British Beheading Plot Was 'Days Away'

More on the latest foiled British jihad plot. "Source: British Beheading Plot Was 'Days Away,'" by Brian Ross and Alexis Debat at the ABC News blog (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

A plot to kidnap and behead a British soldier on videotape was only "days away" and led to the arrests today of nine men in Birmingham, England, a Scotland Yard source tells ABC News.

Most of the nine men are described as British citizens of Pakistani descent who are being held under Britain's new anti-terror laws.

A British intelligence source tells ABC News that a British soldier had already been selected as the victim, based on instructions the men allegedly received by e-mail from "outside the country."

The Islamic Mein Kampf

An important new initiative is underway. Details at FrontPage:

The Islamic Mein Kampf.

In a rational world, American universities would lead the way in exposing the noxious roots of Islamic terrorism. Instead of psychoanalyzing Rush Limbaugh or President Bush, they would devote their attentions to what makes terrorists tick. Readers of FrontPage Magazine are uniquely educated about the unholy alliance between academia and jihadists. Thus, we have launched the Terrorism Awareness Project -- www.TerrorismAwareness.org -- to educate college students directly.

In conjunction with the organization and website, we have produced the flash movie The Islamic Mein Kampf, as well as a scholarly pamphlet by the same name written by David Meir-Levi. Together, they provide a chilling and compelling testimony to the depths of bitter Islamic hatred and the threat a growing radical Muslim population poses to Europe, Israel, the United States, the Jewish people, and the world.

I am pleased to say that I'm part of this effort. From FrontPage today is also is this: "Introducing the Terrorism Awareness Project."

The David Horowitz Freedom Center has launched the Terrorism Awareness Project to combat the complacency and ignorance about the intentions of the radical Islamists who declared a holy war on the United States and the West on September 11, 2001.

If one thing was clear in the aftermath of the attack, it was this: the terrorists would be back. But the alarms 9/11 set off were soon muted by complacency and self doubt. After overthrowing the Taliban, the U.S. soon returned to the illusion of peace and security and confusion of purpose that had marked the Clinton era, when the Jihad first began to strike against our America. Because of the campaign by the “anti-war” movement, our populace as a whole is ignorant of the threat, doesn’t know the enemy, and is unaware of their true intent, capabilities and resolve. This is especially true of college students who face a daily barrage of anti-war and anti-American propaganda. The Terrorism Awareness Project is designed to make them aware of the threat of jihad and the struggle that lies ahead if this nation is to survive its assault.

The Freedom Center designed the Terrorism Awareness Project to put informative materials about the war on terror into the hands of millions of college students. The Project will identify campus coordinators at U.S. universities and colleges who want to make terrorism a priority at their schools. It will drop flash videos like The Islamic Mein Kampf directly into students’ and faculty members’ email boxes. It is placing a series of ads beginning with “What Americans Need to Know About Jihad” in all the leading college newspapers. It has prepared three pamphlets--The Nazi Roots of Palestinian Nationalism; The Islamic Mein Kampf, and What Every American Needs To Know About Jihad—which will be distributed throughout the university community. All three can be downloaded from the TAP website (www.terrorismawareness.org.)

The focal point for this campus campaign will be Terrorism Awareness Month. The Project’s campus coordinators including will distribute Terrorism Awareness Guide which will provide a brief history of the jihad and a bibliography of crucial books on the objectives of radical Islam. There will be well publicized screenings of “Obsession” (a documentary on the Islamists’ jihad recently featured on Fox News) and similar programs followed by panel discussions of experts on radical Islam such as Robert Spencer, Steven Emerson and Daniel Pipes. In addition to these public events, TAP chapter members will evaluate the Islamic or Mideast Studies departments of their campuses, analyze the bias of the reading materials and classroom discussions, and ask to present competing ideas in class. They will conduct an organized public relations campaign with their campus newspapers, including opeds and letters to the editor.

Iran role seen in attack on US troops

1938 Alert from The Australian, with thanks to Twostellas:

THE US believes it has the first evidence of direct involvement by Tehran against US forces in Iraq, suspecting Iranians were behind a January 20 attack on a military compound in Karbala in which five US soldiers were killed.

The news will boost the Bush administration's rhetoric on the need to forcibly curb Iran - a stance creating increasing nervousness among European allies and in the US Congress.

Citing unnamed US government officials, CNN said yesterday the Department of Defence was investigating whether the attack, carried out by men wearing uniforms resembling those of US troops, was carried out by Iranians or by Iraqi fighters taught by Iranians.

"We believe it's possible the executors of the attack were Iranian or Iranian-trained," one of the officials told CNN.

"This was beyond what we have seen militias or foreign fighters do," the official said.

"i am not an extremist, but i did threaten to kill a man who insulted islam"

Traditional Muslim Alert: of course Mohammed Saud, mohammed_souljha@hotmail.co.uk, who threatened to kill me in an email he sent me in December, is indeed not an extremist.

He recently wrote this in an email that was forwarded to me by a Jihad Watch reader who exchanged emails with him about his threatening me:

i am not an extremist, but i did threaten to kill a man who insulted islam.

What's "extremist" about that? The idea that people who insult Islam and Muhammad should be killed is mainstream in Islamic law, and is taught by all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence. I don't accept the assertion that I have done so by shedding light on the elements of Islam that jihadists use to justify their actions, but that is a separate matter. From the perspective of Islamic law there is nothing "extremist" about Mohammed Saud at all.

Saud also recalls romeosay@hotmail.com, who also threatened me some time ago. In the course of his threats he said:

I will be violent against anyone who hurts muslim feelings about Prophet.

It is a religion of peace for everyone until some duckhead sprews out his damn saliva on a senstive topic as this. Spencer will be delivered.

A religion of peace, until you insult us. Then we kill you.

Iran: Khamenei proposes anti-U.S. alliance to Russia

John VI Cantacuzenes Alert from AKI, with thanks to Fjordman:

Tehran, 29 Jan. (AKI) - During a meeting with Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov in Tehran, Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei was reported as calling on Monday for a cooperation between the two countries to halt US ambitions in the region. "The alliance between the Islamic Republic and the Russian Federation can stop US ambitions to conquer the region," Khamenei was quoted as saying by Iranian state television.

Russia and Iran are close commercial allies and Tehran's Bushehr nuclear power plant is being built with Russian technology despite the staunch opposition of the US which fears Iran is trying to build atomic weapons.

"Our two countries can forge a tie able to influence the political and economic choices of the region and halt America's ambition to rule the world," Khamenei said, also suggesting the creation of a joint gas exporting group like Opec based on their command of the world's largest natural gas reserves.

Bush unveils security aid for "Palestinian" "ally"

What madness has overtaken them, that they would betray a genuine ally for a false ally? Mahmoud "Raise rifles against Israel" Abbas is an ally? Of course, the genuine ally is doing it too. From AFP, with thanks to Kemaste:

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush has ordered the transfer of about 86 million dollars in aid to strengthen security forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, the White House said.

Confirmation of the US aid came a day after an Islamic militant carried out the first suicide bombing inside Israel in nine months and as Abbas' Fatah party is locked in a violent power struggle with the Islamist movement Hamas.

The aid is part of a broader US push to revive peace negotiations between Abbas and Israel and comes ahead of a meeting here Friday of the so-called Quartet of Mideast mediators -- the US, Russia,
European Union and United Nations.

US officials said the aid, described as non-lethal assistance including training, vehicles and uniforms, would help Abbas counter militant attacks on Israel like Monday's suicide bombing in the Red Sea resort of Eilat which killed three Israelis plus the bomber.

"The idea is to build the legitimate security forces, to help provide law and order in Gaza and the West Bank, fight terror, and to facilitate movement and access especially in Gaza," said national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

British Muslim soldier 'was target of terror plot'

Muslims in Britain plotted to behead a Muslim soldier of the British military, and show the beheading on the Internet.

By Adam Fresco and Daniel McGrory for The TimesOnline, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Security services said today that they had foiled a suspected plot to kidnap and torture a British Muslim soldier recently returned from service abroad before beheading him live on the internet.

Eight men were arrested in a series of dawn raids at 12 addresses in Birmingham. John Reid, the Home Secretary, has been informed of the arrests and is receiving regular updates about the operation.

Security sources said that the carefully planned operation had averted the alleged plan to kill the soldier, which was in its later stages.

The sources said that the alleged plotters planned to force their victim to plead for his life in online videos before torturing him and executing him much as Ken Bigley, the Liverpool hostage, was killed in Iraq in October 2004. The beheading would have been shown live on an extremist website.

The target, a man in his 20s who has not been named, is thought to have found out about the plot. He is now said to be in protective police custody. It is understood that a surveillance operation by anti-terror officers had been going on for several months.

In an unusual move, West Midlands police have called a press conference for later today to give more details about the police operation and to reassure the local communities.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: "We can confirm that a major counter terrorism operation took place earlier today led by West Midlands Police.

"The Home Secretary was fully briefed on the operation and is receiving regular updates as developments occur. This operation is a reminder of the real and serious nature of the terrorist threat we face."

D'Souza/Spencer Round II canceled

I was supposed to debate Dinesh D'Souza again tomorrow night on the online show "Libertarian Politics Live," but I have just received word that D'Souza has canceled. The show may be rescheduled at a later date.

You can hear the first debate, on the Lores Rizkalla Show a few nights ago, here, and my review of D'Souza's book here.

As far as I know, however, the CPAC debate is still on for March 1, and I am still willing and eager to debate Dinesh D'Souza anytime, anywhere.

Florida: Muslim doctor "volunteered as a medic for the al-Qaida military"

Aid and comfort to the enemy. "Judge: Doctor Can't Treat Terrorists," by Larry Neumeister for Associated Press, with thanks to Mackie:

NEW YORK (AP) -- A doctor accused of pledging to treat al-Qaida members can be prosecuted because medical care counts as material support to terrorists under federal law, a judge said Tuesday.

Dr. Rafiq Abdus Sabir, an Ivy League-educated doctor, had argued it was unconstitutional to prosecute a doctor for providing medical services.

He was arrested in May 2005 at his home in Boca Raton, Fla., accused in a plot to assist terrorist organizations along with a New York jazz musician, a Brooklyn bookstore owner and a former Washington, D.C., cabdriver. Sabir has pleaded not guilty and remained jailed since his arrest....

The judge said Sabir is not charged merely for being a doctor or for performing medical services.

