Fitzgerald: Who's crazy?

Taking a cue from the master saxophonist Ornette Coleman, Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald asks, "Who's crazy?": people like Ghassan Abdullah al-Sharbi and Zacarias Moussaoui, or the dhimmi analysts who diagnose them?

“'I'm going to make this easy for you guys. I fought against the United States. I took up arms,’ he said in English, his hands clasped on the defense table in front of him. Later, he added: 'I'm going to tell you what I did ... I'm proud of what I did.'”

These are the words of Ghassan Abdullah al-Sharbi, “an electrical engineering graduate from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz.,” who “was captured in March 2002 in Pakistan with senior al-Qaida lieutenant Abu Zubayda and other figures.”

He is as honest about what he did and why as Zacarias Moussaoui has been. Yet his honesty will in all likelihood be dismissed, just as Moussaoui's was by his lawyer, and by many of those in the press. They simply cannot be bothered to learn what Islam teaches, and why Muslims might do what they do, think what they think, and harbor what dreams and resentments they do harbor. Instead, they describe such people time after time as "crazy" or "schizophrenic."

They are not.

The only "crazy" behavior to be observed over the past few years is that of the Infidels like Richard Miniter who, faced with a threat, a menace, unlike any other they have faced on a world scale, cannot conceive of such a thing. They do not want to hear about it. They do not wish to engage in the kind of study that might offer an explanatory model that fits both past and present data (about Muslim behavior and attitudes) and that has predictive value.

This morning the BBC tells us that “anti-terrorist experts are floundering about trying to understand Islamic suicide bombers in the UK and the rest of Europe. The experts came together and argued together at a conference in London organised by the Centre for Defence Studies at King's College and the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment. The conference sought to assemble ‘the puzzle that will help us better understand what determines and motivates the actions of individual jihadists.’ The puzzle however remained frustratingly in pieces.”

Despite the volcanic mountains of evidence that rise higher as heaving hatreds sputter from deep below, the Infidels of this world content themselves with every conceivable explanation but the real one: "It's poverty." (Then the studies explode this). "It's American foreign policy." (Then the killings in Bangladesh and Pakistan of Hindus, of Christians in the Sudan and the Philippines and Indonesia, and another hundred examples, are adduced). "It's only the Wahhabis." (Then the speeches of Ayatollah Khomeini are pointed out, and the history of Jihad-conquest that preceded Al-Wahhab by a thousand years). "It's Iraq, it's ‘Palestine,’” it's whatever you want it to be to explain Malmo, and Rotterdam, and the unintegrated and unintegrable Muslim masses in Europe, and the Norwegian imam who explains that stealing from Infidels is religiously-sanctioned because it is merely a taking of the "Jizyah" that is owed to Muslims anyway, and the Sydney rapes and the Swedish rapes and the Norwegian rapes.

Similar non-explanations purport to clear up the causes of the mass hysteria over Danish cartoons in a Danish newspaper, leading to worldwide boycotts of Danish goods, recalls of ambassadors, and demands for changes in Danish and Western and global laws pertaining to free speech so that Islam, Islam, Islam will be exempt.

It's a "war on terror," and those "terrorists" are a "handful of extremists." No, they're slightly more than a "handful of extremists." Now they're ten percent, and now potentially 50 percent, or if we are to believe the ex-Muslims, the keen apostates, more like 80% or more of those who take Qur'an and Hadith seriously support acts of terror. And then, of course, we are not entitled, are we, to even discuss Da'wa and the demographic conquest of Western Europe -- even if such matters are discussed openly, with great anticipation and pleasure, at Muslim websites. That would not be possible.

Who's crazy? Who's schizophrenic? Is it Moussaoui? Is it Al-Sharbi? Or is it those Infidels who are still unwilling to look at the teachings of Islam -- the Infidels who are still too paralyzed with fear of what they might find out and who thus remain incapable of even beginning to study the texts of Islam, and to discover what caused the 1350-year history of Islamic conquest and subjugation and then codified oppression of Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Buddhists, and indeed everyone under their control who was not a Muslim.

Who is crazy? Is it Al-Sharbi, or those who are discussing his case who will tell us that he's just "one more nut case, like Moussaoui"?

