attack that his killing spree was a sure ticket to rewards in heaven....

Ten militants arrived on the Mumbai shoreline in a dinghy on November 26, 2008, before splitting into four groups and embarking on a killing spree. They held off elite commandos for up to 60 hours in two luxury hotels and a Jewish centre in the city.

India says Islamabad is failing to act against those behind the raids, including LeT founder Hafiz Saeed, who has a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head. Pakistan admits the attacks were planned on its soil, but denies official involvement.

It says seven suspects are being prosecuted for their role.

"Kasab was a foot soldier, the generals are in Islamabad, in Pakistan, and full justice will be done when they are brought to justice," Gopalapuram Parthasarathy, a former ambassador to Pakistan, told Reuters....

In Pakistan, many said the hanging happened quickly only because of his nationality. People questioned whether Kasab was really guilty, despite the video evidence....

Of course. Because Islamic supremacists never, ever admit that any Muslim was ever guilty of any wrongdoing of any kind.

At the top is the cover of today's New York Post (thanks to Ken). Below it is Pamela Geller's AFDI ad calling Palestinian jihadists "savages."

The Post cover refers to the incident in this video, in which Palestinian Muslims drag the bodies of those they deemed to be Israeli collaborators through the streets:

Savage indeed. And now we will see if the Left, the Islamic supremacists, and their Useful Idiots will raise an outcry against the Post for saying so. Will Mona Eltahawy set out to spray-paint every copy of today's Post? Will dhimmi Jewish groups rain down condemnations on the Post for daring to call things by their right names? Will Leftist "journalists" run story after story about the Post's "racism"?

Somehow I doubt that any of that will happen. Consistency was never the strong suit of Islamic supremacists, the Left, or the mainstream media. But this cover exposes their campaign against Pamela Geller and her ads for what it is: an attempt to conceal the truth about the bloody reality of jihadist savagery.

Jihad mass murderer Mohamed Merah said that he "loved death more than they loved life." This is a commonplace idea among jihadists. Nigerian jihadist Abubakar Shekau said: "I'm even longing for death, you vagabond." Ayman al-Zawahiri's wife advised Muslim women: "I advise you to raise your children in the cult of jihad and martyrdom and to instil in them a love for religion and death." And as one jihadist put it, "We love death. You love your life!" And another: "The Americans love Pepsi-Cola, we love death." -- Afghan jihadist Maulana Inyadullah

Of course, this idea comes from the Qur'an itself: "Say (O Muhammad): O ye who are Jews! If ye claim that ye are favoured of Allah apart from (all) mankind, then long for death if ye are truthful." -- Qur'an 62:6

Teach your children well! "Child Preacher Ibrahim Adham Longs for Martyrdom, Fighting alongside the Palestinians," from MEMRI, November 16:

Following are excerpts from a TV program featuring child preacher Ibrahim Adham, which aired on Al-Rahma TV on November 16, 2012.

Ibrahim Adham: Oh Zionists, we love death for the sake of Allah, just as much as you love life for the sake of Satan. We long for martyrdom for the sake of Allah, just as much as you hate death, oh enemies of Allah.

I am just a small child, but nevertheless, I pray that Allah will allow me to lead the prayer in the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

[...]

If it were up to me, I would come to you [Palestinians], and I would fight alongside you in the battlefield, even if I am killed a hundred – nay, a thousand – times.

Here is this week's installment of my Jihad Watch show on ABN.

Kevin Carroll of the EDL speaks with Michael Coren about how Muslim rape gangs get off with light sentences at best, while Tommy Robinson is being persecuted by the British "justice" system for a trivial offense.

Video thanks to Blazing Cat Fur.

When I published my book in 2009, I was criticised for claiming that Muslim criminals are not just "criminals", but religious and flirting with Islamic extremism. It was about time that our intelligence services realize the problem...

Translated by Nicolai Sennels, Berlingske 18 November 2012 "Criminals fight in conflict zones":

A fresh report from the Danish Police Intelligence Service (PET) warns that members of criminal gangs travel abroad to fight in the world's conflict zones. And that they return as radicalised warriors that constitute a terror threat back in Denmark.

Not only do people from Denmark and other western countries travel to Syria, Somalia and other of the world's conflict zones to join rebel and terror groups. There is also an "increasing tendency for overlapping between criminal gangs and militant Islamic environments".

This is the conclusion in a new report from the Danish Police Intelligence Service (PET). The report describes how the Center for Terror Analyzis (CTA) discovered how foreign fighters acquire militant skills, including dangerous connections, and return as terror threats. ...

Recruitment is done via the Internet, the PET report concludes. And the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab produces propaganda videos where foreign fighters from the West encourage other Westerners to sign up.

Act of war. More on this story. "Palestinian Islamic Jihad Leaders Admit Missiles Came from Iran," from MEMRI, November 16:

Following are excerpts from TV reports featuring leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which aired on various channels between November 15-20, 2012.

Al-Jazeera TV, November 20, 2012:

Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Ramadhan Abdallah Shalah: With regard to the Iranian position – even if we have disagreements with Iran regarding the situation in Syria, I don’t think that we, as the Palestinian resistance, have disagreements with Iran regarding what is happening in Palestine, or regarding the Zionist aggression against the Gaza Strip. With regard to Palestine, we are in complete agreement with Iran. Iran has given us all the aid and all the support. The weapons that are fighting the Israeli aggression and arrogance in Palestine come mainly from Iran, as the entire world knows. This is no secret. These are either Iranian weapons or weapons financed by Iran.

[...]

Al-Alam TV, November 19, 2012:

Palestinian Islamic Jihad Deputy Secretary-General Ziyad Nakhala: We are on the brink of a great victory, Allah willing. This is a new stage in the conflict with the Zionist enterprise.

Show host: Do you believe that the missiles have changed the equation?

Ziyad Nakhala: Absolutely. This wonderful weapon has proven its significant role in battle. The missiles have changed the balance of power, and have proven to Israel that we can shell their cities like they shell ours, and that we can shell their military camps like they shell our children.

Show host: Are you firing the Fajr-3 and Fajr-5 missiles? Do you have these missiles?

Ziyad Nakhala: Absolutely. These missiles have restored the honor of the Palestinian people. We received these missiles from our allies and brothers in the Islamic Republic. They have generally given us these missiles, exerting great effort. These missiles have changed the equation in this conflict.

[...]

Mayadeen TV, November 15, 2012:

Show host: Are the Fajr-5 missiles produced locally or brought from outside Palestinian lands?

Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sheikh Khaled Al-Batsh: These missiles are 100% Iranian made, and are part of the legitimate aid that the Islamic Republic provides to the Palestinian people. This is well known and was announced in the media.

While the newly elected Muslim majority in a local board in Kokkedal, Denmark decided not to spend 1,000 USD on a Christmas tree a few days after having spent 10,000 USD on their Eid-party, their brothers and sisters in faith in the municipality North Als found a way to benefit from the infidels' tradition: Applying for economic help to celebrate Christmas... They want our money but not our culture and we gladly pay - even if it means that Christian Danish families will then have to do without. When Christian organisations will stand up for the culture and tax payers supporting them...? One more example of The sad, sad lack of solidarity among Christians:

Translated by Nicolai Sennels from Ekstrabladet, November 14 2012 "90 percent of applicants for economic help to celebrate Christmas are Muslims":

The President of the Church Cross Army, Havnbjerg Ole Sørensen Werth, was leading the meeting as the board met on Monday. And as a regular item on the November meeting agenda, requests for economic help for celebrating Christmas were undertaken -- but something had changed compared to last year:

"We noticed many with foreign, non-Danish names. Let's just call them Muslims. It surprised us and we discussed it," says Ole Werth Sorensen, who has headed the Church Army's local Christmas help for five years.

They also discussed that it would be necessary to deselect some of the applicants because of the many families applying. Quickly it was decided that they could not discriminate because of peoples' faith, but that it might be necessary to initially reject candidates who are not single parents.

"Economic Christmas Help is about Christian charity, and whether your name is Mustafa or Jens does not matter, though we shall discuss it at the next board meeting. Then we will also know how many applications we have," says Ole Werth. Last year, 43 individuals / families Christmas received a gift consisting of a voucher of 30-60 USD to the local shopping center -- and / or a gift voucher of 30 - 75 USD for the Church Cross Army second hand store: 30 individuals / families were also paid a small amount of cash.

Oh, the irony.

Video thanks to Maggie's Farm, on which I ain't gonna work no more, where there is this explanation:

Israel is a democracy, with rights of free speech, petition, and protest. The tiny number of far left Israelis are vocal and often ally with radical Arab-Israelis. In this video today, they held a protest in Jerusalem against Israel bombing Gaza. Then, they scurried away as soon as the air raid siren went off that a rocket may come in from Gaza.

Why are we ruled by children? Why does Hillary Clinton not realize that such a goal is absolutely unattainable? Because she has been fed, and has readily accepted, politically correct nonsense about the jihad doctrine.

"Israel Gaza Attacks Intensify Despite Truce Talks," by Ravi Nessman and Ibrahim Barzak for the Associated Press, November 20:

JERUSALEM — A diplomatic push to end Israel's nearly weeklong offensive in the Gaza Strip gained momentum Tuesday, with Egypt's president predicting that airstrikes would soon end, the U.S. secretary of state racing to the region and Israel's prime minister saying his country would be a "willing partner" to a cease-fire with the Islamic militant group Hamas.

As international diplomats worked to cement a deal, senior Hamas officials said some sticking points remained even as relentless airstrikes and rocket attacks between the two sides continued. The Israeli death toll rose to five with the deaths Tuesday of an Israeli soldier and a civilian contractor. More than 130 Palestinians have been killed.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton held a late-night meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after rushing to the region from Cambodia, where she had accompanied President Barack Obama on a visit.

"The goal must be a durable outcome that promotes regional stability and advances the security and legitimate aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians alike," she said at a news conference with Netanyahu.

Netanyahu said Israel would welcome a diplomatic solution to the crisis but threatened further military activity, saying he was ready to take "whatever action" is necessary.

Yet the mainstream media ignores this. This isn't desperation -- it's showing that they know how to play the game, as the mainstream media has rigged the rules for them.

"Brazen faking of images reveals Hamas’ desperation," by Paul Alster for Fox News, November 20 (thanks to David):

Haifa, Israel – There is only one thing worse than the image of a child killed by military conflict, and that is the image of a child killed by military conflict having deliberately been placed in the line of fire.

War is, by definition, a very nasty business, and invariably it is the innocents on all sides who bear a significant cost in lives lost, people maimed and communities traumatized.

But solid evidence now reveals how Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza have been deliberately placing their civilian population in mortal danger, choreographing a number of seemingly gory scenes, as well as releasing images from other conflicts, such as Iraq and Syria, and passing them off as dead Gazan civilians killed by Israeli missiles.

In an attempt to persuade the world that Israel is committing war crimes and to distract attention away from the illegal and immoral use of their own population as human shields, Hamas has resorted to staging a number of fake deaths and scenes of severely injured people right in front of international TV crews.

The BBC recently broadcast a news report showing a man being carried off by four others, seemingly the victim of an Israeli missile strike, only for him to reappear in the same clip a few seconds later wandering around completely unharmed. The same organization’s Jon Donnison yesterday re-tweeted a picture of the dead body of a young girl on a stretcher in Gaza with the headline "Heartbreaking," only for it to transpire that the girl had sadly been killed three weeks earlier in Syria.

Such is the sometimes chaotic nature of the situation on the ground in Gaza that mistakes can be made, but according to Paul Hirschson, spokesman for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hamas has crossed a red line even in the Arab world by promoting the use of images of dead people – children in particular – against the tradition of their religion and the expected respect for the dead.

Hirschson told FoxNews.com that, “There’s no question that there are civilians being killed and injured on both sides of this conflict, but respect for the dead within the Muslim world is a core principal [sic] and what Hamas is doing is in contradiction to the customs and traditions of the local community.

"As in Judaism, Islam believes in taking the body and burying it at the first opportunity," he said. "Even Al Jazeera is sensitive to this and has blanked out faces as it is an invasion of privacy. This is a cynical abuse of respect and privacy and is not something that is reconcilable with the norms of the community. There are certain moral and ethical codes that we all behave by. In Egypt and Jordan this stuff doesn’t get published. Hamas are going to suffer for it amongst their own.”

Not bloody likely.

Does the apparent manipulation of pictures, the "photoshopping" of images to suggest scenarios that later prove to be false, suggest a desperation then on the part of the Islamists to persuade the outside world of their opinion, regardless of the truth being told or not told?

No, not desperation at all. It shows that they know the Western media and Western Leftists can be manipulated, and indeed are eager to be manipulated. So they are manipulating them. That's all.

In one, he recalls “glorious battles that took place in the early days of Islam between truth and falsehood.” Yet Islam is the one element of the jihadis' motives and goals that our government and law enforcement officials have determined to ignore. "Briton stars in Somali terror videos," by Duncan Gardham in the Telegraph, November 20 (thanks to David):

Terrorists in Somalia have produced a series of full-length documentaries featuring a masked narrator with a British accent as part of a publicity drive designed to attract Western recruits.

The videos feature suicide bombers, the corpses of African peace keepers and describe military operations by the militant group al-Shabaab, which is closely linked to al-Qaeda.

The footage is the latest addition to a well-oiled media machine which has attracted nearly 16,000 followers to its English-language Twitter account since it was set up last December.

It is unclear whether the reporter is the same man behind the Twitter account and a press office that has churned out online press releases giving updates on battles and “martyred” fighters in recent months.

MI5 is concerned that the conflict has drawn in dozens of young Britons and last September Jonathan Evans, the director general of MI5, warned that it was “only a matter of time before we see terrorism on our streets inspired by those who are today fighting alongside al-Shabaab.”

Earlier this year three men from East London were jailed for channeling thousands of pounds to three associates who are still with militants in the East African conflict zone.

