Recently in dhimmitude Category

Obama is in the White House and endorses their efforts. The OIC has tried for years to compel Western states to restrict free speech and outlaw truth-telling about Islam, and now it is pressing on toward final victory. Apparently OIC top dogs are not satisfied with the current rate of compliance of the dhimmi mainstream media, even though it is almost total: the media constantly ignores, downplays, and obfuscates the ways in which Islamic jihadists use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence and supremacism, the Islamic character of honor killings, and more. Yet the OIC thinks that there is a "smear campaign against Islam in newspapers and media institutions in the West" -- in other words, the truth is still getting out, because Muslims keep committing acts of violence in the name of Islam and it is hard even for the media to cover it up totally. So...time for another media workshop.

"OIC To Hold Media Workshop To Address Smear Campaign Against Islam," from Bernama, February 13:

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 13 (Bernama) -- The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is to hold a media workshop in Brussels on Feb 15 to 16 pertaining to the smear campaigns against Islam in newspapers and media institutions in the West.

The objective of this first-of-its-kind workshop is to develop media-related mechanisms to address the smear campaigns, the OIC said in a statement.

It said the workshop will discuss at length the reasons behind and the results of the Western media's offensive campaigns against the symbols and sanctities of Islam and Muslims, which it added still occur from time to time.

"The workshop will represent a quantum leap in media action, as it discusses, beyond rhetoric, the practical steps to address the phenomenon of Islamophobia," the OIC said....

Pamela Geller comments: "CPAC 2012 kicks off tomorrow. Between the quislings on the ACU board (we have now had to move our event time to 3:30pm on Friday) and DC Occupiers promising violence and targeting our event, it should be fun for the whole family :)" In "CPAC for Sissies: Self-Censoring for Sharia" in the American Thinker today, she discusses our upcoming CPAC conference and CPAC's general AWOL stance on the jihad issue:

For the fourth year in a row, I am doing what the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) refuses to do: covering the central issues of our time, the issues that ought to be center-stage, prime time at CPAC.

Once again, CPAC is avoiding and ignoring the greatest national security threat to our country: jihad. Year in, year out, the puppetmasters, Grover Norquist and Suhail Khan, have managed to keep jihad and sharia off the CPAC schedule. The American Conservative Union, the political right's largest and most influential grassroots umbrella organization -- and sponsor of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) -- has abandoned conservative principles and morphed into some fleshy, ambiguous, compromised political machine doling out money and favors for cronies, when it is doing anything at all.

Anti-sharia legislation has already been passed into law in three states -- Tennessee (April 2010), Louisiana (June 2010), and Arizona (May 2011) -- and is either scheduled to be introduced or under consideration in over 25 additional states for the coming legislative session. Half the country is deeply concerned about this issue, and yet it is nowhere on the CPAC schedule -- except, of course, when it comes to yours truly.

The people care about this issue. Conservatives care about this issue. CPAC should feature this issue.

This is why I organize an event every year at CPAC to educate the upwards of twelve thousand conservatives who come to D.C. to get activated. Do you think that they know that CPAC has been utterly corrupted by the likes of Grover Norquist, the most powerful Muslim Brotherhood-linked influence-peddler in the country? Hardly. Has it been easy going up against the most corrupt and powerful conservative in America? Hardly. I lost my Newsmax column because of it, as I have repeatedly called for an insurgency at CPAC.

And to all the old establishment bulls who know about but sanction this infiltration with their silence: shame on you. It is no accident that Grover is featured in a fawning cover story at Newsmax as we enter CPAC week....

Read it all.

Join us in Dearborn, Michigan, on April 29, the anniversary of the honor murder of Jessica Mokdad, for the Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference.

"Media whitewash yet another 'honor' killing," by Pamela Geller in WND, February 8:

Last Thursday, Fox News Detroit aired a revealing segment on my AFDI/SIOA Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference on honor killing and Islamic law, which will be held on April 29 in Dearborn, Mich. The segment was originally supposed to air last Sunday, the day that the multiple first-degree murder verdict came down in the Shafia mass honor killing in Canada, but was inexplicably delayed. The segment focused on the fact that Mokdad family members, one in particular, are livid that we are using Jessica’s name in connection with “honor killing.” Various female Mokdad family members, including Jessica’s “stepmother,” Cassandra Mokdad, alleged that Jessica’s murder was not an honor killing, despite the overwhelming evidence that it was.

The report was typical for the mainstream media and unworthy of Fox, which, while not perfect, is generally much better than its competitors: Reporter Alexis Wiley doesn’t bother to give even a shred of the evidence that it was an honor killing, and instead gives the impression that it is something I am making up. She doesn’t mention that initial reports were quite clear – a shocking thing for the mainstream media – that her stepfather killed Jessica because she “wasn’t following Islam” (report from TwinCities.com) and was “not adhering to Muslim customs” (Star Tribune).

Arab American News reported that the last recorded dispute between Jessica Mokdad and her stepfather was over the wearing of the hijab (head scarf), which he originally forced her to wear (just as in the honor murder of Canadian teen Aqsa Parvez). Jessica didn’t want to wear it, thereby bringing shame on him and the family. Her stepfather, Rahim Alfetlawi, who murdered her, was pathologically controlling, after the pattern of honor killers. At one point Jessica called her father and told him: “Dad, I can’t live here anymore; he’s too strict. I can’t even go to the store to buy a pop if I want.”

Macomb County Assistant Prosecutor Bill Contaldo said: “He thought she was becoming too Westernized. I think this was a very nice young lady wanting to experiment with Western culture without control and without abuse.” The Detroit Free Press reported: “Mokdad’s mother told police that Alfetlawi felt so shamed by her daughter’s Western ways. He killed her in an honor killing, Warren Police Sgt. Stephen Mills said.” Alfetlawi was so concerned about her behavior that he even forced her to go to a mosque and marry her boyfriend.

The Daily Mail reported this from London: “Devout Muslim stalks his stepdaughter over four states before killing her for being too Western.” The Daily Tribune reported: “Stepfather charged with murder in Warren, upset victim didn’t adhere to Muslim customs.”

And Alexis Wiley’s own previous report for Fox Detroit reported it as an honor killing as well: Wiley reported, “He forced her to wear a traditional head scarf instead of allowing her to make that decision on her own, and when she stopped wearing a scarf, friends say he became furious.”

 But last week on Fox and in the accompanying print report, Wiley gave no hint of the existence of these reports or her own. Why? Who is paying off Alexis Wiley? Or is it that she is scared, intimidated, afraid to “offend Islam”? Or is it that her political correctness makes it impossible to think of Muslims as anything but victims?

But in that case, why doesn’t Jessica Mokdad matter?

Apparently she doesn’t matter to her family, either. These family members’ apoplexy about the conference shows that they’re more concerned with offending Islam than with the honor murder of Jessica Mokdad. Jessica’s “stepmother” Cassandra, though just a few years older than Jessica, has been particularly vocal and vicious, with nasty Facebook comments, denials and cover for the honor killer. First Cassandra claimed that Saddam Hussein was responsible, then that the murder was an act of passion. Then in last week’s Fox report she said: “He wanted to have a relationship with Jessica as more than her stepfather. He wanted to have a more romantic relationship with her.”

Even if this is true, it doesn’t mean the murder was not an honor killing. He could have been angry with Jessica both for her Western ways and her refusal to wear the hijab, and for rejecting him. Islam expects women to be completely subservient and obedient – or else. If Alfetlawi killed her for refusing him, either way, the murder is a reflection of the attitudes of Islamic culture.

Read it all.

Hey hey hey! It's Fat Abu! (In an image banned by the BBC)

How clueless and compromised is the mainstream media? This clueless and compromised: "BBC tells its staff: don’t call Qatada extremist," by Neil Midgley and James Kirkup in the Telegraph, February 7 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

The BBC has told its journalists not to call Abu Qatada, the al-Qaeda preacher, an “extremist”.

In order to avoid making a “value judgment”, the corporation’s managers have ruled that he can only be described as “radical”.

Journalists were also cautioned against using images suggesting the preacher is overweight.

A judge ruled this week that the Muslim preacher, once described as “Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man in Europe”, should be released from a British jail, angering ministers and MPs.

Adding to the row, Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, yesterday insisted that Qatada “has not committed any crime” and said his release has nothing to do with the European Court of Human Rights.

A British court has called Qatada a “truly dangerous individual” and even his defence team has suggested he poses a “grave risk” to national security.

Despite that background, BBC journalists were told they should not describe Qatada as an extremist. The guidance was issued at the BBC newsroom’s 9.00am editorial meeting yesterday, chaired by a senior manager, Andrew Roy.

According to notes of the meeting, seen by The Daily Telegraph, journalists were told: “Do not call him an extremist – we must call him a radical. Extremist implies a value judgment.”...

BBC staff were also cautioned against using library images suggesting the cleric is overweight, because he has “lost a lot of weight”....

German politicians once again make room for totalitarian barbarism:

Most politicians in Germany have gotten the message: The quickest way to spark a career-damaging controversy is to make a facile comment about Nazis or the Holocaust. Media critics and political opponents are quick to pounce.

But that isn't the only way to attract unwanted attention, as Jochen Hartloff, the interior minister of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, found out this week. In an interview with the Berlin tabloid BZ, Hartloff said that Sharia law, in a "modern form," would be acceptable in Germany. In comments published on Friday in the center-left daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, he added that using the Islamic moral code "is certainly conceivable when it comes to questions pertaining to civil law."

Hartloff, a politician from the center-left Social Democrats, made clear that he was referring specifically to family law issues such as divorce settlements and alimony, but also certain instances of contract law in which devout Muslims seek to avoid paying interest. Applying Sharia rules, he said, could help avoid hostility in such cases. ....

He was seconded by Stephan Mayer, a parliamentarian for the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats. Mayer, a legal expert, demanded Hartloff's resignation. "It is inconceivable that a justice minister fosters such ideas," he told Bild. "There is no room in Germany for Islamic law. The Sharia is barbarous and inhuman in all its forms." ...

Michael Frieser, expert on integration issues for conservatives in German parliament, said that Muslim justices of the peace could perhaps be used to prepare the groundwork for a civil law judgement. He told the Süddeutsche Zeitung that he has nothing against immigrants seeking judgements according to the legal systems they are used to. "That can ultimately serve the cause of integration," he said.

I have reported about the Muslim ghetto Vollsmose several times: Denmark: No comprehensive car insurance in Muslim area -- too many burned cars; Denmark: More Muslim violence against non-Muslims; Danish police: Immigrant criminals target Danes to make them move out of the (Muslim) area; and Denmark: Iranian-born leader of small Christian church attacked for displaying cross.

