"MK Bishara Sold Strategies, Israeli Secrets During War,".....

.....he is probably not the only one selling out the Israelies....the Muslims certainly seemed to know a lot about Israelie troop movements....you may recall the difficulties the Israelies had moving about in Lebanon and the glee that Hezbollah displayed when they were easily able to give the Israelies a hard time...

...Israel is not the only country that has people willing to sell them out....The US has recently uncovered some individuals in sensitive positions doing harm to US interests....

...the world is on a roller coaster ride and the ride is becoming more violent...

Posted by: exsgtbrown at December 6, 2007 7:16 AM

I get dibs on Undisclosed Nation Syria.

Posted by: Aunt Bea at December 6, 2007 8:04 AM

The country in question has the code name 'nari'.

Posted by: Goob at December 6, 2007 8:27 AM

...the world is on a roller coaster ride and the ride is becoming more violent...
Posted by: exsgtbrown

And at any moment we're goin' off the rails......

Posted by: ImNoDhimmi at December 6, 2007 8:42 AM

A Muslim betraying the nation that has given him shelter, job and security to practise his desert cult freely?

What a schocker!

That goes to show how reliable Muslims are.

Ban Muslim imigration.

Posted by: Crusader at December 6, 2007 9:29 AM

This just shows how the totalitarian mindset leads to destructive alliances, just like North Korea with Iran.

Azmi Bishara is not a Muslim, he is a Communist. Yet this atheist obviously had no problem supporting an openly theocratic movement like Hizbollah. So it appears that loyalty to totalitarian control is stronger than religious differences.

Actually I think there was a far more potent incentive for Bishara to help Hezbollah: GREED!

Azmi Bishara is not only a hate-filled idealogue but he is a completely corrupt criminal. Perhaps Olmert should have gotten some of his corrupt financiers to offer Bishara more money than he could get from Hizbollah. I'd bet that poor Azmi would switch sides in a heartbeat if the price were right.

Posted by: Provoslavni at December 6, 2007 9:32 AM

Yes sure Robert, gee, there is one tiny weeny issue that is wrong with your self-prostitution to an internationally despised pariah state, namely Israel,Azmi Bisharah is a Palestinian Christian.
Oops.

Posted by: karimguy at December 6, 2007 9:48 AM

$20 says that Bishara is a goner.

Posted by: Charles Martel at December 6, 2007 10:01 AM

"Yes sure Robert, gee, there is one tiny weeny issue that is wrong with your self-prostitution to an internationally despised pariah state, namely Israel,Azmi Bisharah is a Palestinian Christian.
Oops.
-- from a Muslim poster just above

Errata Sheet:

For "Palestinian Christian" read "'Palestinian' Islamochristian"

For more on the phenomenon of the Arab, and especially, nowadays, "Palestinian" Islamochristian, simply google the word "islamochristian" and "Hugh Fitzgerald."

The main point is this: in order to survive and to be left alone by Muslims, Christians like other non-Muslims have to do their bidding. In the Arab countries, this is not only a strategy of survival, but is made easier by the appeal that can be made to a shared ethnic identity, that of 'Uruba' or Arabness. Not all Christians, of course, end up promoting the Islamic agenda. For example, when the Maronites, a much larger, and more powerful, community, were even larger (as a percentage of the Lebanese population), some -- such as the Bishop of Beirut in 1947, Moubarac (see the appendix to "Islam and Dhimmitude" in which his speech in support of Zionism is reproduced) - have been openly pro-Israel. The Copts are a mixed bag: in Egypt they are so nervous, that they tend to accept the Muslim Arab narrative, but when they leave Egypt for good, and get to the West, they often see things differently, discuss their persecution at the hands of Muslims, and some of them not only shed their former hostility (impossible to avoid soaking up from the Eygptian atmosphere, the non-stop crazed propaganda), but if they educate themselves, through Bat Ye'or's books or those of others, on the subject of dhimmis and dhimmi communities that failed to help each other, as each attempted to curry favor from Muslim masters. not come to drop their former hostility to Israel but may support it, realizing -- in the safety of the West and the mental clarity it affords -- that the Jews of Israel and the Christians who use Arabic, and whom the Arabs have taught to think of themselves as "Arabs," but whose existence, as Copts or as Maronites or as Assyrians or Chaldeans, long predates the arrival of the Arab Muslim conquerors, bearing the "gift" of Islam.

Bishara may have been called a "Christian" but he was a "Christian" who had constantly to wrap himself in the mantle of that "Palestinian" pseudo-nationalism that is the escape for other islamochristians, such as Naim Ateek, Hanan Ashrawi, Michel Sabbagh. They are not real Christians, but islamochristians, who will do nothing to speak out about the mistreatment of Arab or Arabic-speaking Christians, not in Bethlehem, not in Nazareth, not anywhere else.

Other "Christians" in the MIddle East, outside of the Maronites and the Copts, who represent a special case, have similarly tried to find a way for the Christians to survive, by concocting an ideology that would be less nakely Islamic in its appeal. To get along, they go along: think of Tariq Aziz (his assumed Muslim-sounding name), the sly foreign minister and international face or facade, for the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Or think of the origins of Ba'athism itself. It was the product of three people: a Christian, Michel Aflaq, a Druze, and a secularisant Sunni Muslim. All three sought, in Ba'athism, an ideology that would overlap, and adopt, the attitudes of Islam, but would not be nakedly Islamic, so much so that there would be no place for Christians, or Druze, or for secularisant Muslims. Back in the early 1940s, when Ba'athism was founded, and the Nazi-fascist tide was high, and the dream of a united Islam remote, pan-Arabism, of the Ba'athist rather than the later Nasserite model, appealed. Westerners have consistently misunderstood both Ba'athism and pan-Arabism, thinking that they were real alternatives to Islam, when in fact the only two states where the Ba'athist parties took root were Syria and Iraq. In the case of Syria, the Alawites (only 12% of the population) needed a cover for their dictatorship, especially since the Alawites are not regarded by Sunni Muslims as real Muslims, but as suspiciously syncretistic, with for example all those pictures of Mary in Alawite houses. In the case of Iraq,
Ba'athism permitted the minority Sunni Arabs to rule, but with the camouflage of a Ba'athist party open as well to Shi'a, Kurds, Christians. The fact that the Sunni Arabs held all the real power was disguised, not very well for those in the know, which meant almost no one in the Western world, behind this "open-to-everyone" Ba'ath Party.