"Here, Sabir is alleged essentially to have volunteered as a medic for the al-Qaida military, offering to make himself available specifically to attend to the wounds of injured fighters," she said. "Much as a military force needs weapons, ammunition, trucks, food and shelter, it needs medical personnel to tend to its wounded."

2 Accused of Terror Ties to Stay in U.S.

"An embarrassment to the rule of law." Yes. This kind of shoddy effort by prosecutors not only victimizes people who are possibly innocent -- Khader Hamide and Michel Shehadeh -- but it victimizes the rest of us if they are guilty. From AP, with thanks to Mackie:

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- An immigration judge ordered the federal government Tuesday to halt its 20-year effort to deport two Palestinian men accused of terrorist ties.

Judge Bruce J. Einhorn ruled the government had denied Khader Hamide and Michel Shehadeh, members of the so-called "L.A. Eight," due process by keeping them in legal limbo for so many years and being unprepared to prosecute the case.

In his 11-page opinion, Einhorn described the proceedings as "a festering wound on the body of respondents and an embarrassment to the rule of law." He scolded the government for failing to release evidence favorable to the men after he had ordered it.

The two men, five other Palestinians and a Kenyan faced deportation since 1987. They were arrested on suspicion of association with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a radical offshoot of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which has opposed peace negotiations between the PLO and Israel. The U.S. government considers it a terrorist organization.

The eight have denied being members, and immigrant rights groups have called the case politically motivated.

Attorney Marc Van Der Hout, who represents the "L.A. Eight," said the judge's order will make it safer for immigrants to express political views.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement "finds the judge's decision troubling as a matter of fact and law, and the agency is considering its legal options," according to an agency statement.

Radicalized convert to Islam: "I became persuaded intellectually by the theological case" of the jihadists

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross explains in FrontPage, in the course of an interview about his new book My Year Inside Radical Islam, how he was convinced as a new convert to Islam that the jihadists were right -- by their theological arguments. He went to work at what turned out to be a terror-linked charity, and gradually they convinced him that their views were Qur'anically correct.

This is no surprise. The jihadist appeal within the larger Muslim community is theological, calling Muslims to the observance of what they characterize as "pure Islam." Moderate Muslims have never mounted any significant counter-movement to this, although virtually everyone takes for granted that they have a strong and traditional theological basis within Islam for their views. This is the great Emperor's New Clothes aspect of today's public debate.

FP: So what was the process of radicalization inside Al Haramain, the radical Islamic charity you worked for? And how did it happen that teachings that you once held as abhorrent eventually struck you as compelling?

Gartenstein-Ross: When I took the job, I assumed that I wouldn't see eye-to-eye with my coworkers on some spiritual matters, but that we could simply agree to disagree. Little did I realize that my ideas would instead fall into line with theirs. There were a number of reasons for this. I felt a great deal of peer pressure to accept radical conclusions. I complied more and more with external manifestations of the faith (growing a beard, eating only with my right hand, rolling my pants legs up above my ankles, refusing to pet a dog or shake hands with women) that were themselves not radical, but coupled with the prevalent teachings inside Al Haramain pushed me in a radical direction. The biggest factor, however, was that over time I became persuaded intellectually by the theological case advanced by my coworkers and the visiting scholars who frequently joined us.

US Judge ok's case against accused jihad-funding bank

A major victory. "US oks cases against accused terror-funding bank, from AP, with thanks to Gabrielle Goldwater:

Israelis and other foreign nationals can pursue claims in US courts accusing the Jordan-based Arab Bank of promoting Palestinian suicide attacks by funneling Saudi money to bombers' families, a judge ruled.

In a written decision in federal court in Brooklyn, US District Judge Nina Gershon upheld a lawsuit Monday filed under US law that gives non-US citizens access to courts in order to challenge violations of international laws or treaties.

44 dead in attacks on Shi'ite ceremonies in Iraq

More attacks on Ashura ceremonies. Sunni/Shi'ite Jihad Update. "On Shiites' holiest day, 44 dead in Iraq," by Kim Gamel for Associated Press:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Assailants struck Shiite worshippers in three Iraqi cities Tuesday, killing at least 39 people in bombings and ambushes during the climax of ceremonies marking Ashoura, the holiest day in the Shiite calendar. In apparent retaliation, mortar shells slammed into predominantly Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad hours later, killing at least five people and wounding 20, officials said.

Tens of thousands of Shiites Muslims converged on the holy city of Karbala — where the 7th-century battle took place that cemented the schism between Sunnis and Shiites — beating their chest and heads to mark the death of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson. The entire city was sealed off, all vehicles were banned, and pilgrims were searched at numerous checkpoints, a day after the Iraqi army said it had foiled a plot by a messianic Shiite group to storm the nearby city of Najaf.

The bloodiest attack Tuesday occurred when a suicide bomber blew himself up among a crowd of worshippers entering a Shiite mosque, killing 19 people and wounding 54 in Mandali, a predominantly Shiite city northeast of Baghdad and near the Iranian border.

To the north, a bomb in a garbage can exploded as scores of Shiites — most them Kurds — were performing rituals in Khanaqin, a majority Kurdish city also near the Iranian border. At least 13 people were killed and 39 were wounded, police Maj. Idriss Mohammed said.

"I was participating in Ashoura ceremonies with my son and all of a sudden the bloodshed hit," Abdul Jasim Hassan said, holding his 11-year-old son, Hussein, whose right leg was bleeding.

Nawal Hasson said she pleaded with her husband not to go to the ceremonies but went with him when he refused to stay home.

"I had a feeling that something might happen, because terrorists are always targeting Shiites," she said.

The two bombings occurred on the edge of Diyala province, not far from Baqouba, where fighting has raged for weeks between Sunni insurgents, Shiite militiamen and U.S.-Iraqi troops.

[...]

Last year's Ashoura commemorations were largely peaceful, but suicide bombers killed 55 Shiites in 2005 and twin blasts killed at least 181 people in 2004.

Saudi Shi'ites troubled by Sunni rhetoric

Sunni/Shi'ite Jihad Update by Donna Abu-Nasr for Associated Press:

QATIF, Saudi Arabia -- Like many Saudi Shi'ites, Abdullah Abdul-Hussein is worried that if the government does not end anti-Shi'ite tirades by influential Sunni clerics, the sectarian conflict ravaging Iraq and threatening Lebanon could spread to his country.

"This rhetoric provokes trouble," said Abdul-Hussein, referring to recent statements from key members in Saudi Arabia's clerical establishment that have urged Sunnis around the world to expel Shi'ites from their lands.

"We are all citizens of the same country. The government should not allow such excess," said the 37-year-old merchant, expressing a worry shared by many in this mainly Shi'ite town.

Fears of sectarian tensions go beyond this sleepy oasis in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, where the kingdom's Shi'ite minority is centered. The bloodshed in Iraq and turmoil in Lebanon have enflamed the Shi'ite-Sunni divide across the Middle East and in much of the Islamic world....

Read it all for examples of Sunni/Shi'ite tensions and violence around the Islamic world.

American Muslim groups call for end to "harassment" of Sami Al-Arian

The American Muslim Alliance (AMA), Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA), Muslim American Society (MAS), Muslim Student Association-National (MSA-N), Muslim Ummah of North America (MUNA), Project Islamic Hope (PIH), and United Muslims of America (UMA) rush to the defense of Sami Al-Arian, an admitted member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Yet most officials and media talking heads will continue to assume that these are "moderate" groups.

"American Muslims Call Al-Arian Imprisonment 'Double Jeopardy,'" a press release from a coalition group, The American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT):

WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT), a national coalition of major American Muslim organizations, today said the new prison sentence given to former Florida professor Sami Al-Arian amounted to unconstitutional "double jeopardy."

Al-Arian recently began a hunger strike after being given a sentence of up to 18 months for refusing to testify before a grand jury in Virginia. He and his attorney say an early plea agreement freed him from further cooperation with the government. Al-Arian's supporters say he is being held in a rat and cockroach-infested prison and is being forced to wear dirty and inadequate clothing as a form of harassment.

In 2005, a Florida jury rejected federal charges that Al-Arian operated a cell for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Al-Arian later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was scheduled for release and deportation in April.

A lesser charge. See here what he really admitted to.

Sunni jihad/martyrdom attack targeting Shia procession kills 2 in Pakistan

"The Americans Love Pepsi-Cola, We Love Death" Alert: the procession was going down the street while cutting their heads until the blood streamed down their faces, and then the bomber tried to stop them by...blowing himself up.

"Suicide attack targeting Shia procession kills 2 in Pak," from the Times of India:

ISLAMABAD: A suicide bomber intending to target a Shia procession on Monday blew himself up killing two people, including a policeman, and injuring seven others in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier province despite a heavy security blanket to check sectarian violence during Muharram.

The suicide attack in Dera Ismail Khan is the third to rock Pakistan in the last four days and comes two days after another bombing left 14 people dead in the NWFP capital, Peshawar. "He had a bomb strapped to his stomach and blew himself up," a senior provincial official said.

State run PTV said the suicide bomber intended to target a Shia process procession taken out during Muharram period. The bomber apparently refused to be searched and detonated explosives strapped to his body, which killed three persons including the attacker and police officer....

The suicide bombers suspected to be from the extremist groups of Sunni sect target the processions taken out by Shias during the period. Pakistani police and para-military troops have been put on high alert throughout the country.

Spencer: The D'Souza Follies

The featured article at FrontPage this morning is my full review of Dinesh D'Souza's The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11:

Dinesh D’Souza’s new book, The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, is not all bad. He is absolutely right that Osama bin Laden’s perception that Bill Clinton was weak in the 1990s led to the stepping-up of global jihad efforts. But the central point of the book is that “the cultural left in this country is responsible for causing 9/11,” not only by fostering a view that America was weak, but by spreading around the world “a decadent American culture that angers and repulses traditional societies, especially those in the Islamic world that are being overwhelmed with this culture. In addition, the left is waging an aggressive global campaign to undermine the traditional patriarchal family and to promote secular values in non-Western cultures. This campaign has provoked a violent reaction from Muslims who believe that their most cherished beliefs and institutions are under assault.” Therefore, “without the cultural left, 9/11 would not have happened.”