Samantha Lewthwaite, the widow of 7/7 bomber Jermaine Lindsay, is also thought to be with al-Shabaab in Somalia.

In the first 32-minute video released by al-Shabaab’s media arm, al-Kataib, last November, called “The Burundian Bloodbath” the reporter, dressed in army fatigues, visits the scene of a battle in which he claims 101 soldiers died.

Carrying a microphone, he compares the battle at Dayniile with the “glorious battles that took place in the early days of Islam between truth and falsehood” and interviews al-Shabaab fighters who took part....

Relax. The four jihadis are just misunderstanders of Islam. "Muslim leaders: Terror suspects don’t represent Islam," by David Olson for the Press-Enterprise, November 20:

Leaders of several Inland mosques say they do not recognize the names of the four men accused of planning a terrorist attack on U.S. military bases in Afghanistan.

The FBI says in a federal complaint that one of the suspects, an Ontario man named Ralph Deleon, talked of how a couple of “brothers from the mosque want to join the jihad.” The complaint doesn’t identify the mosque.

The other suspects live in Riverside, Pomona and Upland.

Mustafa Kuko, director of the Islamic Center of Riverside, said he had asked mosque members Tuesday morning if they knew Arifeen David Gojali, the Riverside suspect. No one did.

What a surprise! And David Olson doesn't seem to have had the wit or curiosity to ask whether there were any records -- attendance at classes, etc. -- that he could look through that might establish whether Gojali or the others had been around.

“If I see anything suspicious, I’ll report it,” Kuko said. “The FBI knows I will cooperate.”

Kuko said he is frustrated whenever Islam is linked with terrorism.

“Sometimes when people see this in the media, people will say, ‘This is Islam,’” he said. “Then they won’t believe what we say when we say Islam is a religion of peace.”

They won't believe you because of the steady stream of jihad plots carried out by people acting in the name of Islam, and because of the less than forthcoming responses from people in your position when asked about them.

Sam Badwan, the chairman of the board of directors of the Islamic Center of Claremont in Pomona, said that whenever anyone is arrested who claims to be planning terrorist attacks in the name of Islam, he and other Muslims always worry that misunderstandings of Islam will spread.

“You look around and see good people, good, hard-working people, true Americans who contribute to our society and bring up their families with good values,” said Badwan, who lives in Rancho Cucamonga. “They’re people who contribute to society. Then you see the news and it sounds like there’s a target on our backs.”

Note how he is working hard to portray Muslims as victims, when the real target is on the backs of the non-Muslims that these four jihadis wanted to murder.

Badwan noted how the three men who allegedly were part of the planning of the attacks were in their early 20s. Two of the men converted to Islam in 2010, federal officials said.

“They not have even known anything about Islam” and – if they did as alleged hold extremist beliefs – may have been susceptible to manipulation of their beliefs, he said.

Are the local mosques holding any classes for converts to make sure they don't misunderstand Islam in this way? Is anyone? David Olson didn't have the wit or curiosity to ask.

As the details of the investigation unfold, Kuko warned of not presuming the four men are guilty. He always worries that the FBI may use entrapment techniques to induce people to follow extremist beliefs.

That Kuko said that is in itself suspicious. But once again, David Olson didn't have the wit or curiosity to ask him how moderate, peaceful Muslims who rejected violent jihad could possibly be entrapped, as I explained here.

Imagine how different the situation would be today if lucid and concise explanations of the jihad doctrine and Islamic Jew-hatred had regularly appeared in American newspapers since 9/11.

"Another View: Hatred of Jews, Islamic imperialism central to Hamas ideology," by Joseph S. Spoerl, Ph.D., in the New Hampshire Union Leader, November 20 (thanks to Blazing Cat Fur):

The flare-up of violence between Israel and the Hamas state in the Gaza strip has drawn our attention again to that volatile corner of the globe. Since the Muslim Brotherhood now controls Egypt, and the rulers of Turkey and Qatar have openly embraced Hamas, the current round of violence is occurring in a whole new geopolitical context. It is more important than ever that Americans understand the ideology of Hamas and its parent, the Muslim Brotherhood.

That ideology has two dominant features: Islamic imperialism and extreme hatred for Jews.

The Egyptian founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hasan al-Banna (1906-1949), was enraged by Western dominance of the Muslim world, since he saw this as a reversal of the divinely mandated order by which Muslims should rule over non-Muslims, not vice versa. Al-Banna looked back on the era of Muslim conquests as a golden age, writing that "the Noble Qur'an appoints the Muslims as guardians over humanity., and grants them the right of suzerainty and dominion over the world." Invoking classical Islamic law, al-Banna called upon his followers to eject Western imperialists (including Zionists) from Muslim lands, and then to work towards Islamic penetration and eventual control of non-Muslim countries as well. A central goal of the Muslim Brotherhood has thus always been the destruction of the Zionist state of Israel. The Muslim Brotherhood in the Palestinian territories, a.k.a. Hamas, quotes al-Banna in its "Covenant" or statement of foundational principles: "Israel will remain until Islam eliminates it as it eliminated its predecessors." When Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood leaders claim that they are merely a "resistance" movement opposed to Israeli "occupation," it is important to recall that they believe the entire state of Israel is occupied territory that rightfully belongs to Muslims. Their goal, therefore, is the total destruction of Israel.

Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood regard Israel as the product of a diabolical Jewish conspiracy to control the world. The Hamas Covenant asserts that the Jews have taken control of the global media and the international financial system; that they were behind the French and Bolshevik Revolutions; that "wherever there is war in the world, it is they who are pulling the strings;" that they control the Freemasons, the Rotary Clubs, the Lions Clubs. The goal of the Jews is "to break societies, undermine values, destroy people's honor, create moral degeneration, and annihilate Islam." Zionism, the Covenant tells us, "is behind all types of trafficking in drugs and alcohol, so as to make it easier for it to take control and expand." As evidence of this global Jewish conspiracy the Covenant cites the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Semitic forgery that played a central role in Nazi propaganda and that historians rightly describe as "a warrant for genocide."...

In a field crowded with the likes of Christiane Amanpour, Bob Smietana, Kari Huus, Dave Weigel, Michael Kruse and so many, many others, Ayman Mohyeldin hardly stands out. "NBC News Reporter Blames U.S. For Not Recognizing Hamas And Not ‘Reigning In’ Israel," by Andrew Kirell for Mediaite, November 20:

Appearing on MSNBC’s NOW with Alex Wagner this afternoon, NBC News reporter Ayman Mohyeldin seemed to take a strong position, rather than just reporting, on the United States’ role in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He effectively blamed the unresolved crisis on the United States’ refusal to recognize Hamas and for not doing enough to reign in Israel’s military actions.

When host Wagner asked Mohyeldin to discuss what America’s role could be in resolving the conflict, Mohyeldin began by talking about what those in the region think but then offered his own analysis:

The United States can definitely play a pivotal role. I don’t think that people in this part of the world feel it has played the role it should be playing and that comes down to two very important factors: one, the United States does not have any direct contact with the Palestinian factions which it and Israel and others label as terrorist organizations, despite the fact that Hamas did win democratic elections here, despite the fact it is a part of the fabric of Palestinian politics that cannot be ignored or isolated or marginalized. They have focused on the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. That hasn’t necessarily produced tangible results. There’s a lot of problems in terms of getting everyone on the same table.

Running amok on the moral high ground in San Francisco.

Video thanks to Pamela Geller.

How dare those Zionists fight back!

Here is video of a rocket hitting Rishon Le-Tzion, Israel today:

He didn't say anything about the jihad rockets relentlessly fired at Israeli civilians. And as for needing to be "equipped":

Islamic Jihad official: "I want to note that all our weapons are from Iran"

Maybe they want other rogue pro-jihad states to help out as well. "Iran official: Gaza fighters need to be 'equipped,'" from the Associated Press, November 20:

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran says Palestinians in the Gaza Strip should be "equipped" to defend themselves against Israel.

But Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast refused to comment on Israeli allegations that Iran is already sending arms to Gaza, which has been under Israel's attack since last week in retaliation for rockets fired by Hamas into Israel.

At least 113 Palestinians have been killed — nearly half of them civilians.

Sure, because the "Palestinians" stage attacks from civilian areas.

Iran is a major supporter of the militant groups such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas, which controls Gaza.

Mehmanparast also said on Tuesday that that Israel should be put on trial for war crimes over the latest offensive.

Iran has previously denied it had directly supplied Hamas with Iranian-made Fajr-5 missiles that have hit near Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

UPDATE: Israel denies this.

--------------------------------------

...which would give Hamas time to gather strength. "Gaza crisis: Israel, Gaza militants may agree to ceasefire: Hamas official," from the Toronto Star, November 20:

There are conflicting reports if Israel and Gaza militants have indeed reached a ceasefire agreement.

A senior Hamas official says there is no ceasefire deal with Israel but agreement is close, according to reports from The Associated Press.

However, a report from Reuters says Israel and militants from the Gaza Strip have agreed to an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire that will come into force at midnight local time, Hamas official Ayman Taha said, speaking to Reuters from Cairo.

“An agreement for calm has been reached. It will be declared at 9.00 p.m. and go into effect at midnight,” Taha said.

Earlier in the day, residents of Jerusalem ran for cover when Palestinians fired a rocket toward the holy city for the second time since the fighting started last Wednesday. The rocket, which set off sirens in the city, landed harmlessly in an open area on the outskirts in one of the longest rocket strikes fired from the Gaza.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the rocket landed in Gush Etzion, a collection of Jewish West Bank settlements southeast of the city. Last Friday’s attempt to hit Jerusalem, nearly 80 kilometres from Gaza, landed in the same area. No one was wounded in either attack....

Clueless Clapper, who said the Muslim Brotherhood was "largely secular," being set up to take the fall. "Sources: DNI cut 'al Qaeda' reference from Benghazi talking points, and CIA, FBI signed off," from CBS News, November 20 (thanks to Mackie):

(CBS News) WASHINGTON - CBS News has learned that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) cut specific references to "al Qaeda" and "terrorism" from the unclassified talking points given to Ambassador Susan Rice on the Benghazi consulate attack - with the agreement of the CIA and FBI. The White House or State Department did not make those changes.

There has been considerable discussion about who made the changes to the talking points that Rice stuck to in her television appearances on Sept. 16 (video), five days after the attack that killed American Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, and three other U.S. nationals.

Republicans have accused her of making misleading statements by referring to the assault as a "spontaneous" demonstration by extremists. Some have suggested she used the terminology she did for political reasons.

However, an intelligence source tells CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan the links to al Qaeda were deemed too "tenuous" to make public, because there was not strong confidence in the person providing the intelligence. CIA Director David Petraeus, however, told Congress he agreed to release the information -- the reference to al Qaeda -- in an early draft of the talking points, which were also distributed to select lawmakers.

"The intelligence community assessed from the very beginning that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack." DNI spokesman Shawn Turner tells CBS News. That information was shared at a classified level -- which Rice, as a member of President Obama's cabinet, would have been privy to.

An intelligence source says the talking points were passed from the CIA to the DNI, where the substantive edits were made, and then to FBI, which made more edits as part of "standard procedure."

The head of the DNI is James Clapper, an Obama appointee. He ultimately did review the points, before they were given to Ambassador Rice and members of the House intelligence committee on Sept. 14. They were compiled the day before.

Brennan says her source wouldn't confirm who in the agency suggested the final edits which were signed off on by all intelligence agencies....

Once again Israel is scrupulous to avoid civilian casualties against an enemy that does all it can to make them a reality. "Israel army orders Gaza City residents to evacuate ‘immediately,’" from al Arabiya, November 20:

The Israeli army gave Gaza City residents leaflets ordering them to evacuate “immediately,” heightening fears that a ground invasion might be imminent.

The orders came after an Israeli air strike on Gaza killed at least five people on Tuesday, as a delegation of Arab ministers arrived in the territory, the Hamas health ministry said.

“Five people were killed and two others wounded in an Israeli air strike on the Sabra neighborhood,” health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told AFP.

However, Egypt’s President Mohammed Mursi said Israel’s “aggression” against Gaza will end on Tuesday and Cairo-mediated efforts will produce “positive results” within hours, the official MENA news agency reported.

“The farce of the Israeli aggression will end today, Tuesday, and the efforts to reach a ceasefire between the Palestinians and Israelis will produce positive results within a few hours,” it quoted him as saying....

Remember, this is the guy the mainstream media wants to "mediate."

This kind of thing is common, and yet witless mainstream media reporters still swallow uncritically what smoothly deceitful Islamic supremacist spokesmen tell them about jihad.

More on this story. "California terrorist suspects talked of 'violent jihad,' FBI says," from the Los Angeles Times, November 20:

California men charged with plotting to join Al Qaeda and the Taliban discussed "committing violent jihad," according to the criminal complaint in the terrorist case released Monday.

In all, four men with Southern California ties were charged in the international terrorist plot that authorities say stretched from the Inland Empire to Afghanistan.

Sohiel Omar Kabir, 34, a former Pomona resident, allegedly left the United States last year and traveled to Afghanistan in July to set up terrorist training with Al Qaeda and Taliban members, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Monday in federal court.

Kabir is accused of converting Ontario resident Ralph Deleon, 23, and Upland resident Alejandro Santana, 21, to "radical and violent Islamic doctrine," according to the complaint, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Riverside. The men allegedly sought to target Americans.

Santana and Kabir allegedly posted terrorist audio and video files on the Facebook pages and communicated via Skype when Kabir was overseas, federal authorities said in the complaint.

Kabir, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Afghanistan, served in the Air Force from 2000 to 2001, according to court records filed with the complaint. The records did not specify why Kabir spent only a year in the service....

"At various times," the complaint alleged, "Santana and Deleon discussed their preferred roles in committing violent jihad," according to the complaint. Santana allegedly said he wanted to be a sniper, and Deleon said he wanted to be on the "front lines."

The men allegedly went to shooting ranges, where they practiced firing semiautomatic weapons, according to the complaint.