Bishara may be, is, a traitor to the state that protected him from Islam (though he would not ever recognize that, perhaps some Christian Arabs now in Israel will begin, however dimly, to see the light, as they can see for themselves that the Christians of Bethlehem, and elsewhere in the "West Bank" and Gaza, are suffering from their "Palestinian" Muslim brothers, despite having been as anti-Israel as they could possibly be, saying and doing all the right things to the credulous Western journalists and others on behalf of "Palestine").

But let's not call him, inaccurately, a "Christian." He is an "islamochristian" -- a "Palestinian" islamochristian. There's a big difference.

And it is a difference that more and more people in the Western world, and even among the Arab-speaking Copts and Assyrians and Chaldeans (whose ranks in the West, for obvious reasons, are swelling), have begun to comprehend.

Posted by: Hugh at December 6, 2007 10:18 AM

"The Phenomenon of the Islamochristian" can be found in the archives, undre my name. It appeared on December 27, 2005.

Here it is:

The phenomenon of the "islamochristian" deserves wider attention, and the word wider use. An “islamochristian” is a Christian Arab who identifies with and works to advance the Islamic agenda, out of fear or out of a belief that his "Arabness" requires loyalty to Islam. Islamization by the Arab Muslim conquerors of Mesopotamia, Syria, and North Africa was a vehicle for Arab imperialism. This imperialism, the most successful in human history, convinced those who accepted Islam to also forget their own pre-Islamic or non-Islamic pasts. It caused them, in many cases, to forget their own languages and to adopt Arabic -- and in using Arabic, and in adopting Arabic names, within a few generations they had convinced themselves that they were Arabs.
Some held out. The Copts in Egypt today are simply the remnants of a population that was entirely Coptic, and that has suffered steady and slow asphyxiation. How many of Egypt's Arabs are in fact Copts who fail to realize this, much less have any sympathy or interest in how their Coptic ancestors, out of intolerable pressure, assumed the identity of Arabs?

In Lebanon, the mountains provided a refuge for the Maronites, by far the most successful group to withstand the Muslims. And most Maronites are quick to make the important distinction that, while they are "users of Arabic," that does not make them "Arabs." When they claim that they predate the Arab invasion (which of course they do) and are the descendants of the previous inhabitants of Lebanon, the Phoenicians, they are greeted with ridicule. But why? Where did the Phoenicians go? Did they just disappear? It is far more plausible to believe that the Maronites and the others in Lebanon are, most of them (for how many real "Arabs" actually came from the Arabian peninsula to conquer far more numerous populations of non-Arabs?) the descendants of those Phoenicians. The Maronites recognize this; the Muslims do not, because for them the superior people, the people to whom the Qur'an was "given" and "in their language," are the Arabs. The sense of Arab supremacy comes not only from the fact that the Qur'an was written in Arabic (with bits of Aramaic still floating in it), but because the Sunna, the other great guide for Muslims, consists of, and is derived from, the hadith and the sira, and reflects the life of people in 7th century Arabia.

Thus one sees the forcibly-converted descendants of Hindus, the Muslims of India and Pakistan, full of supposed "descendants of the Prophet" who are identified by the name "Sayeed." It is as if, in the middle of a former British colony, say Uganda, black Africans gave themselves such names as Anthony Chenevix-ffrench or Charles Hardcastle, and dressed like remote Englishmen at Agincourt, or Ascot, and insisted, to one and all, that they were indeed lineal descendants of Elizabeth the Virgin Queen, or Hereward the Wake, or Ethelred the Unready.
Yet when those whose ancestors were forcibly converted to Islam (and force can be not military force, but the incessant and relentless pressure of dhimmitude, which will over time cause many to give up and embrace the belief-system of the oppressor) and adopted the names, and mimicked the dress and the manners and customs of Muslims -- which are essentially those of a distant time and place (Arabia, more than a thousand years ago) -- we do not smile or think it absurd. A few Muslim "intellectuals" in East Asia occasionally suggest that local customs and ways, even local expressions of music and art, ought not to be sacrificed to the Sunna of Islam, but to no avail.

And so strong is the power of Islam among the Arabs, so ingrained is their desire to ward off Muslim displeasure, that unless they do not feel themselves to be Arabs but a self-contained community (Copts, Maronites) that has managed to survive, they are very likely to reflect the Muslim views and promote the Muslim agenda.

Nowhere can this be seen better than among the "Palestinian" Arabs. Michel Sabbagh is only one example. The Sabbagh who gave $6.5 million to support Esposito's pro-Muslim empire at Georgetown was a "Christian." (Note to James V. Schall: can you convince Georgetown's administration to sever its now-embarrassing tie to Esposito? At some point he, and Georgetown, have to part ways, for the sake of Georgetown's reputation and continued support from alumni.) The gun-running icon-stealing Archbishop Hilarion Cappucci was, in name, a Melkite Catholic; he was, in his essence, a PLO supporter. Islamochristian promoters of the Jihad -- beginning with the Jihad against Israel -- include a few "Palestinian" Presybterians who have carefully burrowed within, and risen within, the bureaucracy of the Presbyterian Church in America (no names here, but you can easily find them out), and Naim Ateek, who comes to delude audiences of Christians about the "Palestinian struggle" even as the Christian population of the "Palestinian" territories has plummeted, since Israel relinquished control, from 20% to 2% -- out of fear of Muslim "Palestinians."

Nor, of course, do Michel Sabbagh and his ilk pay much attention to the situation of Christians in the Sudan, or Indonesia, or Pakistan. Why would they? It would get in the way of their promotion of the Islamic attempt not only to reduce Israel to the dimensions that will allow them to go in for the final kill, but to seize control of the Holy Land. What, after all, do you think would happen to that Holy Land if Israel were to disappear? Do you think the Christian sites would be as scrupulously preserved? As available to pilgrims? Would Christians walk around Jerusalem if it were under the rule of Muslims with quite the same feelings of security that they do now?

