The Times report gives some different details and extra photos.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,251-1776741,00.html

The burning synagogue in The Times report caught my eye during a news report before the destruction started. I thought it was a remarkable imaginative piece of architecture. Built in the shape of a silver and white Star of David it was never going to survive 5 minutes.

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at September 12, 2005 6:26 AM

I am shocked, shocked!

Posted by: Mentat at September 12, 2005 6:53 AM

Israel should have left everything standing.

All infrastructure, sewage pipes & systems, water systems, telecommunications etc etc as well as the buildings & Holy places.

The pictures of the Palestinians burning everything that is left & celebrating just like they did on 9/11 is even making Al BBCeera uncomfortable.

Hopefully seeing the aftermath of victorious Jihad will give others suffering from the blight of Dhimmitude pause for thought.

Intreresting that, once again we see some Nazi connotations in their celebrations & actions:

A Nazi swastika was sprayed onto a burning synagogue.

And these are the people the West's left wing share "solidarity" with?

Posted by: albion at September 12, 2005 7:06 AM

Will CAIR call on the PA to investigate this as a possible "hate crime" ?????

It's a good policy to forbid illiterate half wits from playing with sharp objects and matches.

Posted by: DCWatson at September 12, 2005 8:41 AM

"Today it is our turn to destroy theirs"

As a poster on LGF so eloquently put it, "Hey Ahmed, the Isreali's are gone! The buildings weren't theirs anymore, they were YOURS, you dumb M*********r!"......or something like that.

Another thing, Islam has never been shy about taking other religions holy buildings and parasitizing them as mosques, been doing it for 1000 years or more. What happened? Was it a case of palestinian yearning for a Hobbesian utopia overriding religious duty? Was it a case of someone thinking "Mosques I've got, what I'm running out of is buildings to destroy"?

Granted, the synagogue shaped like the Star of David never stood a chance. But doesn't it make you wonder that if the situation was reversed, the Isreali's would have rearranged or added one or two walls to alter the shape and then put it to good, productive, civilized use?

Has the wind started to moan through the broken panes of derelict and vandalized greenhouses yet? My money is on those greenhouses never growing another thing, the palestinians have MUCH better uses for fertilizer.

Posted by: t-ham at September 12, 2005 8:43 AM

"The pictures of the Palestinians burning everything that is left & celebrating just like they did on 9/11 is even making Al BBCeera uncomfortable."

Albion,
I didn't see the BBC report on this. What did the report say that suggested the BBC was uncomfortable? My own impression from watching the 30 minute BBC World News broadcasts here in the U.S. is that BBC reporters, particularly Orla Guerin, treat the destruction of synagogues and Jewish symbols as a cause for celebration.

Posted by: sbrst at September 12, 2005 9:13 AM

Albion - "israel should have left everything standing" - why?

so you could have watched the palestinians destroy even more?

im sure youd have wallowed in the spectacle

once again the bbc and the left wing getting the blame for the israeli withdrawal from gaza - and now for burning synagogues

but we know which tune sharon is dancing to - the "danse macabre" being belted out by george w bush and his neo-conmen in washington (music by osama bin laden, lyrics by king fahd, show sponsors - corporate america, support act - tony bliar, fawning audience - right wing headbangers)

incidentally ive just watched a short, somewhat garbled video clip of maurice dantec in a show promoting his book "cosmos incorporated"

he makes the claim that churches are being burned in canada every day, but noone talks about it because its not politically correct

does anyone know anything about this?

Posted by: freddiefreeloader at September 12, 2005 9:27 AM

hahahaha - the eu is now apparently proposing that it should guard the borders of gaza strip

(we cant even control our own borders)

Posted by: freddiefreeloader at September 12, 2005 9:57 AM

Freddie:

Comment on what I write by all means, but don't take it out of context. Try reading the whole thing again - if you haven't got Pagans to convert in your bedsit or whatever.

Why the F___K would I "wallow in the spectacle"?

I am sure other subscribers to DW / JW know my position on Palestine - clearly you have a reading / writing problem.

Time & again you seem to seek minor confrontation here, like you want some little picky feud with the good folks here. I am so hacked off with your drivel that I have avoided JW/DW for a few days now, hoping against hope that you would find another site in bedsit cyberspace to annoy.

The contributors here are mostly well read & researched - your Sharon tirade of late shows your lack of knowledge on the subject & just how intellectually challenged you are as to the issues under discussion & their peripheral interaction with each other.