The Danish newspaper BT has scrutinized the budget for integration in Vollsmose. Since 2008, 58,482,279 kr. (10.3 million USD / 7,9 million Euros) has been spent on the following. Translated from BT, February 5, 2012: "Vollsmose gilded with millions of kroner. - But the problems continue...":

Free buses and concerts - 2,844,402 kr. (500,000 USD) An extra pool of money was created to support new ideas. The funds has been spent on free bus service in the area, job counseling, a choir, celebrations and concerts.

Coaching - 280,250 kr (50,000 USD)
The so-called ABCD project seeks to get residents to become aware of their own qualifications, a kind of coaching.

Consultants - 6,040,692 kr (1,000,000 USD)
Three resident advisers, including former parliamentary politician Asmaa Abdol Hamid (who says that the Quran guides her in every aspect of life and who rejects equality between the sexes), have been hired to keep track of the many projects that are started in the district.

Project management - 1,213,758 kr (210,000 USD)
There are so many associations and networks in Vollsmose that a global network is needed to keep track of them.

Improved image - 11,421,411 kr (2,000,000 USD)
Establishment of Media House Vollsmose that publishes its own weekly newspaper in order to create a more positive image of Vollsmose. The articles is concentrating on positive stories from the area, says the Media House.

Multicultural offer - 3,339,673 kr (585,000 USD)
In 2007 it was estimated that young people with multicultural background lacked cultural offerings. This is why a cultural center has been created in the area.

Internship - 2,000,000 kr (350,000 USD)
To get more people to work, unemployed people have been given internships at a local caretaker. One resident has subsequently gotten a permanent job as a result of this project.

Marketing - 4,385,000 kr (770,000 USD)
A marketing project has been launched to attract educational institutions and businesses to the district.

Special expenses - 9,596,542 kr (1,700,000 USD)
This money goes to the operation of the area's nine housing associations and three housing organizations. The money goes to short courses, machine procurement, combating vandalism and longer opening hours at recycling centers.

Administration - 3,821,641 kr (670,000 USD)
Launching the many projects costs money in itself. This is because a consultant company was hired to do it, and because it costs money to track how the money is spent.

Cleanup - 2,500,000 kr (440,000 USD)
Money to the Project Youth Team primarily goes to paying the young people who are hired to remove garbage and waste lying around in the district.

Environmental awareness - 1,415,866 kr (250,000 USD)
This project aims to educate residents to understand how to handle waste, how to save water, heat and electricity. 35 immigrant women have received this education.

Waking up in the morning 1,593,969 kr (280,000 USD)
To reduce absenteeism in schools in the area, Project Alarm Clock was created. Now school teachers call students who have not appeared in school.

Role models - 1,860,853 kr. (325,000 USD)
Young2Young is a project that aims to get the well-functioning youth to help other young people to get part-time jobs.

Festival - 1,630,963 kr. (285,000 USD)
This money is allocated to the annual festival in the area. In 2011, Julie Berthelsen, Johnson and the rapper U$0 gave a concert, and the hosts were the famous Danish actors Robert Hansen and Camilla Ottesen.

Coordination - 2,435,111 kr (425,000 USD)
To ensure maximum cooperation between the many projects, a separate consultant was hired to coordinate them.

Street work - 1,491,500 kr (260,000 USD)
To reach the young people who hang out on the street, people have been hired to walk around in the area and tell them about the district's various offerings.

Evaluation - 610,645 kr (105,000 USD)
As part of the master plan, just over half a million kroner has been allocated to evaluate the results.

Total bill: 58,482,279 kr. (10,280,979.78 USD)

The Free Press Society was started in Denmark in 2004 by Lars Hedegaard, who is still chairman. Hedegaard is now 69 and last I saw him -= at a Christmas dinner in December 2011 -= he was as energetic, sharp and humorous as ever, a gun powder owl, as we say in Danish. On January 31, 2012, the Swedish branch was launched -- read about it here: "Sweden: Launching the Swedish Free Press Society under police protection".

On February 2, the Swedish newspaper The South Swedish printed an essay "In good company", in which the writer states that the Swedish Free Press Society "with good conscience can dissolve itself at the next meeting" -- since free speech is unchallenged.

On the same day, the famous Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten (the one with the Muhammad drawings) reported about the Swedish launch in the article "Free words in safe surroundings" (not online). The fact that the Swedish police knew about the venue even though it was not announced anywhere shows that the police are very aware of the problems:

In Malmö the Free Press Society's newborn Swedish sister organization was launched -- under massive police protection. The goal is to have a critical public debate on immigration, feminism and other controversial topics that are covered with politically correct consensus and pressure against freedom of expression.

How the Swedish police got to know about the evening's event is not known. For it was not advertised anywhere. Not even on the Internet. So there are no obstructive troublemakers on this cold January evening. But about 120 interested men and women of all ages have found their way to the inaugural meeting of the Swedish Tryckfrihetssällskap in Malmo on Tuesday evening, and they seemed safe, considering the 10-15 policemen. ...

At both ends of the foreseeable side street Skolgatan police cars patrol at night long. And on all floors in the municipal building where the venue takes place, several uniformed policemen are protecting the meeting and the participants.

Adviser to the British State

Predictably, Abu Hamza told these witless dhimmis that "radicalization" is caused by various alleged enormities that the kuffar have committed -- such that if they take his advice, they will curtail the freedom of speech and bring British foreign policy into conformity with the Islamic agenda. The MP's, for their part, decided that tacking "Islamophobia" would prevent "radicalization" -- so in essence, if they show the Islamic supremacists that they're doing nothing to resist the jihad or even identify it as such, that in itself will stop the jihad in its tracks.

Meanwhile, focusing on the "Internet" as a cause of "radicalization" is like focusing on magazines as a cause of pornography.

One wonders how these MP's successfully feed themselves.

"Internet biggest breeding ground for violent extremism, ministers warn," by Alan Travis for The Guardian, February 5 (thanks to Warren):

The internet now plays a part in most, if not all, cases of violent radicalisation and is a more significant recruiting ground than prisons, universities or places of worship, according to report by a cross-party group of MPs published today.

The Commons home affairs committee says internet service providers need to be as effective at removing material that promotes violent extremism as they are in removing content that is sexual or breaches copyright....

The report stresses, however, that no single pathway leads to radicalisation and emphasises that direct, personal contact is also significant. It adds that although convicted terrorists have attended British universities and prisons there is seldom evidence that they were radicalised there. The report says recruitment activities have retreated to private homes as the authorities have targeted public arenas.

The MPs, however, heard in private an assessment from Charles Farr, the Home Office's head of the Office of Security and Counter-terrorism, that "sympathy for violent extremism is declining rather than increasing". The MPs contrast this with the situation in 2007 when MI5 said there were "at least 2,000 people" in the UK who posed a threat because they supported terrorism – a figure that had increased by 400 the previous year.

The MPs do conclude that there may be growing support for nonviolent extremism within the Muslim community, fed by feelings of alienation and a sense of grievance, and this is a challenge for society and the police.

They are not allowed (by the strictures of political correctness) to consider the possibility that there might be growing support for "nonviolent extremism" for reasons arising from core Muslim beliefs.

They recommend that tackling Islamophobia and demonstrating that the British state is not antithetical to Islam should constitute a big part of the official Prevent strategy designed to counter the ideology that feeds violent radicalisation.

The MPs talked to the radical preacher Abu Hamza in the maximum security unit at Belmarsh prison in London, who told them the main drivers of radicalisation were grievances, especially concerning Palestine and Afghanistan, a sense that the prophet was being mocked, guilt and capability.

He said unemployment was not a source of grievance.

Keith Vaz MP, the committee's Labour chairman, said: "The conviction last week of four men from London and Cardiff radicalised over the internet, for a plot to bomb the London stock exchange and launch a Mumbai-style atrocity on the streets of London, shows that we cannot let our vigilance slip. More resources need to be directed to these threats and to preventing radicalisation through the internet and in private spaces. These are the fertile breeding grounds for terrorism."

According to Al Jazeerah Malmö, Sweden "will be the first Scandinavian City with a Muslim majority". Twenty-two bomb explosions in three years (August 2008 to June 2011) and a long row of killings in broad daylight are typical signs of Muslim presence: Malmö is becoming Scandinavia's Baghdad.

Sweden is terrified by a long row of murders committed in broad daylight. In most cases, both the killer and the victim are Muslims. The murders should thus be seen as public executions, often happening according to the sharia's honour codes. In connection with a recent murder (the sixth in two months), Malmö's mayor stated that "The killings are a result of the parallel world that has emerged in Malmö, where some people take the right to judge that another human being deserves death."

Examples of the politically correct madness that lures the Swedes into voting for Muslim immigration:

A newspaper recently pixellated dark-skinned criminals pink, to erase their dark skin colour:

A couple of years ago a newspaper publish pixellated pictures of criminals -- so that nobody was able to recognize the people that the police were looking for help to find:

Thanks to the award-winning blog Uriasposten.net for the pictures and documentation (here and here).

Yesterday afternoon Human Events posted my piece about recent shameful events in New York:

The mainstream media, led by the New York Times, and the Islamic supremacist Hamas-linked hate group the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) are doing all they can to whip up a frenzy about the NYPD’s showing of a relatively tepid but accurate counter-terror film, The Third Jihad, to police officers.

Lost in the hysteria is the question of whether there is anything inaccurate or false in the film – yet those who are demanding apologies and reeducation from the NYPD have demonstrated not one inaccuracy in it. No one who is protesting against this film is going beyond the claim that it is “Islamophobic.”

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg immediately apologized, saying that showing the film to New York police officers manifested “terrible judgment.” Police commissioner Raymond Kelly apologized also: “I offer my apologies to members of the Muslim community, in particular, who would find the film inflammatory and its airing on department property, though unauthorized, to be inappropriate.”

In a sane world, Kelly and Bloomberg would not be apologizing at all. They’d be saying, “Yes, we showed the film, and we’re going to keep showing it, and what of it? If the Muslims in New York are upset about it being inaccurate, let them demonstrate its inaccuracy by taking positive steps to fight in their own community against the stealth jihad activity that the film documents.”

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

In a captured internal Muslim Brotherhood document, Brotherhood operatives in the U.S. are told that they “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

And at a Muslim event in California in 1998, CAIR cofounder and longtime Board chairman Omar Ahmad was quoted as saying: “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth.”