No? Why not? And don't expect Michel Sabbagh to give you a truthful answer.

Posted by: Hugh at December 6, 2007 10:21 AM

"Israeli Arab Knesset member sold secrets to Hizballah

And they complained about Kahane being extreme.

Posted by: Kemaste at December 6, 2007 10:29 AM

What a load of nonsense. The majority of Lebanese are absolutely aware of their Phoenician ancestry. So are all Egyptians, Muslims and Christians, proud of their Egyptian heritage. Their Arab identity is a
cultural factor,a lingiuistic one in fact. Just take a look at the ideology of Pharaonism, supported by figures such Taha Hussein. Hugh makes it look as if All Arab Christians have no genetic relations to the Arabian Peninsula, even though many know themselves, the Ghassanids in Palestine and Syria,to be descendants of Arab tribes from Yemen. Arab migration to the Levant did not start with Islam. In fact, the much mentioned Assyrians and Arameans were migrants from what is now the Arabin Peniunsula.

Posted by: karimguy at December 6, 2007 10:37 AM

Hugh doesnt know a thing about public opinion and culture in the Middle East. Gulf Arabs are often
intensely disliked in the Levant, because of their behaviour,gluttony and arrogance. As a matter of fact it is the Gulf Arabs who dont consider the natives of the Levant,Muslims and Christians to be real Arabs, but arabized Semites. There is a world of difference between the much more secular and settled Arab culture of the Levant and that of the Arabian Gulf states.

Posted by: karimguy at December 6, 2007 10:51 AM

The case of Azmi Bishara does, however, raise the problem of Muslims, and collaborators with Muslims, who infiltrate Western governments, particularly the governments of military allies of the United States. What, for example, is to be done with Turkey, which is officially a member of NATO? As long as Turkey's ancient enemy, Russia, was NATO's adversary, and as long as Islam was not perceived, as it is now being correctly perceived, as an enemy of the West as it is of all Infidels, what will happen in the corridors and councils of power with Turkish representatives? The trust once put in the Turkish military must be withdrawn; Turkey itself has to be excluded from NATO discussions about what, within Western Europe, is to be done about the security threat, to Western armies and police forces, by the Muslim presence that may, paradoxically, have been encouraged by Western governments unable to grasp the nature and menace of Islam, and still determined to wilfully ignore the study of that painful subject, and instead to place a very large, the largest, civilizational bet on the ability of Muslims to ignore, and for all time, what Islam so clearly inculcates, and what explains Muslim behavior toward non-Muslim peoples over the past 1350 years, of conquest, and then of conquest halted, and then of conquest renewed, but this time, in the main, through the instruments of the Money Weapon, of Da'wa, and of demographic conquest -- while Westerners foolishly concern themselves monomaniacallly only with the least effective of those weapons, terrorism.

Can Muslims be allowed into the CIA, the FBI, MI5 and MI6, the Deuxieme Bureau? Apostates can, but can those who do not clearly declare their apostasy, but claim still to be adherents of Islam? On what basis? Hope that they are sufficiently unfanatical in their faith, hope that they will remain so no matter what, even if they find out that we now realize that our strategy must not be to bring "freedom" to "ordinary moms and dads in the Middle East" but, much more intelligently and ruthlessly, to work toward a permanent weakening of the Camp of Islam, beginning with exploitation of the fissures, ethnic and sectarian and economic, that until now we have done nothing to encourage, and everything to help heal.

And Muslims may not be the only security risk. What about those who, though not Muslims, reveal through their attitudes that they suffer from that particular mental pathology known as antisemitism? Someone who suffers, really suffers, from that ailment, is likely to regard not merely with indifference, but with pleasure, the prospectl, say, of a nuclear exchange between Israel and Iran in which the former loses "only" a million souls, or perhaps the entire country disappears.

Antisemitism is not merely of the death-camp variety. It comes in all shapes and sizes. Those who do not suffer from that disease, unfortunately, often have difficulty believing that others do, and cannot always reocgnize its tell-tale signs. In fact, they may think that those who bring up the unseemly subject are confusing "legitimate criticism of Israel" with "antisemitism." This line is swallowed by many, including Jews as well as non-Jews, people who are inhibited about identifying and then naming the tell-tale signs of the disease.

An example or two may suffice. If someone assures you that the Israelis "attacked the Liberty because they wanted to hide their torturing of Egyptian prisoners" and you know perfectly well that 1) the Liberty was attacked in the middle of a war, by mistake, and 2) at that point Israel had not taken Egyptian prisoners and 3) there is no evidence, none, that Israel "tortured" these prisoners, and if that person has been presented, again and again, with all the evidence in the world that blows his theory skyhigh, including tapes recently released of the conversations of the Israeli pilots, and continues to allow the charge to stand, uncorrected, then you are entitled to consider that person not only antisemitic, but also, when it comes to the threat of Islam, a potential security risk. If, furthremore, someone else claims that the "only way to disarm Iran is to force Israel to give up its nuclear weapons" and makes clear that this is an outcome he favors, and -- because he has been high in the security apparaatus of this country --knows exactly what would happen if, as he so obviously wishes, Israel were indeed "forced to give up its nuclear weapons," thereby leaving its conventional forces to hold off, permanently, 300 million Muslim Arabs, and the weapons they can and do buy, by the hundreds of billions of dollarsworth (out of the unmerited oil wealth - some ten trillion since 1973 -- that they receive), then that person has demonstrated that he is perfectly willing to contemplate, and even to promote policies that would ensure, the destruction of Israel.

In the first case, James Bamford is the man in question, the author of books on our spy services, who for some reason is still quoted by lazy journalists as an "authority." In the second, it is Lt. Gen. William Odom (ret'd.), to whom I have already devoted a "tribute," and who just the other day was the first of four signers of a full-page ad, demanding that no "war" be made on Iran (but strikes from the air, with no boots on the ground, hardly constitutes a "war" in the dismal dragged-out winning-of-impossible-hearts-and-minds sense of the Iraq war). No doubt Odom is at this point delirious with joy. While he hasn't been in the government for many years, should he be listened to as an authority, or even a guide, on how to deal with the menace of Jihad, given what he has said about disarming Israel, and what, it is perfectly legitimate to conclude, such a statement implies?