In response, D’Souza calls for the American right to build a traditional values coalition with what he calls “traditional Muslims,” who abhor both bin Laden and Britney Spears. “Admittedly,” he acknowledges, “some on the right may feel uncomfortable about teaming up with Muslims. Yes, I would rather go to a baseball game or have a drink with Michael Moore than with the grand mufti of Egypt. But when it comes to core beliefs, I’d have to confess that I’m closer to the dignified fellow in the long robe and prayer beads than to the slovenly fellow with the baseball cap.” Which core beliefs? D’Souza doesn’t say, but the grand mufti of Egypt has declared sculpture un-Islamic, so perhaps he and D’Souza could get together for a fun evening of statue-smashing. Of course, that is one of the core beliefs of the mufti that no doubt D’Souza does not share. But this is just one example of D’Souza’s propensity to make statements without apparently having examined their implications.

For although his book is focused on the Left, D’Souza has criticism for the Right also. He asserts that in order to cement the necessary alliance with these “traditional” Muslims, “the right must take three critical steps. First, stop attacking Islam. Conservatives have to cease blaming Islam for the behavior of the radical Muslims. Recently the right has produced a spate of Islamophobic tracts with titles like Islam Unveiled, Sword of the Prophet, and The Myth of Islamic Tolerance. There is probably no better way to repel traditional Muslims, and push them into the radical camp, than to attack their religion and their prophet.” He offers no prescription for how his “traditional Muslims” can repel the appeal to violence that jihadists everywhere base on the teachings of “their religion and their prophet,” for presumably in D’Souza’s ideal world even Muslim reformers, since they insult Muslim sensibilities, would be forbidden to discuss the Islamic teachings that jihadists use today to make their case among Muslims. How anyone would in that case counter or repel this jihadist appeal D’Souza does not explain.

Conservatives also must also “stop holding silly seminars on whether Islam is compatible with democracy. In reality, a majority of the world’s Muslims today live under democratic governments – in Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Turkey, not to mention Muslims living in Western countries. There is nothing in the Koran or the Islamic tradition that forbids democracy.” And “if they want Sharia, let them have it.” Of course, even if most Muslims today do live under democracies, to assume that this means Islam is compatible with democracy is like saying that most Russians loved Stalin’s reign of terror, since they lived under it regime for so long.

But that is just a small example from one of the most poorly reasoned books I have ever read. There is so much wrong with it that a review that noted it all would be as long as the book itself, and many have already pointed out some of the holes in D’Souza’s thesis: although Kathryn Lopez fawned over D’Souza in National Review, the New York Times, Glenn Beck, and others have given him a hard time. D’Souza’s central contention, that the left has allied with Islamic jihadists and therefore the right should ally with “traditional Muslims” on the basis of shared moral values, is wrong in numerous ways. First, who are these “traditional Muslims”? In his entire book, D’Souza offers not a single name, although his criticism of conservative opposition to the Dubai ports deal last year suggests that he may consider the United Arab Emirates (which he calls “the small country of Dubai”) a “traditional Muslim” state. D’Souza doesn’t mention the fact that the 9/11 hijackers used the Emirates as a base of operations, or that Al-Qaeda has claimed to have infiltrated the Emirati government.

It is not surprising that D’Souza supported this deal, which would have turned over operation of six American ports to a UAE company -- for it manifested the same mistaken belief that D’Souza articulates in his new book: that the Islamic world hates the West because of something we have done, which we can undo with the proper display of good will. Throughout his book D’Souza shows no awareness whatsoever of the jihad ideology, which remains constant while the pretexts and grievances that fuel it shift. In fact, he asserts that “despite the religious enthusiasm of many suicide bombers, Islam has been around for more than a thousand years, and for most of its history it produced neither suicide attackers nor terrorists. It is only contemporary Islam that provides an inspiration for suicide missions and attacks on civilians.”

While comforting, this is false. Today’s jihadist predilection for suicide attacks is a matter of technological progress making possible what had hitherto been impossible; it does not represent a theological divergence from traditional Islam. Suicide attack recruiters today point to Qur’an 9:111, which guarantees Paradise to those who “kill and are killed” for Allah. This was not added into the Qur’an by contemporary Muslims, and has been acted upon by Muslims in the past: Andrew Bostom has found that John Paul Jones encountered suicide attacks by Muslim Turks in 1788. Jones described a naval encounter between the Turks and the Russians that took place when Jones served in the Russian Navy: “The Turks,” Jones explained, “had a very large force, and we have been informed by our prisoners that they were resolved to destroy us, even by burning themselves, (in setting fire to their own vessels after having grappled with ours.)” (Emphasis added.)

As for attacks on civilians, they are not forbidden in all cases in Islamic law. The prophet of Islam, Muhammad, himself ordered the assassinations of several poets who had made fun of him in their verses, and rewarded the killers – Muhammad’s first biographer, Ibn Ishaq, records these incidents approvingly. Here, as in all cases, Muhammad’s example became normative for Muslims. The Muslim jurist al-Mawardi in his legal manual al-Akham al-Sultaniyyah (4.2) allows for the killing of women and children who are perceived as in some way aiding the war effort against the Muslims. Other Islamic legal authorities echo this judgment (cf. ‘Umdat al-Salik o9.10).

And in Islamic history, the restriction that civilians were only liable to attack when they were perceived as aiding the war effort against Muslims was at times interpreted quite elastically. As Giles Milton documents in White Gold, the Muslim raiders who from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries kidnapped thousands of British men, women and children and sold them into brutal slavery in North Africa believed they were warriors of Islam engaged in a jihad. Much earlier, in 1148, Muslim commander Nur ed-Din did not hesitate to order the killing of every Christian in Aleppo. In 1268, when the jihad forces of the Mamluk Sultan Baybars took Antioch from the Crusaders, Baybars was annoyed to find that the Crusader ruler, Count Bohemond VI, had already left the city. So he wrote to Bohemond to make sure he knew what his men had done in Antioch: “You would have seen your knights prostrate beneath the horses’ hooves, your houses stormed by pillagers and ransacked by looters, your wealth weighed by the quintal, your women sold four at a time and bought for a dinar of your own money!...You would have seen your Muslim enemy trampling on the place where you celebrate the Mass, cutting the throats of monks, priests and deacons upon the altars, bringing sudden death to the Patriarchs and slavery to the royal princes.”[1]

When jihadists entered Constantinople on May 29, 1453, again the rivers of blood ran, as historian Steven Runciman notes: the Muslim soldiers “slew everyone that they met in the streets, men, women, and children without discrimination. The blood ran in rivers down the steep streets from the heights of Petra toward the Golden Horn.”[2] Likewise, the Indian historian Sita Ram Goel notes that when the Muslim forces entered India, “the Sunnah [tradition] of the Prophet…required its warriors to fall upon the helpless civil population after a decisive victory had been won on the battlefield. It required them to sack and burn down villages and towns after the defenders had died fighting or had fled. The cows, the Brahmins, and the Bhikshus invited their special attention in mass murders of non-combatants….Those whom they did not kill, they captured and sold as slaves….And they did all this as mujahids (holy warriors) and ghazis (kafir [unbeliever]-killers) in the service of Allah and his Last Prophet.”[3]

Terrorism? If that word is understood to refer to attacks on civilians meant, at least in part, to demoralize an enemy population, then these incidents and many others like them were most assuredly terrorism. Moreover, they were part of an imperialistic pattern that even D’Souza acknowledges: “Inspired by Islam’s call to jihad,” he observes, “Muhammad’s armies conquered Jerusalem and the entire Middle East, then pushed south into Africa, east into Asia, and north into Europe.” Indeed, before Muhammad had been dead ten years (he died in 632), Muslim armies took Syria, Egypt, and Persia. Muslim armies conquered Damascus in 635, only three years after Muhammad’s death; substantial portions of Iraq in 636; Jerusalem in 638; Caesarea in 641; and Armenia in 643. The conquest of Egypt took place in the same period. The Muslims also won decisive victories over the Byzantines at Sufetula in Tunisia in 647, opening up North Africa; and over the Persians at Nihavand in 642. By 709 they had complete control of North Africa; by 711 they had subdued Spain and were moving into France. Sicily fell in 827. By 846 Rome was in danger of being captured by Muslim invaders; repulsed, the Muslims “sacked the cathedrals of St. Peter beside the Vatican and of St. Paul outside the walls, and desecrated the graves of the pontiffs.”[4]

Was this imperialist history motivated by the depravity of Western culture? The more one examines the historical record of jihad conquest, the more risible the question appears. An inventory of jihad wars across the world today achieves the same effect. Are Buddhist schoolteachers in Thailand the exponents of American pop culture? Are Christian schoolgirls beheaded in Indonesia on their way to school the vanguard of an invasion by Eve Ensler? Are churches torched in Nigeria because they are showing blue movies during off hours?

D’Souza takes no notice of the fact that these conquests were inspired by the same theological ideology that fuels today’s global jihad. Yet even Islamic apologist John Esposito acknowledges the reality of this theological ideology: “As Islam penetrated new areas,” Esposito writes, “people were offered three options: (1) conversion, that is, full membership in the Muslim community, with its rights and duties; (2) acceptance of Muslim rule as ‘protected’ people and payment of a poll tax; (3) battle or the sword if neither the first nor the second option was accepted.”[5] This triple choice was based on Muhammad’s words: “Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war…When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action. If they respond to any one of these you also accept it and withhold yourself from doing them any harm. Invite them to (accept) Islam; if they respond to you, accept it from them and desist from fighting against them…If they refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the Jizya. If they agree to pay, accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help and fight them” (Sahih Muslim 4294).

Is this just a matter of “cherry-picking” negative material? D’Souza would probably say it was. He notes that “Islam is notorious for the harshness of some of its punishments, such as cutting off the arms and legs of thieves, flogging adulterers, and executing drug dealers.” However, “in this respect one may say, with only a hint of irony, that Muslims are in the Old Testament tradition.” He does not explain, however, why, if that were true, no Jews and Christians are cutting off the arms and legs of thieves or flogging adulterers today – in other words, he completely bypasses the interpretative traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam in order to make the crudest of moral equivalence arguments. Nor does he inform the reader that in fact the Old Testament says nothing whatsoever about cutting off arms and legs of thieves – in fact, the “eye for an eye” provision had already moved beyond the barbarism of such punishments.