Nor are these isolated statements. Yet the initial New York Times article about the showing of this film, as well as all the coverage that has followed, was based on the assumption that no Muslim in the U.S. believes or acts upon such ideas. And the Times deplored that “at least 1,489 police officers, from lieutenants to detectives to patrol officers, saw the film.” Apparently they will all need to be reeducated.

Instead of considering whether or not the film is accurate, the mainstream media has scolded Bloomberg and Kelly for their failure to reach out to New York’s Muslim community. But here again, in a sane world, the Mayor and the NYPD would not be expected to reach out to the Muslim community and prove their good will. The Muslim community would be reaching out to the Mayor and the NYPD, eager to prove its good will. And the Mayor and the NYPD would be telling Hamas-linked CAIR that its counterterror cooperation was not enough, instead of letting this execrable Islamic supremacist Hamas front dictate New York City’s counterterror operations.

But now CAIR smells blood, and is going in for the kill. They’ve announced that Kelly’s apology was not enough, and are calling for his resignation. They’ve already succeeded, courtesy of Barack Obama’s compliant Justice Department, in eliminating any truth about Islam and jihad from national FBI training, and are now trying to eliminate it everywhere.

The outcome will be a cadre of agents and police officers full of politically correct nonsense that will render them clueless, complacent, weak and supine in the face of jihad activity. And so the jihad in the U.S. will advance unimpeded.

And so New York, by means of this controversy, is on the verge of taking yet another decisive step toward completely banning the truth about jihad and Islamic supremacism, thereby rendering New Yorkers, and all Americans, more vulnerable than ever to that jihad.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fast forward to 2012.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read it all.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes, it certainly establishes that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hormats, speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of the annual World Economic Forum, emphasized that the White House had not made any final decisions, and that he was providing Washington's "broad thinking" on the subject.

It was unclear whether the total amount of U.S. aid to Egypt would be increased. "Whether it's an increase or whether it's reprioritizing existing assistance, we're still working this out," Hormats said.

Still, he made clear the United States wants to be seen as doing more to assist a hoped-for democratic evolution in Egypt, where the military still holds ultimate power on the first anniversary of protests that ousted President Hosni Mubarak....

Islamic spokesmen in the West routinely say that the Qur'an's command to fight against Jews and Christians, impose the jizya (poll tax) upon them and make them submit as inferiors to Islamic rule (9:29) is a relic of history, never to be revived -- and that only greasy Islamophobes say otherwise.

Yassir Al-Burhami didn't get the memo.

"Egyptian Salafi Leader Yassir Al-Burhami Compares the Christians of Egypt to the Jews of Al-Medina," from MEMRI, December 3, 2011 (air date; posted more recently), with thanks to J.:

Following are excerpts from a statement by Egyptian Salafi leader Yassir Al-Burhami, which was posted on the Internet, which aired on December 3, 2012 [sic]:

Yassir Al-Burhami: Appointing infidels to positions of authority over Muslims is prohibited. Allah said: "Never will Allah grant the infidels a way [to triumph] over the Believers."

We are not afraid of losing the elections or of not getting votes. We are not trying to ingratiate ourselves before the people.

Can the Christians of Egypt be compared to the Jews of Al-Medina? The case of the Jews of Al-Medina is one example of the relations between the Muslims and the infidels. The Muslims can implement any form of conduct used by the Prophet Muhammad. When the Prophet Muhammad was still in Mecca, he dealt with the infidels in a certain way, and when the Muslims are weak, they should deal with the infidels this way. "Refrain from action, pray, and pay the zakkat."

In many infidel countries, such as occupied Palestine, we instruct Muslims to do just that. We are not telling the Muslims in Gaza to launch rockets every day, which would lead to the destruction of the entire country. We tell them to adhere to the truce.

When the Prophet Muhammad first arrived in Al-Medina, he signed a treaty with the Jews without forcing them to pay the jizya poll tax. This was necessary at the time, but when they breached the treaty, he fought them, and eventually, he imposed the jizya upon the People of the Book.

[…]

The Christians [of Egypt] can be dealt with like the Jews of Al-Medina. This is possible.

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

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

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

And another:

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

In "An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America," by Mohamed Akram, May 19, 1991, Muslim Brotherhood operatives in the U.S. are told that they "must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

There are other indications as well:

"We reject the U.N., reject America, reject all law and order. Don't lobby Congress or protest because we don't recognize Congress. The only relationship you should have with America is to topple it. . . . Eventually there will be a Muslim in the White House dictating the laws of Shariah." -- Muhammad Faheed, Muslim Students Association meeting, Queensborough Community College, 2003

"Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth." -- Hamas-linked CAIR cofounder and longtime Board chairman Omar Ahmad, 1998 (denial noted and full story explained at link)

"I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future." -- Hamas-linked CAIR spokesman Ibrahim "Honest Ibe" Hooper, 1993

"If only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate." -- prominent American Muslim leader Siraj Wahhaj, 2002

Yet the initial Times article and all the coverage that followed are based on the assumption that no Muslim in the U.S. believes or acts upon such ideas. None of the coverage deals with the possibility that the film might be accurate, and to what extent:

During that time, at least 1,489 police officers, from lieutenants to detectives to patrol officers, saw the film.

News that police trainers showed this film so extensively comes as the department wrestles with its relationship with the city’s large Muslim community. The Police Department offers no apology for aggressively spying on Muslim groups and says it has ferreted out terror plots.

But members of the City Council, civil rights advocates and Muslim leaders say the department, in its zeal, has trampled on civil rights, blurred lines between foreign and domestic spying and sown fear among Muslims.

“The department’s response was to deny it and to fight our request for information,” said Faiza Patel, a director at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, which obtained the release of the documents through a Freedom of Information request. “The police have shown an explosive documentary to its officers and simply stonewalled us.”

Tom Robbins, a former columnist with The Village Voice, first revealed that the police had screened the film. The Brennan Center then filed its request.

Instead of investigating its accuracy, the Times, predictably, looks into who funded the film:

The 72-minute film was financed by the Clarion Fund, a nonprofit group whose board includes a former Central Intelligence Agency official and a deputy defense secretary for President Ronald Reagan. Its previous documentary attacking Muslims’ “war on the West” attracted support from the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a major supporter of Israel who has helped reshape the Republican presidential primary by pouring millions of dollars into a so-called super PAC that backs Newt Gingrich.

Commissioner Kelly is listed on the “Third Jihad” Web site as a “featured interviewee.” Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, wrote in an e-mail that filmmakers had lifted the clip from an old interview. The commissioner, Mr. Browne said, has not asked the filmmakers to remove him from its Web site, or to clarify that he had not cooperated with them....

Clarion’s financing is a puzzle. Its federal income tax forms show contributions, grants and revenues typically hover around $1 million annually — except in 2008, when it booked contributions of $18.3 million. That same year, Clarion produced “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.” The Clarion Fund used its surge in contributions to pay to distribute tens of millions of copies of this DVD in swing electoral states across the country in September 2008.

“The Third Jihad” is quite similar, in style and content, to that earlier film. Narrated by Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim doctor and former American military officer in Arizona, “The Third Jihad” casts a broad shadow over American Muslims. Few Muslim leaders, it states, can be trusted.

“Americans are being told that many of the mainstream Muslim groups are also moderate,” Mr. Jasser states. “When in fact if you look a little closer, you’ll see a very different reality. One of their primary tactics is deception.”

Seeing as how most of them are listed as allied groups in that Muslim Brotherhood memorandum I linked above, this is an entirely reasonable statement.

Nonetheless, and again predictably, the Times is pressing on with its campaign, New York Mayor Bloomberg is in full retreat, and the Islamic supremacist thugs at Hamas-linked CAIR smell blood and are calling for the resignation of police commissioner Ray Kelly.

And so New York has taken a decisive step today toward outlawing the truth about jihad and Islamic supremacism, which only makes it more vulnerable to them.

Showing yet again that thuggery and intimidation work. "Salman Rushdie's video conference at Jaipur Literature Festival cancelled," from IBNLive, January 24 (thanks to Sanjay):

Jaipur: Celebrated author Salman Rushdie's live video conference at Jaipur Literature Festival has been cancelled following protests by Jaipur-based Milli Council. Several activists of the Milli Council arrived at the venue of the Festival at Diggi Palace on Tuesday afternoon, demanding that the proposed video address by Rushdie be called off, claiming that it was an insult to the Muslims.

Despite Rajasthan government supporting the organisers of the festival, the link was called off amidst much drama at Diggi Palace in Jaipur.

The owner of the Diggy Palace Ram Pratap Singh said that he decided to not allow the video link fearing violence. Singh said that several people had entered the venue and threatened to take the law in their own hands if the video link was allowed.

"I have taken a decision on not to allow the video conference to go ahead on the advise of Rajasthan police. There are a large number people who are inside the property and a large number who are marching towards the property. This is necessary to avoid violence and harm to the property and my family," he said.

Jaipur Literature Festival organiser Sanjoy Roy said he felt disgraced because bering artists they were not allowed to carry put what they had planned to do.

"We are having to step down from the freedom of expression, write and tell stories. It's not a decision to support. We have been pushed to the wall. We have been informed by the police that there are large crowds gathering in various parts of the city marching towards Diggy Palace. It's unfortunate to step down. But Rajasthan Police supported us. The Police Commissioner assured us that they will give us protection if we wanted to go ahead," said Roy.

Claiming that the Festival was one of the best across the world, Roy said the issue was not about him (Rushdie) in person as even seeing his face would have been a problem.

"Ram Pratap and Naina were adamant that they wanted to protect people who were here and would not allowed it to go ahead," he said.

Roy called the entire controversy "idiotic" to loud cheers from crowd and then broke down on stage. He walked off wiping his tears amidst thunderous applause from the crowd.

The Booker-winning author was scheduled to do a video conference at 3:45 pm on Tuesday. But Milli Council, one of the organisations which had filed a complaint against four authors for reading out passages from 'The Satanic Verses' on Friday, had been protesting against the move since Tuesday afternoon.

The organisers had earlier assured that Rushdie would not break any law with his video address at the Festival. Jaipur Literature Festival organiser Sanjoy Roy had said that they would go ahead with the video link with Rushdie at 3:45 pm on Tuesday....

In "New Docs Reveal How DOJ Kowtows to Muslim Brotherhood" at The American Thinker today, Pamela Geller reveals the Justice Department's obsequious dealings with Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups in the U.S.:

In what promises to be an enormous document dump, I have received the first in a series of DOJ bundles in response to my FOIA request filed close to a year ago. Specifically, I asked for "records relating to the meeting of the 'Monthly Outreach Meeting' with Muslim and Arab groups at the Civil Rights Division. Specifically, include lists of attendees at each monthly meeting, the agenda of each meeting and any minutes or summary prepared subsequent to each meeting. Please also specifically note the meetings at which the Attorney General of the United States attended."

