I have wondered for some time *why* "the checkpoints" loom so large in the anti-Israel 'palestinian' Arab Muslim propaganda.

If one reads through the reports of the World Council of Churches' Useful Idiots brigade, that is, the 'Ecumenical Accompaniers' whose job is to 'witness' and describe the 'oppression' of the Pooor Palestinians [TM] by the Evil Joooz, one reads story after story after story of the terrible 'humiliation' undergone by people at 'the checkpoints'.

What's the obsession with checkpoints? Well, now I think I know.

Here is part of Mr Spencer's discussion of something said by Erdogan, back when the Europeans were dragging their feet on the prospect of admitting Turkey to the European Union. It pertains to the fact that Muslims regard any obstacle placed to the spread of Islam, as a casus belli. I have placed the significant phrase in capitals.

QUOTE - "005.033 YUSUFALI: The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter;
PICKTHAL: The only reward of those who make war upon Allah and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land. Such will be their degradation in the world, and in the Hereafter theirs will be an awful doom;
SHAKIR: The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement,

And from (Ibn Kathir) a noted commentary on the Qur'an

http://www.tafsir.com/default.asp?sid=5&tid=13751

`Wage war' mentioned here means, oppose and contradict, and it includes disbelief, BLOCKING ROADS and spreading fear in the fairways.'

- Posted by Robert at December 17, 2004 7:38 AM".

The Israeli checkpoints/ roadblocks are an obvious response to jihadi aggression.

At the same time, they directly embody Ibn Kathir's phrase about the enemies of Islam 'blocking roads'.

The animus against the Israeli roadblocks is theologically driven. How DARE those filthy Joooz inconvenience any Muslim! How DARE they try to stop some jihadi shahid from carrying out his holy duty to extend the power of Islam! The insolence!

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at June 22, 2008 3:09 AM

"And the French envoy said that she will present several issues with the Israeli side concerned with the commencement of the execution of the Industrial zone such as easing movement in Bethlehem and the subject of providing the Industrial zone with sufficient electricity and water, in the hope that the Israelis will fulfill the promises they gave to facilitate and help the Palestinian economy."
-- from the article above

The "hope that the Israelis will fulfill the promises..."? Israel has scrupulously fulfilled, ever since the 1948-1949 Armistice Agreements that it was then willing, if the Arabs would agree, to make into permanent borders rather. It was the Arabs who refused, because they had high hopes of attacking again, and they wanted to have those lines regarded by what was not yet called, so hideously, the "international community" as most impermenant, as merely temporary armistice lines (and nowadays that impermanence of Israel is in that phrase "first they must go back to the 1967 borders [i.e. armistice lines] and then we'll see" and also in the Fatahstan phrase: "we are willing to choose peace as a strategic option" [meaning: we can't make open war just yet, but let's give the salami strategy that our "peace" means its piecemeal chance].

The regime of Sarkozy is run by several people who may be more favorable to Israel than the regime of Chirac, who has some very unusual expensive tastes (he needed, perhaps still needs, the simultaneous services of three call girls) and who is rumored to have all kinds of money as far away as Japan), but essentially their willingness to pretend to believe in "the Palestinian people" (the Gazan Arabs of Hamastan, the "West Bank" Arabs of Fatahstan, which means both the Fast and Slow Jihad Wings of those who have been endowed with the task, by the other Arabs, of being the Shock Troops of the Jihad against Israel, to be pursued now by this method, and now by that.

But they, like their more cynical predecessors, ignore the nature of Islam. And they do so Israel'
s peril. And they do so to the continued and growing imperilment of France. Sarkozy proves to be an excitable, not cool, not cunning, not farseeing, sentimentalist, and that means he has limited value. Kouchner? Oh, he's a soixante-huitard kind of guy, better than most, but still a believer in something called the "international community" and unwilling to see what the ideology of Islam, its meaning and menace, are -- right down to its last sura. That is why in France itself, the Sarkozy regime complacently points to the Muslim women it has put in place, as if it is Rachida Dati who counts, and not her ten siblings who also live in France, and are nothing like Rachida Dati -- sentimentalists just like Bush, at that State of the Union Speech, where he pointed out some Iraqi woman, apparently pro-American (whatever that means, in the Iraqi context, and whatever justification that kind of anecdotal evidence provides for the squandering of men, money, materiel, and morale in Tarbaby Iraq).