British "anti-terrorist experts" just can't figure out why Muslims would become suicide bombers

Steadfastly refusing to consider the power of Islam, and probably utterly ignorant of Qur'an 9:111 (which guarantees Paradise to those who "slay and are slain" for Allah), and not even considering whether suicide bombers found a religion-based appeal compelling, these dhimmi "experts" just can't figure out why any Muslim would want to blow himself up. Must be something in their psychology, doncha know.

A Refusing to Look At What Is Before Their Faces Alert: "Seeking out the suicide bombers," from the BBC, with thanks to JE:

Anti-terrorist experts are floundering about trying to understand Islamic suicide bombers in the UK and the rest of Europe.

The experts came together and argued together at a conference in London organised by the Centre for Defence Studies at King's College and the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment.

The conference sought to assemble "the puzzle that will help us better understand what determines and motivates the actions of individual jihadists."

The puzzle however remained frustratingly in pieces.

One major argument was about the issue of psychological profiling. This seeks to understand the motives of one group of terrorists in order to predict who might be the next.

Australia: New South Wales Premier tells Muslims to join police

Iemma says that young Muslims don't join the police force because they feel unwanted. He doesn't seem to consider that there might be another explanation: that many young Muslims don't consider themselves Australians and don't want to take part in an infidel governing apparatus. This reminds me of the handwringing last fall over the French's failure to encourage assimilation among its Muslim population; all the learned experts conveniently forgot that they had actively resisted such integration for decades, per agreements made between the EU and the Arab League.

"Premier tells Muslims to join police," from AAP, with thanks to JE:

YOUNG Muslims should not be discouraged from joining the police force, NSW Premier Morris Iemma says.

His comments follow a media report that as few as 24 of the state's 15,000 officers are practising Muslims.

The report said young Muslims who want to join the police force don't sign up because they feel unwanted.

But Mr Iemma dismissed the suggestion today, saying young Muslim cops were active and effective in his electorate of Lakemba, in Sydney's south-west.

"I can speak from personal experience where there are young Muslim men who are police officers and do a very good job in my electorate of liaising with the local ethnic community," he told reporters.

"(The force) quite deliberately seeks to recruit from the non-English speaking community."

Mr Iemma called on interested young Muslims to join the force as part of a massive recruitment drive, announced by the government in the wake of the Cronulla race riot.

Pakistan: tribal council to kill anyone reporting honor killings to police

A jirga is a tribal council. Dir and Wari are in Pakistan. It is a good sign that the government will not accept the jirga's ruling, but this nevertheless indicates why we don't see more moderate Muslims speaking out. In this case as in many other cases, those who question established belief and practice are threatened with death. "Jirga to kill anyone reporting honour killing cases to police," from the Daily Times of Pakistan, with thanks to Andrew Bostom:

DIR: Anyone reporting an honour killing case to the police or filing a case with the court will be killed by the jirga (tribal court) since the publicising of such cases has brought a bad name to the area, Malik Faiz Muhammad, a member of the Nihag-Wari jirga in Upper Dir, said on Friday.

The Nihag-Dara Wari jirga had issued a controversial verdict in favour of honour killing around 15 days ago, declaring it a permissible act.

A Wari police station official said that over 150 people had attended the jirga, but Malik Faiz told Daily Times that the jirga consisted of more than 4,000 people representing the entire area.

“We stick to our verdict that honour killing is permissible and those who commit it will not be liable to any punishment. We will also not allow the aggrieved party to report the case to the police or file the case before a court. We will kill those who will violate the jirga verdict,” he said.

Malik Faiz said that the jirga would investigate such cases and punish those found guilty on its own. He said that the jirga members were ready to sacrifice their lives to uphold their verdict....

The jirga also declared that no action would be taken against anyone killing a robber. Jirga participants said that they would defend any oppressed person taking shelter in the area, but pledged action against those sheltering aggressors....

Sajid Mohmand, Upper Dir senior superintendent of police (SSP), said that the government would not accept the jirga’s “illegal” verdict on honour killings, adding that all such cases would be registered and those found guilty would be punished according to the due process of law.

Hirsi Ali, The Hunted

This comes to us from Pieter Dorsman at Peaktalk:

Just to show how far Dutch tolerance goes: Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s neighbors have sued the Dutch state in order to get her to be removed from the apartment complex in which she is living under police protection. The request was initially rejected, but following an appeal a higher court has now ordered Hirsi Ali to leave her house within four months, I translate:

"The court considers in its ruling that the neighbors have been put into a situation that has contributed to them feeling less safe in their own house. That feeling is extended to the communal living spaces of the apartment complex, but also to their own apartments. The court argues that this is a severe violation of one’s private life (as per Article 8 of the European Treaty for Human Rights)."