Congestion charge? Dresden? All these items have been raised by you here of late (yes, I take careful notes) Who cares what you think on such matters, this isn't the platform for those views. I come here to have the "bigger Jihad picture" bought into sharp relief.

If you have nothing really to contribute, please keep quiet, or go for a game of Football, or find a Pagan to convert - anything but wasting space here.

You lack certain intellectual skills to engage me.

Posted by: albion at September 12, 2005 10:18 AM

freddie:

I have heard no reports of churches being systematically burned anywhere in Canada.

As for your continual attacks on Ariel Sharon in particular and Israel, generally I invite you to consider these two items from melaniephillips.com. You are not in the minority, unfortunately, but you have no idea how coloured your view is of Israel.

The war within the west (2)
A scholarly and sobering article by Suzanne Gershowitz and Emanuele Ottolenghi in the Middle East Quarterly makes a parallel point to Carson (see post above), but this time about Ariel Sharon and the way he is viewed by Europe. The demonisation of Sharon and of Israel are not examples of national self-immolation by a country’s own elite (although there’s plenty of that going on within Israel too) but rather the Europe-wide scapegoating of a country and a leader who, with monstrous injustice, have been turned into pariahs on account of just about everything they do, especially their struggle against annihilatory terror, while their aggressors are indulged. As the article records, this European savagery towards Sharon and, through him, towards Israel, is based on systematic distortions and lies – not least about the Sabra and Shatila massacres in 1982, the point at which the Europeans gleefully fabricated their first Jewish war criminal:

‘The European press exaggerated Sharon's role in the Sabra and Shatila massacres and used it as original sin to cast blame upon Sharon and, by extension, Israel for subsequent events regardless of fact. In an October 2 editorial, the French establishment daily Le Monde declared that Sharon's "provocation" was "enormous," and cited his role in covering up "the massacre by his Lebanese allies of a thousand [sic] women, children, and old Palestinian men in the camps of Sabra and Shatila." Von Heiko Flottau of the German Sueddeutsche Zeitung described how Sharon's troops "watched" as the massacre unfolded. Alexandra Schwartzbrod of the French Libération declared Sharon to be "responsible" for the massacres. Seldom is any other detail of Sharon's career, such as his coordination of the dismantling of the Sinai settlement of Yamit, mentioned.

‘Sharon was defense minister during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. But he was not at the camps during the raid, nor did he order the Lebanese troops to wage such an atrocity. The Israeli army ordered the Lebanese Phalangists out of the camps as soon as they heard that the massacre took place. While the Kahan Commission found Sharon one of the persons "indirectly responsible" for the massacre because he did not foresee the possibility that Lebanese troops might wage a massacre, it labeled "baseless libel" the accusation that Israeli troops were in the camps at the time of the massacre.

‘Both the fundamental bias and ignorance of the European media is exposed by the fact that few raised concerns that Elie Hobeika, the Phalangist leader who ordered the massacre, subsequently became a minister in the Syrian-dominated Lebanese government in which capacity he met with a number of EU officials. Karen Coleman, foreign affairs editor for Dublin's NewsTalk 106 FM radio, condemned Sharon for perpetrating the massacre but had not heard of "allegations" of Hobeika's involvement. Hobeika subsequently held several Lebanese ministerial positions under pro-Syrian governments in which capacity he met with European officials and journalists who did not mention his past. For example, in February 1998, a German news agency covered a pan-Mediterranean energy conference in Beirut opened by the head of the European Commission and featuring then minister of water and electricity Hobeika; it made no mention of his past.’

This demonisation, the authors suggest, has unleashed an irrational hatred of Israel and resurgence of anti-Jewish feeling, and calls into question Europe’s fitness to exercise any role in the search for peace in the Middle East:

‘Israel is a controversial nation and Sharon a controversial figure. But the European media's demonization of Sharon has become irrational. This bias has become so customary that, within Europe, the legitimacy of Israel-bashing and Sharon-baiting has enabled a mainstream airing of conspiracies. Recently, for example, a Guardian column suggested Israeli rather than Syrian responsibility for the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

‘Hatred of Sharon and condemnation of Israel have also made anti-Zionism mainstream. In a May 2001 European parliament session, Paul Marie Coûteaux, a French deputy, said Europe "must consider giving the Arab side a large enough force, including a large enough nuclear force, to persuade Israel that it cannot simply do whatever it wants." The president of the British Humanist Association, Claire Rayner, said in April 2002 that the idea of a homeland for the Jewish people was a "load of crap." In a 2004 lecture in Alexandria, Egypt, former French prime minister Michel Rocard called the Balfour Declaration, which allowed for Israel's creation, a "historic mistake."