The principal impact of reading through the material is the sheer bulk of it. Hundreds and hundreds of pages of emails, documenting nearly daily friendly contact, consultation, cooperation and collaboration between the DOJ and Hamas-linked Muslim Brotherhood groups. One thing is clear, the Muslim Brotherhood has fully infiltrated command and control at the Department of Justice civil rights division.

 

The total located on a preliminary search totals 14,100 documents. The Civil Rights Division's Nelson Hermilla complained that "it is not clear in what manner the collection of all five-year's records might contribute to the general public understanding." A knowledgeable Justice Department insider told me: "You couldn't generate 14,000 pages of documents if you asked for communications with lenders or apartment or hotels as part of the Housing Section enforcement activities. There are very few things in Civil Rights that would generate 14,000 pages of anything. It has got to be a treasure trove of information."

Indeed. It is also remarkable that the Justice Department would deny that these records would advance "the general public understanding."

Going through the first batch, what struck me almost immediately was the casual familiarity between ISNA, the ADC, and senior officials of the Department of Justice, all the way up to Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez. They discuss lunch, vacations, job changes -- always with the Muslim Brotherhood groups pushing their narrative, even in these casual exchanges.

Even more striking was the servile demeanor of the Civil Rights Division official Eric Treene, Special Counsel for the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, and the demanding condescension of Muslim Brotherhood operatives. Muslim and Arab operatives treat Treene and Co. like an errand boy, asking them for email addresses of other contacts and setting them to perform the most menial gofer duties. The DOJ even takes lunch orders and picks up the tab, and in some cases asks them how much money they need for a little soiree they're holding. It is astonishing.

In a rational society, these Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups would be marginalized. Instead, the DOJ is playing Stepin Fetchit for them. They're using the DOJ as their legal arm.

The depth and the breadth of the penetration is difficult to fathom until you see all of these documents going back and forth, and the players, who include Nihad "I am in support of the Hamas movement" Awad of Hamas-tied CAIR; Suhail Khan, who accepted an award in 2000 from the now-imprisoned al-Qaeda financier Abdurrahman Alamoudi; and James Yee. James Yee a Muslim chaplain at Guantanamo who was charged with sedition, aiding the enemy, spying, espionage, and failure to obey a general order. He was charged along with three others. The charges were later dropped, when Major General Geoffrey Miller cited "national security concerns that would arise from the release of the evidence." The notorious Yee gave an interview on Syrian television in Arabic, in which he repeated Gitmo detainees' lies of Quran abuse on the part of the U.S. Military.

Those three and many others received a September 8, 2011 letter from Perez touting all the DOJ's actions on behalf of Muslims, including a suit against the city of Lilburn, Georgia for resisting the expansion of a mosque and amicus participation calling for dismissal of a suit brought by Murfreesboro, Tennessee patriots against an Islamic supremacist mosque there....

Read it all.

Racing to surrender. "LEAD: US Afghan envoy confirms talking to Haqqani insurgents," from DPA, January 22 (thanks to Wimpy):

Kabul - The US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan on Sunday confirmed a meeting with the Haqqani insurgent group, as signs of a dialogue between the United States and rebels continue to grow.

'We had one meeting with Haqqani network,' Marc Grossman told a news conference in Kabul.

His remarks come after US and the Taliban militants confirmed preliminary talks for opening an liaison office for the Taliban in the Qatari capital of Doha - increasing speculation of an end to the decade-long bloody insurgency in this war-torn country.

'I think, from the Afghan prospective anyway, this is an inclusive process but we will have to see what turns out,' Grossman said, after a two days trip to Afghanistan.

'I am looking forward to the Taliban being clear about breaking ties with international terrorism, denouncing it, distancing them salves from it.'

Grossman however did not say when and where the meeting with the Haqqani network took place.

The Taliban are demanding the release of captives held at the US prison camp at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay.

'We haven't made any decisions and it's no surprise to any of you that this is an issue in the Unites [sic] States of law. We have to meet the requirements of our law,' Grossman said, referring to the demand.

'No decision has been made about this,' he said.

President Hamid Karzai on Saturday said that he personally held a meeting with another insurgent faction, Hezb-i-Islami, recently....

The Danish Left won the elections September 15, 2011. The first 100 days in power, they managed to break 100 promises. Up to now the only ones who have benefited from the Left's victory are immigrants and unemployed.

I met the new Danish Church Minister, Manu Sareen, a couple of years ago in a live debate on national TV. During the debate he criticised me for saying that integration of Muslims is not possible. When the cameras were turned off I asked him if he himself really thought that integration of Muslims was possible. He answered, "Sometimes I think yes. Sometimes I must admit that I lose hope."

Sareen does what he can to stay popular within certain circles: "SF wants to rename the Church Ministry," translated from jp.dk:

The Church Ministry should be renamed in order to accommodate the growing population of Muslims in Denmark. This is the wish of the left wing of the Parliamentary Church Committee, said TV2 News.

Instead, Church Ministry should be renamed to Ministry of Philosophy of Life.

- People have all kinds of faiths and philosophies of life, and we must accommodate, says SF Vigsø Pernille Bagge.

"I have now been informed by intelligence sources in Maharashtra and Rajasthan that paid assassins from the Mumbai underworld may be on their way to Jaipur to eliminate me." Although he remains largely clueless about the jihad threat, Salman Rushdie has for decades now been the most visible symbol of the violent Islamic intolerance for free speech regarding Islam. Islamic supremacists have never forgiven him for his (largely unreadable) novel, and they never will.

"Rushdie cancels India visit after death threat warning," by Henry Foy for Reuters, January 20 (thanks to Java):

(Reuters) - Salman Rushdie will not attend a literature festival in India after authorities warned the controversial author he was a potential target of assassins at the event, following threats of protests from Muslim groups at his planned appearance.

Opposition from some Indian Muslim groups erupted this month after Rushdie was invited to attend Asia's largest literature festival, and senior Muslim leaders called on the government to prevent the 65-year-old author from entering the country.

"I have now been informed by intelligence sources in Maharashtra and Rajasthan that paid assassins from the Mumbai underworld may be on their way to Jaipur to eliminate me," Rushdie said in a statement read out by the festival producer.

"While I have some doubts as to the accuracy of this intelligence, it would be irresponsible of me to come to the festival in such circumstances."

The British-Indian author, whose 1988 novel the Satantic [sic] Verses is banned in India, was due to speak on the first day of the five-day Jaipur Literature Festival but organisers removed his name from the schedule last week.

Rushdie would instead participate via a video-link, festival director William Dalrymple told Reuters on Friday....

The festival's directors had previously asserted that the invitation to Rushdie still stood after rescheduling his planned appearance after Muslim leaders in Jaipur threatened to protest.

"The Muslims of Jaipur were planning a protest against Rushdie. Since he is not coming, we have cancelled it," Abdul Haq Shamshi, member of the Jaipur Jama Masjid committee told Reuters.

"If he is deceiving us, and if he comes, we will protest at a minute's notice," he said, adding that thousands of protesters would take to the streets if the author arrived in the city....

It will lead to democracy, freedom and stability in the region, he says.

Oh, really? And where exactly has the rule of Islamic law -- Sharia, not secular rule such as has prevailed in Turkey since the 1920s, or the Arab nationalist mixture of Western secular law and some Islamic law that has prevailed in many Muslim Arab countries for the last half-century or so, up until the "Arab Spring" -- ever led to democracy? Ever? Again, secular Turkey was established in the context of a rejection of political Islam, not an embrace of it.

And where has Sharia ever led to freedom for women or non-Muslims? Ever? And stability? Where have Sharia states ever been centers of regional stability?

Jimmy Carter continues to aid and abet the forces of oppression. "Carter asks U.S. to support Islamic rule in Egypt," from Aswat Masriya, January 19 (thanks to Twostellas):

Former American President, Jimmy Carter, has called out for the U.S. to support Islamic rule in Egypt, pointing out that it will lead to democracy, freedom and stability in the region.

Carter also told the CNN that Egypt is currently embracing freedom, explaining that it finally now has a real chance to elect a democratic government that protects human rights.

Asking for Americans’ support, the Former President hopes that the U.S. will not reject the Egyptian people’s choice like they did after the Palestinian elections - where Hamas was isolated after their winning.

“We must not repeat that grave mistake with Egypt. I think we could have established peace in the region if we had accepted and supported the people’s choice in Palestine. That is the lesson we have learnt... and Egypt’s choice should be given a chance,” Carter said.

What a torture chamber Guantanamo is, eh? It's so horrifically draconian that the terrorized, tortured prisoners lounge around reading the propaganda that their own side, the avowed enemies of the United States, puts out.

Meanwhile, a French judge is seeking access to Guantanamo in order to confirm allegations prisoners have made of Qur'ans being desecrated there. This dhimmi judge should ask himself this question: if Gitmo is so lax and politically correct and clueless that al-Qaeda literature can make its way there, is it really likely to be the kind of place where rogue "Islamophobic" American troops fiendishly desecrate Qur'ans in defiance of official U.S. policy?

"U.S.: Al Qaeda magazine got into Guantanamo cell," by Richard Lardner for the Associated Press, January 18 (thanks to Kenneth):

FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) — A copy of a magazine published by an arm of al Qaeda made its way to a terror suspect at the Guantanamo Bay prison, leading to an inspection of cells and a contentious new policy requiring special review teams to examine correspondence between prisoners and attorneys, U.S. prosecutors said Wednesday.

Navy Cmdr. Andrea Lockhart told a military judge during a pre-trial hearing that a copy of Inspire magazine got into a cell. She provided no details on who received the magazine or how. But she said the breach showed that prior rules at the base governing mail review were not adequate. Yemen’s al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula launched the online, English-language magazine in 2010. An early issue contained tips to would-be militants about how to kill U.S. citizens.

Lockhart is part of the U.S. team prosecuting the case against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi national charged with orchestrating the attack in 2000 on the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors. Al-Nashiri, 47, is considered one of the most senior al Qaeda leaders. He has been held at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006 after spending several years held by the CIA in a series of secret prisons.

How mail between Guantanamo prisoners and their attorneys should be handled consumed several hours of the al-Nashiri’s pre-trial session on Tuesday and Wednesday. At issue is whether even a cursory examination of the legal correspondence violates the attorney-client privilege.