However, in light of the above statements by Muhammad and many others like them that enjoin warfare against unbelievers, D’Souza’s assertion that blaming Muhammad “for the pathologies of radical Islam” is tantamount to blaming Martin Luther King “for the pathologies of inner-city black America” is absurd. For while it is doubtful that drug dealers and pimps ever quote King’s words to justify their actions, jihadists routinely invoke Muhammad’s example to justify theirs. At the beheading of American hostage Nicholas Berg in May 2004, Iraqi jihad leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi declared: “The Prophet, the most merciful, ordered [his army] to strike the necks of some prisoners in [the battle of] Badr and to kill them....And he set a good example for us.”[6] London Muslim leader Hani Al-Sibaai in February 2005 justified the slaughters being perpetrated by Al-Zarqawi’s mujahedin in Iraq: “[T]he Prophet drove nails into and gouged out the eyes of people from the ‘Urayna Tribe. They were merely a group of thieves who stole from sheep herders, and the Prophet drove nails into them and threw them into the Al-Hrara area, and left them there to die. He blinded them and cut off their opposite legs and arms. This is what the Prophet did on a trifling matter – let alone in war.”[7]

Moreover, Muhammad commanded his followers to fight “those who disbelieve in Allah,” not just to those who disbelieve in Allah and are threatening the stability of traditional Islamic culture. Likewise Qur’an 9:29 commands Muslims to fight against “the people of the book” – that is, principally Jews and Christians – “until they pay the jizya [a special tax on non-Muslims] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” The verse does not stipulate that Jews and Christians should be fought if they are immoral and that immorality is threatening the Muslims: it commands war against them simply because they are Jews and Christians. This is a mainstream view in Islamic thought: the great Muslim philosopher Averroes (1126-1198) wrote: “the Muslims are agreed that the aim of warfare against the People of the Book...is twofold: either conversion to Islam, or payment of poll-tax (jizya).”[8] The tenth century Muslim writer Ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani (922-996), a legal theorist of the Maliki school of jurisprudence (madhhab) wrote in a similar vein: “Jihad is a precept of Divine institution....We Malikis maintain that is preferable not to begin hostilities with the enemy before having invited the latter to embrace the religion of Allah except where the enemy attacks first. They have the alternative of either converting to Islam or paying the poll tax [jizya], short of which war will be declared against them.”[9]

This is the same ideology that motivates today’s jihadists – as Osama bin Laden wrote to the American people, “The first thing we are calling you to is Islam.” Because violent jihad is so deeply rooted in the Qur’an and Islamic theology and tradition, jihadists present themselves among Muslims as the exponents of “pure Islam” – and make recruits on that basis. This recruitment centers on the Qur’an and other key Islamic texts. Take, for example, the case of Sahim Alwan, an American citizen and leader of the Yemeni community in Lackawanna, New York and onetime president of the mosque there. He has the distinction of being the first American to attend an Al-Qaeda training camp. Why did he go? He was convinced to do so by Kamal Derwish, an Al-Qaeda recruiter. Alwan explained that Derwish taught him that the Qur’an “says you have to learn how to prepare. Like, you gotta be prepared just in case you do have to go to war. If there is war, then you would have to be called for jihad.”[10]

Jihadists are pressing forward with jihad activity around the world today, after a long period of relative quiescence, because Saudi oil billions and the Khomeini revolution in Iran have made this reassertion of the jihad ideology possible. Jihadists do use the depravity of American culture as a recruiting tool, but this is more of a pretext than a root cause. In confusing the two, of course, D’Souza is not alone. Others on both the Left and the Right today differ with him on the root cause, but not on his assumption that the jihad is a reaction to American provocation – in other words, it is not something that springs from motivations to be found within Islam. Some point to the invasion of Iraq, or the establishment of Israel in 1948, or the toppling of Iran’s Mossadegh in 1953 — or a more generalized offense such as “American neo-colonialism” or “the lust for oil.” Those who are particularly forgetful of history blame it on newly minted epiphenomena such as the Abu Ghraib prison scandals or the alleged atrocities at Guantanamo.

But the jihadists were fighting long before Abu Ghraib, Iraq, Israel, or even the independence of the United States. Indeed, they have been fighting and imitating their warrior prophet ever since the seventh century – and, incidentally, for most of that time they have played the innocent victim no matter how much violence they themselves perpetrated. During the Crusades, Islamic writers consistently portrayed the Europeans as aggressors who had carried out an unprovoked attack on the Islamic world (as most Europeans and Americans see them today). It never occurred to those writers that the attacks on Christians in the Holy Land, and 450 years of jihadist aggression that had overwhelmed over half of Christendom, might have had something to do with the arrival of the “Franks” – just as it never occurs to D’Souza or most analysts today that Islamic jihad could be anything but a defensive reaction to aggression by others.

What’s more, the immorality of the West has been a feature of Islamic anti-Western writings since long before Britney Spears took to the stage. Jihad theorist Sayyid Qutb was scandalized by the dancing at a church social in Greeley, Colorado in 1948; however, D’Souza errs in attributing his jihadist views to this trip. Before he went to America, Qutb wrote Social Justice In Islam, calling for Islamic Sharia law to rule the world. The immorality he saw in American culture did not itself turn him against America, but illustrated for him why America was unfit to rule the world, and why only Islam was fit for that role. That immorality was never for Qutb the root cause of his opposition to America. And eight centuries before Qutb’s birth, a recurring feature of Muslim polemic against the Crusaders was the sexual immorality of the “Franks.” According to an anonymous poet at the time of the First Crusade, the Europeans completely overturned the moral order: “What is right is null and void and what is forbidden is made licit.”[11]

Have Westerners always been less morally upright than Muslims? According to D’Souza’s thesis, that’s the only possibility that could explain the fact that every century since the advent of Islam has seen jihad warfare. But it should be borne in mind that from the Islamic perspective, Christians are inherently immoral simply by virtue of their – in the Muslim view – exalting Jesus to divine status. The Qur’an has Allah asking Jesus: “Didst thou say unto mankind: Take me and my mother for two gods beside Allah?” (5:116). The deification of Christ has earned Christians the curse of Allah: “The Christians call Christ the son of Allah…Allah’s curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth!” (9:30). In the Muslim view, this “association of partners with Allah” – shirk -- is a more grievous immorality than the most heinous crimes. The apologetic Call to Islaam website explains: “Murder, rape, child molesting and genocide. These are all some of the appalling crimes which occur in our world today. Many would think that these are the worst possible offences which could be committed. But there is something which outweighs all of these crimes put together: It is the crime of shirk.”[12] From that perspective, no matter how upright Christians may be, they are still immoral in the Islamic view.

In any case, despite the fact that D’Souza is aware, as he puts it, that “traditional Muslims are not ‘moderates,’” and that there are no theological differences and few political differences between them and the jihadists, he recommends that conservatives ally with them. He seems to envision this alliance as a counterbalance to the Left’s alliance with the global jihad, which certainly exists. D’Souza spends a great deal of time explaining how a 2004 message from Osama bin Laden is dedicated to convincing “his allies in America to coordinate their actions more closely with his.” However, D’Souza ignores Osama’s 2002 message to the American people, which could be read as an appeal to social conservatives in exactly the same way that D’Souza reads his 2004 message as an appeal to liberals. In the 2002 letter, bin Laden says to Americans: “We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gamblings, and trading with interest….You are a nation that permits acts of immorality, and you consider them to be pillars of personal freedom. You have continued to sink down this abyss from level to level until incest has spread amongst you, in the face of which neither your sense of honour nor your laws object.” Was bin Laden angling for an alliance with Pat Robertson, as well as Michael Moore?

In reality, the jihadists will ally with anyone foolish enough to enter into an alliance with them. The unhinged anti-Americanism of the Left has led them already to embark upon this path; now D’Souza is calling conservatives to follow their example with people he acknowledges have no theological differences with the jihadists. And what will this alliance look like? Conservative Americans will agree with D’Souza’s “traditional Muslims” against abortion and pornography. What, then, will they do when their new allies begin agitating for polygamy and the execution of apostates? Will conservatives be put into a position of opposing gay marriage while supporting polygamy? Will they be able to criticize Islam then?

Is this inconceivable? Why? D’Souza asserts that most Muslims oppose polygamy, but it nonetheless is widely practiced and enjoys the sanction of Muhammad’s example and Islamic law. Will then no “traditional Muslim” ever assert it – and even insist upon it in the face of opposition from mere infidels? On what grounds does D’Souza assume that “traditional Muslims” will happily enter into an alliance with non-Muslim Americans as equal partners? The answer, of course, is that he appears to be unaware of the mainstream character of jihad and Sharia supremacism within Islam; he doesn’t seem to know that Islamic tradition unanimously teaches that “Islam must dominate, and not be dominated.” On what grounds does he believe that “traditional Muslims” will set this principle aside indefinitely? Of course, the “traditional Muslims” upon which D’Souza places so much hope are the ordinary people of the Islamic world, who like ordinary people everywhere simply want to go about making a living and taking care of their families. He portrays them as rejecting polygamy, the execution of apostates, and other unpleasant features of Islamic law and practice. And certainly it’s true that for centuries -- notably, although not universally, in central Asia, Eastern Europe, and West Africa -- jihad supremacism and other elements of Islam for many Muslims lay dormant and even dropped out of the Muslim consciousness. But this is not a strong enough basis for an alliance, since these cultural Muslims do not have a theological foundation within Islamic theology and law -- and now jihadists are using chapter and verse of Qur’an and Sunnah to teach their vision of Islam to cultural Muslims. What will prevent D’Souza’s “traditional Muslims” from being susceptible to such recruitment?

This question becomes even more urgent in light of the fact that D’Souza believes that discussion of the elements of Islam that jihadists use to justify their actions will just drive these “traditional Muslims” to become jihadists. He insists that this is so despite the fact that he himself speaks forthrightly about negative aspects of Islamic culture, such as child marriage: “many traditional Muslims,” he says, “look with revulsion at the sight in their countries of young girls attached to men old enough to be their fathers.” Very well, but this practice is rooted in the example of Muhammad, who consummated his marriage with his favorite wife, Aisha, when he was in his early fifties and she was nine. Yet D’Souza would apparently forbid any discussion of how Muhammad’s example is deleterious here.

It is in this connection that he mentions my books Islam Unveiled and The Myth of Islamic Tolerance, along with Serge Trifkovic’s superb Sword of the Prophet. (Trifkovic has ably answered D’Souza here.) D’Souza’s point about such books, however, can again just as easily be used against him by inverting his thesis. While he claims that criticism of Islam breeds jihadists, it is just as easy to say that there is no better way to repel anti-jihad leftists and push them into the arms of the jihadists (with whom so much of the Left is already allied), than to dub them “the enemy at home.”