Security problems. Who will dare to speak about those problems, to think things through. There are too many who will be fearful of being described, malignly, as "neocons" doing "Israel's bidding" when they imply that those whose hostility to Israel rises to the level of a mental pathology that can have obvious consequences for recognizing the menace of Islam. No antisemite in Great Britian in the 1930s could conceivably have joined Churchill in warning about Hitler; it was the antisemitism that prevented it. This has to be dealt with. And possibly the best people to deal with it are not Jews, but apostates from Islam who know the full nature of the problem, and who, having shed Islam, are devoid of its brand of antisemitism, and they never acquired the other, Wesetern version.

Ask Wafa Sultan, ask Ayaan Hirsi Ali, ask Ibn Warraq, about this matter. They will see the problem. They will see it is not to be so easily dismissed.

And ask yourself this: why in the counsels of government, here and elsewhere in the West, have Muslims been consulted, but not the defectors from Islam? Why are not Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Wafa Sultan asked to testify before Congress, behind closed doors if necessary? Why are they not invited in to talk to Bush, to Rice, to others?

What is going on? Who is blocking them, who is intent on keeping them at a distance, where they cannot conceivably meet either with a sitting president, or with any of the presidential candidates, who ought to be falling all over themselves to be seen talking to Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Posted by: Hugh at December 6, 2007 11:00 AM

How Muhammedan Agit Prop Works:

From the website of a 'sheik Haron' in Australia, who inundates politicians and the families of fallen Aussie soldiers with Islamic crapola:

Don’t call me radical. Don’t call me moderate. Call me Muslim.

Let me make something clear for you:

We do not have “radical” and “moderate” in Islam. Muslims are Muslims. Muslims are not divided to two kinds of “radical” and “Moderate”. These names and divisions are made by man, not by God or religion. Radical Muslim and moderate Muslim do not exist.

Read it all:

http://sheikyermami.com/2007/12/06/how-muhammedan-agit-prop-works/

Posted by: sheik yer'mami at December 6, 2007 11:03 AM

Re: "Azmi Bisharah is a Palestinian Christian"

and

'For "Palestinian Christian" read "'Palestinian' Islamochristian"'
----------------------------------------

Sorry, he is neither. Azmi Bishara is a self-proclaimed Communist and very open about his atheism.

Posted by: Provoslavni at December 6, 2007 11:04 AM

there is no evidence, none, that Israel "tortured" these prisoners"

No they didnt torture them, they executed them.

Note, that Israel is the only country in the world, whose Supreme court legalized torture and hostage taking, calling it "bargaining chips".

1211100314/http://www.mideastfacts.com/pow_ap.html

Here is an Israeli eye-witness, maybe suffering from that, what did you call it again," that particular mental pathology known as antisemitism".
Hugh, not only are you a pathetic liar, you are also quite unoriginal at it.
http://www.umassd.edu/specialprograms/mideastaffairs/witness2.htm

Posted by: karimguy at December 6, 2007 11:53 AM

http://web.archive.org/web/20031211100314/http://www.mideastfacts.com/
pow_ap.html

Here is the correct link

Posted by: karimguy at December 6, 2007 11:59 AM

"The majority of Lebanese are absolutely aware of their Phoenician ancestry. So are all Egyptians, Muslims and Christians, proud of their Egyptian heritage. Their Arab identity is a
cultural factor,a lingiuistic one in fact. Just take a look at the ideology of Pharaonism, supported by figures such Taha Hussein. Hugh makes it look as if All Arab Christians have no genetic relations to the Arabian Peninsula, even though many know themselves, the Ghassanids in Palestine and Syria,to be descendants of Arab tribes from Yemen. Arab migration to the Levant did not start with Islam. In fact, the much mentioned Assyrians and Arameans were migrants from what is now the Arabin Peniunsula."
- a posting by "karim" above

The sheer craziness of this defies belief. I urge others to go to the best websites run by Lebanese Christians, such as www.eccelibano.com, to find discussions of the very thing that "karim" does not understand: that is, the Arab attempt, over the centuries, to convince the many non-Arab peoples it conquered, not least in the lands that constitute modern Syria and Lebanon, that because they used Arabic, they were Arabs. But arabization always followed islamization. If one takes on an Arab name, has the Arabic language imposed because the Qur'an must be read in Arabic, turns toward Arabia five canonical prayers every day, takes as the permanent and exemplary model, uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil, a 7th-century Arab and his customs and manners, then of course one is going to start thinking "I am an Arab." And it isn't just Arabs. How many of the so-called "Arabs" in North Africa are merely arabized Berbers, whose ancestors decided it was better to be an Arab than a Berber. And for that matter, we can see, in Pakistan, every third person being called "Sayeed" and thinking fondly that he is a descendant of the tribe of Muhammad, and others -- including Zobeir the slave-king in late 19th century Sudan, believing himself a descendant not only of Muhammad's tribe, but of one of his close relatives. Primitive peoples, primitive beliefs.
Egyptians were, under the ancien regime, more aware of themselves as "Egyptians" than as "Arabs." But surely that is a fucntion partly of the British administration under Cromer, and the obvious prestige and greater power of the Western, non-Muslim world, a world in which the word "Arab" -- before OPEC trillions -- counted for less. And nowadays, long after Nasser booted out all the Greeks, Italians, Jews, and others, and seized their property, and Egypt became, permanently, a much less vibrant and vivid Yacoubian-Building place -- those non-Muslims will never return -- and the Copts were leftalone to face the local Muslims, who more and more, as you know, decided to emphasize their Arabness and Islam. There was Hasan al-Banna, grandfather of Tariq Ramadan, whipping up Cairene crowds in the 1940s, to attack Coptic and Jewish-owned shops. There was Nasser himself, and his pan-Arabism. His appeal, and his dreams, certainly went beyond being an "Egyptian." You mention, bizarrely, Taha Hussain and "Pharaonism" but fail to identify Taha Hussain as a dangerous free-thinker very critical of Islam, who sought to find an alternate narrative to de-emphasize the sole appeal of Islam to Egypt's Muslims. And you know he was forced to recant, forced into silence - or don't you?