In September, Santana and DeLeon recruited Riverside resident Arifeen David Gojali, 23, to travel overseas with them and join Kabir for terrorist training, according to federal authorities. Gojali is a U.S. citizen....

They've known for months that a Muslim cleric planted evidence on her. Will that cleric be prosecuted for blasphemy for burning pages of the Qur'an? Not likely.

"Pakistan drops Christian girl blasphemy case," from France24, November 20 (thanks to Blazing Cat Fur):

A Pakistani court dismissed on Tuesday a blasphemy case against a Christian girl which had drawn international condemnation and concern about the rights of religious minorities in the predominantly Muslim country.

Rimsha Masih, believed to be no older than 14, was charged with burning pages of the Koran in August but was granted bail in September after a cleric was detained on suspicion of planting evidence to stir up resentment against Christians.

Masih’s lawyer, Tahir Naveed, said the Islamabad High Court’s decision to throw out the case was based on the fact that no one had seen her burning pages of the Koran.

The case provoked international concern and she could, in theory, have faced execution under Pakistan’s blasphemy law despite her age and reported mental problems....

The blasphemy law enjoys widespread support among ordinary Pakistanis even though critics say it is often abused by people involved in disputes or against members of religious minorities.

Over the past two years, two senior government officials who had suggested reform of the law were shot dead, one by his own bodyguard. Lawyers threw rose petals at the killer and the judge who convicted him was forced to flee the country.

The number of blasphemy cases brought under the law is rising. Since 1987, there have been almost 250 cases, according to the Center for Research and Security Studies think-tank.

Convictions are common, although the death sentence has never been carried out. Most convictions are thrown out on appeal but mobs often take the law into their own hands.

The think-tank said 52 people had been killed after being accused of blasphemy since 1990.

In FrontPage this morning I consider the inevitable question:

The Jerusalem Post reported Monday that “Israel agreed to briefly hold off on sending ground forces into Gaza to allow time for cease-fire efforts to continue.” Meanwhile, Hamas top dog Khaled Mashaal demanded that Israel initiate a cease-fire if it wants a truce, and even claimed that Netanyahu asked for one: “Netanyahu was the one who requested a cease-fire from the Americans, Egypt and the Europeans. We were not the ones to ask for a cease-fire.” Israeli officials denied this, but did avow that “Israel prefers a diplomatic solution,” and was postponing a ground invasion in anticipation of one. Meanwhile, according to the Post, “Quartet Special Envoy Tony Blair told President Shimon Peres that Egypt, Qatar, America and the UN were working to put in place a ceasefire.” And so here we go again.

In all negotiations that may transpire, Israel will insist that the rocket attacks from Gaza must cease. But no cease-fire or previous negotiated settlement of any kind has ever accomplished this; why will this one be different? For that matter, no state has ever successfully reached a negotiated settlement with an enemy who had vowed to destroy it; why is Israel constantly expected to be different? Blair and all the others who are calling for an immediate cease-fire and negotiations seem to have forgotten, if they ever knew, what Hamas is, what its goals are, and who forms its leadership.

Many analysts continue to view Hamas as a nationalist group that will ultimately be pacified once a Palestinian state is set up. And to be sure, the Hamas Charter of August 1988 addresses nationalism, but not quite in those terms. It declares: “nothing is loftier or deeper in Nationalism than waging Jihad against the enemy and confronting him when he sets foot on the land of the Muslims.” When will it end? The Hamas Charter quotes Hasan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood: “Israel will rise and will remain erect until Islam eliminates it as it had eliminated its predecessors.”

Hamas identifies itself in the Charter as “one of the wings of the Muslim Brothers in Palestine. The Muslim Brotherhood Movement is a world organization, the largest Islamic Movement in the modern era.”

In keeping with this guiding idea that Islam must be and will be the force that ultimately eliminates Israel, and that Islamic principles must rule all aspects of life, Hamas states its membership and its mission in the broadest possible terms, complete with copious quotes from the Qur’an: “the Islamic Resistance Movement consists of Muslims who are devoted to Allah and worship Him verily [as it is written]: ‘I have created Man and Devil for the purpose of their worship’ [of Allah]. . . . They have raised the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors in order to extricate the country and the people from the [oppressors’] desecration, filth and evil. ‘Nay, but we hurl the true against the false; and it does break its head and lo! it vanishes’ Sura 21 (the Prophets), verse 18.”

Hamas sees its Islamic mission as universal: “Its spatial dimension extends wherever on earth there are Muslims, who adopt Islam as their way of life; thus, it penetrates to the deepest reaches of the land and to the highest spheres of Heavens. . . . By virtue of the distribution of Muslims, who pursue the cause of the Hamas, all over the globe, and strive for its victory, for the reinforcement of its positions and for the encouragement of its Jihad, the Movement is a universal one.”

Hamas disdains peace talks: “[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement. For renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion; the nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its faith, the movement educates its members to adhere to its principles and to raise the banner of Allah over their homeland as they fight their Jihad: ‘Allah is the all-powerful, but most people are not aware.’”

In laying out its aims in this way, Hamas and similar groups such as Islamic Jihad have painted themselves — and the Middle East — into a corner. The Muslim militants who see their struggle against Israel as part of their religious responsibility cannot and will not ever recognize Israel’s right to exist, or reach any kind of negotiated settlement with “the Zionist entity,” without denying what it has identified as “part of its faith.” After all, the Muslim Prophet Muhammad himself warned Muslims that “the last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him” (Sahih Muslim 6985).

This tradition is repeated, with small variations, numerous times in the Hadith, and is well known among Palestinian Muslims. In January 2012, Muhammad Hussein, the Mufti of the Palestinian Authority, quoted this notorious hadith at a Fatah event: “The reliable Hadith,” noted Hussein, “in the two reliable collections, Bukhari and Muslim, says: ‘The Hour will not come until you fight the Jews. The Jew will hide behind stones or trees. Then the stones or trees will call: “Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”’”

There is more.

At Atlas Shrugs I discuss the sad case of fascist "journalist" Mona Eltahawy:

In the classic movie On the Waterfront, the failed boxer Terry Malloy complains in anguish to his brother: “I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.” Those words apply with particular piquancy to the “journalist” Mona Eltahawy, who goes to court the Thursday after Thanksgiving to defend herself (“proudly”) against a criminal mischief charge stemming from her vandalism of one of our AFDI pro-freedom ad in the New York subways.

As the court date draws near, the mystery remains: why would a renowned and respected journalist resort to a juvenile act of vandalism and persist even when confronted? Here’s a clue: reading this ABC News report on the arrest, these lines leapt out at me:

“This is non-violent protest, see this America” Eltahawy said in the video as police officers were arresting her. “I’m an Egyptian-American and I refuse hate.”

She refuses “hate.” Now, on the surface, it isn’t at all surprising that a journalist who is regularly featured on the likes of CNN would identify support for Israel against the relentless and bloody Palestinian jihad with “hate.” But for a time, and not all that long ago, it looked as if Mona Eltahawy was breaking out of the ideological lockstep in which Leftist and Islamic supremacist mainstream media journalists invariably march.

For example, her article in the May/June issue of Foreign Policy criticized a series of practices that are justified in Islamic law, including child marriage, wife-beating, and female genital mutilation. Counter-jihadist activists and writers have been calling attention to these human rights abuses for years, but Eltahawy’s piece was singular in that she is a Muslim journalist. Muslims for the most part don’t criticize Muslim practices, particularly those that are rooted in Islam, and mainstream media journalists do so even less often.

However, the reaction to Eltahawy’s article among her fellow Muslim women is even more striking than her article itself. If the mainstream media narrative about “extremists” making up only a tiny minority of Muslims, the vast majority of which are “moderate,” were true, Eltahawy’s article should have won applause from Muslim spokesmen in the U.S., and particularly Muslim women. But instead, Harvard Leila Ahmed confronted Eltahawy on MSNBC:

Mona, I appreciate what you do. I would love it if — I understand if you want to get your message across. It’s an important message. But if possible [you should not] give fuel, fodder to people who simply hate Arabs and Muslims in this climate of our day.

Eltahawy, you see, told unwelcome truths about Islam and was accused of spreading “hate” -- which is exactly what the Left and the Islamic supremacists do to those of us who have been telling those truths for years. But this was something new for Eltahaway, who had reliably been on the Left’s media reservation throughout her career. Now she was suddenly being criticized by her old friends, probably not invited to the best parties, etc.

So instead of having the courage of her convictions, Eltahawy folded, and cast about for a way to distance herself from counter-jihad freedom activists and prove that she was on the right (Left) side and would not make waves again. What better way than to vandalize our pro-freedom message, all the while accusing Pamela Geller and her allies of the “hate” she was accused of when she told the truth about Islam?

The arrest, even if she didn’t expect it or plan it, was icing on the cake: because of it, she was immediately lionized as a hero and martyr by the very people who were shunning her for her Foreign Policy piece: the hate-filled Leftist totalitarians who despise free speech anyway, such as Hamas-linked CAIR’s Cyrus McGoldrick and Islamic Republic of Iran apologist Reza Aslan.

Mona Eltahawy could have been a journalist of integrity, and almost was, for a brief moment. Instead, she is a fascist brownshirt. She coulda been a contender, instead of a bum, which is what she is.

On this week’s Glazov Gang, Jamie's guests were Gary Eaton, producer, singer and writer in the band, “The Army You Have,” Tommi Trudeau, producer of films and music videos, and Josh Brewster, a concerned citizen.

The Gang Members discussed The Death of a Palestinian Nazi. The dialogue occurred in Part I and focused on the meaning of Israel’s successful assassination of Ahmed al-Ja’abari, the head of Hamas’ military wing. The analysis followed a brainstorming by the group on “Why Aren’t Conservatives Cool?” and why being “hip” somehow eludes the GOP. Part II focused on the problem of illegal immigration and the Petraeus scandal.

Raheem and Gojali: still more misunderstanders of Islam

"Evidence in this case demonstrates that the defendants used the word “jihad” to refer to armed combat." These guys must be greasy Islamophobes. Don't they know that jihad is just about paying your taxes and getting the kids to school? Ahmed Rehab, call your office!

"FBI: Four Local Men Arrested in Terrorist Plot to Kill Americans," from KTLA News, November 19 (thanks to J.M.):

RIVERSIDE -- Four Southern California men have been charged with plotting to join Al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan in order to kill Americans.

According to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in the Central District of California, the defendants conspired to provide material support to terrorists in preparation for or in carrying out: conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim, or injure persons and damage property in a foreign country, killing and attempting to kill officers and employees of the United States, killing nationals of the United States, conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction outside the United States; and bombing places of public use and government facilities.

The defendants, listed below, are also known by alias identities listed in the criminal complaint.

Sohiel Omar Kabir, 34, a former resident of Pomona and naturalized United States citizen, born in Afghanistan.

• Ralph Deleon, 23, of Ontario, a lawful permanent resident alien, born in the Philippines.

• Miguel Alejandro Santana Vidriales (further described herein and in the criminal complaint as “Santana”), 21, of Upland, a lawful permanent resident, born in Mexico and whose application for citizenship is pending in the United States.

• Arifeen David Gojali, 21, of Riverside, a United States citizen.

The complaint, which was unsealed today during the defendants’ initial appearance in U.S. District Court, alleges that in 2010, Kabir introduced Deleon and Santana to radical and violent Islamic doctrine and various extremist material, including essays and lectures by now-deceased Al Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula leader, Anwar Al-Awlaqi.

Kabir traveled overseas in December 2011 and later to Afghanistan in July 2012, where he continued to communicate with Santana and DeLeon to arrange for their travel to join him in Afghanistan, according to the complaint.

The complaint alleges that Kabir told Santana and Deleon that he had made contacts with individuals who have connections to terrorist organizations.

Kabir further said that he would wait for their arrival before departing to a training location in Afghanistan and that, when they arrived, they would meet “the students” and “the professors.”

According to the complaint, the term “students” referred to the Taliban and the term “professors” referred to Al-Qa’ida.

The complaint alleges that Santana and Deleon told a confidential source working for the FBI, identified in the complaint as the “CS,” that they planned to travel to Afghanistan to engage in “violent jihad.”

In addition, the defendants described potential targets for violent attacks, including overseas American military personnel and bases, according to the complaint.

Evidence in this case demonstrates that the defendants used the word “jihad” to refer to armed combat, according to the complaint....

For example, Santana stated that he had experience with firearms and that he wanted to become a sniper. Deleon stated he wanted to be on the front lines with a second choice of explosives. Both men also indicated they were willing to kill an enemy.

In September 2012, Deleon and Santana recruited defendant Gojali to join them and to travel overseas to commit violent jihad, as alleged in the complaint.

The complaint further alleges that defendants Santana, Deleon and Gojali made plans to join Kabir in Afghanistan to attend terrorist training, and that they arranged travel logistics, including flight arrangements and required documentation.

The complaint details the defendants’ activity in raising funds for their travel to Afghanistan and their discussion of various cover stories and code words they could use to conceal their true intentions when traveling abroad.

The complaint further alleges that Santana, Deleon, and Gojali conducted preliminary training in southern California at firearms and paintball facilities to prepare for terrorist training overseas.

Defendants Santana, Deleon and Gojali were apprehended on Friday without incident by members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force and had their initial appearance before a federal magistrate this afternoon in U.S. District Court in Riverside, California....

Here is the monstrous and murderous Jew-hatred of the Leftist/Islamic supremacist alliance on full display. And the mainstream media will still act as if they have the moral high ground. "Antwerp: Protesters chant ‘Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas,'" from the JTA, November 19 (thanks to Blazing Cat Fur):

THE HAGUE - Belgian extreme-right and extreme-left activists participated in a demonstration on Sunday afternoon in Antwerp where some participants reportedly called for Jews to be gassed.