..It should be noted that Hirsi Ali is now booted out of her own house by virtue of the European Treaty for Human Rights which does indeed supersede Dutch law...

Secondly, is that somehow Hirsi Ali’s neighbors self-interest runs so deep that they are prepared to use the court system to throw someone whose life is in danger out of her own house. It goes like this: we’re tolerant, we support free speech and a critical attitude, but if it comes too close to our front porch, sorry, we are no longer interested. On the contrary, self-interest is the deciding motivator. True, Hirsi Ali’s flatmates do have a reasonable point in arguing that the Dutch State has an obligation to ensure that their security measures benefit the entire complex. If the State has dropped the ball in that respect, they should be compelled by the courts to correct this, but to put the burden on Hirsi Ali is a very disturbing precedent. Yet, the plaintiffs are quite happy with the ruling:

“We are relieved. We just didn’t feel safe any longer in our own homes. Of course, we consider it to be terrible for Hirsi Ali to have to leave her house. The case was not directed at her personally. The point was that the State should not open us to so much danger”...

Nigeria: Anglican bishop survives fourth attack

More jihadist persecution of Christians in Nigeria. "Anglican Bishop Survives Fourth Attack," from Compass Direct, with thanks to all who sent this in:

The latest attack on the Rt. Rev. Ali Buba Lamido, 47, Anglican bishop of Wusasa diocese in Kaduna state, began as the past year’s previous three did: Armed men whom he believes were Muslim militants asked a guard at his home where he was, announcing they were going to kill him.

Not concerned about stealth in heavily Islamic Kaduna state, the attackers fired into the air, then struck the bishop’s workers in the courtyard. This time, last March 10, one of his guard’s guests, Samaila Gandu, was shot dead. Guard James Daso and another worker, Bulus Moses, were seriously injured.

This scenario matches other instances in which Muslim militants have assaulted Christian clergy, Lamido said.

“It is difficult to believe that it was not religiously motivated, because some bishops have been attacked and one priest was murdered in a similar way,” he said. “And the killers never stole any thing from their houses.”

Indonesia: Muslim group threatens Christian foundation

In Muslim countries, Muslim groups not infrequently protest Christian activity. In Western countries, Muslim groups not infrequently protest any perceived restriction on Islamic activity, even if it is undertaken in order to restrain terrorism.

This is because of the assumption of Islamic supremacy, and of the inferiority and venality of the dhimmis -- for unbelievers are "the vilest of creatures" (Qur'an 98:6).

From Compass Direct, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

April 25 (Compass Direct) – A Muslim community group called Majlis Taklim on April 9 entered the premises of a Christian social institution in West Java, Indonesia, demanding its closure for the fifth time this year.

The Apostolic Nation Building Foundation (ABB) operates from a residential building in the Griya Bintara Indah housing complex in Bintara sub-district, West Bekasi district, West Java.

Around 70 Majlis Taklim members came to the ABB headquarters on April 9 and told the foundation to cease all activities, accusing them of running an illegal church and trying to “Christianize” the community.

Staff immediately called the police, who arrived and monitored the situation; there was no violence.

Majlis Taklim coordinator Radesman Saragih said the group had observed people entering the building for worship services on Sunday mornings. “The foundation is only a façade to cover up the real activities of the church,” Saragih said.

Saragih also said the foundation lacked a proper permit. “We ask the foundation to restore the house’s proper function – that is, as a place to live, not as a church,” he continued. Saragih said church members should take the warning seriously or be prepared to face unspecified negative consequences.

Osama's New Jihad: Where is the Muslim outcry for Darfur?

A courageous and clear-sighted editorial in the Dallas Morning News (thanks to LHK) skewers Muslim racism and hypocrisy over the killing of black Muslims by Arab Muslims in Darfur. Ultimately that killing is a manifestation of Arab supremacism, and the violent imperative from Khartoum to impose Wahhabism on the entire country.

Good for Osama bin Laden.