Even worse, when D’Souza assumes that peaceful Muslims will have a greater sense of solidarity with jihadists than with non-Muslims, he destroys his entire thesis. For if these peaceful Muslims really abhor jihadism, they should have no reason to object to critical presentations of the elements of Islam that foster jihadism. But if a few books will be enough to drive them into the arms of the jihadists, then how committed could they really have been to peace and moderation in the first place? D’Souza is assuming that they regard global jihad terrorism as less damaging to their religion than “Islamophobic tracts,” which in itself completely undermines D’Souza’s assumption that jihad terrorism is a twisting of “traditional” Islam. Shouldn’t violence perpetrated in the name of their cherished religion make them much more indignant than some books that explore the Islamic roots of jihad terrorism – even if those books were offensive (which they aren’t by any rational standard)? Throughout his book D’Souza makes moral equivalence arguments about the Judeo-Christian tradition and Islam. At one point he even asserts that the Islamic moral code of stonings and beheadings amounts to Old Testament morality (but doesn’t bother to explain why no Jews and Christians practice stoning or beheading). Yet the equivalence breaks down on the level of behavior: Christians have never embraced violence in reaction to innumerable insults to their faith in recent years. Why should we ask or expect less of Muslims?

And by the way, it is odd that D’Souza, for all his disgust for the Left, would pick up on the Leftist coinage “Islamophobia,” a trumped-up, politically manipulative term intended to stifle debate. I would have thought D’Souza would be ashamed of using it until I read his recommendation that “the right” stop producing books like mine. He has denied that this was a call to silence me and others like me, and I’m sure it wasn’t: if Trifkovic and I begin to retail the prevailing PC fictions about Islam as a religion of peace and join mainstream analysts in declining to hold Muslims accountable for their actions (since they’re just reacting to the depredations of bad old America), I am sure D’Souza will be happy if we flourish.

In a sermon broadcast on official Palestinian Authority television in 2000, Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, a member of the Palestinian Authority’s Fatwa Council, anticipated D’Souza’s call to alliance and declared: “Allah the almighty has called upon us not to ally with the Jews or the Christians, not to like them, not to become their partners, not to support them, and not to sign agreements with them. And he who does that is one of them, as Allah said: ‘O you who believe, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies, for they are allies of one another. Who from among you takes them as allies will indeed be one of them.’ . . . Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them.”[13]

In this Abu Halabiya was quoting Qur’an 5:51 (“O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors: they are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them”) and 9:5 (“slay the idolaters wherever ye find them”). His application of these words to the contemporary political situation would thus resonate even with “traditional Muslims,” whose Qur’an is the same as that of the jihadists. And Abu Halabiya intended it to resonate in that way.

If the exportation of American depravity were to end tomorrow, it would not efface these and other words from the Qur’an, or keep preachers from using them to prevent any peaceful accord between Muslims and non-Muslims. That D’Souza suggests that it would manifests an appalling ignorance of Islamic theology, history, and present reality. He writes that “no real understanding of Islamic culture is possible that refuses to take Islam seriously,” yet he ends up doing just that. In the fourteenth century, the Byzantine Emperor John VI Cantacuzenes entered into an alliance with the Ottoman Turks, whom he invited into Europe to help him win a dynastic dispute. In the fifteenth century, the Ottomans seized Constantinople and destroyed the Byzantine Empire, and were greatly aided in doing so by having a base in Europe.

Dinesh D’Souza, no less short-sighted and naïve as John VI Cantacuzenes, is exhorting conservatives today to rush into an alliance that would ultimately bring upon themselves the same disaster.

NOTES:

[1] Thomas Madden, The New Concise History of the Crusades, Rowman & Littlefield, 2005, pp. 181-182.

[2] Steven Runciman, The Fall of Constantinople 1453, Cambridge University Press, 1965, p. 145.

[3] Sita Ram Goel, The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India, Voice of India, revised edition 1994, p. 44.

[4] Hitti, p. 205.

[5] John Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path, Oxford University Press, third edition, 1998. P. 35.

[6] Steven Stalinsky, “Dealing in Death,” National Review Online, May 24, 2004.

[7] “London Islamist Dr. Hani Al-Sibaai Justifies Slaughters in Iraq: The Prophet Muhammad Used to Slaughter As Well,” Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) Clip No. 576, February 22, 2005.

[8] Averroes, Al-Bidaya, excerpted in Rudolph Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam, Markus Wiener Publishers, 1996. P. 40.

[9] Ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani, in Bat Ye’or, The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1996, p. 295.

[10] “Interview Sahim Alwan,” Frontline, October 16, 2003. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sleeper/interviews/alwan.html.

[11] Carole Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives, Routledge, 2000, p. 247.

[12] “Shirk: the ultimate crime,” Invitation to Islam Newsletter, Issue 2, July 1997. http://www.al-sunnah.com/call_to_islam/articles/shirk_the_ultimate_crime.html

[13] Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), “PA TV Broadcasts call for Killing Jews and Americans,” MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 138, October 13, 2000. www.memri.org.

Virginia: Man once acquitted of aiding the Taliban on trial

Virginia Paintball Jihad Update: "Man once acquitted of aiding the Taliban on trial," from AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

A man who was acquitted three years ago of providing services to the Taliban went on trial again Monday, this time accused of lying to a US grand jury about his training as a jihadist.

The lawyer for Sabri Benkahla, 31, told a jury that prosecutors essentially laid a perjury trap for Benkahla after his acquittal. The defense has also accused the US government of pursuing a vindictive prosecution after its legal defeat.

Benkahla was one of only two defendants who were acquitted in the government's prosecution of a dozen Muslim men who participated in what the government called a "jihad network" that used paintball games in the Virginia woods in 2000 and 2001 as a means to train for holy war around the globe.

The government called it a "jihad network." That's AP for you. That they gained ten convictions on that basis might suggest that there was something accurate in this designation, but you wouldn't get that impression from this story.

Cartoon protester was 'cheerleader'

And they don't mean he shouted "Yea, team." From The Guardian, with thanks to Charles:

A British Muslim chanted "7/7 on its way" and "Europe you will pay with your blood" at a demonstration over cartoons of the prophet Mohammed, a court has heard.

Abdul Saleem, 31, was the "cheerleader" of hundreds of protesters who gathered to protest over the publication in a number of European countries, the Old Bailey heard. David Perry QC, prosecuting, said the cartoons which were first published in Denmark had sparked demonstrations across the continent and in the Middle East.

A large number of Muslims believe their religion forbids "any pictorial depiction or representation" of the prophet, a jury was told. Mr Perry said Saleem had been captured on film chanting slogans, which also included "bin Laden on his way" for the crowd to respond.

"There is the defendant addressing the crowd denouncing democracy, making it clear that European countries will pay for what they have done, even the United Kingdom where the cartoons were not even published.

"He made it clear that Europeans had to pay, that blood would be spilled, and that this was necessary. He made reference to the suicide bombings in London and he encouraged the crowd to chant the words that he himself used."

D'Souza and Spencer to debate again at CPAC

It's on: Thursday, March 1, 2007 at 4:15 PM EST at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington DC:

Islam: Is Religious Extremism or Secular Extremism the Problem? - Empire Ballroom

Dinesh D'Souza, author of The Enemy at Home
Robert Spencer, author of The Truth About Muhammad
Moderator: Suhail Khan, Islamic Free Market Institute

How interesting. Suhail Khan was the moderator of the panel the last time I spoke at CPAC, in 2003. He ended the discussion with a long disquisition about how he had read the Qur'an twice and that it taught peace. I was just about to respond when he announced that the session was over.

Suicide bomber's family: "We're very proud of him"

"The attack was a "natural response to Israeli violations of the hudna.'" Yes, of course. Jihadists have no responsibility for anything they do.

By Khaled Abu Toameh for the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

The mother of Muhammed Faisal Saksak, the 21-year-old suicide bomber who carried out Monday's attack in Eilat, said she was aware of her son's plan to blow himself up and that she had wished him "good luck."

Dozens of Palestinians, chanting slogans against Israel and the US, converged on the family's home to "congratulate" them on the success of the attack.

Although Muhammed's uncles claimed that he crossed the border into Israel from Jordan, PA security sources told The Jerusalem Post that he came from Egypt. They added that Muhammed's dispatchers were deliberately involving Jordan to avoid alienating the Egyptians and to create tensions between the Jordanians and Israel.

A spokesman for Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip claimed that preparations for the attack lasted seven months and that Muhammed had received training in the Jordanian port city of Aqaba.

The suicide attack is seen by many Palestinians as an attempt to divert attention from the Hamas-Fatah war that has claimed the lives of 34 people over the past four days. Fatah and Hamas leaders have repeatedly urged their followers to halt the fighting and to use their guns only against Israel.

Ruwaidah, 43, said she last saw her son on Friday morning, when he walked out of his home in the Slateen neighborhood near Bet Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip.

"As he walked out of the house, he asked me to wish him good luck," she said. "I wished him good luck and I knew of his decision to become a martyr. Although I was aware of his intention, I did not know exactly when he was planning to carry out a martyrdom attack."...

The mother of nine said she was proud of her son for carrying out the suicide attack. "I pray to Allah that Muhammed will be accepted as a shaheed [martyr]," she said shortly after hearing about the Eilat bombing. "I hope that his martyrdom will deliver a message to the Fatah and Hamas fighters to stop the fighting and direct their weapons against the one and only enemy - Israel."

Ruwaidah said she was prepared to "sacrifice" all her sons "for the sake of the Aqsa Mosque and Palestine." She added: "I hope that our politicians will stop fighting so that the blood of the martyrs will not be shed in vain."

Austere version of Islam finding a home in India

Dinesh D'Souza recommends the American conservatives ally with what he calls "traditional Muslims," who are actually cultural Muslims who have little acquaintance with or interest in violent jihad. The problem is that such people are always susceptible to the jihadist appeal, based as it is on the Qur'an and Sunnah. Here is an example of this happening in D'Souza's native India.

"Austere version of Islam finding a home in India: Migrants returning from the Persian Gulf with stricter views are altering the melting pot in an Indian province," by Borzou Daragahi in the Los Angeles Times, with thanks to Andrew Bostom:

VENGARA, INDIA — The change came several years ago for Maryam Arrakal. Her husband brought a black, all-covering abaya back to this steamy, subtropical town from the desert sands of Saudi Arabia.

It contrasted starkly with the pastel saris she normally wore.

But in the 12 years that her husband, Kunchava, had been running a Saudi fabric shop, he had become detached from this melting pot of Muslims, Hindus and Christians, and more drawn to the Saudis' strict version of Islam.

"I used to dress much more colorfully," said Arrakal, standing amid diesel fumes and frenetic auto-rickshaw drivers in Vengara's one-street downtown, a 7-month-old baby in her arms and a black cloak shrouding her figure. "But my husband brought this for me and prefers me to wear it."