The dispute reflects the untested nature of this latest attempt to resume the military tribunals at Guantanamo. The prosecution of al-Nashiri is already underway and the U.S. is preparing to prosecute five other prisoners accused in the Sept. 11 attacks, yet defense lawyers and government prosecutors are still fighting to establish basic legal ground rules....

This is an unconscionable infringement on the freedom of speech, and an indication of the dismal state of affairs in England today: a conference on Sharia and human rights in a London university is canceled after an Islamic supremacist thug photographs and threatens the participants that he will kill them if they say anything he dislikes about Muhammad.

English authorities should have arrested this man and should be keeping him and the group he was with under close scrutiny. They should have provided police in sufficient numbers both to allow this conference to go on, and to protect the participants and their families, as well as to track down and prosecute the Muslim thug and his comrades. Yes, this would be a huge expense. It would also be a statement: that this kind of thuggery will not be tolerated, and the freedom of speech will be protected.

It was ironic that this happened at a One Law For All conference. One Law For All is the project of Maryam Namazie, who is just another kind of freedom-hating thug. Her opposition to Sharia does not stem from a commitment to genuinely free societies, for as a Marxist, although she may oppose those who behead people while shouting "Allahu akbar" and post the video to YouTube, she doesn't oppose those who enslave people in gulags and shoot them in the back of the head for being "enemies of the people." Her opposition to Sharia is not a fight for freedom; Hitler and Stalin fought each other, too, but that didn't make either one of them freedom fighters.

Indeed, Namazie has targeted those who are actually working to protect the freedom of speech and the principle of equality of rights of all people against Sharia and Islamization. She has libeled me and others with outright lies, which she refuses to retract, about what we have said and what we stand for. She has retailed Palestinian jihadist propaganda about Israel, claiming that it engaged in "genocide" in Gaza -- thereby spitting in the face of all genuine victims of genocide and advancing an antisemitic lie that was crafted in aid of the jihad against Israel.

And so one gang of thugs has targeted another. The freedom of speech should in all cases be protected, but the conflict between these Muslim thugs and Maryam Namazie's gang is not one between the enemies of freedom and its defenders. It's just a turf war.

"Islamist stops university debate with threats of violence," from the National Secular Society, January 17 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

A talk on sharia and human rights by NSS Council Member Anne Marie Waters' at Queen Mary University of London was cancelled at the last moment because of an Islamist who made serious threats against everyone there.

Ms Waters was due to give a talk on behalf of the One Law for All Campaign on 16 January but before it started, a man entered the lecture theatre, stood at the front with a camera and filmed the audience. He then said that he knew who everyone was, where they lived and if he heard anything negative about the Prophet, he would track them down.

The man also filmed students in the foyer and threatened to murder them and their families. On leaving the building, he joined a large group of men, apparently there to support him. Students were told by security to stay in the lecture theatre for their own safety.

Jennifer Hardy, President of Queen Mary's Atheism, Secularism and Humanism Society, who organised the event said: "This event was supposed to be an opportunity for people of different religions and perspectives to debate, at a university that is supposed to be a beacon of free speech and debate.

"Only two complaints had been made to the Union prior to the event, and the majority of the Muslim students at the event were incredibly supportive of it going ahead. These threats were an aggressive assault on freedom of speech and the fact that they led to the cancellation of our talk was severely disappointing for all of the religious and non-religious students in the room who wanted to engage in debate."...

"In the absence of any assurance by Jordan that the torture evidence would not be used against Mr Othman, the Court therefore concluded that his deportation to Jordan to be retried would give rise to a flagrant denial of justice..." Never mind "Mr. Othman's" own flagrant attempts to deny justice to innocent people by depriving them of their lives.

"Abu Qatada wins Jordan deportation appeal," from the BBC, January 17 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Radical cleric Abu Qatada has won his appeal against deportation from the UK to Jordan, at the European Court of Human Rights.

The judges accepted the UK's deal with Jordan to protect the cleric from abuse was sound.

But the court said he should not face trial for terrorism on evidence obtained by the torture of others.

Home Secretary Theresa May said the European judges' decision was "not the end of the road".

The British government can make a final appeal before the judgement becomes binding in three months' time. If it does not appeal, the cleric will have to be released from detention.

Abu Qatada, whose real name is Omar Othman, is one of the most influential Islamist clerics in Europe, supporting jihadist causes. British judges have described him as "truly dangerous".

He has never faced trial in the UK, but has been detained without charge and had his movements restricted by a control order, a form of house arrest.

The Palestinian-Jordanian preacher has been convicted in his absence of involvement in two major terrorism plots in Jordan.

But he says that those convictions were based on evidence extracted by the torture of co-defendants and he would face similar treatment if returned. He originally fled to the UK in 1993 after being tortured twice.

The government signed a memorandum of understanding with Jordan as part of its efforts to expel him, one of a number of deals with foreign regimes which are designed to protect the human rights of anyone deported from the UK.

In the ruling, the Strasbourg court accepted that diplomatic assurances given by Jordan to the UK meant that the cleric would be protected from torture if he were returned.

But it added that the deportation had to be stopped because Abu Qatada was likely to face retrial in Jordan - and that torture had been used to gather the evidence against him....

Strasbourg said that it was highly probable that the "decisive" evidence against the preacher had come from abusing these defendants.

"In the absence of any assurance by Jordan that the torture evidence would not be used against Mr Othman, the Court therefore concluded that his deportation to Jordan to be retried would give rise to a flagrant denial of justice in violation of [his right to a fair trial]"....

YouTube manifests yet again the Leftist/Islamic supremacist hatred of free speech and of shedding light on jihadists' true genocidal intentions, as well as the common tendency to blame not jihadists for their hateful rhetoric, but instead those who report on that rhetoric.

An update on this story. "YouTube freezes PMW account again," from Palestinian Media Watch, January 16:

In response to yesterday's PMW video-bulletin which showed the PA Mufti's speech that Muslims' destiny is to kill Jews, YouTube has frozen PMW's account. All PMW videos are working except this one but the account is frozen and PMW cannot upload new videos for the next two weeks.

We have uploaded the video to a different server and it can now again be viewed from PMW's website.

The video that YouTube is calling "inappropriate" exposed the Palestinian Authority Mufti citing the Islamic tradition (Hadith) that anticipates Muslims' killing Jews as a precursor to the Hour of Resurrection. The Jews are also called the "descendants of the apes and pigs" by a Fatah moderator at the event. The following is the text of the video.

Moderator at Fatah ceremony:
"Our war with the descendants of the apes and pigs (i.e., Jews)
is a war of religion and faith.
Long Live Fatah! [I invite you,] our honorable Sheikh."

PA Mufti Muhammad Hussein comes to the podium and says:
"47 years ago the [Fatah] revolution started. Which revolution? The modern revolution of the Palestinian people's history. In fact, Palestine in its entirety is a revolution, since [Caliph] Umar came [to conquer Jerusalem, 637 CE], and continuing today, and until the End of Days. The reliable Hadith (tradition attributed to Muhammad), [found] in the two reliable collections, Bukhari and Muslim, says:
"The Hour [of Resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews.
The Jew will hide behind stones or trees.
Then the stones or trees will call:
'Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.'
Except the Gharqad tree [which will keep silent]."
Therefore it is no wonder that you see Gharqad [trees]
surrounding the [Israeli] settlements and colonies.."
[PA TV (Fatah), Jan. 9, 2012]

All this money for infrastructure will free up more money for jihad. Apparently no amount of jihad terror and calls for genocide from the Palestinians will deter Obama from sending money to the "Palestinians." "USAID Contracts Start Flowing in $750 Million Palestinian Infrastructure Project," from the U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor, January 14 (thanks to Steve):

The first round of Palestinian infrastructure contracts worth upwards of $750 million was awarded this week by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

The Infrastructure Needs Project Phase II (Solicitation #RFP294-2010-108), as the USAID endeavor is known, will help the Palestinians build or improve public works initially in the West Bank and, "if conditions permit, in Gaza" at a later time.

Task orders could be awarded under this indefinite quantity contract (IQC) for initiatives including:

• Transportation networks such as primary and secondary roads, bridges and/or other transportation infrastructure;

• Water systems including the supply, storage, treatment, transmission and/or distribution of water;

• Sanitation infrastructure including solid waste management and disposal, wastewater treatment and reuse, pollution control, and/or ecological sanitation;

• Vertical infrastructure including schools, clinics, health facilities, public buildings, government buildings and facilities, sports facilities, warehouses, food storage facilities, youth and sports centers, and/or other vertical infrastructure designed to benefit the public interest;

• Electrical Power sector infrastructure to include alternative, sustainable and/or traditional forms of power generation (such as wind turbines, photovoltaic, solar thermal, geothermal, and/or fossil-fuel-fired thermal power plants), and/or electricity transmission and distribution systems in the West Bank;

• Other critical infrastructure that USAID may decide to support subject to USAID development objectives and/or the availability of funds;

• Operations and Management of Water Facilities;

• Design/Build contracts are anticipated under this solicitation;

• Procurement, transport, shipment, storage of equipment and materials;

• Drilling and Equipping of Deep Water Production and Monitoring Wells and Facilities

• Construction and Rehabilitation of Electric Power Generation, Transmission and Distribution systems.

Contractors receiving the task orders on Jan. 9 were:

• APCO/ArCon of Dearborn, Michigan (Contract award #AID-294-I-00-12-00005). APCO/ArCon, it should be noted, is a construction firm that likewise received $100 million in task orders during Phase One of the project;
• The Morganti Group, Inc., of Danbury, Connecticut (Contract award #AID-294-I-00-12-00002);
• BLD Services, LLC, of Kenner, Louisiana (Contract award #AID-294-I-00-12-00004);
• American Intercontinental Constructors, LLC (AIC) of Arlington, Virginia (Contract award #AID-294-I-00-12-00006);
• International Relief & Development (IRD) of Arlington, Virginia (Contract award #AID-294-I-00-12-00003); and:
• CDM Constructors, Inc., of Cambridge, Massachusetts (Contract award #AID-294-I-00-12-00001).

Under the IQC arrangement, the total potential ceiling is $750 million for all contracts awarded to these, and possibly other, vendors. It is not the total for each vendor.

Even Hillary Clinton has acknowledged that the Iranians want a bomb. They have already made their genocidal dreams abundantly clear. This nuclear scientist was part of a program that clearly is aspiring to murder of millions. Taking him out could have saved millions of lives.

"Santorum: US wrong to condemn Iran scientist death," by Thomas Beaumont in the Associated Press, January 14 (thanks to Wimpy):

GREENVILLE, S.C.—Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said Saturday the U.S. was wrong to condemn the killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist this week.