Approximately 150 demonstrators gathered outside the Provinciehuis, a concert hall in the Flemish capital, to protest the Israel Defense Forces Orchestra’s performance there, according to the online edition of the Flemish-Jewish magazine Joods Actueel.

Several demonstrators can be heard chanting “Hamas, Hamas, all Jews to the gas” in recordings from the demonstration, which Joods Actueel posted on its news website. They will be filed to police along with an official complaint over hate speech, the paper reported.

Video thanks to Carl in Jerusalem.

Contrast this:

Egyptian jihad leader calls for destruction of Sphinx, Pyramids

with this:

Israel museums hide art to protect it from rockets

...and support the civilized man.

Israelis aren't singing about striking any blows at Gaza. Yet the mainstream media and Leftist establishment persists in doing everything they can to portray Israel as the aggressor.

My friend Douglas Murray catches the BBC in a particularly egregious bit of antisemitic falsification of reality. "Bigotry on the Beeb," by Douglas Murray in the Spectator, November 19 (thanks to Anne Crockett):

I have only just caught up on the latest episode of BBC Radio 4’s ‘Any Questions’. In that programme, from All Saints Church in Somerset, a Mr Stephen Bedford asked the panel this question:

‘Despite all the foreign aid and support Israel has spectacularly failed to get on with its neighbours. Does Israel deserve a future?’...

Well, one reason is that so many British politicians, including Britain’s favourite idiot granny Shirley Williams, tell them lies about Israel which the BBC allows to go out uncorrected. Here is Shirley Williams in reply to the bigoted question with which (unlike the excellent two conservative voices on the panel) she had absolutely no problem.

Shirley Williams told the audience that Gaza is ‘a slum’ and then went on to say the following:

‘It’s crowded out to the gills. It’s full of people struggling to find a box in which to live. It’s full of people who see their land slowly eaten up by more and more Israeli settlements.’

What settlements? What ‘slow eating up’? Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005. There is not a Jew in Gaza. Not a Jewish family, not a Jewish settlement, not a Jewish house, not a Jew. The place is – as the Palestinians have said they would like the West Bank to be if it comes under their full control – wholly and absolutely Judenrein. The last Jew in Gaza was Gilad Shalit. Does Shirley Williams think he was there building settlements for five years, rather than holed up in captivity as a hostage of Hamas?...

Revealing yet again the hollowness and naivete of the assumption that the Syrian rebels are a group of democratic pluralists. "Jihadists form ‘Islamic state’ in Syria," from AP, November 19 (thanks to Block Ness):

A group of extremist Islamist factions in Syria has rejected the country’s new opposition coalition.

The group said in a video statement it has formed an “Islamic state” in the embattled city of Aleppo to underline it wants nothing to do with the Western-backed bloc. The video appears to be a reaction to the formation this month of the Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces.

This will be hard to spin so that the "Palestinians" have the moral high ground, so the mainstream media will probably just ignore it.

"Second Ashkelon school hit by missile fire from Gaza," from the Times of Israel, November 19 (thanks to Benedict):

A rocket fired from Gaza has hit a school in Ashkelon. This is the second time on Monday that a school in the city was hit by a Hamas missile. No injuries were reported, though the school building was damaged.

The scrubbing came after the indefatigable Patrick Poole reported the official's attendance. Clearly they know that the destruction of the freedom of speech is something to hide.

How far are we really from my scenario here?

"State Dept. Official to Attend OIC Meeting Today on Banning ‘Defamation of Islam’ UPDATE: OIC Scrubs Website, Screenshot Added, Cover-Up Begins," by Patrick Poole for PJ Media, November 18 (thanks to Bernadette):

UPDATE: Well, that didn’t last long. Earlier this morning before I posted this item the OIC press release noted that U.S. Consul General in Jeddah Anne Casper would be attending the OIC’s meeting:

The Session will be attended by Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the OIC Secretary General. It will be chaired by Ambassador Ahmad Taib , Director General of the Branch of the Saudi Foreign Ministry, Makkah Al-Mukarrammah region. It will also be attended by Sergey Kuznetsov, Consul General of the Russian Federation and Anne Casper, US Consul General in Jeddah.

But within the past few hours that mention has been scrubbed. The press release I linked to earlier now reads:

The Session will be attended by Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the OIC Secretary General and members of the Jeddah diplomatic community and other invited guests.

No more mention of Anne Casper attending today’s OIC session on banning “defamation of Islam.” Let the cover-up begin!

Here’s a screenshot of the earlier version noting Casper’s attendance at today’s meeting (click to enlarge):

ORIGINAL POST: After the disaster of trying to blame an obscure YouTube video for the attack on the CIA operation in Benghazi and Obama’s prophecy at the UN that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam,” Hillary Clinton’s State Department appears to be taking another run at the First Amendment free speech rights of American citizens.

A notice was posted yesterday on the website of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) about a symposium to be held today at the OIC headquarters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on “Defamation Acts Against Islam.” And one top U.S. State Department official will be in attendance....

Read it all.

Cynically trying to draw retaliatory fire that they can use for propaganda purposes. And as we can see from mainstream media coverage, it works. "Hamas launching rockets near civilian homes," by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik for Palestinian Media Watch, November 19:

During the last few days, Hamas terrorists have fired more than 100 rockets and missiles per day at Israeli cities. Israel launched Operation Pillar of Defense to destroy the terrorists' launching points and the rockets.

Now footage broadcast by Hamas on its Al-Aqsa TV documents what Israel has been reporting - that Hamas is launching its rockets from residential areas near civilian homes, essentially using the civilians as human shields....

Click to see a series of launches by Hamas near homes, broadcast on Hamas TV in the last few days.

In the past, Hamas has expressed pride in its policy of using civilians as human shields, and during the Gaza war (2008-2009) Palestinian eye witnesses explained how they became human shields when Hamas used their property as a launching site for rockets.

"The continuation of the operation is a given." We can only hope that they don't cave into pressure from the dhimmis and the compromised among the international media and "friendly" governments before inflicting serious damage upon the jihadists.

"Barak: Ground Attack May Happen Very Soon," by Gil Ronen for Israel National News, November 18:

Defense Minister Ehud Barak hinted Sunday that a ground assault on Hamas in Gaza is imminent.

"The forces are ready. Everything is prepared, there will be food for everyone, excellent equipment, trained soldiers, the reserves are being absorbed quickly and we will carry out anything that is needed to ensure the aims of the operation are achieved," Barak said.

"Of course we are not averse to the possibility that in some way Hamas will stop firing and we will have to consider our steps and make sure the operation achieves its aims," he added.

"The continuation of the operation is a given," Barak explained. "We will continue to operate, strike and perhaps even the amplify the operation, vis-à-vis the launch devices, vis-à-vis the activists and the other things, and if there is a need we will not hesitate to launch a ground operation."...

Aminat Kurbanova's conversion to Islam was fatal for her and seven others. The official dogma in the West is that those who do violence in the name of Islam misunderstand its peaceful teachings. Yet no Muslim organization anywhere in the West has any program to teach against the understanding of Islam that led Aminat Kurbanova to commit mass murder. What's more, she probably chose to murder Sheikh Said Atsayev and those with him because he preached against violent Islam -- which fact is not an encouragement for Muslim reformers.

"Russian Islamic convert kissed her daughter goodbye and blew herself up at cleric's home," by Mark Duell for the Daily Mail, November 19:

Brought up as an Orthodox Christian by her mother, Aminat Kurbanova looked a picture of happiness at her wedding nine years ago - marrying the man with whom she had fallen in love at drama school.

But she converted to Islam in 2007 and three months ago walked into the house of a Muslim cleric in Dagestan, Russia, wearing a 3lb bomb, and blew herself up - killing eight people including her.

Once a stage actress, the 29-year-old mother had transformed into a Muslim suicide bomber. The blast shocked Russia but her mother Vera Saprighina insists she was ‘a kind person, not a monster’.

Of course.

Kurbanova was brought up in Makhachkala, Dagestan, and gained top marks at the city’s arts and drama college - where she met her future husband Marat Kurbanov, reported the Sunday Times.

The couple married in 2003 and she gave birth to a daughter, Malika, two years later. In 2006 the couple were introduced to Islam by Marat’s brother Rustam - and Kurbanov converted a year later.

‘She said she had finally found the right religion for her,’ her mother Vera Saprighina told the Sunday Times. ‘Before long, both left the theatre because dancing and acting are considered un-Islamic.’

But Rustam was killed in a police house raid on suspected militants in 2008. It shocked the couple. Marat left home, never to come back, and is thought to have joined militants to avenge the death.

However 12 months later, Marat also died when police opened fire on a car that did not stop at a checkpoint - and Kurbanova ‘often said she wished she had died with him’, Ms Saprighina stated....

Kurbanova started to earn money as an Islamic dress seamstress and became more religious. She began to be watched by security services, who allegedly searched her flat and questioned her after the death of her husband....

Kurbanova walked into the home of Sheikh Said Atsayev, 74, after kissing her daughter goodbye and blew herself up with a steel-bolt bomb, killing seven others - including the cleric himself and a 12-year-old boy who was there with his father....

At least 12 religious leaders have been killed over the last two years in Dagestan - allegedly by militants angry that they are too friendly with the authorities. Atsayev could have been targeted because he spoke against violent Islam....

This will put the threat of being murdered over her head for the rest of her life. "Islamic hardliners announce fatwa on Malala Yousafzai," by Rob Crilly in the Telegraph, November 19:

British-based Islamic radicals are preparing to announce a fatwa on Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year-old girl shot by the Pakistan Taliban, for her role in standing up to extremists.

The story of Malala, who is recovering at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, has touched millions of people around the world since she was attacked by a gunman on her way home from school last month.

She had dared to defy the Pakistan Taliban by promoting girls education and by documenting their abuses in a blog written in 2009.

Later this month, hardliners plan to gather at the notorious Red Mosque in Islamabad to denounce her as an apostate, accusing her of turning her back on Islam.

Anjem Choudary, who lives in East London and is one of the founders of al-Muhajiroun, which was banned in 2010, said the conference would announce the fatwa.

Although apostasy carries the death sentence according to Islamic law, he insisted he was not calling for Malalaﾒs death....

Apostasy carries the death sentence according to Islamic law, although deceptive Islamic supremacist spokesmen in the U.S. routinely deny it.

Duly noted. Will this act of war be condemned by the United Nations? Don't hold your breath. "Islamic Jihad Official: All Our Weapons are From Iran," from Israel National News, November 19:

Islamic Jihad deputy chief Ziyad Nahala said on Sunday in an interview with Egyptian television that all of the organization's weapons came from Iran.

“I want to note that all our weapons are from Iran. The rockets fired into Israel until now have a range of 70 to 80 kilometers," he said, according to a report on Channel 10 News.

The idea is that the Taliban will respond to these gestures of good will by laying down their arms, ending the jihad and joining the "peace process." On the other hand, maybe these released jihadis will return to the jihad, while the Pakistanis who released them laugh up their sleeves at the endless naivete of the Americans.

Which scenario is more likely?

"Afghan peace process: 12 Taliban peace brokers may be taken off UN list," by Kamran Yousaf in The Express Tribune, November 19 (thanks to Lookmann):

Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States have identified nearly two dozen potential Taliban negotiators who are expected to be taken off the United Nations terror-list in a move that seeks to encourage insurgents to join the peace process.

This will be the second major step towards a political settlement of over a decade-long conflict in Afghanistan after Pakistan last week released at least 13 Taliban cadres from its jails.

According to official sources, the three countries have finalised the list of Taliban members for delisting from the UN sanctions list.

In the first phase, they will propose to the UN names of nearly two dozen Taliban members, who may play a crucial role in the Afghan endgame, sources added.

Names of these Taliban leaders have not been made public with one Pakistani official citing security reasons behind maintaining secrecy.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said removal of certain insurgents from the UN terror list would help restart the reconciliation process. “That is why we have supported this initiative,” he added.

More than 100 Taliban members were blacklisted for having ties with al Qaeda, which had been accused of masterminding the 9/11 attacks in the United States.

In early 2010, at least 15 of those Taliban cadres were removed from the list at the request of the Afghan government because they had either severed their links with the Taliban or had joined the Karzai administration.

But the latest efforts to remove more names are aimed at sending a message to the Taliban that all stakeholders are serious for peace negotiations.

In a jointed statement issued after the recent visit of a high-powered Afghan delegation led by Afghan High Peace Council Salauddin Rabbani to Pakistan, it listed a series of steps to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table.

One of them includes that all stakeholders — Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the US — work together to remove certain Taliban members from the UN terror list.

A trilateral meeting of what is known as core group will take place early next month to discuss the issue.

In addition to this, Pakistan also expects the US to free certain Taliban leaders from the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in a bid to help revive the process.

“The ball is now in their court (Afghanistan and United States),” said a Pakistani official adding that Islamabad had played its part and now it was up to Kabul and Washington to take this initiative forward.

“Our understanding is that some positive movement is expected between the Taliban and the Americans on the issue of prisoners,” revealed the official.

Islamic supremacists and Leftists fear and hate the truth, and don't hesitate to resort to fascist tactics to shut it down. This on a small scale is of a piece with their war against the freedom of speech everywhere. They cannot refute us, they cannot best us intellectually -- so they resort to brownshirt tactics, shouting down and drowning out those who tell the truth.

Subat Khawaja identifies herself as "editor-in-Chief of @theoxmag, a Muslim literary arts magazine." Clearly aware of the thuggishness and inability to deal on a rational plane that she has just demonstrated, she deleted the above tweet as soon as I retweeted it.

Indeed she could

Islamic Jihad should be afraid: beauty, and love of life in general, are not on their side. They glory in their love of death and destruction. But in any case, apparently the new round of jihad warfare in Gaza has raised the level of paranoia among jihadists, who even in calm times display a high level already: "Sexy girls on Facebook in new warning: Terrorists fear Israeli agents attempting to infiltrate computers," by Aaron Klein in WND, November 18:

TEL AVIV – The Gaza-based Islamic Jihad terror group is apparently concerned Israeli intelligence agents disguised as good-looking girls on Facebook are attempting to infiltrate Palestinian computers.