The migration to oil-rich Persian Gulf monarchies of as many as one in five men from India's Kerala province has brought an influx of money that pays for food, shelter and education. It also funds dowries for their daughters and gifts for their wives.

But like many of the world's millions of economic migrants, the men bring back more than money.

In this case, they brim with provocative ideas about the proper way to worship. And they pay for plain green mosques with minarets and Arabic writing that are far different than the ornate and bulbous temples where Muslims have long worshiped here.

In Kerala, where Muslims are traditionally the poorest residents, those returning from the Persian Gulf say they are building pride in their community and connecting its members to the broader Islamic world. But others see the growth of sectarian politics and scattered religious violence as warning signs....

From the moment they arrive, migrants from Kerala are introduced to attitudes unknown at home. Some housing is for Hindus only; some employers openly prefer Muslims over Hindus or Christians.

Some migrant workers are invigorated by living in a country with a Muslim majority. Others less enthusiastic about their new home cling to their faith out of loneliness and a sense of isolation. But they find a different interpretation of Islam.

Arrakal's husband, Kunchava, 49, had little to do in his free time in Saudi Arabia but attend prayers and read the Koran. He gradually changed his views about life and faith, including how his wife dressed.

"In traditional Indian garb, the woman's stomach is bare," he said. "Islamic dress covers up all the body parts."

In study groups and at prayer gatherings throughout the Persian Gulf region, men such as Abdul Rahman Mohammed Peetee hammer away at Kerala's traditions. For them, paying homage to local saints or anyone other than God is sacrilege: The Koran and the sayings of the prophet Muhammad contain all that any Muslim needs.

"You must study the Arab culture," Peetee, a Kerala native, told a gathering on the sixth floor of an office tower in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

The men howled in protest.

"Some Arabs behave worse than us!" one cried. "Why should we study them? We have our own practices and culture."

Peetee, a stout man with a collarless shirt buttoned to his neck, was relentless.

"These practices are established by society," he said. "Not by the Koran."...

"I am scared," said one moderate Muslim newspaper editor, who asked that his name not be published because it could harm his community standing. "The liberal Muslims, the moderate Muslims, are scared."

Identity politics

The religious awakening also has given rise to a new political assertiveness.

Critics say Muslim organizations have set up de facto political machines, forcing parties on the left and right to woo extreme Islamic groups funded by Persian Gulf riches....

"Social life has been politicized," Narayan said. "Muslim community organizations found that they could corner all the Muslim votes."

Many worry that the status quo has begun to unravel.

In January 2002 and May 2003, 14 people were killed in riots between Muslims and Hindus in Calicut. And in February 2005, suspected Hindu nationalists attacked a mosque in the town of Vallikunnam at the end of evening prayers, killing one and injuring two.

"Muslims themselves are worried by the rise of the militant Islamic organizations," said Ajai Mangat, Calicut correspondent for the Malayalam Manorama, the province's largest daily newspaper. "If they become more powerful, the Hindu nationalists become more powerful."

A request from the BBC

The BBC are researching the activities of Al-Muhajiroun in the town of Crawley in Sussex in the United Kingdom. It has been widely reported that the group and its leader Omar Bakri Mohammed were active in the town in the late 1990s, and that OBM lectured in a scout hut there. Anyone with any information about this, please contact Home Affairs Correspondent Richard Smith via r.smith@bbc.co.uk.

Please do not use this occasion to voice your opinion of the BBC's coverage of jihad-related activity.

"Allah on 480 occasions in the Holy Koran extols Muslims to wage jihad. We only fulfil God's orders"

Fjordman sends us this item, along with this comment: "These Taliban people must suffer from Islamophobia or something, since they believe there are numerous calls for violent Jihad in the Koran."

Indeed. Note Baitullah Mehsud's words: "Then we will attack them in the US and Britain until they either accept Islam or agree to pay jazia (a tax in Islam for non-Muslims living in an Islamic state)."

But try asking a self-proclaimed moderate leader in America about whether or not the Qur'an really calls on Muslims to wage war against non-Muslims and subjugate them, imposing a tax upon them. He will either not give you a straight answer or call you an "Islamophobe," or both.

And then there will be the inevitable charges that by calling attention to this jihadist use of the Qur'an, I am helping those jihadists instead of the moderates I should be helping. Fine: I invite any moderate to explain what he or she would say to Baitullah Mehsud to try to convince him that the Qur'an does not actually counsel war, and to alert him to the existence of a mainstream Islamic tradition that teaches peaceful coexistence with nonbelievers as equals on an indefinite basis.

"Pakistan Taleban vow more violence," from the BBC:

Pro-Taleban militants have been strengthening their hold in Pakistan's tribal areas following controversial peace deals with the authorities. Haroon Rashid of the BBC's Urdu service is one of the few reporters working for a Western media organisation with access to the area.

[...]

After visiting the site of the bombing, we were done with the basic purpose of the trip. I asked the militants if I could see their leader, Baitullah Mehsud.

[...]

Baitullah's private army along with other militant groups have imposed a strict Islamic code in North and parts of South Waziristan.

They run a parallel government here. Music and videos are banned while militants claim people approach them for settlement of their disputes.

With a black-dyed beard, 34-year-old Baitullah greeted us in a big room with several of his armed men beside him. We sat on a new colourful quilt spread on the ground.

Baitullah seemed a man with only jihad (holy war) on his mind. During the interview he quoted several verses from the Koran to defend his stance that foreign forces must be evicted from Islamic countries.

"Allah on 480 occasions in the Holy Koran extols Muslims to wage jihad. We only fulfil God's orders. Only jihad can bring peace to the world," he says.

The militant leader on several occasions in the past had openly admitted crossing over into Afghanistan to fight foreign troops.

"We will continue our struggle until foreign troops are thrown out. Then we will attack them in the US and Britain until they either accept Islam or agree to pay jazia (a tax in Islam for non-Muslims living in an Islamic state)."

Suicide bombers

Baitullah predicted an even bloodier year for foreign forces in Afghanistan.

"The mujahideen will carry out even more severe attacks. If they [the West] have air power we have fidayeen [suicide bombers]... They will leave dishonoured."

[...]

Before we left, Baitullah gave us perfume and a book in Urdu on 'Why Jihad is a must'. On our way back, we saw newly built white graves on the roadside.

Audio of the D'Souza/Spencer debate

Lores Rizkalla has kindly posted audio of my debate last night with Dinesh D'Souza on her show -- the first, I hope, of my debates with him about his appalling new book. So if you missed the show, you can listen there now.

Hamas: 'Attack is legitimate resistance'

This story refers to a jihad martyrdom attack in an Israeli bakery (thanks to KA for the link). And of course this response is predictable. Everything Hamas does is legitimate. Every step Israel takes in response is illegitimate. Once you grasp that simple rule, you're ready for prime time, or a job at Reuters.

From the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

A Hamas spokesman defended Monday's suicide bombing in Eilat as legitimate "resistance" against Israel.

Fawzi Barhoum called the attack a "natural response" to IDF policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as its ongoing boycott of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority government. "So long as there is occupation, resistance is legitimate," he said.

He also said attacks on Israel were preferable to the recent bout of Palestinian infighting in Gaza. "The right thing is for Fatah weapons to be directed toward the occupation not toward Hamas," he said.

Fatah weapons paid for by the U.S. and Israel.

The Fatah-affiliated Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, the Islamic Jihad, and a new group calling itself "Army of Believers" claimed responsibility for Monday's attack in Eilat that killed three people.

Meanwhile, the Islamic Jihad posted a statement on its Web site Monday saying that it had engineered the bombing in an attempt to "focus Palestinians' attention away from killing each other," Sky News reported.

More young Muslims back sharia, says poll

The Tiny Minority of Extremists is growing, especially among young people. By Stephen Bates and agencies in The Guardian, with thanks to Charles:

A growing minority of young Muslims are inspired by political Islam and feel they have less in common with non-Muslims than their parents do, a survey reveals today. The poll, carried out for the conservative-leaning Policy Exchange thinktank, found support for Sharia law, Islamic schools and wearing the veil in public is significantly stronger among young Muslims than their parents.

In the survey of 1,003 Muslims by the polling company Populus through internet and telephone questionnaires, nearly 60% said they would prefer to live under British law, while 37% of 16 to 24-year-olds said they would prefer sharia law, against 17% of those over 55. Eighty-six per cent said their religion was the most important thing in their lives.

Nearly a third of 16 to 24-year-olds believed that those converting to another religion should be executed, while less than a fifth of those over 55 believed the same. The survey claimed that British authorities and some Muslim groups have exaggerated the problem of Islamophobia and fuelled a sense of victimhood among some Muslims: 84% said they believed they had been well treated in British society, though only 28% thought the authorities had gone over the top in trying not to offend Muslims....

Global jihad encounters technical difficulties

The jihad conference in Australia was supposed to be beamed to eager jihadists around the world, but the techies dropped the ball. World dominance may be a bit farther down the road than they're hoping. "Radical cause hits a glitch," by Sian Powell in The Australian, with thanks to JE:

A DAY-long conference in Sydney's Lakemba run by the fundamentalist Muslim organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir, known for its anti-democratic, anti-Semitic views, was meant to be beamed out across the world via a live webcast. "Hizb-ut Tahrir Australia is proud to present the Khilafah conference Sydney 2007," the site said. "This live webcast will bring together Islamic knowledge, content and community to deliver a connected experience throughout the day."

The keynote speaker was Hizb ut-Tahrir's Indonesian chairman Ismail Yusanto, the radical who has previously demanded the jailing of US President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair for the "war crime" of the 2003 Iraq invasion. But the Khilafah webcast was beset with all sorts of problems, boding ill for Hizb ut-Tahrir's future world dominance, or even an Islamic super-state (another of its favoured ideas). To begin with, there was neither vision nor sound. Then there were disjointed pictures, almost a frame at a time, but still no sound. Viewers from across the world, waiting for the webcast, sent in questioning messages but the site remained unresponsive, apart from some posted instructions, none of which worked.

D'Souza vs. Spencer tonight

UPDATE 1/29: Lores Rizkalla has kindly posted audio of the show, so you can catch it now if you missed it last night.

A reminder: I will be debating Dinesh D'Souza and his disastrous new book for what I hope will be only the first time, tonight at 7PM PST, 10PM EST, on Lores Rizkalla's radio show. You will be able to listen online here.

You can read my initial responses to D'Souza's book here, here, and here, and Hugh Fitzgerald's here, here, and here.