You read that right. Good for him for revealing even more about the depth of al-Qaeda's depravity. In his latest audio dispatch, the terror mastermind declares that all good Muslims should defend the racist genocide that Arab Muslims in the government-backed Janjaweed militia are committing against the black African Muslims of Darfur. We hope this latest outrage will shake the confidence of Muslims who believe in al-Qaeda's cause.

Even better for the sake of moral clarity and action, Osama's Darfur declaration forces an issue that many of the world's Muslims have been avoiding. The al-Qaeda leader is exploiting a widely held view among Arab Muslims that the humanitarian crisis in Darfur is an invention of Jews and Christians who want to take over Muslim land.

Anyone who believes something that outrageous should talk to Salih Mahmoud Osman. He is a Darfurian Muslim and human rights lawyer who was in Dallas recently, sponsored by local Jewish groups, to talk about what is happening to his people. "Since this situation erupted, never once have we seen a single person from the Arab world or the Muslim community come and show sympathy for the survivors," Mr. Osman told us.

The vast majority of the world's Muslims are not Arabs, but rather Asians and Africans. Why are they acquiescing without protest to this Arab-led genocide against fellow Muslims? Does the silence from the Islamic world on Darfur mean that the world's Muslims agree with Osama bin Laden that it is more important to maintain a morally bankrupt unity against the so-called "crusader-Zionist" enemy than to stand up for defenseless people?

Read it all.

Fitness USA splits space for women

Sharia in Lincoln Park. An update on this story from the Detroit Free Press, with thanks to Teri:

After pressure from many of its customers, Fitness USA announced Wednesday that it has placed a divider and frosted glass in its Lincoln Park gym to ensure men and women can work out separately.

"We hope all of our female members will be pleased," said Jodi Berry, administrative director for Fitness USA.

The move comes after the Free Press reported last week that almost 200 Muslim women signed a petition saying the company reneged on a promise to maintain separation between men and women in its Lincoln Park facility.

Some interpretations of Islamic law call for separation of the sexes when women are not covered with headscarves and modest clothing. Several non-Muslim female Fitness USA members contacted the Muslim women to express support.

Sweden Boycotts Israel, Embraces Hamas

More Eurabian dhimmitude and suicidal jihad-abetting from Sweden. From Israel National News, with thanks to Mark:

Sweden is boycotting an international air force exercise in Italy next month due to the fact that Israel’s Air Force will take part. It has also decided to grant entry visas to Hamas members.

Though not mentioning the Jewish State by name, Sweden’s Defense Minister Leni Bjorklund said that her country was withdrawing its participating due to the fact that "the Swedish Armed Forces were notified at a late stage that a state not belonging to the Partnership for Peace, and with which Sweden did not previously have bilateral military cooperation, and which does not take part in international peacekeeping missions was to take part in the air exercise."

A Swedish official told Israel Radio that Israel was not currently advancing peace and was therefore not fit to take part in the exercise.

Anti-dhimmitude in Indonesia: Muslim moderates, others, stand up to vilification of Ahmadiyahs

I hope we henceforth see much more of this, around the world. "Alliance to report Maftuh to police," from The Jakarta Post, with thanks to RG:

A group campaigning for the freedom to worship is planning to report Religious Affairs Minister Maftuh Basyuni to the police for his recent comments about the Ahmadiyah sect.

The Alliance of Religious Freedom sent a warning to Maftuh on April 17, demanding the minister make a public apology for his offensive statement against Ahmadiyah, a small Islamic sect that was declared heretical last year by the Indonesian Ulema Council.

The warning in the form of a letter was signed by more than 300 people, including Muslim scholars, journalists, artists and activists from non-governmental organizations.

It gave the minister a week to apologize to the sect through media and affirm his commitment to religious pluralism in the country or the alliance threatened legal action.

Maftuh was quoted by several national newspapers calling Ahmadiyah a deviant faith, and saying its teachings went against Islam.

The minister also said he would issue a new decree to reconfirm the state's recognition of only six faiths -- Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confuscianism.

Moderate Muslim scholar Dawam Rahardjo, who leads the alliance, said the minister had failed to respond to the letter.

"Last Tuesday was the deadline. We will report this case to police. We are still discussing the exact time (to do so)," he said....

He said Maftuh should treat all religions and beliefs in Indonesia equally, and should not have made disparaging statements remarks about any faith.

"A (religious) minister must protect all religious believers from discrimination," Dawam added.....

Dawam urged Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, the country's two largest Muslim organizations, to join the action again the minister.