‘The growing legitimacy of anti-Zionism has contributed to a resurgence of European anti-Semitism, again often wrapped with and, in many European eyes, legitimized by the caricature of Sharon. Violent anti-Semitic incidents in Europe have risen in proportion to the violence between Israel and the Palestinians, which suggest a relationship between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. In Dublin, there were banners of swastikas over stars of David which read "Stop the Palestinian Holocaust"; in Paris, posters read "Hitler Has a Son: Sharon"; in Berlin, they read, "Stop the Genocide in Palestine" and "Sharon Is a Child Murderer." The European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia has shown that during the second Palestinian uprising, anti-Semitic incidents increased by more than 600 percent in France alone.

‘Israel has often been isolated. Pilloried in the United Nations, both European and U.S. media put the Jewish state's actions under a magnifying glass. Media influences public opinion, and its bias in Europe has encouraged prominent Europeans to speak out openly against Israel. This in turn colors European policy already ambivalent about Israel. A vicious cycle ensues.

‘The monomaniacal criticism has taken a new edge under Sharon that threatens to undercut the productiveness of any European contribution to regional peace. Many European officials, diplomats, and journalists translate their hatred of Sharon into skepticism for any position he takes. They dismiss the security fence because Sharon implemented it, even if it was Nobel Laureate Yitzhak Rabin who first declared, "We have to decide on separation as a philosophy." Likewise, while Sharon pursues unilateral disengagement from Gaza, a concession more significant than Menachem Begin's decision to withdraw from the Sinai, European commentators cast doubt upon Sharon's motives. As the Israeli government begins to face other issues—such as the future of Jerusalem, defensible borders, the Iranian nuclear bomb, and demographic requirements to remain a Jewish state—Europe's media-driven hatred of Sharon has emboldened forces questioning Israel's legitimacy and, in the process, both undercuts peaceful solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and jeopardizes the lives of Israel's six million citizens.’

One of the many double standards employed by Europe to judge the Middle East conflict is that Israel’s military measures to defend itself against terror are condemned while similar measures taken by the west are upheld (targeted killings of Hamas leaders, say, get the big thumbs down while the coalition does its best to kill leaders of al Qaeda) on the grounds that Israel’s war is completely different from and has nothing to do with Islamic terror against the west; and yet in the next breath the same critics claim that Israel’s policies are the principal cause of the global jihad. The fact is that Israel is in the front line of the same war that we are all having to fight to defend the free world; that the demonisation of Israel and Sharon is simply a more extreme version of the demonisation of America and Bush, by the same ideological idiots; and that until and unless Britain and Europe stop gunning for America and Israel and start identifying the real enemy who threatens us all, we will not win this war.

posted by Melanie, August 30, 2005

and on the issue of who is persecuting Palestinian Christians:

Who will speak up for the Arab Christians?
The Jerusalem Post reports a pogrom by Palestinian Muslims against the Christian Arab village of Taibah near Ramallah. Although no-one was injured, many were forced to flee the village. The attack was triggered by the murder of a Muslim woman from the nearby village of Deir Jarir who was apparently killed by members of her family for having had a romance with a Christian man from Taiba.

'"When her family discovered that she had been involved in a forbidden relationship with a Christian, they apparently forced her to drink poison," said one source. "Then they buried her without reporting her death to the relevant authorities..."

‘More than 500 Muslim men, chanting Allahu akbar [God is great], attacked us at night," said a Taiba resident. "They poured kerosene on many buildings and set them on fire. Many of the attackers broke into houses and stole furniture, jewelry and electrical appliances." With the exception of large numbers of PA policemen, the streets of Taiba were completely deserted on Sunday as the residents remained indoors. Many torched cars littered the streets. At least 16 houses had been gutted by fire and the assailants also destroyed a statue of the Virgin Mary.

"It was like a war, they arrived in groups, and many of them were holding clubs," said another resident. "Some people saw them carrying weapons. They first attacked houses belonging to the Khoury family [looking for the man who had the affair with the women, not realizing he had already fled the village.] Then they went to their relatives. They entered the houses and destroyed everything there. Then they tried to enter the local beer factory, but were repelled by PA security agents.'

Will those churches in Britain and the US which are pushing for divestment from Israel on account of its alleged ill-treatment of the Palestinians now speak out against the persecution of Arab members of their own faith at the hands of some of the very people whose cause they so relentlessly champion?