As for this business of "all Lebanese" knowing that they are the descendants of Phoenicians, that is completely false. Lebanese Muslims, in fact, are constantly attacking those Maronites who make that perfectly-justified claim. Do you not know this? Again, go to www.eccelibano.com and related sites. The Arabs have convinced other non-Arab peoples, over centuries, that they are "Arabs" and these pseudo-Arabs have been intent on emphasizing an "Arab" identity. Go ahead, karim, go right to Nasrallah and tell him that he's the descendant not of Arabs, but of Phooenicians. Go on Al-Jazeera, or al-Manar, and insist that 1) we in Lebanon all recognize that we are descended from the Phoenicians and 2) our "Arabness" comes from the linguistic and cultural imperialism of the Arab invaders. Try it.

Of course, you want to have it both ways. First, you want to make others believe that the Egyptians and Lebanese and so on, are not real Arabs, not descended from Arabs, but, on the other hand, "Arabness" is purely a matter of language, so that if you speak Arabic, you are an "Arab." But that is what Maronites and Copts do not accept, nor Assyrians, nor Chaldeans. And more and more of them are refusing to accept the imposed identity insisted upon by others who call themselves Arabs. And the same thing is happening among Berbers, both in the Kabyle, and elsewhere in North Africa and among the Berbers in France: they are fed up with Islam as a vehicle for Arab supremacism. See the writings of Kateb Yacine. For that matter, see Anwar Shaikh (from the subcontinent), who has written, from the safety of Great Britain, "Islam the Arab National Religion."

On the one hand, you inaccurately claim that everyone in Lebanon recognizes that they are "descendants of Phjoenicians" (those whose identity is Islamic and Arab do not, and you must knkow that) and that Muslims in Egypt still, today, as in 1920, mostly think of themselves as "
Egyptians" (but the Ikhwan does not, and it is the Ikhwan that will inherit Egypt once the corrupt Mubarak and his glossy family-and-friends regime goes under). No, it is the Copts who think of themselves as "Egyptian" and some of the most advanced, secular (i.e., trying to get out from the straitjacket of Islam without becoming apostates) born-into-Islam Muslims have joined them. But the primitive Muslim masses in Egypt, thanks to all kinds of propaganda coming from the oil-rich Arabs. A few weeks ago a brave Syrian "intellectual" appeared on Al-Jazeera, and obliquely belittled Islam by appealing to that sense of superiority of those in the north, outside the oil-rich Jazirat al-Arab, to those in the peninsula who had brought the gift of the "Bedouins" -- a clever way to obliquely cast doubt on Islam.

For that is the one thing you got right, in your second posting. That the "Arabs" in Egypt and Syria and Lebanon, and even Iraq, despise the rich but, as they see it, primitive and uncultivated Arabs of the Jazirat. Well, I find the pretentsions of the Muslims in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and so on to high -- that is Western-level -- culture, touching and embarrassing, for they obviously have no idea what the West has made opssible, in art and science, and in the development of ideas of individual autonomy and freedom, nor do they understand that in India and the Far East,, there are civilizations that have, coming at things differently but not held down by Islam, which for so many centuries has so stifled the very people who are, some of them without a choice, held in its mental or political thrall.

Posted by: Hugh at December 6, 2007 12:15 PM

Bishara said "I would have done it for free, but they offered money so I took it. It's only good business". Visit Bishara Waffle House in Damascus next time you're on a diplomatic mission. There is a picture of Nancy Pelosi on the wall.

Posted by: TheOmegaMan at December 6, 2007 12:19 PM

First of all, I never said everyone. I said the majority, which is absoutely true. The concept you
dont understand, or pretend not to understand, is that most Lebanese, Christians and Muslims, call themselves Arabs, without intending that they are descended from Bedouins. It is just that some Christians want to reject the label, and all its implications, all together. Pan-Arabism is a political move towards a fake unity, which rests on shaky foundations and is today a an ideology pretty much obsolete, without neccesarily or practically having to resorting to a common(non-existant) ethnictiy. I have every right to quote Taha Hussein, since this very article claims that to find a difference between a moderate and an extremist Muslim is next to impossible. Egyptians, more so then Muslim Lebanese, are very aware of their history, seeing that they profit from it. I have lived in Egypt and I have relatives there and most people I know, especially from the Middle Class, will tell you that we are not Arabs and even if they do, the intend to claim that we differ from copts is non-existant.

Posted by: karimguy at December 6, 2007 12:39 PM

No, when I tell Nasrallah that he is descended from
Phoenicians he as a Lebanese would certainly agree with me. But where is the contradicion to also having Arab ancestry, seeing that Western and Southern Eurpeans are intermixed with Slavs?
Migration is a human and historical fact. There is no pure race. This is also true for European Jews.

Posted by: karimguy at December 6, 2007 12:45 PM

Only one major problem: Bishara (Arabic for "Gospel") is a secular Christian, not a Muslim. His treason, which I do not doubt, originates not in religious feeling but rather in pan-Arabic feelings, of the sort which ought to have croaked with Nasser.

Posted by: Yossi Gurvitz at December 6, 2007 12:48 PM

Hmm. All major Israeli media outlet ignore this report. Interesting.

Posted by: Yossi Gurvitz at December 6, 2007 12:54 PM

There is no such claim in Islam as the pure race of Arabs. It is an absolute Invention. The culture of Muhammad is called the culture of Jahilia, ignorance, and even the Quran speaks condescending of "the Bedouin Arabs". The Quran actually says this:
If we made it a non-Arabic Quran they would have said, "Why did it come down in that language?" Whether it is Arabic or non-Arabic,say, "For those who believe, it is a guide and healing. As for those who disbelieve, they will be deaf and blind to it, as if they are being addressed from faraway."
41:44

So much for Arabic being the superior islamic language...