Under the Constitution, people had the right to believe in whatever religion they chose and this also meant choosing new faiths, the group said.

In Birmingham, the benevolent face of jihad

Julia Gorin reports in Jewish World Review (thanks to Sparta) on some egregious Alabama dhimmitude. (News links in the original.)

Earlier this month, Rabbi Jonathan Miller of Birmingham's Temple Emanu-El hosted Bosnia's Grand Mufti Mustafa Ceric to address an interfaith audience at his synagogue so that we Jews and Christians might "make room in our hearts and souls for others who believe differently from us," as his op-ed in The Birmingham News read. According to one attendee, the mufti packed a big house and the evening was replete with Martin Luther King tie-ins and civil rights-era imagery.

The rabbi should have done some research first. Ceric recently called on the world to stand by Syria, a state that sponsors terrorism against Israel and U.S. forces in Iraq, among other targets. During the March, 2004 pogroms in Kosovo against Orthodox Christian Serbs by Albanian Muslims — in which 19 people were killed, dozens of churches and cemeteries destroyed, and close to 4,000 of Kosovo's minority Serbs displaced — BBC.com reported that Ceric "expressed concern about the rise of anti-Islamic hysteria in the West." He added that there was "no such thing as Islamic terrorism," and assured reporters that there were no charities linked to al-Qaeda operating in Bosnia.

In fact, a CNSNews.com article titled "Jihadists Find Convenient Base in Bosnia" reported that "terrorists who previously targeted the U.S. are now in Bosnia, where they have access to a 'one-stop shop' of jihad training camps, weapons and illegal Islamic 'charities' — all at the doorstep of Europe."

Read it all.

Sweden: 'Separate laws for Muslims' idea slammed

Eurabia, and some resistance to it. From Sweden's The Local, with thanks to Paul:

Sweden's largest Muslim organisation has demanded that Sweden introduce separate laws for Muslims, according to Swedish television. Sweden's equality minister Jens Orback called the proposals "completely unacceptable".

The Swedish Muslim Association, which represents around 70,000 Muslims in Sweden, has sent a letter to all Sweden's main political parties suggesting a number of reforms, SVT's Rapport programme reported.

The proposals include allowing imams into state (public) schools to give Muslim children separate lessons in Islam and their parents' native languages. The letter also said that boys and girls should have separate swimming lessons and that divorces between Muslims should be approved by an imam.

The letter provoked an instant, and damning, response from integration and equality minister Jens Orback.

"We will not have separate laws in Sweden. In Sweden, we are all equal before the law. In Sweden, we have fought for a long time to achieve gender-neutral laws, and to propose that certain groups should not be treated like others is completely unacceptable."...

Liberal Party leader Lars Leijonborg also slammed the idea of separate laws.

"Sweden has equality between men and women. To introduce exceptions for Muslims so that women can be oppressed with the support of the law is completely unacceptable to me," Liberal leader Lars Leijonborg wrote in a statement.

Zarqawi tape authentic, says Fisk

Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondant for the UK Independent, is interviewed by Tony Jones for Lateline about the new Zarqawi video:

TONY JONES, LATELINE PRESENTER: Well, Robert Fisk is Middle East correspondent for 'The Independent' newspaper and more than 30 years of reporting from the region makes him one of the most acute observers of the Arab world. To discuss the implications of the al-Zarqawi video, he joins us now from Beirut. Thanks for being there, Robert Fisk. Do you have any doubt at all that these really are images of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi?

ROBERT FISK, AUTHOR AND JOURNALIST: They do look like Zarqawi. I think it's pretty clear that he is alive, which I doubted for some time and that he, indeed, made this videotape. It clearly is a blow to the United States in the sense that they have several times claimed that they've killed him, which they obviously haven't done, and the tape is obviously new. But I think it is part of the bestialisation, if you like, of those people we want to hate, in the sense that I think individuals like Zarqawi or bin Laden don't actually matter. It's a bit like, you know, after you make a nuclear bomb, you go around arresting all the nuclear scientists and putting them in prison. It doesn't do any good. The nuclear bomb exists. Al-Qaeda exists. The organisation which bin Laden has created exists. So, the individuals per se don't actually matter anymore, but that's something which I think the Americans don't yet grasp.

TONY JONES: The last time we spoke, you did indeed think it very possible that he'd actually been killed and no-one knew where he was. So that's not so surprising.