Sarkozy is a great disappointment, and those who became furious with me, when I suggested at this website that one should Curb One's Enthusiasm, many months ago, may wish to revisit their previous postings, and reconsider that enthusiasm. On some things he's fine, but on the nature of Islam, he is mentally held in check by the 5-7 million Muslims in France. He can't allow himself to see Islam for what it is, and why, in the Jihad against Israel, any attempt to bolster or support the myth of the "Palestinian people," and to do anything that makes them able to continue their existence on life-support supplied by Western Jizyah, simply makes Israel's task more hellishly difficult. What is that task? In the "West Bank," it is to hold onto every square dunam of the "West Bank," its invasion routes, its aquifers, and to make sure that a state of grim hopelessness sets in among the local Arabs, so that the most intelligent ones leave, and the rest simply accommodate themelves to the fact that they will not be winning, as they now hope to, their "state" and then...all of "Palesine."

Posted by: Hugh at June 22, 2008 8:00 AM

"Sarkozy is a great disappointment...On some things he's fine, but on the nature of Islam, he is mentally held in check by the 5-7 million Muslims in France. He can't allow himself to see Islam for what it is..."

Whatever happened to his "getting rid of the scum" in France?

Posted by: darcy at June 22, 2008 9:30 AM

Oh, and a propos those diabolical 'checkpoints', and 'Ecumenical Accompanier' Useful Idiots, and all that...in my hometown there is going to be, at a church institution, a presentation by one of those very same Useful Idiots, a nice person from Northern Ireland I understand, who has just spent three months in a 'Palestinian' [sic] village 'in the West Bank [sic]'.

I shall be going. Oh, yes, I shall be going along. I shall take notes. And I shall have, tucked under my arm, Bat Yeor's "The Dhimmi", with Moshe Gil's Legacy of Jihad in Palestine printed out and slipped inside (unfortunately I haven't yet got my copy of Bostom's latest, but there are articles by Mr Bostom that I can print out, and reflect upon, and highlight a paragraph or two, here and there).

I shall try my best to ask questions, during the 'discussion' afterwards.

Hugh - these are some of the questions I am tossing up, to throw at this Useful Idiot.

"Do you speak fluent street Arabic? Do you read it? If you don't, how can you possibly know whether people were telling you the truth or not? Were you in a Christian village, or in a Muslim village?

"If it was a Christian village - do you know what a dhimmi is?

"If it was a Muslim village - have you read the Quran? Do you know about the Sira, and the Hadith? Do you know what Mohammed is believed, by Muslims, to have done to Jews?

"Do you know that Islam permits Muslims to lie in order to advance the cause of Islam?"

"Do you know about the Treaty of Hudaybiyya?"

Anyway: those are some of the possible questions I am mulling over. Hugh - any other ideas?

I shall, of course, make sure that during any supper chit chat I refer to 'Judea and Samaria', and 'Arab-occupied Judea and Samaria', and 'the jihad against Israel', and 'the local Arabs' or 'the palestinian arabs', or 'Arab Muslims' and 'Arabised Christians', and 'the land of Israel', and so on, and so forth.

It should be ...interesting. Wish me luck.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at June 22, 2008 9:30 AM

Anyway: those are some of the possible questions I am mulling over. Hugh - any other ideas? --dumbledoresarmy

May I suggest? Also ask if he knows what "al-taqiyya" is, when you ask

"Do you know that Islam permits Muslims to lie in order to advance the cause of Islam?"

What will you do if you start to get shouted down by ignorant PC imbeciles, dda? Do you think you'll persist, or fold? I'm looking forward to your posting on what happened! When exactly is this "presentation?"

Posted by: darcy at June 22, 2008 9:37 AM

darcy - it's in about a week. So I have a week to pick, say, three core questions/ statements, and make sure I have hard evidence to cite.

I'm pretty good at shouting, myself (I grew up in an Irish/Scots-background family, eight kids, everybody talking at once at the tops of their voices). My main difficulty will be to keep my own flaming Irish-Australian temper under control! (If they start shouting at me, I'm horribly likely to shout back, louder). I only wish I could 'channel' Hugh Fitzgerald...deadly calm with icy wit.

The speaker is from a Christian background. I won't know whether the audience will be mainly people who are already thoroughly brainwashed, or people merely in danger of getting brainwashed, until I get there.

It won't be a huge gathering, as I know the venue, and it can't fit more than a certain number.

There *is* one person who will surely be there, whom I will have to watch - I've had words with him before, in the letters page of our diocesan paper. He's associated with Sabeel. I suspect him of being a complete snake, and a closet antisemite.

If he's there, he will know me, and will probably do his best to silence me.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at June 23, 2008 2:50 AM

The history of the American Jewish Committee is replete with anti-Zionism. The Committee was founded mostly by German Jews...wealthy German Jews...primarily with the express purpose of keeping out the newer immigrants from the Pale of the Settlement...ie Russian and Polish Jews. Fact is, folks such as Louis Marshall and Jacob Schiff despised these Jews...many of whom were Zionists, Socialists, and some even further to the Left.