During intense fighting in Gaza that reportedly has most jihadist leaders in hiding, members of the Islamic Jihad’s so-called military wing, the Al Quds Brigades, found time today to post a lengthy article on their official website warning Palestinian Facebook users of potential Israeli intelligence hackers.

Islamic Jihad has taken responsibility for firing hundreds of rockets from the Gaza Strip aimed at nearby Jewish population centers. It also claimed credit for firing at least one Fajr-5 long range missile toward Tel Aviv.

“How do you know if Mossad became your friend on Facebook,” is the title of the piece, posted today at Saraya.ps, Islamic Jihad’s main website. In Arabic, Saraya al-Quds means the Al Quds Brigades.

“Do you feel proud because your Facebook account boasts 5,000 friends? Well, here are ten steps to expose whether intelligence agents transplanted themselves inside your friends list,” reads the article.

The piece warns of friend invites from Facebook users who are unknown, “especially from a beautiful girl.”

The website warns Palestinian Facebook users to be weary of “pretty girls” whose accounts have small pictures that cannot be enlarged.

“This is evidence,” Islamic Jihad writes, “that the photos were taken from the Internet and that these pictures are not original and are not from the girl who sent you the invitation.”...

The photo is supposed to rouse Leftist protesters into a fury of self-righteous Jew-hatred, but there's just one problem: the child is not a wounded "Palestinian" Muslim, but a wounded Israeli.

Blazing Cat Fur has the story.

While the Palestinian propaganda machine pumps out stories of Israeli "atrocities," the genuine gratuitous murders of civilians, and attempted murders of civilians, are all being perpetrated by the jihadists.

"Suspicion: Arab youths set up Jew stabbing cell," by Noam (Dabul) Dvir for Ynet News, November 16 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Two youths from east Jerusalem, aged 15 and 17, were recently arrested on suspicion of stabbing Abraham Tau two weeks ago in the Ras al-Amud neighborhood in Jerusalem.

Two additional suspects, aged 13 and 14, are scheduled to be indicted for their role in the stabbing.

Police suspect that the teenagers' actions were nationalistically motivated and carried out under the auspices of an organization called "Lovers of the Land," which aims to physically harm Jewish residents of the city.

Tau, aged 34, was stabbed in his back while making his way from the Western Wall to Ras al-Amud together with a friend. The knife, which was removed from Tauabraham east jerusalem stabbed jpost's back, was taken for analysis at the Jerusalem District Police's forensics lab.

Following the examination, four east Jerusalem youths where arrested after they confessed and recreated the event for police.

As part of the investigation, which was conducted with the help of the Shin Bet internal security service, police learned that the four were previously arrested for throwing stones and Molotov cocktails.

Hatching the plan

During their original arrest the four joined forces and decided to form a cell intent on stabbing Jewish residents in protest against the "occupation."

They decided that the 13 and 14 year olds would take the role of lookouts while the other two would do the actual stabbing. The group then proceeded to purchase knives in Jerusalem's Old City.

Their first victim was Tau. The two lurked behind a truck in the Ras al-Amud neighborhood while their friends where charged with signaling them when a Jewish man or woman was about to arrive.

Police suspect that the 17 year old then stabbed Tau while the 15 year old planned to stab Tau's friend but was prevented from doing because a car passed by. After stabbing Tau, the four supposedly ran off to their respective houses....

Within a few years this kind of attack will no longer be necessary in Europe, because the professor himself will have been fired and/or imprisoned for his "insults" to Islam. And we will all march together into a glorious multicultural future, as long as we keep our mouths shut.

"France: Muslim Student Attacks Professor Who Didn't Respect Islam," by Cheradenine Zakalwe for Islam Versus Europe, November 18 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

A Muslim, studying for the curiously-named "master monde musulman" [Muslim world master], at the University of Aix-Marseille attacked one of his teachers who, he felt, had failed to sufficiently respect Islam.

Ali, who lives in Aix, apparently launched himself into an intellectual war against any person who - as he perceived it, which raises questions in the eyes of the psychiatrists who examined him and who speak of a "psychologically rigid" young man - would abuse his Muslim brothers or his religion with words.

This was the case, in his view, with his teacher of Arabic grammar, "and this for a long time" he claims, in the dock. "During his lessons Monsieur Imbert allowed himself to insult Muslims," declares the defendant, "he engages in anti-Islam propaganda. It's unacceptable and besides I already made a report about it in September 2011".

Ali, after having remonstrated with his teacher several times, "avenged" himself physically on 14 March this year, kicking him on the chin, even though Frédéric Imbert was seated in the staff room....

Read it all.

Elder of Ziyon has the story and the translation.

Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi is the most popular Islamic preacher in the world. And he has done this before. He said on al-Jazeera: “Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them – even though they exaggerated this issue – he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers….”

Qaradawi continued: “I’d like to say that the only thing I hope for is that as my life approaches its end, Allah will give me an opportunity to go to the land of Jihad and resistance, even if in a wheelchair. I will shoot Allah’s enemies, the Jews, and they will throw a bomb at me, and thus, I will seal my life with martyrdom.”

This one managed the rocket attacks against Israeli civilians. "IDF Eliminates Another Top Hamas Terrorist," by David Lev for Israel National News, November 18:

In a precision strike Sunday afternoon, IDF aircraft eliminated another top Hamas terrorist – Yihya Abiya, responsible for managing and organizing Hamas' rocket terror campaign against Israel.

Gaza Arab sources said that IDF warplanes targeted a building in an area of Gaza City, where Abiya was in hiding. Along with Abiya, three human shield civilians that the terror chief was in the building with were killed as well.

At a press conference, IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz said that the IDF was continuing its attacks against Hamas military targets in Gaza, and was increasing its attacks on top Hamas terrorists. IDF planes bombarded several key Hamas facilities in Gaza, including a large Hamas training based in the center of Gaza.

Earlier Sunday, the IDF, using Israeli technology, took over broadcasts of Hamas radio and used the frequency to broadcast its own message, warning Gaza Arabs to stay away from Hamas rocket launching sites. “The IDF is moving on to the next stage” of the fight against Hamas terrorists, the message said. “For your own safety you are asked to obey instructions and avoid the terror installations set up by Hamas,” the message by the IDF said.

Contradicting Petraeus. Someone is lying, but there is no way to tell at this point who it is. "White House denies terror delete," by Pedro Oliveira, Jr. for the New York Post, November 18:

The White House yesterday denied it edited talking points about the terrorist attack that killed the American ambassador to Libya — contradicting remarks made a day earlier by disgraced ex-CIA chief David Petraeus.

“The only edit that was made by the White House and also by the State Department was to change the word ‘consulate’ to the word ‘diplomatic facility,’ since the facility in Benghazi was not formally a consulate,” Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters aboard Air Force One.

“Other than that, we were guided by the points that were provided by the intelligence community. So I can’t speak to any other edits that may have been made.”

Petraeus on Friday told lawmakers that from the onset of the investigation about the Sept. 11 attack, US intelligence pointed to al Qaeda affiliates.

The former four-star general, who resigned from the CIA Nov. 9 due to an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, said the unclassified talking points were later revised to omit any mention of al Qaeda.

The edits would have been made after the statements had left the CIA for review by the Defense and State departments, ultimately landing at the White House.

But instead of relaying what the CIA initially reported, UN Ambassador Susan Rice repeatedly insisted the attack was a spontaneous protest spurred by an American-made video depicting Prophet Mohammed as a pedophile....

Muhammad said: "Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him" (Bukhari 9.84.57). The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law according to all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence. Yet Muslim spokesmen such as Harris Zafar, Mustafa Akyol, Salam al-Marayati, M. Cherif Bassiouni, and Ali Eteraz (among many others) have assured us that Islam doesn't punish apostasy. I expect that Zafar, Akyol, al-Marayati, Bassiouni, and Eteraz will immediately be jetting over to Mogadishu to explain to al-Shabaab that they're getting Islam all wrong, wrong, wrong, and should stop beheading converts immediately.

"Christian Convert from Islam Beheaded in Somalia," from Morning Star News, November 17 (thanks to all who sent this in):

NAIROBI, Kenya (Morning Star News) – Islamic extremists from Somalia’s rebel Al-Shabaab militants on Friday (Nov. 16) killed a Christian in Somalia’s coastal city of Barawa, accusing him of being a spy and leaving Islam, Christian and Muslim witnesses said.

The extremists beheaded 25-year-old Farhan Haji Mose after monitoring his movements for six months, Christian sources said. Mose drew suspicion when he returned to Barawa, in Somalia’s Lower Shebelle Region, in December 2011 after spending time in Kenya, underground Christians in Somalia told Morning Star News.

Kenya’s population is nearly 83 percent Christian, according to Operation World, while Somalia’s is close to 100 percent Muslim.

A crowd assembled in the coastal city on Friday morning to watch the slaughter of Mose, the sources said.

“His body was split into two, then carried away, only to be dumped near the beach of Barawa city,” a Christian source who witnessed the murder told Morning Star News.

Other witnesses, Muslims, independently described the same scene. They and the Christian witness told Morning Star News that the Islamic extremists accused Mose of being a spy for foreigners and of embracing the “foreign religion of Christianity.”...

And yet the Left and the mainstream media continue to claim the moral high ground for these savage monsters. "Hamas to Israelis: 'We've missed the suicide attacks; Expect us soon at bus stations and in cafés,'" by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik for Palestinian Media Watch, November 18:

In response to Israel's Operation Pillar of Defense that aims to cripple the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza and protect Israeli civilians, Hamas' military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, has produced videos addressing Israelis.

"From the Palestinian people to the Zionists: We've missed the suicide attacks. Expect us soon at bus stations and in cafés."
[Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), Nov. 18, 2012]...

Pallywood and its spin machine are working furiously these days, with the willing cooperation of the mainstream media: "Dead child cradled by Egypt's PM was killed by Hamas!," from Elder of Ziyon, November 17 (thanks to Inexion):

The Mirror (UK) on Friday published this, as did many other newspapers:

Egypt's Prime Minister wept today as he kissed the forehead of a boy killed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza.

And here is how CNN reported the child's death:

CNN takes it as a given that young Mahmoud Sadallah (Sadhala) was killed by an Israeli airstrike.

Only one problem: he was killed by a Hamas rocket that fell short in Gaza.

There is a lot of evidence for this. Read the New York Times' account of his death:

The Abu Wardah family woke up on Friday morning to word that a hudna — Arabic for cease-fire — had been declared during the three-hour visit of the Egyptian prime minister to this embattled territory. So, after two days of huddling indoors to avoid intensifying Israeli air assaults, Abed Abu Wardah, the patriarch, went to the market to buy fruits and vegetables. His 22-year-old son, Aiman, took an empty blue canister to be refilled with cooking gas. The younger children of their neighborhood, Annazla, in this town north of Gaza City went out to the dirt alley to kick a soccer ball.

But around 9:45 a.m., family members and neighbors said, an explosion
struck a doorway near the Abu Wardah home, killing Aiman Abu Wardah as
he returned from his errand, as well as Mahmoud Sadallah, 4, who lived
next door and had refused his older cousin’s pleas to stay indoors.

It is unclear who was responsible for the strike on Annazla: the damage
was nowhere near severe enough to have come from an Israeli F-16, raising the possibility that an errant missile fired by Palestinian militants was responsible for the deaths. What seems clear is that expectations for a pause in the fighting, for at least one family, were tragically misplaced.

The IDF did not launch any airstrikes in Gaza while Egyptian PM Kandil was in Gaza.

Read it all.

KUALA LUMPUR: A group of people staged a peaceful demonstration in front of the United States' embassy to protest Israel's recent military attacks against civilians in Gaza.

The group included members from the Pertubuhan Ikram Malaysia (Ikram) [Islamic Union], Pertubuhan Himpunan Lepasan Institusi Pendidikan [Union of Postgraduates of the Institute of Education] Malaysia and Aqsa Syarif and the public.

Marching from the Tabung Haji building to the embassy, they assembled at 1.50pm for about 40 minutes outside the embassy, carrying banners and posters declaring “End Gaza Killing”, “Boycott Goods of Israel and Allies” and “Crush Israel”.

"Crush Israel." Feel the Islamic warmth, love, moderation and peace!

Ikram deputy president Dr Mohamed Hatta Shaharom said the gathering was to protest against the recent Israeli military raids on Gaza.

The Israeli air raids in Gaza over the past two days had taken the lives of 21 Palestinians, including six children and a pregnant woman.

Meanwhile, in Bangi, Islamic Relief Malaysia urged Malaysians to support the Gaza Emergency Medical Aid Fund set up to channel medical assistance directly to the victims of the Israeli military raids.

Its country director Zairulshahfuddin Zainal Abidin said the Islamic Relief network aimed to collect some US$1mil (about RM3.07mil) worldwide to provide medical and other supplies for hospitals in Gaza.

...

In a related development, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Raza has received a telephone call from Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi to discuss the latest Israeli military assaults and air strikes in Gaza.

In the 15-minute conversation yesterday, both of them expressed their desire to work closely to end the current violence in Gaza, said a statement from the Prime Minister's Office.

Both countries also agreed to get international power brokers to influence Israel to stop its military aggression, it said.

You mean all 56 Muslim countries and all 1.5 billion Muslims are themselves too powerless--at least for now--to stop a small country of a few million recalcitrant Jews? 

"As a Muslim, it is my duty to invite you into this great religion.” And yet it is official U.S. policy that what Adis Medunjanin tried to do has nothing to do with Islam or the Qur'an. And so as government and law enforcement continues willfully blind to the motives and goals of those who are trying to destroy us, it is unlikely that their luck in thwarting their plots will hold forever.