Congress Pressured to Ban Racial Profiling

And the pressure is coming from the Flying Imams incident, just as I predicted -- with no notice given of the many questionable aspects of the incident, or of the questionable ties of the imams.

If this passes, as it probably will, and is signed by the President, as is likely, Islamic jihadists will have a free hand in American airports: authorities will be too afraid of prosecution to subject them to any scrutiny, no matter how suspiciously they're acting.

By Frederic J. Frommer for AP, with thanks to Kemaste:

WASHINGTON (Jan. 28) - The repercussions of an airline's decision to remove a group of imams from a commercial flight in Minneapolis could be heard in Congress this year, with civil rights groups pushing Democratic lawmakers to ban racial profiling.

The incident happened in November, made national news and reinvigorated an old proposal that got little attention from the GOP.

Now, a champion of the legislation, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction on the issue. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., who sponsored legislation to ban racial profiling in the last Congress, now chairs the Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution.

No bill has been introduced so far, but Feingold made it clear the issue will be a priority for him.

"Many law-abiding African Americans, Arab Americans, Latino Americans and others live with the fear of being racially profiled as they go about their everyday lives," Feingold said. Although the vast majority of law enforcement officers don't engage in the practice, he added, some do and it must be addressed.

"I look forward to working with Chairman Conyers in the House as well as others to ensure that no one is judged by how they look or where they worship," he said....

Feingold's last bill would have banned federal, state and local law enforcement officials from "relying, to any degree, on race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion" during investigations.

An exemption would have been made for specific information that "links a person of a particular race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion to an identified incident or scheme."

Well, we have plenty of that, but the chilling effect will nevertheless be severe.

Some security-oriented groups are gearing up to fight a new version of the bill.

"It would have the effect of estranging police officers from the community that they serve," said Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police. "It would make them more hesitant to stop people who might well be in violation of the law for fear that they're going to get written up because of some racial protocol."

Peter Gadiel, of Kent, Conn., president of 9/11 Families for a Secure America, mocked the legislation.

"The 9/11 atrocity was committed by 19 young single men from Arab nations. If you want to hand this country over to terrorists, why don't you say it right out front?" said Gadiel, whose son, James, died in the attacks on the World Trade Center. "We don't have to worry about 80-year-old ladies with bleach-blonde hair and southern accents."

Steve Mustapha Elturk, an imam in Troy, Mich., said he would welcome a ban on racial profiling. He said U.S. authorities have detained him four times since Sept. 11, 2001 — twice at the Canadian border and twice while traveling by air — even though he has done nothing wrong.

"It is pathetic for an American citizen who has spent more than half his life in this country to have to fly fearing that I will be stopped and interrogated," said Elturk, 52, who was born in Lebanon. "This is not the country I came to know."

Mortars hit Iraqi girls' school; 5 dead

The jihad against education continues, with its fighters eager to stamp out any future ideological challenge, especially from women. By Sameer N. Yacoub for Associated Press:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Mortar shells rained down Sunday on a girls' secondary school in a mostly Sunni area of western Baghdad, killing five pupils and wounding 20, witnesses and police said. At least seven other people died in a series of bombings and shootings across the capital, mostly in Shiite areas.

[...]

Sunday's mortar attack occurred about 11 a.m. at the Kholoud Secondary School in the Adil neighborhood of western Baghdad, police and school officials said. Several projectiles exploded in the courtyard, shattering windows and spraying pupils with glass. AP Television News footage showed blood smeared on the stone steps and walkways.

Hours after the attack, grieving parents wept as the bodies of the victims were placed inside wooden coffins. Police said four girls were killed instantly and a fifth died later. AP television footage showed the fin from one of the mortars lying in a walkway.

Former Israeli spy chief: nuclear strike by jihadists "very likely"

1938 Alert: "World War III has already begun, says Israeli spy chief," from AFP, with thanks to all who sent this in:

A third World War is already underway between Islamic militancy and the West but most people do not realize it, the former head of Israel’s intelligence service Mossad said in an interview published Saturday in Portugal.

‘We are in the midst of a third World War,’ former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy told weekly newspaper Expresso.

‘The world does not understand. A person walks through the streets of Tel Aviv, Barcelona or Buenos Aires and doesn’t get the sense that there is a war going on,’ said Halevy who headed Mossad between 1998 and 2003.

‘During World War I and II the entire world felt there was a war. Today no one is conscious of it. From time to time there is a terrorist attack in Madrid, London and New York and then everything stays the same.’

Violence by Islamic militants has already disrupted international travel and trade just as in the previous two world conflicts, he said.

Halevy, who was raised in war-time London, predicted it would take at least 25 years before the battle against Islamic fundamentalist terrorism is won and during this time a nuclear strike by Islamic militants was likely.

25 years? How optimistic. Why will a 1,400-year-old conflict be wrapped up in 25 years?

Bomber kills 11, wounds 35 near mosque in Peshawar

No word on whether Bush plans to send American troops to Pakistan to stop Sunni-Shi'ite strife there. From The Associated Press:

A suspected suicide attacker exploded a bomb near a Shia mosque in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar late Saturday, killing at least 11 people, including the city police chief, and wounding 35, police said.

Most of the victims were police and municipal officials who were clearing the route for a procession of Shias in a crowded old quarter of the city, said police officer Aziz Khan. The procession had yet to begin.

This weekend marks the start of the festival of Ashoura, when Shias mourn the seventh-century death of the prophet Muhammad's grandson, Imam Hussein. In the past the festival has been a target for sectarian attacks.

The blast went off in a bazaar area about 180 metres from the mosque that was the starting point for the Shia procession. It caused a power outage that left the city centre in darkness, complicating rescue efforts.

Bush warns failure in Iraq could widen conflict

The "epic battle" between Sunnis and Shiites has been going on for fourteen hundred years. It will take a great deal more than a "surge" of American troops to prevent it indefinitely from breaking out again. From New Europe:

Trying to persuade a sceptical Congress to support sending more troops to Iraq, US President George W Bush warned January 22 that if the United States fails, sectarian violence could spill over into an “epic battle” between Sunnis and Shiites in a wider regional conflict.

The warning came in Bush’s annual “State of the Union” address, which was closely watched by European Union leaders, most of who have opposed the war in Iraq and have distanced themselves from the US leader.

Bush has begun deploying the first of 21,500 more troops to Iraq as part of his revised strategy announced earlier this month, but the Democratic-controlled Congress and some members of Bush’s Republican Party steadfastly oppose the plan.

“If American forces step back before Baghdad is secure, the Iraqi government would be overrun by extremists on all sides,” Bush said. “We could expect an epic battle between Shia extremists backed by Iran, and Sunni extremists aided by al-Qaeda and supporters of the old regime.”

“A contagion of violence could spill out across the country and in time the entire region could be drawn into the conflict,” he added in the State of the Union address. “For America, this is a nightmare scenario.”

Unfortunately, there are nightmare scenarios all around.

Fitzgerald: Lewis would be appalled

Surely the main thing about Dinesh D'Souza is that he is:

1) a careerist with his eye on the main chance. He was among the first of those Bright Young Conservative Things -- think of William Kristol -- who have managed to make lavish livings for themselves, with those lecture fees, those quasi-instant books on matters of perceived moment, and for a few, a little aupres-de-ma-blonde stuff to make the whole thing more entertaining and endurable.

2) unused to having to meet standards of research or study that might, in other contexts, naturally be asked of him. D’Souza is surprised and chagrined: he asked quite a few people to blurb the book, and was disturbed to discover that some, who had made it a point to find out much more about Islam, were horrified by his thesis and refused.

D'Souza tells us that he "read Bernard Lewis." That's it? That's all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know, about Islam? Apparently he felt no need to read widely. But there are so many others, many dozens of others, he ought to have read, re-read, assimilated, made his own. There is Joseph Schacht. There is David Margoliouth. There is Snouck Hurgronje. There is Ignaz Goldziher. There is Theodor Noldeke. There is Samuel Zwemer. There is St. Clair Tisdall. There is Armand Abel. There is K. S. Lal. There is Georges Vajda (whom Lewis consulted, but apparently not enough, for his book on Jews in Islam). There is S. D. Goitein. There is Bat Ye'or, the great pioneer in scholarship devoted expressly to the fate of non-Muslims under Muslim rule -- the dhimmi -- a subject Lewis hardly touches, for in the 400 pages of his book for a mass audience ("The Middle East -- a History of the Last 2000 Years") he mentions the dhimmi in three paragraphs, two of them slyly exculpatory. Many have rightly been outraged that Le Pen called the murder of the Jews "a mere detail of World War II." For Lewis, it would seem from that book that the fate of hundreds of millions of non-Muslims, who over the past 1350 years had to endure Muslim rule, is merely a "detail" in the history of Islam and Islamic conquest. Oh no it isn't.

The Romans worried about The Man of One Book: homo unius libri. D'Souza appears, by his own admission, to be someone who has written a book about a subject he admittedly knew nothing about at the time of 9/11/2001, but has been "studying it for four years" largely by consulting, it seems, not One Book but close to that: One
Selected Authority.

But even that One Selected Authority, Lewis, would be horrified by how D'Souza understood him and what D'Souza took away from his reading of Lewis. For Bernard Lewis does not share a bit of D'Souza's interest in minimizing the menace of Islam and promoting this truly insane idea of a natural commonality of interest between "traditional Muslims" and "conservatives." Does D'Souza know what "traditional Muslims" think of Infidels? Does he know what they think of the Amish? Does he know what they think of him, Dinesh D'Souza? "Conservatives" in D’Souza’s view are, of course, those who are willing to overlook the Muslim view of the world in which there is a state of permanent war, not necessarily fighting but permanent war, between Believer and Infidel, all in order to get "traditional Muslims" to be for the same "family values." And how can D. D'S. conceivably think that Muslim "family values" -- beginning with the treatment and status of women in "traditional Islam," or the hostility toward freedom of conscience and freedom of speech -- could possibly allow for such a naive and dangerous alliance? It would be naive and dangerous, of course, for Infidels, and perfectly swell for Muslims, who are always seeking out those upon whose naivete and ignorance of Islam and goodwill they can take advantage of. Just go to one of those phony "Muslim-Christian" or "Muslim-Jewish" Groups for "Understanding," especially if it is Open House Night for Infidels at the mosque. There you will be treated to a smooth-tongued liquid-brown-eyed orator, well-practiced in taqiyya-and-tu-quoque, who will however become quickly alarmed, even confused, even discombobulated, if you begin to talk during the question period about the Hadith and the Sira, and if you are to mention the Banu Qurayza, the Khaybar Oasis attack, the murders of Asma bint Marwan and Abu Afak, or a few dozen other atrocities. And let's not forget little Aisha. Well, a good time will not be had by all, and you will, singlehandedly, have destroyed the evening's propagandistic (as in propaganda fide) purpose.