The Obama administration's public posture on the death Wednesday of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan does not reflect the hard line Santorum supports in keeping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, the former Pennsylvania senator said while campaigning in conservative upstate South Carolina.

"Our country condemned it. My feeling is we should have kept our mouth shut," Santorum told about 200 people packed into a popular breakfast diner in Greenville....

And while Santorum stresses values issues, he has also argued for a tough stand on Iran's nuclear capability. Responding to a question in Greenville, he said he supports missile strikes to stop its nuclear program, if Iran refuses to submit to inspections.

"If these are people who are developing a weapon to be used to either destroy the state of Israel or to spread terror -- a reign of terror -- around the world, we shouldn't be sitting on the sidelines and letting it happen," he said. "They cannot have a nuclear weapon, because you, in Greenville, will not be safe."...

Here is some important background on Germany's attempt to stamp out truth-telling regarding Islam and jihad, an initiative which accords neatly with Sharia directives: "Germany Attempts to Silence Criticism of Islam," by Soeren Kern for Stonegate Institute, January 12 (thanks to Stefan):

German authorities have officially confirmed that they are monitoring German-language Internet websites that are critical of Muslim immigration and the Islamization of Europe.

According to Manfred Murck, director of the Hamburg branch of the German domestic intelligence agency, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), his organization is studying whether German citizens who criticize Muslims and Islam on the Internet are fomenting hate and are thus criminally guilty of "breaching" the German constitution.

The BfV's move marks a significant setback for the exercise of free speech in Germany and comes amid a months-long smear campaign led by a triple alliance of leftwing German multicultural elites, sundry Muslim groups and members of the mainstream media, who have been relentless in their efforts to discredit the so-called counter-jihad movement (also known as the "Islamophobes") in Germany.

Opinion polls show that growing numbers of ordinary German citizens are worried about the consequences of decades of multicultural policies that have encouraged mass immigration from Muslim countries.

Germans are especially concerned about the refusal of millions of Muslim immigrants to integrate into German society, as well as the emergence of a parallel legal system in Germany based on Islamic Sharia law.

In an effort to reverse this tide of public opinion, the guardians of German multiculturalism have been working overtime to regain the initiative by accusing the critics of Islam of engaging in hate speech to try to intimidate the so-called "new right" into silence.

The media campaign has been led by two financially troubled newspapers, the Berliner Zeitung and its sister publication, the Frankfurter Rundschau, as well as Der Spiegel, a leftwing magazine based in Hamburg that has long served as the mouthpiece for German multiculturalism.

In a January 4, 2012 interview with the Berliner Zeitung andFrankfurter Rundschau, Murck said the owners of anti-Islam blogs "have a disturbed relationship to the democratic constitutional state" and often promote "infringements of human rights protected under our constitution."

Murck continued: "I also see evidence of criminal relevance, such as making threats and public invitations to crime." He said criticism of Muslims and Islam constitutes "an attack against the freedom of religion, which is protected by Article 4 of the Basic Law."

The Berliner Zeitung and Frankfurter Rundschau interview was conducted by Steven Geyer und Jörg Schindler, two journalists and propagandists who have been leading an ongoing effort to shut down a highly popular German-language Internet website called Politically Incorrect (PI), which over the years has grown into a major information resource for Germans concerned about the spread of Islam in their country.

PI's motto reads "Against the Mainstream, Pro-American, Pro-Israel, Against the Islamization of Europe" which encapsulates everything the German left abhors....

And there's the rub. Read it all.

Reaching out in friendship to a group dedicated in its own words to "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within." "Overtures to Egypt’s Islamists Reverse Longtime U.S. Policy," by David D. Kirkpatrick and Steven Lee Myers in the New York Times, January 3 (thanks to all who sent this in):

CAIRO — With the Muslim Brotherhood pulling within reach of an outright majority in Egypt’s new Parliament, the Obama administration has begun to reverse decades of mistrust and hostility as it seeks to forge closer ties with an organization once viewed as irreconcilably opposed to United States interests.

The administration’s overtures — including high-level meetings in recent weeks — constitute a historic shift in a foreign policy held by successive American administrations that steadfastly supported the autocratic government of President Hosni Mubarak in part out of concern for the Brotherhood’s Islamist ideology and historic ties to militants.

The shift is, on one level, an acknowledgment of the new political reality here, and indeed around the region, as Islamist groups come to power. Having won nearly half the seats contested in the first two rounds of the country’s legislative elections, the Brotherhood on Tuesday entered the third and final round with a chance to extend its lead to a clear majority as the vote moved into districts long considered strongholds.

The reversal also reflects the administration’s growing acceptance of the Brotherhood’s repeated assurances that its lawmakers want to build a modern democracy that will respect individual freedoms, free markets and international commitments, including Egypt’s treaty with Israel....

"Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued." -- Qur'an 9:29

And it may well come to that. "Yohanna Qulta, Deputy Patriarch of the Coptic Catholic Church in Egypt: If the Salafis Come to Power and Instate the Jizya Poll Tax, We Will Oppose This to the Point of Martyrdom," from MEMRI, December 10, 2011 (thanks to Wimpy):

Following are excerpts from an interview with Egyptian priest Yohanna Qulta, deputy patriarch of the Coptic Catholic church, which aired on Al-Hayat TV on December 10, 2011.

Interviewer: When I asked if the Copts were thinking of leaving Egypt, you said: "Absolutely."

Yohanna Qulta: Of course. The fear we encounter on TV and in national newspapers, which I don't want to name... Actually, why not? Al-Ahram, Al-Akhbar... They run large headlines, quoting the Salafis as saying that the Copts should either leave Egypt or pay the jizya poll tax in submission.

[...]

The world has changed. The Copts did not fight you [Muslims] or drive you out of your homes, so why do you want to expel them? Do the Copts constitute a foreign community? They tell you that Switzerland persecutes the Muslims, France persecutes the Muslims... The persecution of any group is unacceptable - but we are not even a community of immigrants. We have deep roots in this country.

[...]

Interviewer: Do you Copts fear these Salafi statements? If they do come to power and instate the jizya poll tax - I'm not saying that this will happen, but let's assume this for the sake of argument - how will you respond?

Yohanna Qulta: We will oppose this fiercely, to the point of martyrdom. Returning to the Middle Ages is out of the question. We will not turn to the UN or to the Western countries, but to Al-Azhar, to Islamic moral values, and to the vast majority of Muslims, who are moderate. Gone are the days of paying the jizya, the days of slavery. What the Salafis and the others need to understand is that the religious state has failed, from East to West, in every era, both in Christian and Muslims countries...

In Human Events this morning I recap three ways in which the jihad advanced non-violently in 2011:

The cause of freedom is by no means dead, but 2011 was a banner year for Islamic jihadists and supremacists the world over. Their advance was swiftest and most significant in three areas:

1. The “Arab Spring”: Widely hailed in the mainstream media as a flowering of Western-style democracy and freedom, in reality the revolutions across North Africa and the Middle East were from the beginning actually Islamic supremacist in nature. Fueled by the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups of like mind, the “Arab Spring” ushered in governments all across North Africa that are dedicated to the imposition of Islamic law and the eradication of all remaining vestiges of Western notions such as free speech and equality of rights for women and non-Muslims. The governments that are coming to power are certain to be even more virulent anti-American, authoritarian, and violent than the ones they supplanted.

Unsurprisingly, Barack Obama enthusiastically applauded these developments, actively aided them with U.S. military might in Libya, and abetted the false media narrative with some spin of his own. Speaking about the Libyan revolution in March, Barack Obama hailed “the rights of peaceful assembly, free speech, and the ability of the Libyan people to determine their own destiny,” and also praised “the peaceful transition to democracy in both Tunisia and in Egypt.”

Now, as Egypt rushes headlong toward becoming a Sharia state and going to war with Israel, Obama is scrambling to hold at bay the forces he is largely responsible for unleashing.

2. The new domestic anti-terror policy: Meanwhile, at home the Obama Administration brought to its logical culmination a policy of ignoring and downplaying the beliefs, motives and goals of America’s jihadist enemies that began during the Bush Administration. After a series of “exposes” in Leftist media journals about alleged “Islamophobia” (i.e. truthful and accurate analysis of how Islamic jihadists use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence and supremacism) in terror training materials used in the FBI and other agencies, aghast Obama Administration officials promised to scrub training materials of anything that connected Islam with Islamic jihad terrorism, and to reeducate agents who had been exposed to such materials.

The suicidal idiocy of this was immediately apparent when several officials were pressed on how they proposed to identify potential terror threats, and they started talking about behaviors associated with Islamic piety. But the mainstream media didn’t press these officials on the obvious contradiction. Nor did anyone ask how Administration terror analysts proposed to deal with the fact that Islamic jihadists often give their groups Islamic names (such as Hamas, which is an acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement, and Hizballah, the Party of Allah) and explain their actions in Islamic theological terms – other than to stick their fingers in their ears and yell, “La la la, I can’t hear you.”...

There is more.

The whole idea of a uniform is to convey a sense of singleness of purpose, both to those within the organization and to those who encounter members of it. So if one group is allowed variations on the uniform, all other groups should be allowed them as well, and the very purpose of a uniform is destroyed. Hijabs and turbans in the JROTC will create a sense that the wearer has another allegiance and a different purpose from those of the rest of the outfit, rather than being dedicated primarily to the organization's mission and goals.

But what is most disturbing about this story is Leon Panetta's rush, and the Army's rush, to placate the Hamas-linked Muslim Brotherhood group CAIR. Hamas-linked CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case -- so named by the Justice Department. CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. CAIR's cofounder and longtime Board chairman (Omar Ahmad), as well as its chief spokesman (Ibrahim Hooper), have made Islamic supremacist statements. Its California chapter distributed posters telling Muslims not to talk to the FBI.

An update on this story. "Army to allow hijabs, turbans in Junior ROTC," by Caroline May in the Daily Caller, December 22 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The [Hamas-linked] Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has announced that the Department of Defense will now allow Muslim and Sikh students participating in Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) to wear headscarves and turbans while in uniform.

The decision, announced Thursday, followed an October incident in which Muslim teen Demin Zawity quit JROTC when her commanding officer at a Brentwood, Tenn. high school would not allow her to wear her hijab in the homecoming parade.

CAIR later wrote to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta requesting “constitutionally-protected religious accommodations for the girl and for future Muslim JROTC participants.”