Posted by: karimguy at December 6, 2007 12:55 PM

All major Israeli media outlet ignore this report.

Nonsense. With all its human-rights violations, Israel is not the United States. The discussion must have been there, but you missed it. Thats your fault.

Posted by: karimguy at December 6, 2007 12:58 PM

Regardless of his faith, lack of faith, who he thinks his ancestors are or what color underwear he fancies, Azmi Bishara should be tried for treason and, if found guilty, executed.

Sounds like Israel needs a McCarthy.

Posted by: RalphInfidel at December 6, 2007 1:07 PM

Calling this guy a "Christian" may be just a headline. I not an expert on internal Israeli politics but here is the website for MK Bishara's political party.

http://www.maki.org.il/english/english.html

Typical left wing collusion with enemies nothing new here.

Posted by: ethoman at December 6, 2007 1:11 PM

Ethoman,

Bishara is not a member of CPI. I don't know whether he's a communist or not - his degrees are from an East German university, so suspicion is merited - but he's certainly not a member of the CPI, since lead (until a few months back) his own party, BALAD.

Mind you, saying he's not a Christian but rather a commie does NOT make him a Muslim.

Posted by: Yossi Gurvitz at December 6, 2007 1:58 PM

Yossi,

I followed some links off of Wikki ... it can be unreliable at times. Way better to get info from more reliable sources. Thanks for the correction.

Posted by: ethoman at December 6, 2007 2:05 PM

Yossi,

He is a self-proclaimed Marxist and an athiest. No person who advocates such can be considered a legitimate Christian, Jew, Hindu or anything else, regardless of his family background. We should take Bishara at his word about what he believes and advocates. This alone should be enough to have him tried as a traitor even if he wasn't a criminal as well.

Also Bishara is the man who threatened the life of the Melkite Archbishop of the Galil Elias Chacour because of Abuna Elias' efforts to forge a true peace by integrating Christians into Israeli society.

Posted by: Provoslavni at December 6, 2007 2:54 PM

"Only one major problem: Bishara (Arabic for "Gospel") is a secular Christian, not a Muslim. His treason, which I do not doubt, originates not in religious feeling but rather in pan-Arabic feelings...
-- from a poster above

You miss the point, made not only here but dozens of times before at this site. Bishara may be a "Communist" but he is still, in Muslim eyes, a "Christian," just as George Habash was,
and being a Communist does not absolve him, or prevent him from being seen as a Christian who must, to survive and be accepted, internalize and then parrot, the views of Muslim Arabs.

As written above, "Uruba" (Arabness) and Islam are so wedded, in the Arab consciousness, that only those Christians who are well-aware that their presence pre-dates that of Muslim invaders, and who, because of their numbers, can still possess a self-assured communal identity, as with Maronites and, to a lesser extent, Copts. The latter behave one way in Egypt. But once Copts are out of Egypt, all hell can break loose as they recognize, once free of constraints, what Islam is all about, and begin to make sense not only of the treatment they received, but of what other non-Muslims, even Jews, have endured.

George Habash was a Communist. But that is not what Muslims saw him as. They saw him as a Christian Arab, but one who made up for that defect ferocity of his hatred for Israel. Stayin' alive, stayin' alive. That was George Habash's motto. It is the same thing that caused Michel Aflaq to come up with Ba'athism, or Tariq Aziz to do the bidding of Saddam Hussein. It's the same thing that keeps the doubtfully-Muslim Alawite rulers in Syria careful to be as anti-Israel as any fully orthodox Sunni Muslim (the Ikhwan in Syria opposes the Alawites not merely, or mainly, because of their despotism, for if they were Sunni Arabs that would be overlooked, but because they are corrupt despots who happen to be Alawites, and that is unforgivable).

When it comes to the Arabs, not only a Muslim can be a Muslim. Such a "Christian" as Naim Ateek or Hanan Ashrawi can be a "Muslim" in the variant known as "islamochristian." So can a Communist, of Christian origins, who forever, as far as Muslms are concerned, is a "Christian" and therefore, if he knows what's good for him, will be an "islamochristian" even more transparently anti-Israel that Muslims to the manner born.

That has to be understood. That some Israelis, or many Israelis, don't understand this, hardly surprises. Many of them don't understand a lot of what they face, possibly because some have those de-rigueur "Palestinian" friends whom they take great pleasure in knowing, in coming to "understand," without having the slightest idea either of how they are being either deliberately misled, or their secular "Palestinian" friends, perhaps islamochristians, are themselves wilfully miscomprehending Islam.

Posted by: Hugh at December 6, 2007 3:24 PM

Hugh writes:
"When it comes to the Arabs, not only a Muslim can be a Muslim. "

That may be true, but in the interests of clarity,
the headline should be updated, because it suggests
(yes, I know, it doesn't state it as a fact) that
Bishara is a Muslim.

In any case, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, atheist,
communist, whatever, he's a traitor. If Israelis
had any common sense, there'd be a death penalty
for treason, and he'd be executed.

Posted by: root_cause at December 6, 2007 3:39 PM

"The Multiple Identities of the Middle East" by Bernard Lewis is, along with "The Political Language of Islam," his best, most useful work. The Muslim world is one where "identity" is all. What are you? You have to have some kind of label attached to you, or at least a label that others, Muslims, can give you. Main label: Muslim. Other labels (in the Middle East): Christian, Jew. That's about it, at least until one goes further into Asia. And it doesn't matter if you are an admirer of Hitler or of Stalin, a "Nazi" Muslim or a "Communist" Muslim or a "Capitalist" Muslim, or a "Nazi" Christian, "Communist" Christian, or for that matter an "atheist" Christian. As far as the Muslim view goes, you are still a Christian. And if you are, in the Middle East, a Christian Arab, and you want to survive, you had better learn soon enough to downplay your insecurities and fears of Islam, and instead parrot the Muslmi line, and even believe it -- to become, in short, an islamochristian. Maronites, Copts, and a few brave others won't do it, and in the West, even those who had been islamochristians, if they are very clever, and see what is going on, can shake off that mental burden.