"Al Qaeda-trained wannabe subway bomber sings Koranic verses as he's sentenced to life in jail," by Mitchel Maddux and Doug Auer in the New York Post, November 17:

...The Queens man who trained overseas with al Qaeda and plotted a suicide bombing on the city’s crowded subway system sang Koranic verses in open court today as he was sentenced to spend the rest of his miserable life in prison.

Bearded terrorist Adis Medunjanin, 28, broke out in song as he, defense attorney Robert Gottlieb and federal prosecutors stood at the foot of Judge John Gleeson’s bench in Brooklyn federal court.

In fact, Medunjanin wearing a black suit and white dress shirt, announced his intentions to Gleeson.

"I would like to be praising God in Arabic,” he said. "As a Muslim, it is my duty to invite you into this great religion.”

After singing prayers in Arabic, Medunjanin read verses from the Koran in English as his parents, sister and extended family members watched from the gallery.

He then launched into a verbal assault on the US and blasted its foreign policy and overseas wars, condemning torture and mass killings.

"I ask you, what is democracy? What kind of system endorses torture? I ask you, is this really the best system that humanity has ever produced?"...

Gottlieb said Medunjanin was a “happy,” “smart” boy with a “promising” future, but became more religious as he grew older and was disturbed by seeing violence, such as drone strikes, against Muslims in the Mideast....

Pamela Geller comments:

Watch the sky as the Iron Dome shoots down a rocket over Tel Aviv.

The civilized man once again finds ways to circumvent the evil machinations of the savage.

Background from the Jerusalem Post here.

Unfortunately, the jihad mass murderer was not in the office. "IAF bombs Hamas PM's Gaza HQ; Haniyeh unhurt," from the Jerusalem Post, November 17 (thanks to Lookmann):

The Israel Air force struck Hamas leader Ismael Haniyeh's headquarters in the northern Gaza Strip early Saturday morning, according to the IDF Spokesman's Office.

Haniyeh was not at the headquarters during the IAF strike, Israel Radio reported. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties in the strike.

Heavy rocket fire started anew Saturday morning after a relatively quiet night, with 50 rockets fired at southern Israeli cities since midnight. In total, Palestinians fired 660 rockets toward the Jewish state since the beginning of Operation Pillar of Defense on Wednesday, but only 27 landed in built-up areas. Iron Dome intercepted 213 projectiles, maintaining a 90% intercept rate.

Three IDF soldiers were lightly injured by shrapnel from a rocket in the Eshkol area. Palestinian sources report 39 Palestinian deaths, according to Israel Radio.

The Hamas cabinet headquarters were targeted with four airstrikes and were completely destroyed, a Hamas official told AFP.

The Israel Air Force struck 200 targets in the Gaza Strip overnight Friday, including 120 rocket launchers and 20 tunnels, bringing the total number of targets throughout Operation Pillar of Defense to 830.

Among the targets were Hamas Interior Ministry and Hamas police compound, as well as Hamas training facility and rocket launching squads.

On Friday night, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called US President Barack Obama to discuss options for "de-escalating" the situation in Israel and Gaza, the White House said.

Obama "reiterated US support for Israel's right to defend itself, and expressed regret over the loss of Israeli and Palestinian civilian lives," according to a statement on the call....

Petraeus and Allen knew that if this happened, Muslims in Afghanistan and elsewhere would like start rioting and killing innocent people. And rather than stand up and say that it was madness to rampage and kill over a stunt by a man named Bubba the Love Sponge (or anyone else), they tried instead to stop the stunt from happening. Petraeus and Allen thereby reinforced (yet again) the principle that violent intimidation and terrorism work, signaling to Islamic supremacists and jihadists that if they were willing to kill people to shut Americans up, rather than stand up for the freedom of expression they would work to shut Americans up as well.

"Petraeus asked socialite to avert anti-Islam stunt," from AFP, November 17:

WASHINGTON — A Florida socialite at the heart of a scandal that brought down the CIA chief was once asked by him to stop a radio talk show host who was threatening to "deep fat fry" the Koran, US media reported early on Saturday.

That account, which comes from emails sent by socialite Jill Kelley, offers a new glimpse at her relationship with Petraeus and other senior military officials.

In March, a Florida radio talk show host named Todd Alan Clem but known as Bubba the Love Sponge said he was going to "deep fat fry" a copy of the Koran as a stunt, the reports said.

Gen. John Allen, commander of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, and CIA director David Petraeus, both asked Kelley, who lives in Tampa, to try to intervene and stop the radio host by contacting the city's mayor, Bob Buckhorn.

"I have Petraeus and Allen both emailing me about getting this dealt with," Kelley wrote to the mayor, according to NBC News.

The generals saw the "Bubba" announcement as a potential threat to the safety of US troops stationed in Islamic countries.

Defacing the Koran is forbidden in Islam and in the past plans to burn the Muslim holy book by a controversial Christian pastor in Florida sparked deadly protests across the Muslim world....

Here is Palestinian Media Watch video from 2006 featuring Ahmed al-Jabari, the leader of Hamas' military wing, who was recently killed in Gaza. View this just in case you think (and of course many, many do) that he was simply a military leader like others around the world, rather than a bloodthirsty jihadist bent on murdering Israeli civilians via jihad-martyrdom suicide attacks, in accord with the Qur'an's promise of Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for Allah (9:111).

Paige T. MacPherson of Sun News Network went to an anti-Israel, pro-Hamas protest in Toronto. Ezra Levant aired her report. Note the ignorance, self-righteousness, open hypocrisy, and increasingly intimidating behavior on the part of the pro-Hamas protesters. (Thanks to Blazing Cat Fur.)

While the mainstream media tries to paint a picture of poor, defenseless Palestinians struggling against a mighty and immoral Israeli war machine, in reality the Palestinian jihadists are the aggressors and the ones out for the blood of innocents. And in line with that, I got this death threat this morning from a supporter of jihad terror who managed to threaten to kill me and maintain his self-righteous posturing in practically the same breath:

What do you thin When Hamas Struggles to defend, that Hezbollah can accurately Hit Netenyahu house directly and then your Boys will soon come back to you in Europe and US.

Wooooooooooooooow What a boring/beautiful News for U. Will Spencer Die of his Hate of Muslims and Love for the Palestine Land Stealers.

Free Palestine, Free GAZA
Death to all islamophobias.

and I will soon Compel you not to do on your dirty work.

"Medunjanin went overseas to fulfill a 'romantic version of jihad.'" Because everyone knows that blood and strewn body parts make for the best romance.

"NYC man sentenced to life in subway terror plot," from the Associated Press, November 16:

NEW YORK — A New York City man was sentenced Friday to life in prison for conspiring to form a three-man terror cell with two of his former high school classmates and spread death on the subways as suicide bombers — a foiled plot that authorities called one of the closest calls since the 9/11 attacks.

Adis Medunjanin, a 28-year-old U.S. citizen from Bosnia, was convicted this year of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, attempting to commit an act of terrorism and other terrorism charges.

In court papers, prosecutors had argued for a life term for Medunjanin, saying he "committed a host of heinous crimes aimed at killing and maiming his fellow American citizens in order to alter and take revenge for American foreign policy."

At trial, defense attorneys had admitted that Medunjanin wanted to fight for the Taliban, but they insisted he never agreed to spread death and destruction in the city where his family put down roots.

Medunjanin went overseas to fulfill a "romantic version of jihad. ... His plan and intent was to join the Taliban and stand up for what he believes in," attorney Robert Gottlieb said in his closing. "That was his purpose."

The trial ending in May was mostly notable because it featured the first-ever testimony from admitted homegrown terrorists about al-Qaida's determination to strike America on its home turf.

The former classmates at a Queens high school, Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay, testified that the three men sought terror training after falling under the influence of inflammatory recordings of U.S.-born extremist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki that they downloaded and listened to on their iPods.

The government's case was built on the testimony of Zazi, Ahmedzay and two other men: a British would-be shoe bomber and a man originally from Long Island who gave al-Qaida pointers on how best to attack a Walmart store.

Zazi and Ahmedzay, who testified as part of plea deal, told jurors that the scheme unfolded after the trio traveled to Pakistan in 2008 to avenge the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.

While receiving terror training at outposts in the South Waziristan region of Pakistan, al-Qaida operatives encouraged the American recruits to return home for a suicide-bombing mission intended to spread panic and cripple the economy. Among the targets considered were the New York Stock Exchange, Times Square and Grand Central Terminal, the men testified....

How odd that they came right from the mosque after imbibing Islam's message of peace and ended up rampaging. How did the come to misunderstand Islam right after hearing its soothing teachings? And why do governing authorities in India, Europe and the U.S. never seriously ponder such questions?

"Hyderabad violence escalates, 11 hurt," from Indian Express, November 17 (thanks to Lookmann):

In an escalation of the violence in Old City of Hyderabad, at least 11 people were injured as police confronted mobs indulging in stone-pelting and arson following afternoon prayers at the Mecca Masjid.

The mob set several vehicles on fire and damaged others. Skirmishes have been taking place in and around Charminar and other parts of the Old City area for the past few days over alleged expansion of Bhagyalakshmi temple abutting the Charminar monument.

On Monday, the AIMIM had snapped ties with the Congress government at the state and Centre, citing the communal tension, and accusing it of “encouraging pro-Hindutva forces”.

On Friday, hundreds of people emerging from the mosque started pelting stones, attacked security personnel and went on a rampage when they were prevented from going towards the Charminar to offer ‘salam’.

AIMIM (All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen) chief Asaduddin Owaisi had warned police on Wednesday not to stop people from offering the ‘salam’ after Friday prayers.

The violence occurred despite Police Commissioner Anurag Sharma holding peace committee meetings on Thursday evening and community leaders assuring that they would not incite violence. Additional forces and paramilitary personnel had been posted in the area....

"In an interview, Eden said Malal, whose parents left Egypt when he was a toddler, is following the Sharia practice of throwing debtors in jail." That's a reasonable question that bears investigating. But instead, we get the usual cries of "bigotry" from Hamas-linked CAIR.

"Muslim N.J. judge accused of imposing Sharia law on Family Court," by Sergio Bichao for MyCentralJersey.com, November 16:

FLEMINGTON — The legal battle over alimony payments in New Jersey has turned into a clash of civilizations with an activist group accusing an Arab Muslim judge of imposing Sharia, or Islamic law, on Family Court cases.

Family Court Judge Hany Mawla first made headlines in 2010 when then-Gov. Jon Corzine made him the first Muslim-American appointed to the state Superior Court.

Mawla lately has drawn renewed attention for his rulings on alimony payments. In one case, which is being championed by advocates of alimony reform, Pennsylvania resident John Waldorf remains in Hunterdon County Jail after a month because he was unable to pay his ex-wife the $8,000 monthly payments Mawla ordered.

“It is obvious what Judge Mawla is doing is a ‘jihad’ against men in general and fathers specifically,” Bruce Eden, civil rights director of the state chapter of Dads Against Discrimination, said in a statement this week. “Therefore, as a fathers' rights group we intend to initiate a ‘crusade’ to remove this vermin from the bench.”

In an interview, Eden said Malal, whose parents left Egypt when he was a toddler, is following the Sharia practice of throwing debtors in jail.

“(His religion) is compounding the issue,” he said.

Mawla could not be reached for comment, but Gadeir Abbas, staff attorney for the [Hamas-linked] Council on American-Islamic Relations, called Eden’s statement “an anti-Muslim rant that relies on the same type of slanders that have been used in the past to attack Catholics and Jews.”

“I’m not comfortable mirroring Gov. Christie’s statement on anti-Muslim sentiment as ‘just crap,’ but I certainly share that sentiment,” he said, referring to comments Christie made last year defending his appointment of Indian-born Sohail Mohammed as the state’s second Muslim Superior Court judge.

“The guy is an American citizen!” Christie said at the time. “Sharia Law business is just crap (..) and I’m tried of dealing with the crazies.”...

Christie: bought and paid for, or just stupid?

The Muslim Brotherhood has the presidency of Egypt right now. This cannot and will not end well. And Barack Obama and the others who enabled the Brotherhood's rise to power in Egypt bear the responsibility. If the U.S. from 9/11 on, and before that, had embarked on a policy of strengthening secular and pluralistic values in Muslim states, instead of enabling Sharia, this might not be happening today.

"Muslim Brotherhood mobilizes protests against Israel in Cairo," by Sarah Lynch for USA TODAY, November 16:

CAIRO – Thousands of Egyptians took to the streets Friday protesting Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, waving Palestinian flags across the Egyptian capital and demanding the Egyptian government cut ties with Israel.

"We're here today to say to Israel: Go to Hell," said Mustafa Kamel from a Cairo neighborhood called Imbaba at a demonstration outside Al-Azhar Mosque that was planned by the Muslim Brotherhood. "Muslims are strong. In Egypt, we refuse Israel and the politics of America."

Demonstrations also took place in Tahrir Square following days of intense escalation in violence between Israel and the Gaza Strip, posing challenges for Egypt's new government and its president, Mohamed Morsi.

"The Muslim Brotherhood has made it clear they want to use this as an excuse to sever ties," said Eric Trager of the pro-Israeli Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Morsi,who formerly headed the Brotherhood's political wing but no longer officially belongs to the party, is caught between his ideology and affiliation with the group and the Egyptian officials he's entrusted to manage Egypt-Israel relations, Trager said....

The really incredible thing about this is that it is not even close to being the first time this has happened, and won't be the last. CNN will go on being CNN, defaming freedom fighters and protecting jihadists. People will continue to trust it. There will be no accountability. "Fraud: CNN Uses Video Footage Of Faked Palestinian 'Injuries,'" from Breitbart, November 16:

Last night on CNN's 360 with Anderson Cooper, video footage was broadcast that purported to show injuries and victims of Israeli military operations in Gaza. The footage was exposed as fraudulent here on Breitbart News yesterday.

If Obama were a Republican, Congress would be making a serious investigation of this coverup and all his lies to cover his support for jihadists in Libya. Instead, the truth dribbles out here and there, with ample time given for the administration to formulate new...talking points.