ROBERT FISK: Yeah.

TONY JONES: You also thought he was a creature invented to fill the narrative gaps. In other words, a creature created, in a sense, by American propaganda. He's much more than that; isn't that evident from this video?

ROBERT FISK: Yeah. It is pretty clear. He does exist. He is still alive and that was him on the video. I don't think there's any doubt about that. I watched it several times over and am clearly of the mind that this is the man. What we do need to know, of course, is whether he has actually any real status over and above being a name al-Zarqawi. In other words, does he actually have any real status as a militant, as a resistant, as a rebel, whatever you like to use the word, terrorist, other than just being a person who is to be hated and to be bestialised in front of the television screens. The issue really is, I think, is this a person who is seriously an enemy of the "West" or is this just another person who is popping up on our screens to say this is the latest mad lunatic, the latest fanatic, the latest terrorist whom we have to be concerned about? That is the real issue, you see. Over and over again we've had this system where whereby we've had Ayatollah Khomeini and Gaddafi in Libya. We've had these extraordinary figures in the Middle East, like Nasser, for example, in Egypt in 1956 and people whom we are encouraged to loathe, encouraged to hate and who, ultimately, are just figureheads, who in the end are people who we just are encouraged to loathe, encouraged to hate. People who, at the end of the day, are not per se people who we need to worry about, people who, indeed --

TONY JONES: Robert Fisk, can I interrupt you there?

ROBERT FISK: Yeah, yeah.

TONY JONES: I'm surprised to hear you say some of these things because isn't it he himself who put these images on the Internet, including make a beast of himself by earlier putting on the Internet images of him with a mask on beheading Nicholas Berg, for example?...

Read it all.

Muslims who skip Friday prayers can be punished

A There-Is-No-Compulsion-In-Religion Update from Malaysia. From The Star, with thanks to Nicolei:

KOTA BARU: Skipping Friday prayers is a major sin for Muslims and it is punishable under the state’s Syariah laws, said Kelantan Bar Committee chairman Datuk Wan Harun Shukri Noordin.

Therefore, Muslims in the state must remember that Friday prayers are compulsory, otherwise they can be jailed or fined by the religious authorities, he said yesterday.

He was commenting on a recent case in which a Muslim man was fined by the Syariah Court here for not attending the weekly prayers.

Christians on the West Bank face more fire bomb attacks

Islamic Tolerance Alert from Ekklesia, with thanks to Cornelius:

A Roman Catholic parish school and a Protestant Bible-study centre in the West Bank have been fire-bombed twice since the Islamist Hamas movement won a legislative election in January 2006, according to Christian clerics in the region.

According to the Presbyterian Church USA News Service, a priest at the Roman Catholic Al-Ahliyya College in the West Bank city of Ramallah says that several fire-bombs were thrown into a school sports room in early March 2006, causing serious damage and destroying equipment stored there.

About a month earlier, said the same priest, several petrol bombs were thrown into an Al-Ahliyya classroom.

In other recent incidents, a Protestant Bible-study centre in the town of Bir-Zeit near Ramallah was attacked, and phrases from the Qur’an were daubed on its doors. Windows in a Lutheran church in Ramallah were also shattered by unknown assailants.

Indonesia: Government wants non-Muslims tried by Islamic court

This will, of course, lead to a systematic denial of equality of rights to non-Muslims if Sharia is fully implemented. "Indonesia: Government Wants Non-Muslims Tried By Acheh Islamic Court," from AKI, with thanks to Nicolei:

Banda Aceh, 26 April (AKI/Jakarta Post) - The Indonesian government has insisted that Muslims and non-Muslims alike in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam district of Muslim-devout Aceh province should be tried by a planned Islamic Court. Non-Muslims accused of committing crimes such as theft and adultery, would be tried under the Sharia inspired bylaws, state secretary Yusril Ihza Mahendra told the special committee deliberating a crucial bill on Aceh's future administration.

Mahendra, responding to the proposals of several legislators who wanted non-Muslims to be given the freedom to choose under which law they would be tried, said it would only create legal uncertainty.

"Should such freedom be given, non-Muslims will certainly choose to be tried under the Criminal Code, because it carries more lenient punishment," Yusril told the hearing, held to discuss the authority of the planned Islamic Court, also known as Mahkamah Sharia.