Bishara, for all practical and most impractical purposes, remains a Christian as far as the Muslim Arabs are concerned. Being an atheist for such Muslims means merely being "an atheist Christian." Religion is much more a matter of identity, not of deep belief. Anyone who thinks otherwise had better read Lewis. And re-read him.

Those who contine to think otherwise are only fooling themselves or, still worse, attempting to fool others, about the nature of that deeply-embedded Muslim world-view.

Posted by: Hugh at December 6, 2007 3:49 PM

"The latter behave one way in Egypt. But once Copts are out of Egypt, all hell can break loose as they recognize, once free of constraints, what Islam is all about, and begin to make sense not only of the treatment they received, but of what other non-Muslims, even Jews, have endured."

You seem to be confusing behaviour with recognition.

The fact that Copts behave differently in the West is not necessarily because they have a blinding new recognition about what Islam is about once they are living in the different context.

It might very well be that the constraints on action change, and the behaviour thus changes, but not the recognition.

Recall Shenoute in Sadat's era. His failed attempts to begin standing up for the rights of Christians suggests that the servile behaviour in Egypt is a matter of coersion recognized as such, not of failure to recognize what Islam is.

All the same, your general point stands. I just don't think it stands of Copts as much as this particular passage suggests.

Posted by: hope_and_justice at December 6, 2007 3:56 PM

karimguy

So much for Arabic being the superior islamic language

Actually, arabic is the "the superior islamic language":

The hadith no. 5751 (Mishkat, Vol. 3) reports the Prophet saying:

Love the Arabs for three reasons because

1. I [Muhammad] am an Arab

2. The Holy Koran is in Arabic and

3. The tongue of the dwellers of paradise shall also be Arabic.

http://www.islam-watch.org/AnwarSheikh/Islam-Arab-Imperialism7.htm

Posted by: Crusader at December 6, 2007 4:36 PM

Egyptians didn't even consider themselves Arabs until the time of Nasser. Many still don't.

"Note, that Israel is the only country in the world, whose Supreme court legalized torture and hostage taking, calling it "bargaining chips"."

You picked the wrong site to criticise Israel. It is worshipped here (not by me, but you get the idea), not criticised.

Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at December 6, 2007 4:54 PM

"Note, that Israel is the only country in the world, whose Supreme court legalized torture and hostage taking, calling it "bargaining chips"."

Posted by: karimguy at December 6, 2007 11:53 AM

Shlomo_Michael, is that you? Has anyone else seen Shlomo_Michael in a while? Methinks he has been reincarnated, but then again, I could be wrong.

Posted by: awake at December 6, 2007 5:34 PM

Despite one's indulgence of so much, that indulgence is coming to an end for a particular poster. HIs presumption, and his ignorance, on his bicycle-jerry-built-for-two, prove not to be a winning team.

See here

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/019057.php#c481826

for a dissection of the latest example.

I doubt if he will remain to entertain us much longer.

Posted by: Hugh at December 6, 2007 5:36 PM

"Shlomo_Michael, is that you? Has anyone else seen Shlomo_Michael in a while? Methinks he has been reincarnated, but then again, I could be wrong."

...Ynkdoodle2, perhaps?

Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at December 6, 2007 6:24 PM

Yeah -- whatever happened to Ynkedoodl2? He hasn't been posting for a while.

Posted by: champ at December 6, 2007 6:28 PM

"karimguy"'s comment and those put forth by "ynkedoodle2" could'nt be any more opposite in tone.

Posted by: awake at December 6, 2007 7:15 PM

I doubt if he will remain to entertain us much longer.

Posted by: Hugh at December 6, 2007 5:36 PM

Per the immortal words of Mr. Blonde from "Reservoir Dogs"

Are you gonna bark all day little doggy, or are you gonna bite?

Posted by: awake at December 6, 2007 7:17 PM

I have at numerous times listened to Azmi Bisharah being interviewed on Al Jazeerah while he was a member of the Knesset and wondered why the Israeli government did not arrest him. If an American senator said the things about America that Bisharah says about Israel, of which he is a citizen, I would think he would be arrested for treason. It is one thing to be critical of your government; it is another thing to wish for its destruction and demolition.

Ed

Posted by: ed at December 6, 2007 7:21 PM

Hugh, as a long-time lurker, I applaud you wit and pieces on a wide variety of topics. One the topic of hatred of the Jews, your words brought tears to my eyes. Thanks.

Posted by: biorabbi at December 6, 2007 7:46 PM

Hugh, as a long-time lurker, I applaud you wit and pieces on a wide variety of topics. One the topic of hatred of the Jews, your words brought tears to my eyes. Thanks.

Posted by: biorabbi at December 6, 2007 7:47 PM

RoobartSbunsar,

Strange handle to appropriate.

So identify yourself.

Posted by: dgene at December 6, 2007 8:32 PM

RoobartSbunsar,

Strange handle to appropriate.

So identify yourself.

Posted by: dgene at December 6, 2007 8:35 PM

“I doubt if he will remain to entertain us much longer.”

(applause from the audience)

Posted by: butterfly at December 6, 2007 9:54 PM

(applause from the audience)

Posted by: butterfly at December 6, 2007 9:54 PM

Sssssh!, "butterfly", we are enjoying his silence here, albeit only temporarily.

Posted by: awake at December 6, 2007 9:58 PM

For the Disruptor or Dementor who has appeared on this thread - and has served thus only to expose his or her bottomless ignorance and malice, by contrast with Hugh's magisterial lucidity - I have only this to say:

Lamah rag’shu goyim
Ul’umim yeh’gu rik?
Yit’yats’vu malchei erets,
V’roznim nos’du yahad
Al Adonai v’al m’shiho.
N’natkah et mos’roteimo,
V’nashlichah mimenu avoteimo.
Yoshev bashamayim
Yis’hak, Adonai
Yil’ag lamo!

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at December 6, 2007 10:07 PM

dgene,

In case you misses my missives, here is all you need to know about "Roobart" aka "GetBornAgain", his previously used, now banned moniker.