Posted by melanie at September 5, 2005 02:44 PM

Posted by: waterdragon52 at September 12, 2005 10:18 AM

sbrst

It is / was the tone of the Radio dispatches on R4 & WS early today. I may have got a false impression, bit the tone was notable by the "oh shit, how do we throw a good light on this?" sort of vibe.

I will dig out the recordings off their sites & post the links if they are there.

Posted by: albion at September 12, 2005 10:47 AM

Well albion - youve certainly come out of your shell - what a blast of wrath, what a mighty rebuke!

i reread your entry, you said israel shouldve left everything standing, i still dont know why

you miscalled the beeb - is the beeb responsible for israels withdrawal from gaza?

you waded into the "wests left wing", alleging they were showing solidarity with swastika spraying synagogue burning muslims - is the left to blame for israels withdrawal?

i expressed the opinion (shared by many people, but prhaps theyre all as stupid as me albion), that sharon withdrew from gaza to please the us, as the us had been pressuring them for some time to "do something about the settlements"

now if im wrong about this, then by all means tell me how. calling me intellectually challenged is not good enough. i dont mind being called stupid btw

if you have a right to point up the lefts alleged misdeeds re islam, then surely i have a right to the same re right wing collusion in undermining israel

as for congestion charges and dresden - for goodness sake albion - these things were mentioned in passing, not to start some stupid feud
concerning the "good folks in here" - i hope you werent refering to those who called me a troll, a liar and a jew hating pig
(yes i take careful notes) - suggest you take yet more care

Water - youve done it again, and i do wish you wouldnt. the 2 articles you posted - i already read them, and even saw a short video about muslim persecution of palestinian christians

all i said about ariel sharon was that israels supreme court found him responsible and begin sacked him. the sole bone i have to pick with the state of israel is the law of return, which i mentioned for a clear reason. no, im not going over all that again, suffice it to say that it was not a full frontal assault on the state of israel as was made out by certain idiots.

you refer to my "continual attacks on ariel sharon and israel" - this is just not true. On this thread, i have attacked those right wing darlings, bush and blair, and why not?

i have made my support for the state of israel crystal clear just what is your problem, water?

ive said before that you and i have no reason to quarrel

Posted by: freddiefreeloader at September 12, 2005 2:12 PM

Flealoader:

Re-Re Read it again until you understand. I know English is probably your second language, but the general thrust of what I wrote should be easy enough even for you a third or possibly fourth time around.

In the meantime...

Get a job. Get a girlfriend. Redecorate your bedsit. Trade in your plastic football for a leather one. What-ever.

Leave the politics to those of us who possess a modicum of insight into the agenda's at hand.

Yes, I agree with the good folks here (both privately & publicly on these boards), & I doubt you possess the skills to actually profile others on this site, let alone "take careful notes". Unemployable wretches who find a re-born faith late on in life are never very good at the tech thing...

Re-reading your posts today I am sure you are all those things. If you are not then you make a pretty damn fine impression of someone who etc etc...

This will be our last communique. This board is not for your petty fight picking, or your agenda... or for me to feed trolls.

You have been served.

Over & out.

Posted by: albion at September 12, 2005 3:19 PM

albion you clown at least i know the words to rule britannia - unlike you (see dc watson thread)

yeah its always easy to have the last word as you say "over and out"

"i know english is probably your second language" - liar
"get a job, get a girlfriend" - got them liar
pads fine as well, liar. oh and i dont play football

"unemployable wretch" oh how scary and intimidating, but as i said, got a job, liar

albion you have always mistrusted me since i came into this site. i invited you in good faith to come and check me out. you have not even had the decency to respond. what kind of human being are you

you are not in the slightest interested in opposing islam, are you? its just something for you to bitch about in your spare time

people like me are suffering all over the world because of islam, simply because they are christians but what do you care? (indeed why should you, youve probably just come off a stint as duty druid at stonehenge or something) youre too busy postulating and posturing to do anything about it, just trotting out silly, juvenile rubbish like you have done on this thread. yeah youre right lots of people on this site are very well read and researched, not you though. btw i got the "general thrust" of your great treatise first time around - how empty it was, how full of sad generalisations

if youd ever seen, as i have, a poor defenceless christian being reviled, abused and physically hurt by a crowd of muslims, with policemen just along the road, then youd know what all this was about, but youve no idea, and i dont think you really want to know

just stick to little england albion, the two of you deserve each other

Posted by: freddiefreeloader at September 12, 2005 4:12 PM

Will Iraq ever be democratic?

here

Posted by: Eschwapp at September 15, 2005 11:20 PM