Unlike Dinesh D'Souza, Bernard Lewis himself has for the past year or two been going around warning about the islamization of Europe and the horror that would be. Apparently Lewis's study of Islam did not lead him, Lewis, to the conclusions reached by his great admirer and self-directed student, Dinesh D'Souza. For Lewis does not see any great alliance, any alliance at all, between Muslims and non-Muslims. But then, perhaps he's been studying Islam a bit longer than Dinesh D'Souza, and knows the real meaning, sometimes expressed in language sibylline or even Aesopic, of his words. Lewis has for too long tried to write for two distinct audiences: Muslims, including those Turks who so admire him (and he tends to admire those who admire him back) and Infidels. In pulling his punches, or perhaps not quite seeing or allowing himself to see the full danger of Islam and of Muslims other than those suave, plausible, highly unrepresentative figures he meets, he knows, he receives hospitality from, in Amman or Istanbul, Lewis has ill-served his mostly non-Muslim readership. For it is they who are being menaced, and they who need to be enlightened.

It would be wonderful if, at this stage, Lewis were to write something akin to Goitein's expression, in the introduction to his article on the Poll Tax, or Jizyah, inflicted on non-Muslims (see pp. 29-30 of "The Legacy of Jihad") of his change of opinion about the treatment of non-Muslims, once he came to realize, through his study of the material found in the Cairo Geniza, of how burdensome and grueling it really was. At the end of his life Goitein was preparing an enthusiastic review of Bat Ye'or's The Dhimmi. Lewis owes his readers and his acolyte-graduate students, and those to whom he so enthusiastically endorsed the Oslo Accords and then the fiasco of Iraq, the same kind of self-reckoning. He's always being fooled, Lewis, for all of his book-learning. He's always, when it comes to policy, underestimating the impossibility of expecting anything good -- rational negotiations, treaties signed that will be honored, or for that matter the ability of different sectarian and ethnic groups to get along in societies suffused with Islam.

But Lewis would never endorse D'Souza. If he finds out about this book, written by someone who, explaining the extent of his preparation for this jejune book, proudly notes that he "read Bernard Lewis," it would certainly appall him. And Lewis would be right to be disturbed. It would force him to recognize that not only has he helped to undo the damage of the espositos and armstrongs and MESA Nostra, in setting people straight on many things, but that he has also helped, especially in his treatment of non-Muslims under Muslim rule, where the strategies of elision and allusion and sheer misstatement (the notion that the "antisemitism" of Muslims is merely a Europpean import) have set many people astray. And some think that he has led more astray, in minimizing unpleasant and permanent features of Muslim teachings and attitudes and behavior, than he has managed to set straight.

Australian Muslim speaker: revolution or civil war may be necessary in order to create an Islamic state

"What is at stake is not just the destiny of the Muslim world but indeed the whole of mankind." Indeed.

"Sydney conference speaker demands Islamic state," from Australia's ABC News, with thanks to JE:

A speaker at a conference in Sydney's south-west says a revolution or a civil war may be necessary in order to create an Islamic state, or caliphate.

The meeting has been organised by the controversial Muslim group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which is banned in several countries overseas....

One of today's speakers, Ashraf Doureihi, told the audience action needs to be taken to ensure an Islamic state is created.

"It is important... [to move] collectively in the Muslim world to demand this change from such influential people in our lands, even if it means spilling onto the streets to create a revolution or staging a military coup," he said.

Hizb ut-Tahrir spokesman Wasim Durie has told the audience a number of speakers will address the meeting today and discuss ways of establishing an Islamic super-state.

"As we were here today, what is at stake is not just the destiny of the Muslim world but indeed the whole of mankind," he said.

Reconstruct mosques or else: Islamabad mullahs threaten suicide attacks

How come these clerics haven't gotten the word that Islam forbids suicide? Could it be because they understand Qur'an 9:111 to promise Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for Allah?

Anyway, this is one reason why it is so difficult for our Friend and Ally Pakistan to reform madrasas. By Mohammad Kamran and Mohammad Imran in the Daily Times, with thanks to all who sent this in:

ISLAMABAD: The administration of Lal Masjid on Friday threatened the government of suicide attacks if it continues to demolish mosques and madrassas. The clerics also acquired a commitment to this effect from thousands of worshippers at the Friday congregation.

Addressing the Friday sermon, Maulana Abdul Aziz, key prayer leader of Lal Masjid, asked the government to reconstruct the demolished mosques and urged President Musharraf to “seek Allah’s forgiveness” for demolishing “seven mosques in the country”. “We are ready to carry out suicide attacks if the government does not meet our demands,” he said, adding that the clerics would accept General Musharraf president for life if he accepts all their demands in letter and spirit.

Maulana Aziz, who is also the principal of Jamia Hafsa and Jamia Fareedia madrassas, issued a decree after citing verses from the Quran that jihad had become obligatory on all men and women against the backdrop of “prevailing evil in the country”. He demanded the government enforce a system based on the Quran and Sunnah in the country and stop dubbing jihad as terrorism....

Maulana Aziz said that millions of madrassa students had decided to sacrifice their lives in the name of Allah and the government must realise the gravity of the situation. He said that 10,000 students of Jamia Fareedia would sit in aitekaaf for 40 days to seek “divine help” and they would also be taught about the significance of jihad. “We do not want an armed conflict with the government, but we should not be pushed to the wall,” he added.

Let the debate begin

National Review is pushing Dinesh D'Souza's silly and misleading book hard, running an ad that proclaims "Let the Debate Begin." This is ironic in light of the fact that I have heard not a word from NR's Kathryn Lopez about my open invitation to debate D'Souza there. I guess what NR is running is really a Henry Ford-style debate invitation: you can have any color car you like as long as it's black, and let the debate begin, as long as there is only one participant.

Anyway, the debate between D'Souza and me really is going to begin, tomorrow night at 7PM PST, 10PM EST, on Lores Rizkalla's radio show. You will be able to listen online here.

Also, D'Souza himself has told me that we are scheduled to debate at CPAC in March, but I have heard nothing from CPAC about this myself and thus cannot consider it confirmed. I'll keep you posted.

You can read my initial responses to D'Souza's book here, here, and here, and Hugh Fitzgerald's here, here, and here. Also, I am just about to start writing a full review of the book.

Israeli army destroys two Hizballah bunkers found inside Israel

Hizballah invades Israel. "Israeli army blows up two Hezbollah bunkers," from AFP, with thanks to James:

The Israeli army says it has blown up two Hezbollah bunkers discovered near the Jewish state's border with Lebanon.

Israeli forces "uncovered two connected bunkers which had been used by the Hezbollah terrorist organisation, apparently as a forward base for its operations," the army said in a statement.

"Inside the bunkers forces found food, shovels and other equipment. The bunkers were detonated in a controlled environment by IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) engineering forces," it said Friday.

The bunkers were on "Israeli territory south of the international border" but beyond the security fence that the Jewish state has constructed along its border with Lebanon, it said.

"If they pay we kill them anyway"

This story explains in microcosm why, contrary to what Dinesh D'Souza assumes, even cleaning up American pop culture will not end the jihad, which proceeds for reasons that spring from within Islam, and not as a reaction to outside outrages -- although those outrages are used as a pretext for recruitment purposes. Mutatis mutandis, after we become a decent, upright, moral people, the "traditional Muslims" of which D'Souza speaks won't become our allies. Their jihadist brethren will kill -- or subjugate -- us anyway.

"'If they pay we kill them anyway' - the kidnapper's story," from The Guardian, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

Fadhel is a slim, well-muscled 26-year-old Mahdi Army commander with a thin goatee beard and smoothed down hair that looks like a flat cap. One day last month he described how he and his men seized a group of three Sunni men suspected of killing his fellow Shia. "I followed the group for weeks and then one of them crossed the bridge to Karrada [a Shia district]. We first informed a nearby Iraqi army checkpoint that we were arresting terrorists then we attacked them and put them in the boots of the cars. We only have six to seven minutes when we grab someone - we have to act quickly, if he resists we shoot him."

In this case, he said, the men were taken to Sadr City, the Shia slum to the north-east of Baghdad, where they were interrogated by a "committee" which ordered their execution. "We ask the families of the terrorists for ransom money," said Fadhel. "And after they pay the ransom we kill them anyway."

Kidnapping in Baghdad these days is as much about economics as retribution or sectarian hatred. Another Shia man close to the Mahdi Army told me: "They kidnap 10 Sunnis, they get ransom on five, and kill them all, in each big kidnap operation they make at least $50 000, it's the best business in Baghdad."

[...]

Like many of their Sunni counterparts, the Mahdi commanders boast that they could wipe out the other sect and gain total control over Baghdad if the US left. "We control most of Baghdad, our main enemy is the Americans," said Fadhel. Then he paused for a second and continued: "Also we can't trust the other Shia factions. Imam Ali says 'God please protect me against my friends and I will take care of my enemies.'"

Posted at 8:01 AM | Comments (29)

Dinesh D'Dhimmi

Serge Trifkovic, who along with me and Britney Spears causes jihad (at least in the mind of Dinesh D'Souza) responds brilliantly in "Dinesh the Dhimmi," from Chronicles (via FrontPage; news links in the original):

Nearly two years ago the Jihadist lobby in the United States made a concerted affort to have my book The Sword of the Prophet banned from National Review Online. Jihadi activists gathered around CAIR claimed the book defamed Islam and its "prophet." When it did not get immediate satisfaction from National Review, CAIR instructed its partisans to pressure the Boeing Corporation to withdraw its advertisements from the magazine. Faced with the loss of revenue National Review briefly took down The Sword, but then quickly reposted it, under pressure from mainly conservative quarters.

It is now, perhaps inevitably, the turn of a phony conservative to join CAIR's ranks. In his latest book, The Enemy At Home, Dinesh D'Souza writes that,

"In order to build alliances with traditional Muslims, the right must take three critical steps. First, stop attacking Islam. Conservatives have to cease blaming Islam for the behavior of the radical Muslims. Recently the right has produced a spate of Islamophobic tracts with titles like Islam Unveiled, Sword of the Prophet, and The Myth of Islamic Tolerance. There is probably n