Enjoy the debasement.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/017928.php#comments

Posted by: awake at December 6, 2007 10:08 PM

DDA wrote:,

"magisterial lucidity".

Spot on about Hugh. There is no greater compliment in my estimation.

Btw, I thoroughly enjoy when you post. Please, do continue.

Posted by: awake at December 6, 2007 10:12 PM

I think the most accurate way to view Azmi Bishara's relationship to his backgroud is to compare him to his mentor, the famous former Israeli lawyer/activist Felicia Langer who is the person most responsible for recruiting the young Azmi into political activism. In the case of both people, they never met a Muslim terrorist they didn't like.

I guess one could technically consider Ms. Langer to be a Jew but considering that she was also a Communist and an atheist, she can't be seen as part of the Jewish community any more than Azmi Bishara is part of any Christian community.

Just as Felicia Langer can be numbered as among that phenomenon known as self-loathing or self-hating Jews, Azmi Bishara would fall into the category of a "self-hating cultural Christian". In fact, I know some of his cousins and one told me that the one thing he despises even more than Israel are the "superstitious and capitalistic" Palestinian Christians who are "sheep" for the Israeli right wing. Well, despite his intentions, that's not really an insult to Christians since we'd rather be numbered among the sheep than among the goats.

Posted by: Provoslavni at December 6, 2007 10:48 PM

from an undisclosed Muslim country

France.

Posted by: special_guest at December 7, 2007 1:45 AM

""from an undisclosed Muslim country
France."

Why not the UK?

Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at December 7, 2007 5:12 AM

""The money was transferred from an undisclosed Muslim country, via Jordan."

.....contrary to rumors, neither France nor the UK is not Muslim yet...hmmm...via Jordan....I would suspect via Jordan via Syria via Iran.....as they say S..t flows downhill....

...pay no attention to the news reports that the US intelligence agencies say Iran has discontinued efforts to build or acquire the bomb...Iran continues to try to find ways to destroy Israel....one of these ways is to buy sensitive information on Israels military movements, on Israels security plans, on Israels military deployments and its strenghts and weaknesses, on Israels airforce routes and on Israels intelligence community activities....

...I suspect it is Iran who is the originator of the spy activity uncovered in Israel....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at December 7, 2007 7:33 AM

Many thanks Awake.

If 'Get Born Again' is 'Roobart', he is truly a misguided unsavoury and offensive character with little appreciation for history or, in my view, ethics, or for that matter, war.

And suffers from Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS)

Without a moral compass, am inhabitant is in hell, is in a wilderness of confusion.

He may recover, but it might require Divine Intervention (lol).

Posted by: dgene at December 7, 2007 9:54 AM

I'm glad the correction was added.

I also agree with what Provoslovni writes, in that
Bishara isn't a Christian, but Felicia Langer will
be considered Jewish even if she's a heretic. I
think Israel should reconsider it's concept of
nationality and citizenship soon. For that matter,
the USA should too.

Posted by: root_cause at December 7, 2007 4:12 PM

Bishara represents the lowest degree of dhimmitude. Just like Clinton and Albright murdering Serb Christians to please the Muslims.

Ruslan Tokhchukov, EnragedSince1999.

Posted by: Enragedsince1999 at December 8, 2007 1:46 PM

Root_cause,

Thanks for the input. Since Felicia Langer is an atheist and an obvious enemy of the Jewish people as well as an active traitor to Israel, would she not be considered a minim.

Maybe one of our more scholarly Jewish poster's can clarify this?

Posted by: Provoslavni at December 8, 2007 9:41 PM

Oops, didn't mean "more scholarly" than you... but "more scholarly" in the general sense of Rabbinic law and tradition. You definitely might be in this category.

Posted by: Provoslavni at December 8, 2007 9:46 PM

Hugh's comments are appropriate and helpful, as are pravo's. To sketch some more of Bishara's background. Many Middle Eastern Christians tried to change the political thinking in the Middle Eastern countries, especially Arab states, by creating a new identity into which they could fit.

One way was ostensibly secular Arab nationalism. Such Arabic-speaking Christians as George Antonius and the Hourani brothers argued that Arab nationalism had been founded by Lebanese Christians around the Syrian Protestant College, an American-missionary founded institution later known as American Univ of Beirut. Robert College in Constantinople and The American Univ of Cairo were also American-sponsored institutions. They seem to have hoped that a secular-based Arab movement and political structure would tolerate, even promote Christians, at least individually. And there's some evidence that things did work that way.

Another way was Communism, which attracted many more non-Arabs and non-Muslims than Arab Muslims. Nevertheless, the Bolsheviks were pro-Muslim and pro-Arab even before they took power in Russia. They were also clearly anti-Jewish, although this fact was obscured in tsarist and post-tsarist Russia, up to 1920, when the tsarist govt and the "Whites" in Russia were mudering Jews.

Another way was Arab fascism and fascist Arab nationalism, such as the Syrian National Socialist Party [or Syrian Social Nationalist Party, as you like]. The SNSP was founded by a Christian, as a matter of fact, a professor of German at the American U of Beirut, Antun Sa`adah. The Ba`ath too, as Hugh noted, was founded by a Christian, a Druze, and one Arab Muslim secularist.

His family as far as I know were middle class Christians, yet involved in the Communist Party in "palestine" under the British and later in the Israeli CP. Azmi and his obnoxious brother Marwan were educated as children in an American Baptist school in Nazareth. Later, the CP sent him to East Germany to university [Humboldt Univ, as I recall]. There he studied German philosophy, which we may assume comprised Judeophobic philosophers such as Kant & Hegel, as lesser lights.
After he returned to Israel, he was active in the CP, called Hadash, which was in fact an Arab nationalist party, with secularist pretensions, and egalitarian pretensions too, at least among Christians and Muslims. After the fall of the USSR, he went over to straight Arab nationalism.

As to why Israel tolerated his many subversive, treasonous acts, part of the problem is our corrupt Supreme Court and its judges. By the way, the chief justice [president judge, now a woman] recently had a cozy chat with the US ambassador on how to harm Jews.

Posted by: Eliyahu at December 9, 2007 11:08 AM