In a letter to the Muslim organization sent on Panetta’s behalf, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army Larry Stubblefield explained that based on the incident that led Zawity to quit JROTC, the Army will now be making more accommodations for religious headwear in the training program.

“Based on your concerns, the Army has reviewed its JROTC uniform policy and will develop appropriate procedures to provide Cadets the opportunity to request the wear of religious head dress, such as the turban and hijab,” Stubblefield wrote in the letter, made public by CAIR. “This change will allow Miss Zawity and other students the chance to fully participate in the JROTC program.”

Army spokesman George Wright confirmed Stubblefield’s letter to CAIR and explained to The Daily Caller that while JROTC is affiliated with the Army, it is not actually a part of the Army. The new procedures will provide JROTC with a exemption method more similar to current Army procedure mandated through the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.

That law allows soldiers on active duty to apply for religious accommodation if they want to alter their uniforms in accordance with their religious beliefs. The exemptions are applied on a case-by-case basis. Soldiers who are transferred must reapply....

With Hillary Clinton trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. "Clinton cleaning up after Obama’s Middle East policy," by Neil Munro in the Daily Caller, December 21:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is taking on a new role — patching fractures in President Barack Obama’s Muslim outreach policy.

Clinton’s role is highlighted by a new White House policy announced Dec. 19, which makes the roles and rights of women a central element of U.S. foreign policy. The policy is titled “The United States National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security.”...

Her new role comes as she and other feminists increasingly voice their worries about the impact on Arab women of the burgeoning Islamist political movements that are religiously committed to the subordination of women.

“We’ve seen this already happening in countries where proposed legislation rolls back women’s rights,” said Jolynn Shoemaker, director of the Women in International Security organization. In Egypt and Libya, “it is a very critical time,” said Shoemaker, who is based at the Center for Strategic and International Studies....

But Obama’s initial outreach policy in 2009 invited the Islamist parties to pay a large role in the region’s politics. For example, he insisted that several members of the Muslim Brotherhood be allowed to attend his much-lauded 2009 speech in Cairo....

This year, however, Obama reacted to the growing role of the Islamists by offering some support for Western ideas. On May 19, for example, Obama declared that peoples’ rights “include free speech, the freedom of peaceful assembly, the freedom of religion, equality for men and women under the rule of law, and the right to choose your own leaders — whether you live in Baghdad or Damascus, Sanaa or Tehran.”

However, in that speech and since then, Obama has focused on pressuring Israel to make further concessions prior to hoped-for talks with Arab and Islamic advocates.

Also, Obama and White House officials have refused to condemn the Islamist parties’ political gains, or their advocacy of policies that subordinate women in the workplace, in politics and in family life....

“The White House warmly applauded the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, and actively aided the one in Libya, while brushing aside abundant indications that each was powered largely by Islamic supremacists who would deny rights to women,” said Robert Spencer, an expert on Islam and a best-selling author. “By helping pave the way for pro-Sharia regimes in the ‘Arab Spring’ countries, they’ve become women’s worst enemy,” he said.

Clinton is now stepping into this gap, partly because Obama is focused on his 2012 election, and partly because U.S. policymakers need to influence the newly empowered Islamist governments and movements.

On Dec. 14, for example, Clinton subtly challenged Obama’s conciliatory approach to the Islamist parties.

She used a speech at a department-hosted conference on religious freedom to taunt Islamist advocates and governments about the possible weakness of their religious faith. “Everyone one of us who is a religious person knows there are some who may not support or approve of our religion, but is our religion so weak that statements of disapproval cause us to lose our faith?” she said to attendees, which included numerous officials from Islamic countries in the 57-national Organization of Islamic Cooperation....

Read it all.

No one is in favor of actual "stereotyping, negative profiling and stigmatization of people based on their religion." The problem is that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which is driving this resolution, considers any truthful speech about the global jihad and Islamic supremacism to be "stereotyping, negative profiling and stigmatization of people based on their religion." This is an attempt to quash truth-telling about Islamic jihad so that the West stands mute and defenseless before its advance. And now the Obama Administration, fresh from a secret meeting with the OIC on just this topic, joins in.

Free Speech Death Watch Alert: "U.N. Adopts ‘Religious Intolerance’ Resolution Championed by Obama Administration," by Patrick Goodenough for CNS News, December 20 (thanks to Wimpy):

(CNSNews.com) – The U.N. General Assembly on Monday adopted a resolution condemning the stereotyping, negative profiling and stigmatization of people based on their religion, and urging countries to take effective steps “to address and combat such incidents.”

No member state called for a recorded vote on the text, which was as a result adopted “by consensus.”

The resolution, an initiative of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), is based on one passed by the U.N.’s Human Rights Council in Geneva last spring. The State Department last week hosted a meeting to discuss ways of “implementing” it.

Every year since 1999 the OIC has steered through the U.N.’s human rights apparatus a resolution condemning the “defamation of religion,” which for the bloc of 56 Muslim states covered incidents ranging from satirizing Mohammed in a newspaper cartoon to criticism of shari’a and post-9/11 security check profiling.

Critics regard the measure as an attempt to outlaw valid and critical scrutiny of Islamic teachings, as some OIC states do through controversial blasphemy laws at home.

Strongly opposed by mostly Western democracies, the divisive “defamation” resolution received a dwindling number of votes each year, with the margin of success falling from 57 votes in 2007 to 19 in 2009 and just 12 last year.

This year’s text was a departure, in that it dropped the “defamation” language and included a paragraph that reaffirms “the positive role that the exercise of the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the full respect for the freedom to seek, receive and impart information can play in strengthening democracy and combating religious intolerance.”

The nod to freedom of expression won the resolution the support of the U.S. and other democracies, with the Obama administration and others hailing it as a breakthrough after years of acrimonious debate.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took the opportunity of the State Department-hosted talks with foreign governments, the OIC and other international bodies last week to stress the importance of freedom of speech in the U.S. She argued that “the best way to treat offensive speech is by people either ignoring it or combating it with good arguments and good speech that overwhelms it.”

Saudi initiative singled out for praise

Nonetheless, the resolution adopted in New York on Monday does contain elements that concern some free speech and religious freedom advocates.

It calls on states “to take effective measures to ensure that public functionaries in the conduct of their public duties do not discriminate against an individual on the basis of religion or belief.”

Governments also are expected to make “a strong effort to counter religious profiling, which is understood to be the invidious use of religion as a criterion in conducting questionings, searches and other law enforcement investigative procedures.”

“Effective measures” to counter cases of religious stereotyping and stigmatization include education, interfaith dialogue and “training of government officials.”

And in the worst cases, those of “incitement to imminent violence” based on religion, the resolution calls on countries to implement “measures to criminalize” such behavior....

All such things are in the eye of the beholder, meaning that the enforcement agency will decide what is offensive and what is incitement, and silence people accordingly.

"I find it sad for the child and the teacher, who may have to redesign her teaching program as a result." Of course. When in Muslim countries, one must abide by Islamic mores. When in non-Muslim countries, one must abide by Islamic mores.

Noting that Islamic law forbids musical instruments and music itself except in some strictly defined circumstances will bring you swift charges of "ignorance" and "Islamophobia." I guess this devout Muslim family is actually made up of ignorant Islamophobes.

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

Muhammad also said:

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

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

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

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

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

"Muslim kindergartener permitted to block out music," from CTV Montreal, December 19 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

MONTREAL — A kindergarten student in Saint-Michel will be allowed to wear a noise-reducing headset in class, because her parents' [sic] say their religious beliefs don't allow the five-year-old girl to listen to music.

Though music is an integral part of the kindergarten program, the principal of Bienville School decided to grant the accommodation request made by a Muslim family and allow their daughter to block out music at school.

"The principal thinks the family is acting in good faith," said Diane de Courcy, president of the Montreal School Commission. "(They) would have otherwise kept the child at home."

Kindergarten is not mandatory, and teachers say if the student is being sent into the program, barring the new immigrant from certain activities isolates her from the rest of the class.

"I find it sad for the child and the teacher, who may have to redesign her teaching program as a result," said Elaine Bertrand of union the Montreal Teachers' Alliance.

The school and school board felt the decision was a fair compromise to build trust with the family and help the child integrate into the school system sooner.

Nonsense. This isn't about integration. It is just the opposite of integration.

"Once she's in grade one, she'll have to follow the same curriculum as everyone else," said de Courcy.

Unlikely. Does de Courcy really think the demands for Muslim accommodation will end then?

Many teachers argue the issue is not strictly about music or religion, but rather the pressure they feel to reasonably accommodate a variety of demands from health-related issues to religion.

Montreal Teachers' Alliance is asking for stricter guidelines for requests.

Education Minister Line Beauchamp said she instead supports the school's individualized approach.

"It would be impossible to develop a framework to address such a wide variety of reasonable accommodation requests," she said.

Indeed.

Biden continues here the Obama Administration's narrow focus on al-Qaeda as the enemy. Not even the Taliban are included anymore, despite their obvious involvement in 9/11 plotting and more. And the ideology that al-Qaeda and the Taliban, as well as many other jihad groups around the globe? Off the table. Cannot and must not be examined.

"Joe Biden On Iraq, Iran, China and the Taliban," by Leslie H. Gelb for Newsweek via The Daily Beast, December 19 (thanks to Wimpy):

On Thursday, Dec. 15, Vice President Joe Biden sat down in his sunlit White House office adjoining the Rose Garden to do what he loves best—talk about foreign policy—with Leslie H. Gelb of Newsweek/The Daily Beast. What follows are excerpts of their exclusive review of the year’s hotspots....

NEWSWEEK: What are our vital interests in continuing to fight a major war in Afghanistan?

BIDEN: We were in Afghanistan for two reasons. One is to deal with, curtail, begin to dismantle, and eventually eliminate al Qaeda. Not only from being able to come back into Afghanistan and control Afghanistan but from the region—to decimate al Qaeda.

NEWSWEEK: Almost an impossible goal to achieve.

BIDEN: No—to fundamentally alter their capacity to do damage to American allies and vital U.S. interests, to fundamentally alter that. We have done that. It doesn’t mean they’re not capable.

NEWSWEEK: It means we’ve done it for the time being, but depending upon who comes to power in Afghanistan in the future, they can come back. I know you don’t favor staying there ad infinitum to prevent that.

BIDEN: I would argue they are not able to come back. I would argue that there has been serious damage done to their infrastructure in a way that the coherence of this thing called al Qaeda and their ability to metastasize has been severely damaged.

NEWSWEEK: So we no longer have to stay in Afghanistan to fight for it?