"Petraeus testifies CIA's Libya talking points were changed, lawmaker says," from
FoxNews.com, November 16 (thanks to Kenneth):

Former CIA Director David Petraeus testified in a closed-door hearing Friday morning that his agency determined immediately after the Sept. 11 Libya attack that "Al Qaeda involvement" was suspected -- but the line was taken out in the final version circulated to administration officials, according to a top lawmaker who was briefed.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., who spoke to reporters after Petraeus testified before the House Intelligence Committee, indicated he and other lawmakers still have plenty of questions about the aftermath of the attack.

"No one knows yet exactly who came up with the final version of the talking points," he said.

Petraeus was heading next to the Senate Intelligence Committee to testify. At the same time, lawmakers unexpectedly convened a briefing with top members of various committees to examine a Sept. 25 letter to President Obama that asked a series of classified questions on Benghazi.

Petraeus' testimony both challenges the Obama administration's repeated claims that the attack was a "spontaneous" protest over an anti-Islam video, and according to King conflicts with his own briefing to lawmakers on Sept. 14. Sources have said Petraeus, in that briefing, also described the attack as a protest that spun out of control.

"His testimony today was that from the start, he had told us that this was a terrorist attack," King said, adding that he told Petraeus he had a "different recollection."...

"The [Israeli] military said it hit dozens of medium-range rocket launch sites, many of which are located in residential buildings, military officials said." -- AP, November 14

"PHOTO: Hamas missile launch pad next to mosque, playground. Civilian factories, gas station also half a block from Fajr-5 firing site," by Aaron Klein at WND, November 15:

TEL AVIV – A missile launch site in the Gaza Strip was set up by Hamas just half a block from a mosque and children’s playground, according to aerial photographs provided to KleinOnline by the Israel Defense Forces today.

Israel yesterday carried out a surgical strike of the site in question – a Fajr-5 missile launch pad established in the heavily populated Zeitoun district of Gaza to fire long range rockets into the Jewish state.

The photograph of the launch site, posted above, shows a children’s playground and a mosque located about a half a block away as well as two civilian factories and a gas station also within a half a block radius.

Earlier today, the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad group claimed responsibility firing Fajr-5 missiles aimed at Tel Aviv.

Also today, one rocket launched from the Gaza Strip landed in Rishon Letzion, some 7 miles south of Tel Aviv. About three hours later another explosion was heard in the Tel Aviv area. Defense sources said the second explosion was a missile that landed in an open area.

No casualties were reported in either the Tel Aviv or Rishon Leztion areas....

Read it all.

The Palestinian propaganda machine is in full swing, manufacturing Israeli "atrocities" -- atrocities that the jihadis try to provoke by launching attacks from civilian areas, hoping to draw retaliatory fire that they can use for propaganda purposes.

These pictures from The Blaze tell the real story. The one above is just one of many -- click on the link for the rest.

While the jihad rages hot in Gaza, it isn't as if the jihadis have forgotten other fronts. Selling liquor: haram. Murdering those who sell liquor: pleasing to Allah. Sharia Alert from Kashmir: "One killed in Srinagar liquor shop firing," from the Indo Asian News Service, November 15 (thanks to Lookmann):

Srinagar, Nov 15 (IANS) One person was killed and four others were injured when unidentified militants Thursday fired at the salesmen of a liquor shop in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir Police said.

A police officer told IANS: "Unidentified militants fired at the salesmen of a liquor shop in Boulevard Road area of the city this evening."

"Five people were injured in the firing. One of the injured, identified as Mushtaq Ahmad of Aluchibagh locality of Srinagar city, has succumbed to injuries while four others injured are being treated in the hospital," he said....

Following diktats of some separatist groups in the early 1990s all the wine shops, cinema halls and beauty parlours were closed in the valley.

As normalcy gradually returns to Kashmir, some wine shops have reopened in the city, along with some beauty parlours.

But, the owners of cinema halls in the city have been converting their establishments into hospitals and shopping malls instead of restarting their movie theatres.

"For over a thousand years, Al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning..." -- Barack Obama at al-Azhar, June 4, 2009

"Al-Azhar Grand Imam slams Israeli attacks on Gaza," by Joanna Paraszczuk for the Jerusalem Post, November 14:

The Grand Imam of Egypt's powerful al-Azhar Mosque denounced Israel's strikes on Gaza on Wednesday, calling them the "Zionist army's bombing of innocent civilians", Egyptian and Saudi news sources reported.

In his statement on Wednesday, Mohamed Ahmed El Tayeb warned the "Zionist entity" against continuing the strikes, which he said were "brutal" and would lead the entire region into a wider conflict.

El Tayeb called on the United Nations and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to act for the people of Gaza and deter the "usurper entity from exercising its barbarism against defenseless civilians", according to Saudi Arabia's Bab news site.

The Grand Imam said Palestinians in Gaza had a "right to live safely like any other human beings."

However, in his statement El Tayeb did not mention or allude to the rocket attacks against Israel....

Yet another prelude to the new jihad war against Israel that is sure to come. "'Syrian villages on Israel border in rebel hands,'" from the Jerusalem Post, November 14:

Nearly all of the Syrian villages along the border with Israel are in rebel hands, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Wednesday, during a tour of the Golan Heights region with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

The Daily Telegraph reported late on Tuesday that Syrian rebels have seized control over two towns in the buffer zone with Israel.

According to the report, which cites an Israeli military intelligence source from the Northern Command, 200 or more rebels took control of Be’er Ajam and Bariqa.

The Syrian military is becoming less efficient, Barak said.

Barak praised the IDF and said it was closely monitoring "the painful crumbling of the Assad regime."

He added that the IDF's northern Command is ensuring that Syrian fire isn't directed over the border into Israel, "while making more wide-scale preparations for all developments."

"It's very difficult to estimate what will be in Syria in the future, and we need to be alert and ready here, like in other areas," the defense minister said.

The prime minister added that "We are determined to defend our land and our borders. We made that clear to the other side."...

The hopeless Manya Brachear has a piece in the Chicago Tribune attacking our AFDI pro-freedom ads for using the word "savage" of bloodthirsty jihadists. Interestingly enough, she focuses on the version of the ad that says "Support the Copts" and quotes Ahmed Rehab of Hamas-linked CAIR at length, but never interviews a single Copt or even bothers to mention the relentless Muslim persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt. In any case, in this American Thinker piece, Pamela Geller, creator of the ads, exposes the hypocrisy and double standard of the indignation over the word "savage."

"Inoffensive Savagery," by Pamela Geller at The American Thinker, November 14:

When is the word "savage" not racist and offensive?

In Tunisian citizen Souhir Stephenson's "Tunisia, a Sad Year Later," published last Wednesday in the New York Times, she wrote: "Tourism is dwindling. Who wants to vacation among bands of bearded savages raiding embassies, staking their black pirate flag over universities or burning trucks carrying beer?"

"Bearded savages." This appeared in the Times just six weeks after the paper ran a piece calling my American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) subway ads "potentially inflammatory" and quoting Muneer Awad of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) calling me "a bigot and a racist" for the ad, which reads: "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad."

Indeed, this ad touched off a nationwide firestorm, with pundits and activists all over the country excoriating me for using the word "savage" to describe Islamic jihadists and supremacists. CNN "journalist" Mona Eltahawy was actually caught in the act of spray-painting over the ad, and was arrested, after which little act of fascism she had the gall to claim that she was merely exercising her freedom of speech.

What is the difference between the New York Times's use of the word savage and the AFDI use?

Or Hillary Clinton's, for that matter? In a statement on September 12, she used the same word to characterize those who had attacked our consulate in Benghazi and murdered Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other American officials: "This was an attack by a small and savage group -- not the people or Government of Libya."

Is Clinton's use of the word savage offensive?

In all of these instances, we are all describing the same barbarians: Islamic jihadists who glory in violence and murder. So why is my ad unacceptable, but no one is angry with Souhir Stephenson or the Secretary of State?...

Why indeed. Read it all.

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has urged the United Nations, particularly the Security Council, to take immediate resolute action over what it called irresponsible military action by Israel against innocent civilians in Gaza.

If you're a moderate Muslim government like Malaysia, when is any Israeli military action not 'irresponsible'?

Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman said Malaysia condemned in the strongest terms the continuing Israeli military assaults and air strikes on Gaza, which have led to the deaths of a Palestinian leader and seven others, including two children.

The aforementioned 'leader' was a terrorist and murderer of numerous civilians, but this somehow fails to merit a mention in the quoted Malaysian media piece.

"Malaysia urges all parties involved to stop any provocative action, remain calm and exercise restraint to avoid greater damage and loss of life, especially among the civilian population in the Gaza Strip," he said in a statement on Thursday.

Malaysia also demanded that Israel immediately cease its military aggression towards the Palestinian people, he added. -Bernama

What? I thought jihad was an interior spiritual struggle. Just ask the ever-clueless and/or compromised Chicago Tribune "journalist" Manya Brachear. "Israel assassinates Hamas military chief in Gaza," by Ibrahim Barzak and Josef Federman for the Associated Press, November 14 (thanks to EH):

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel carried out a blistering offensive of more than 50 airstrikes in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, assassinating Hamas' military commander and targeting the armed group's training facilities and rocket launchers in Israel's most intense attack on the territory in nearly four years.

Israel said the airstrikes, launched in response to days of rocket fire out of Hamas-ruled Gaza, were the beginning of a broader operation against the Islamic militants codenamed "Pillar of Defense." Israeli defense officials said a ground operation was a strong possibility in the coming days though they stressed no decisions had been made and much would depend on Hamas' reaction. There were no immediate signs of extraordinary troop deployments along the border....

Hamas has in the past staged dozens of suicide bombings against Israelis and while its capabilities to do so today have been curtailed by Israeli and Palestinian crackdowns, it still has a network in the West Bank.

More than 65 rockets landed in southern Israel late Wednesday. One projectile struck a shopping mall in the southern city of Beersheba, causing heavy damage but no casualties, police said.

The Israeli military said 25 rockets were intercepted by the "Iron Dome" rocket-defense system. Israeli media said the rockets had been headed toward Beersheba. Israeli aircraft continued to pound Gaza into the night with some 50 airstrikes, with no reports of casualties.

The deadly attack on Hamas mastermind Ahmed Jabari marked the resumption of Israel's policy of "targeted killings," or assassinations of senior Hamas men. Israel has refrained from such attacks, which have drawn international condemnations, since a fierce three-week offensive in Gaza that ended in January 2009.

The earlier Gaza offensive killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, including hundreds of civilians. Israel has blamed Hamas for the heavy civilian casualties, accusing the group of using schools and residential neighborhoods as cover. Nonetheless, Israel was harshly criticized internationally for the heavy civilian death toll.

Jabari was the most senior Hamas official to be killed since that war. He had long topped Israel's most-wanted list, blamed for masterminding a string of deadly attacks that including a bold, cross-border kidnapping of an Israeli soldier in 2006. He also was believed to be a key player in Hamas' takeover of Gaza in 2007 from a rival Palestinian faction, the Western-backed Fatah movement.

"I would call him the No. 1 terrorist in the Gaza Strip, whose hands are stained with blood," said Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, Israel's chief military spokesman....

Even so, the Jabari killing, carried out in broad daylight, was shocking. Hamas officials had brushed off the Israeli threats, illustrated by Jabari's decision to drive in public. Hamas leaders typically go into hiding at times of rising tensions. Over the past two days, the fighting had shown signs of petering out as Egyptian mediators tried to broker a truce.

The Israeli military released a black-and-white video of the airstrike, showing a sedan moving slowly along a road before going up in flames in an explosion so powerful that a large chunk of the vehicle flew high into the air.

Crowds of people and security personnel rushed to the scene of the strike, trying to put out the fire that had engulfed the car and left it a charred shell. Plumes of black smoke wafted into Gaza City's skies following other airstrikes. Ambulance sirens blared as people ran in panic in the streets and militants fired angrily into the air.

The Israeli military also released footage of its strikes against weapons depots and rocket-launching grounds. Barak said these airstrikes hit "terror infrastructure" and launchers used to fire Iranian-made Fajr rockets. The rockets, capable of reaching Tel Aviv, are among Hamas' most powerful weapons.

The military said it hit dozens of medium-range rocket launch sites, many of which are located in residential buildings, military officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the operation. The military also said the navy was striking Hamas targets located by the shore. Hamas denied that any of its weapons stores were hit.

Hamas announced a state of emergency in Gaza. It evacuated all its security buildings and deployed its troops away from their locations.

Outside the hospital where Jabari's body was taken, thousands of Gazans chanted "Retaliation!" and "We want you to hit Tel Aviv tonight!"...

In a statement, Hamas' prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, eulogized Jabari and vowed revenge.

"We mourn our late leader who walked the path of jihad while he knew the end, either victory or martyrdom," Haniyeh said. "There is no fear among our people and our resistance, and we will face this vicious attack."

The airstrike bore many similarities to the start of Israel's previous offensive in December 2008. That operation also began with an air raid on Hamas buildings, and also took place in between American presidential elections and Israeli parliamentary elections.

Hamas accused Netanyahu of launching Wednesday's operation to win votes in the Jan. 22 parliamentary election. But major Israeli parties, including the dovish opposition, all lined up behind Netanyahu....

On its official Facebook page, the Freedom and Justice Party, the Muslim Brotherhood's political arm, called Jabari's assassination a "crime that requires a quick Arab and international response to stem these massacres against the besieged Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip."

It accused Israel of trying to "drag the region toward instability."

In Washington, the United States lined up behind Israel. "We support Israel's right to defend itself, and we encourage Israel to continue to take every effort to avoid civilian casualties," said State Department spokesman Mark Toner. He denounced Hamas rocket attacks.

Netanyahu spoke to Obama and thanked him for the support, said a statement from his office.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for calm and urged both sides to respect international humanitarian law.