Many members of the AJC eventually went on to form The American Council for Judaism which was the foremost group of Jewish self-haters prior to the Sulzberger's last Christmas dinner over at Pinch's house. In fact, Sulzberger/Ochs was one of the main sources of funding for this group. By the way, this group was led by one Rabbi Elmer Berger whose writings are always available over at Stormfront. Just another way the Sulzberger's have help spread antisemitism to all corners of America.

The American Jewish Congress was formed in response the the anti-Zionism and anti-immigrant American Jewish Committee. The AJC eventually accepted the existence of the State of Israel though they've never been big supporters except on rare occasions. Their base of support is the same today as it was back when it was formed- among the very wealthy and among the decidedly non-Zionist contingent of American Jewry.

Posted by: MJ at June 23, 2008 11:18 PM

The "Have you read the Qur'an" question is a must. When a discussion starts about Islam, I always ask immediately whether they've read the Q. Of course the reply is No. Then I say "Wait a minute. You are defending a belief system, and you haven't even read the primary text?"

It's like a frickin' train hit 'em.

These Moonbats feel so smug in their PC Propaganda, and then you ask that simple question, and they crumple.

Well, I can't wait to hear! You Must Hold Temper! I can imagine a public forum won't be easy. Probably scary and intimidating, esp. by yourself. Is there a like-minded colleague you can bring with you for support?

Posted by: darcy at June 23, 2008 11:27 PM

The "Have you read the Qur'an" question is a must. When a discussion starts about Islam, I always ask immediately whether they've read the Q. Of course the reply is No. Then I say "Wait a minute. You are defending a belief system, and you haven't even read the primary text?"

It's like a frickin' train hit 'em.

Indeed. So many people think that Islam is like the Presbyterians down the block with spicier food. No one who has read the Qur'an could believe such nonsense.

Posted by: billposer at June 23, 2008 11:44 PM

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1212659715434&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

In a bitter public dispute this week, a French media watchdog who recently won a landmark appeal against a French television station over their footage of the shooting death of a Palestinian boy has blasted members of a major American Jewish organization for their "destructive" role in the legal case.

The nasty three-year-old spat between Philippe Karsenty and the New York-based American Jewish Committee burst out in the open just a week after a Paris appeals court ruled in favor of Karsenty in the high-profile libel case claiming that French 2 footage of the 2000 shooting death of Mohammed al-Dura was faked.

"There is one organization, the American Jewish Committee, that should have been a natural ally," Karsenty wrote in a June 8 letter posted on his Web site. "Instead it functioned as an obstacle to all my efforts."

Karsenty singled out the AJC's Paris Director, Valerie Hoffenberg, who has a close rapport with the French establishment, for the harshest criticism. He accused her of "working actively against his efforts to reveal the truth," and blocking his access to French government officials so as not to jeopardize her relationship with the establishment.

"The most serious damage to our cause was done by certain members of the American Jewish Committee, notably the AJC's representative in Paris," he wrote in a damning May 30 letter circulated in e-mails and on the Internet.

Karsenty said "her role was crucial and destructive."

AJC Executive Director David Harris on Wednesday dismissed the allegations as "absurd and unfounded."

"The AJC is a well-established organization with a very documented and known support for Israel and the Jewish people," Harris said in a telephone interview with The Jerusalem Post from New York.

Harris added that the "spurious" claims that members of his organization colluded with French authorities to deny Israel its day in court and to clear its name, made no sense and was patently absurd.

"You might as well accuse us of passing nuclear secrets to the Iranians," he said.

The image of the cowering figure of the Palestinian boy caught up in gunfire between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen in the Gaza Strip, which was repeatedly broadcast around the world, became an icon of the second intifada which erupted in 2000.

Karsenty had claimed on his web site that the French TV footage of the al-Dura killing was faked, prompting the public broadcaster and its Israel correspondent, Charles Enderlin, to file a libel suit.

A Paris judge had ruled in their favor in 2006, but the decision was overturned last month on appeal.

While critical of the AJC's role, Karsenty heaped praise on other American Jewish organizations, including the American Jewish Congress, the Zionist Organization of America and Stand With Us.

Founded in 1906, the AJC aims to safeguard and strengthen Jews and Jewish life worldwide by promoting democratic and pluralistic societies that respect the dignity of all peoples.

The organization is known for its quiet, behind -the-scenes covert diplomacy, which evidently easily clashed with Karsenty's very open and unabashed public battle against the French establishment.

The AJC executive director said that the criticism was misplaced.

"We should be dealing with the real issues instead of internal artificial or contrived adversaries," Harris concluded.

More: http://www.upjf.org/detail.do?noArticle=14270&noCat=145&id_key=145
When you bow before the G-d of Israel, you fear no-one.

Posted by: Kemaste at June 24, 2008 2:19 AM