Yusril said that in the case of adultery, non-Muslims who committed adultery with Muslims would undoubtedly opt for trial by Indonesia's penal code, because it was more lenient than stoning or other forms of corporal punishment stipulated under Islamic Law.

Dhimmis at State deny Congresswoman permission to travel to Qatar because she planned to ask "sharp questions"

Why, we wouldn't want to offend our friend and ally. "Feds Nix Pol's Arab Tour," from the New York Post, with thanks to David:

April 24, 2006 -- WASHINGTON - The State Department blocked a New York congresswoman from traveling to Qatar after being informed she planned to raise sharp questions about a high-ranking Qatar official's relationship with the al Qaeda terror network, The Post has learned. Rep. Sue Kelly (R-Katonah) confirmed that she was forced to cancel a visit to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates earlier this month after the State Department raised questions about her eligibility to receive official travel expenses.

State Department officials raised concerns about funding with Kelly the same day they allowed another member of Congress to receive funds under the same exchange program to travel to Qatar, sources told The Post.

State Department officials had no immediate comment on why Kelly's trip was scuttled.

But the sudden action came as Kelly, who chairs the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation, had been raising a number of questions about terrorism financing in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE.

Kelly has been particularly vocal about Qatari Interior Minister Abdullah bin Khalid al Thani, who has been identified as a major al Qaeda supporter.

German brothel ad angers Muslims

Why threats of violence? Why not a simple request that the ad be altered? Or even peaceful protests if the request is not honored?

From the BBC, with thanks to all who sent this in:

A Cologne brothel touting for clients with a World Cup-themed banner has blacked out the flags of Iran and Saudi Arabia after threats from Muslims.

The giant banner on a high-rise building shows a semi-naked woman and the flags of the 32 countries in the World Cup, which kicks off in June.

The Pascha brothel's owner, Armin Lobscheid, said a group of Muslims had threatened violence over the advert.

He said they had accused the brothel of insulting Islam by using the flags.

First there were telephone threats of violence, then about 30 hooded protesters armed with knives and sticks turned up outside Pascha on Friday, the Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper reported.

MSU prof's e-mail outrages Muslims

Muslim students want Indrek Wichman to be disciplined. The University, at least for now, is reminding them of a little thing called freedom of speech. Of course, given the pattern of events over the last few years in the U.S. and Europe, I wouldn't be in the least surprised if they caved before too long and reprimanded, suspended, or even fired Wichman.

Meanwhile, what did he say? He told Muslims mounting a Cartoon Rage protest that Islamic jihad murders were worse than a few cartoons. He said it in strong language. But what he said was true: everything he mentioned was true and has been reported here at Jihad Watch (Mr. Wichman, if you are a reader, my hat is off to you).

From the Detroit Free Press, with thanks to all who sent this in, here is the text of Wichman's email:

Dear Moslem Association: As a professor of Mechanical Engineering here at MSU I intened to protest your protest.

I am offended not by cartoons, but by more mundane things like beheadings of civilians, cowardly attacks on public buildings, suicide murders, murders of Catholic priests (the latest in Turkey!), burnings of Christian chirches, the continued persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt, the imposition of Sharia law on non-Muslims, the rapes of Scandinavain girls and women (called "whores" in your culture), the murder of film directors in Holland, and the rioting and looting in Paris France.

This is what offends me, a soft-spoken person and academic, and many, many, many of my colleagues. I counsul you dissatisfied, agressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems to be very aware of this as you proceed with your infantile "protests."

If you do not like the values of the West -- see the 1st Ammendment -- you are free to leave. I hope for God's sake that most of you choose that option. Please return to your ancestral homelands and build them up yourselves instead of troubling Americans.

Cordially, I. S. Wichman, Professor of Mechanical Engineering

And here are selections from the Free Press's story on the fallout:

An Islamic student group at Michigan State University demanded Monday that university officials publicly reprimand a professor whose Feb. 28 e-mail called on Muslims who don't "like the values of the West" to leave the United States.

That's a funny lead. I suppose they are demanding that Muslims who don't like the values of the West should not be free to leave?

Of course, what they really mean is that non-Muslims who realize that there are Muslims in the West who don't like the values of the West should above all not suggest that those Muslims should leave the West. Instead, non-Muslims should acquiesce peacefully while those Muslims set about to transform the values of those Western societies.