On Wednesday night, the U.N. Security Council met behind closed doors to consider an Egyptian request for an emergency meeting on Israel's military action in Gaza.

Israel's use of targeted killings is one of the most contentious policies used against militants.

Advocates say targeted killings are an effective deterrent without the complications associated with a ground operation, chiefly civilian and Israeli troop casualties. Proponents argue they also prevent future attacks by removing their masterminds.

Critics say the killings invite retaliation by militants and encourage them to try to assassinate Israeli leaders. They complain that the strikes amount to extrajudicial killings....

Yes, don't fight back against those who are trying to kill you. It might provoke them to...try to kill you.

Last night on Michael Coren's Sun TV show.

John Walker Lindh, Adam Gadahn, Omar Hammami -- three ordinary American boys who ended up misunderstanding the Religion of Peace and become jihad terrorists. And yet Muslim groups in the U.S. are doing nothing -- absolutely nothing -- to prevent other young Muslims from misunderstanding Islam in the same way. Now, what does that tell you?

"Alabama native is on FBI's 'Most Wanted Terrorists' list," by Deborah Pugatch for ABC 3340, November 14:

An Alabama man believed to be operating with terrorists in Somalia has been added to the FBI's "Most Wanted Terrorist" list.

In 2010, the Justice Department said Omar Shafik Hammami had become a top recruiter for al-shabab, an Islamic militant group with ties to al-Qaeda. The FBI now says Hammami is a senior leader in the terror group.

Officials say Hammami, who grew up in Daphne and is a former South Alabama student, lives in Somalia.

In 2007, Hammami was indicted originally in the Southern District of Alabama on terrorism violations. A superseding indictment was returned against Hammami in 2009 on terrorism violations for leaving the United States to join the Somalia-based terrorist organization, al-Shabaab.

Hammami is alleged to have provided material support to terrorists as early as 2006.

On December 13, 2007, a federal warrant was issued by the United States District Court, Southern District of Alabama, for Hammami's arrest.

In September 2009, ABC 33/40 wrote a story about Hammami being indicted by a grand jury in Mobile on charges of providing material support to terrorists.

Just recently, the FBI added Hammami to its list of "Most Wanted Terrorists."

It is good that he said it. Not that the international media will pay any attention at all. They aid and abet the "Palestinian" propaganda about Israelis harming civilians. "Statement by PM Netanyahu on Operation Pillar of Defense to Israeli Public," from IMRA, November 14:

Statement by PM Netanyahu (Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today (Wednesday, 14 November 2012), made the following statement:

"Citizens of Israel,

I want to praise the IDF soldiers and commanders, led by Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Benny Gantz , who is commanding the operation as we speak. I want to note the Israel Security Agency, headed by Director Yoram Cohen, for their vital part in the operational accomplishments that we have already achieved. I thank the citizens of Israel for their unwavering support of this operation. I thank the residents of southern Israel who are at the front, and exhibit strength and restraint.

Hamas and the terror organizations decided to escalate their attacks on the citizens of Israel over the last few days. We will not accept a situation in which Israeli citizens are threatened by the terror of rockets. No country would accept this, Israel will not accept it.

Today, we hit Hamas strategic targets precisely. We have significantly debilitated their ability to launch rockets from Gaza to the center of Israel, and we are now working to disable their ability to launch rockets towards the south. The terrorist organizations – Hamas, Islamic Jihad and others – are deliberately harming our citizens, while intentionally hiding behind their citizens. On the other hand, we avoid harming civilians as much as possible and that is one fundamental difference between us. It also indicates the big difference between our objectives, and not only in our methods. They want to obliterate us from the face of the earth and they have no qualms about hurting civilians and innocents.

Today, we sent an unequivocal message to Hamas and the other terror organizations, and if need be the IDF is prepared to expand the operation. We will continue to do everything necessary to defend our citizens."

This was inevitable. Back in January 2011, when the mainstream media was gushing about the glories of the "Arab Spring," I pointed out the strong undercurrent of hostility to Israel among the protesters. And now slavering Muslim antisemites are pushing Morsi to be tougher on Israel for daring to defend itself -- but even before this, they were calling for a rupture of diplomatic relations. "Egypt’s president recalls ambassador to Israel after Gaza strike kills Hamas commander," from the Associated Press, November 14:

CAIRO — Egypt’s Islamist president recalled the country’s ambassador to Israel to protest its strikes in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday after coming under mounting domestic criticism for not taking a strong enough stance against Israel.

The move may signal a shift in the way Cairo deals with Israel following last year’s popular uprising that ushered in the country’s first free presidential elections over the summer and a wave of protests since. Ousted President Hosni Mubarak, who built close ties with Egypt’s neighbor, was accused by Egyptians for refusing to bend to popular pressure for tough stands against Israel.

Ironically, his successor President Mohammed Morsi, who hails from the Muslim Brotherhood, came under similar sharp criticism earlier this week for failing to speak out after seven Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes over the weekend in retaliation for rocket attacks by Gaza militants. Secular parties and revolutionary groups on Monday held a vigil denouncing Morsi and protesting the Israeli airstrikes.

On Wednesday, Israel heightened its offensive by killing Ahmad Jabari, the commander of the Hamas military wing, in one of some 20 airstrikes on the Gaza Strip in the wake of further militant rocket attacks. Ten people were killed in the assault on Gaza, two of them young children.

This prompted a protest of around 200 people in downtown Cairo on Wednesday who demanded Morsi take a stand against the Israeli attack.

“Morsi where is your decision,” they chanted. “Our leaders, enough with the silence. The people of Gaza are dying there.”

Late Wednesday, presidential spokesman Yasser Ali announced on state TV that Morsi had recalled the Egyptian ambassador.

The Muslim Brotherhood is a vocal critic of Israel, and the Palestinian Hamas militant group that rules Gaza is an offshoot of the group. Since taking office as Egypt’s first freely elected president in late June, Morsi has refused to meet or contact any Israeli officials and doesn’t even mention Israel by name in official statements.

Still, while relations have cooled, Morsi has not brought radical change in Egypt’s policy toward Israel. He has promised to abide by Egypt’s 1979 peace deal with Israel and his government has continued contacts with Israel through its non-Brotherhood members.

Israel and Egypt have quietly cooperated over an Egyptian military operation in the Sinai Peninsula against Islamic militants who have been attacking Egyptian forces and launching attacks into Israel. Morsi’s government also still tightly controls Palestinian movement through the Rafah border crossing with Gaza in the Sinai. Under Mubarak, Egypt’s backing of a blockade of Gaza imposed by Israel after Hamas won elections and later overran the territory in 2007 was highly unpopular among Egyptians.

As an elected leader, however, Morsi faces heavy pressure to reflect more strongly the widespread anti-Israeli feelings among the Egyptian public.

“Before, in Mubarak’s time, there was no response at all and they suffocated Gaza,” said Hassan Saleh, a 25 year-old education ministry official who was among those protesting in Cairo on Wednesday. “All this must change. We should allow aid in, open the crossing and hospitals and pressure Israel.”

The Brotherhood’s political party, which Morsi headed before winning the presidency, warned in a statement Wednesday that “the occupation state must realize that the changes that took place in the region, especially in Egypt, will not let the Palestinian people fall at the mercy of the Israeli aggression as was the case before.”....

Priorities, priorities. As far as the Eurodhimmis are concerned, a rapidly Islamizing state pursuing an increasingly belligerent path toward Israel is worth supporting, even while they're going broke. "Aid amid austerity: Egypt to receive over $6bn in aid from EU," from RT, November 14 (thanks to Joe):

The European Union has approved a US$6.3 billion financial aid package for Egypt. The news comes as Europe is paralyzed by a general strike and mass protests as people are tired of deepening recession and strangled by constant budget cuts.

­The European Investment Bank is to grant Egypt 2 billion euro ($2.55 billion), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development a further 2 billion euro and EU countries will also allocate a further 1 billion euro, the office of the Egyptian president said on Wednesday.

The statement was released after President Mohamed Morsi met with EU Foreign Policy chief Catherine Ashton.

Egypt is to sign a memorandum of understanding with IMF representatives for the loan this week. It is "a strong sign of EU's support for Egypt's path to development," the president said.

The Egyptian economy is still recovering after the overthrow of former President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011 and subsequent political turmoil.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people took to the streets across the EU to protest drastic austerity measures introduced by authorities to cope with the recession.

Spain and Portugal are facing general strikes, while Greece and Italy are seeing many walkouts. Millions of people from some 20 EU nations are expected to take part in the European Day of Action and Solidarity.

And as many Europeans are not happy to bail out struggling EU economies at a cost of their pensions and wages, the question is how they are going to react to paying Egyptian bills.

Note the bias of this Reuters report: the rockets from Gaza into Israel were fired by no one, they just arrived there in passive voice, and they aren't even mentioned until the seventeenth paragraph. The emphasis is all on Israel's defensive moves, as if they were gratuitous.

"Israel kills Hamas commander, bombs Gaza targets," by Nidal al-Mughrabi for Reuters, November 14:

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel killed the military commander of the Islamist group Hamas in a missile strike on the Gaza Strip on Wednesday and launched air raids across the enclave, pushing the two sides to the brink of a new war.

The attacks marked the biggest escalation between Israel and Gaza militants since a 2008-2009 conflict and came despite signs on Tuesday that neighboring Egypt had managed to broker a truce in the enclave after a five day surge of violence.

Hamas said Ahmed Al-Jaabari, who ran the organization's armed wing, Izz el-Deen Al-Qassam, died along with an unnamed associate when their car was blown apart by an Israeli missile. Palestinians said nine people were killed, including a seven-year-old girl.

Video from Gaza showed the charred and mangled wreckage of a car belching flames, as emergency crews picked up what appeared to be body parts.

Israel confirmed it had carried out the attack on Jaabari and warned that more strikes would follow. Reuters witnesses reported numerous explosions around Gaza, with Hamas security compounds and police stations among the targets.

"This is an operation against terror targets of different organizations in Gaza," military spokesman Avital Leibovitch told reporters, adding that Jaabari had "a lot of blood on his hands".

Immediate calls for revenge were broadcast over Hamas radio.

"The occupation has opened the doors of hell," Hamas's armed wing said. Smaller groups also vowed to strike back.

"Israel has declared war on Gaza and they will bear the responsibility for the consequences," Islamic Jihad said.

The escalation in Gaza came in a week when Israel pounded Syrian artillery positions it said had fired into the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights amid a civil war in Syria that has brought renewed instability to neighboring Lebanon.

Hamas has been supported by both Syria and Iran, which Israel regards as a rising threat to its own existence due to its nuclear program.

Israel's intelligence agency Shin Bet said Jaabari was responsible for Hamas' takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007, when the militant Islamist group ousted fighters of the Fatah movement of its great rival, the Western-backed Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.

It said Jaabari instigated the attack that led to the capture of Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit in a kidnap raid from Gaza in 2006. Jaabari was also the man who handed Shalit over to Israel in a prisoner exchange five years after his capture.

Israel holds a general election on January 22 and conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come under pressure to respond firmly against Hamas, with residents of southern Israel complaining bitterly about repeated missile strikes

Hamas has been emboldened by the rise to power in neighboring Egypt of its spiritual mentors in the Muslim Brotherhood whom it views as a "safety net".

Some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died in the 2008-2009 conflict. There was a lull in hostilities after that, but the violence has flared again in recent months and Israel has repeatedly warned of dire consequences unless Hamas and its fellow militants stopped rocket attacks.

In the latest confrontation, which appeared to have ended on Tuesday, more than 115 missiles were fired into southern Israel from Gaza and Israeli planes launched numerous strikes. Seven Palestinians, three of them gunmen, were killed. Eight Israeli civilians were hurt by rocket fire and four soldiers wounded by an anti-tank missile....

The story says he will be asked about Broadwell's possible intelligence breaches. And so this affair could still end up overshadowing the key question that he should be asked: if you didn't order the CIA to "stand down" and not defend the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, who did?

"Petraeus to testify before Congress about Sept. 11 attack in Libya," by Anne Gearan in the Washington Post, November 14 (thanks to Anne Crockett):

Former CIA director David H. Petraeus has agreed to testify to Congress about the Sept. 11 attack in Libya, keeping appointments made before he resigned in disgrace over an extramarital affair.

The appearance will reportedly take place Thursday behind closed doors. But his visit to Capitol Hill will mark Petraeus’s first time in the public view since he resigned Friday.

He is likely to be asked — both by reporters on his way in and by lawmakers — about any possible intelligence breaches involving his biographer, Paula Broadwell. Law enforcement officials said Broadwell is the woman with whom the retired general has acknowledged having an affair.

The FBI searched Broadwell’s home this week, seeking copies of classified documents that investigators have said she possessed. Both Petraeus and Broadwell have denied to investigators that he was the source of any classified information, officials have said.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) told reporters Wednesday that Petraeus has agreed to testify. After his sudden resignation, acting CIA Director Michael Morell had been tapped to appear in Petreaus’s place.

“Gen. Petraeus is willing to come before the committee and the details will be worked out,” Feinstein said.

Several news outlets reported that Petraeus will appear as originally scheduled at closed-door sessions Thursday for the House and Senate intelligence committees. The subject is the deadly attack on the U.S. mission and a CIA base in the Libyan city of Benghazi.

Susan Phalen, spokeswoman for the House Intelligence Committee, said no appearance is confirmed. The Senate Intelligence Committee would not confirm the reports, but a Senate source said an announcement of Petraeus’s appearance is planned for later Wednesday.

Lawmakers of both parties have said they wanted to hear from Petraeus directly, despite his departure. Petraeus had a hand in shaping the Obama administration narrative of the attack, which shifted from a protest gone wrong to an organized terrorist assault. Petraeus also recently visited Libya on a fact-finding mission.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said it was “absolutely imperative” that Congress hear from Petraeus.

“There are so many unanswered questions at this point,” Collins told ABC News on Tuesday. “He has a great deal of information that we need in order to understand what went wrong.”...