BIDEN: No, let me finish. That is not fully achieved, it is close. The second reason for us to be in Afghanistan was to make sure that a country with tens of millions of people and nuclear weapons called Pakistan did not somehow begin to disintegrate or fall apart. That is a hell of a lot tougher job....

Great job on that score, Joe. Pakistan is a paragon of anti-jihad Islamic moderation, now, ain't it?

NEWSWEEK: I know you don’t believe we can reshape Afghanistan and make it into a caramelized democracy.

BIDEN: Look, look, Les, let’s posit that your statement is that it’s clear that Pakistan could live with an Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban.

NEWSWEEK: They did.

BIDEN: We could not. We could not because they harbored, sheltered, and supported an outfit that created a real threat to the United States.

NEWSWEEK: And we told them if you stop harboring al Qaeda, we’ll live with you too.

BIDEN: Yes, but they didn’t.

NEWSWEEK: And we can make that deal now.

BIDEN: We didn’t. That is part of what the reconciliation process is about right now. We are not just deciding that all we are doing is supporting a government and building up their military capability. We’re engaged in a reconciliation process. Whether it will work or not is another question. But we are in a position where if Afghanistan ceased and desisted from being a haven for people who do damage and have as a target the United States of America and their allies, that’s good enough. That’s good enough. We’re not there yet.

Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy. That’s critical. There is not a single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy assertions that the Taliban is our enemy because it threatens U.S. interests. If, in fact, the Taliban is able to collapse the existing government, which is cooperating with us in keeping the bad guys from being able to do damage to us, then that becomes a problem for us. So there’s a dual track here:

One, continue to keep the pressure on al Qaeda and continue to diminish them. Two, put the government in a position where they can be strong enough that they can negotiate with and not be overthrown by the Taliban. And at the same time try to get the Taliban to move in the direction to see to it that they, through reconciliation, commit not to be engaged with al Qaeda or any other organization that they would harbor to do damage to us and our allies....

Islamic spokesmen in the West are always telling us that only greasy Islamophobes think that Muslims want to restore the caliphate and force non-Muslims to pay the jizya, the tax on the subjugated dhimmis specified in Qur'an 9:29, or be killed. Sheikh Nader Tamimi must therefore be a greasy Islamophobe in disguise who has somehow become mufti of the Palestinian Liberation Army despite his bigotry and hatred and ignorance of Islam, or else he is a simple garden-variety Misunderstander of Islam.

Note also that another Jordanian sheikh, Sheikh Ahmad Abu Quddum, recently misunderstood Islam in exactly the same way. Can one of the smooth and reassuring Muslim spokesmen in the U.S. straighten these guys out and explain to them how they're misunderstanding the Religion of Peace? Honest Ibe Hooper? Boy Reza Aslan? Brave Ahmed Rehab? "Man of Peace" Imam Rauf? Can one of you please go over to Jordan and meet with these two sheikhs and explain to them how the caliphate, jizya, and jihad warfare are relics of the distant past, never to be revived?

Or is that all just blague and guff to fool credulous Infidels?

"Jordanian Sheik Nader Tamimi, Mufti of the Palestinian Liberation Army, to the West: We Will Restore the Caliphate and You Will Pay the Jizya 'or Else We Will Bring the Sword to Your Necks,'" from MEMRI, December 15 (thanks to David):

Following are excerpts from an address by Jordanian Sheik Nader Tamimi, Mufti of the Palestine Liberation Army, which was posted on the Internet on December 15, 2011:

Nader Tamimi: In the Levant, we are involved in a fierce battle, and we will bring about a change in Syria and in the Levant in its entirety. The infidels divided the Levant into four states, and we will reunite them into a single state. The Safavid enterprise that led to Iran occupying Iraq, along with the Americans and the Zionists, will end in the garbage bin of history. The Caliphate in the path of the Prophet will return.

[…]

We await the caliph who will address the leaders of the US and Europe and say: From the Emir of the Believers from Jerusalem…

Crowd: Allah Akbar.

Nader Tamimi: to the rulers of the West, this is the religion of Allah. Either you pay the jizya poll tax, or else you will bring the sword to your necks…

Crowd: Allah Akbar.

Crowd member: Say: "Allah Akbar."

Crowd: Allah Akbar.

[…]

Crowd member: The people wants the restoration of the Caliphate.

Nader Tamimi along with crowd: The people wants the restoration of the Caliphate.

Nader Tamimi along with crowd: The people wants the restoration of the Caliphate.

In saying this, Ron Paul parrots the Islamic supremacist line that defending against the global jihad is not a matter of standing for freedom against tyranny, or working to preserve and protect the freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and equality of rights for all people. Instead -- they claim -- it is just a matter of "hate."

When Islamic supremacists such as Dalia Mogahed, Daisy Khan, Ibrahim Hooper or Reza Aslan say this, their agenda is clear: they want to stigmatize resistance to jihad so that that resistance collapses, and the jihad against the West can proceed unimpeded. Branding the defenders of freedom as hatemongers and bigots is for such people a tactic in their war.

But what's Ron Paul's excuse?

"Ron Paul on Bachmann: ‘She hates Muslims. She hates them. She wants to go get them,’" by Jeff Poor for The Daily Caller, December 17:

In an appearance that lasted three segments on NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” on Friday, Republican presidential candidate Texas Rep. Ron Paul gave a wide-ranging interview about his vision and how we would handle certain issues.

However, at the end of his interview, the Texas congressman gave his thoughts on some of his competitors, with some less-than-flattering words for his Republican colleague Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann.

Leno named off several of the candidates and Paul gave his opinion of each....

Michele Bachmann: “She doesn’t like Muslims. She hates Muslims. She hates them. She wants to go get them.”...
Rick Santorum: “Gay people and Muslims.”...

Here are some more lovely and inspiring Qur'an selections they could feature:

Qur'an 98:4-6: "Nor did the People of the Book make schisms, until after there came to them Clear Evidence. And they have been commanded no more than this: To worship Allah, offering Him sincere devotion, being true (in faith); to establish regular prayer; and to practise regular charity; and that is the Religion Right and Straight. Those who reject (Truth), among the People of the Book and among the Polytheists, will be in Hell-Fire, to dwell therein (for aye). They are the worst of creatures."

Qur'an 5:14: "From those, too, who call themselves Christians, We did take a covenant, but they forgot a good part of the message that was sent them: so we estranged them, with enmity and hatred between the one and the other, to the day of judgment. And soon will Allah show them what it is they have done."

Qur'an 4:171: "O People of the Scripture! Do not exaggerate in your religion nor utter aught concerning Allah save the truth. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a messenger of Allah, and His word which He conveyed unto Mary, and a spirit from Him. So believe in Allah and His messengers, and say not "Three" - Cease! (it is) better for you! - Allah is only One Allah. Far is it removed from His Transcendent Majesty that He should have a son. His is all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth. And Allah is sufficient as Defender."

Qur'an 5:116: "And when Allah saith: O Jesus, son of Mary! Didst thou say unto mankind: Take me and my mother for two gods beside Allah? he saith: Be glorified! It was not mine to utter that to which I had no right. If I used to say it, then Thou knewest it. Thou knowest what is in my mind, and I know not what is in Thy Mind. Lo! Thou, only Thou, art the Knower of Things Hidden?"

Qur'an 19:35: "It is not befitting to (the majesty of) Allah that He should beget a son. Glory be to Him! when He determines a matter, He only says to it, 'Be,' and it is."

Qur'an 9:30-31: "And the Jews say: Ezra is the son of Allah, and the Christians say: The Messiah is the son of Allah. That is their saying with their mouths. They imitate the saying of those who disbelieved of old. Allah (Himself) fighteth against them. How perverse are they! They have taken as lords beside Allah their rabbis and their monks and the Messiah son of Mary, when they were bidden to worship only One Allah. There is no Allah save Him. Be He Glorified from all that they ascribe as partner (unto Him)!"

Qur'an 9:29: "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."

Meanwhile, where are the mosques featuring Bible readings?

"Royal Holloway College holds Islamic Christmas Carol Service," from the Archbishop Cranmer blog, December 15 (thanks to Twostellas):

[...] But even grimmer for Anglicans are ‘inclusive’ Christmas carols services – you know, the sort that bend over backwards to be all things to all people in order that by any means possible none may be offended. In fact, it is these sort of gospel-lite and theology-free services which are largely responsible for people not finding Christ – even at Christmas.

Royal Holloway College, in the University of London, held its Christmas carol service in its own College Chapel, presided over jointly by the College's Chaplain – an Anglican vicar, the Rev'd Cate Irvine, and a Roman Catholic chaplain from the local church, Fr Vladimir Nikiforov.

And what did the assembled festive throng hear? The prophecy of of Isaiah? 'For unto us a child is born...'? The Gospel of Luke? 'There went out a decree from Caesar Augustus...'? A reading from Micah, perhaps? 'But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto Me that is to be Ruler in Israel'?

No, none of the above. Instead, they got the Qur'an:

Behold! the angels said "O Mary! Allah giveth thee glad tidings of a Word from Him: his name will be Christ Jesus the son of Mary held in honour in this world and the Hereafter and of (the company of) those nearest to Allah.

"He shall speak to the people in childhood and in maturity and he shall be of the company of the righteous."

She said: "O my Lord! how shall I have a son when no man hath touched me?" He said: "Even so: Allah createth what He willeth; when He hath decreed a plan He but saith to it 'Be' and it is!

"And Allah will teach him the Book and Wisdom the Law and the Gospel.

"And (appoint him) an Apostle to the Children of Israel with this message: I have come to you with a sign from your Lord in that I make for you out of clay as it were the figure of a bird and breathe into it and it becomes a bird by Allah's leave; and I heal those born blind and the lepers and I quicken the dead by Allah's leave; and I declare to you what ye eat and what ye store in your houses. Surely therein is a Sign for you if ye did believe.

"I have come to you to attest the Law which was before me and to make lawful to you part of what was before forbidden to you; I have come to you with a Sign from your Lord. So fear Allah and obey me.

"It is Allah who is my Lord and your Lord; then worship Him. This is a way that is straight." (Qur'an 3:45-51)

Fantastic, eh? Perhaps we should be grateful that the Rev’d Cate and Fr Vladimir didn’t select this reading:

That they rejected faith: that they uttered against Mary a grave false charge. That they said in boast "We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary the Apostle of Allah"; but they killed him not nor crucified him but so it was made to appear to them and those who differ therein are full of doubts with no (certain) knowledge but only conjecture to follow for of a surety they killed him not. (Qur'an 4:156-158)

Perhaps they’re saving that for Easter....