But MSU officials said there's little that can be done to punish Indrek Wichman, 55, a tenured professor of mechanical engineering, because his comments essentially constitute free speech. Wichman sent the message to the Muslim Students' Association of Michigan State University while it handed out free cocoa during a public awareness event about controversial cartoons that depicted Islam's founder as a terrorist....

The Muslim Students' Association, along with 12 other student and advocacy groups, called Monday for the university to issue a letter of reprimand. They have met several times with university officials since Feb. 28 and went public with the e-mail Monday because the school had not acted.

Terry Denbow, spokesman for MSU, said Wichman's views in no way represent the university's views. But, he said, they do not violate the university's antidiscrimination policy.

"He was cautioned that any additional commentary ... could constitute the creation of a hostile environment, and that could ... form the basis of a complaint" under the policy, Denbow said.

He said he considers the comments "very inappropriate. And I personally wish he would apologize to the students."

To Farhan Abdul Azeez, an MSU senior studying human biology and the president of the student association, the e-mail was startling.

"Naturally, I was very upset. I was disgusted. All of those emotions went through my body," said Azeez, 20, of Canton.

In addition to a reprimand, the student group wants the university to implement diversity training programs for faculty and a mandatory freshman seminar on hate and discrimination.

"The best way to limit or to kind of defuse hate is through education, no doubt," said Maryam Khalil, 18, a sophomore from East Lansing studying journalism. Khalil is vice president of the association.

No, Maryam. The best way to limit or to kind of defuse hate is for Muslims to stop committing the violent acts to which Wichman refers, and justifying them by Islamic teachings. Those who do not commit violent acts should be directing their energies to those who are, and trying to convince them to stop. As well as working with non-Muslims to root jihad terrorists out of their communities.

If Muslims did that, they would find non-Muslims would have significantly less of what they think of as "hatred" for them, but which is actually a normal impulse for self-defense.

Denbow said discussions with students about sensitivity training are ongoing.

"We're not only willing to, but eager to listen to the students. Their commentary to date has been thoughtful," Denbow said.

Reached at home Monday evening, Wichman said he had regrets.

"I used strong language in a private communication that I would certainly not have used if this communication would have gone public," he said.

But he stressed the importance of free speech.

"I believe very strongly in free speech and free expression. It is one of the building blocks of this great republic in which we live. And any attempts to abridge or diminish it are serious matters."

The Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations also is urging the university to take "appropriate disciplinary" action, saying the e-mail creates a hostile learning environment for students.

I hope Wichman or someone there will point out that the true nature of CAIR.

"It was upsetting, yet sad" that a tenured professor could make such comments, said Dawud Walid, executive director of the council. "It's scary when you think about the power that this gentleman has" as a professor.

Walid said that MSU has the academic and moral obligation to publicly denounce the e-mail, conduct a formal investigation and have sensitivity training on how to deal with Muslims on campus.

The university should "strongly and publicly disassociate themselves from the statement," Walid said.

Azeez said education is most important.

"There's a bigger problem here of racism and discrimination at Michigan State University. Faculty training and sensitivity training are very important to help prevent future incidents like this from occurring," he said.

I would like Walid and Azeez to explain what in Wichman's statement was false. The worst part of it is his reference to "you dissatisfied, agressive, brutal, and uncivilized slave-trading Moslems." But CAIR and the Muslims at MSU must recognize that there are Muslims in the world -- and not a few -- who are behaving with aggression and brutality. And the slave trade exists today only in certain Muslim countries. They should be devoting their efforts to eradicating these evils from the umma, not to protesting cartoons and the unfortunate Professor Wichman.

Muslim woman fighting for separate exercise facilities defends homicide bombers, says, "If America falls to Islam, so be it"

Several people have criticized me for posting this story, pointing out that the women were merely protesting the fact that they were promised exercise facilities separate from those of men, and then the gym reneged.

Fair enough. I am not in favor of anyone breaking a contract. But the only comment I put on the piece was "Sharia in Dearborn," and that is all I wanted to highlight: the fact that a gym in Michigan would even offer separate exercise facilities for Muslim women indicates that the Muslim presence in the U.S., or at least in Dearborn, is growing in size and clout -- and that therefore we will see much more calls for implementation of various aspects of Sharia.

And now, an interesting side note: Ammerah Saidi, one of the Muslim women protesting the gym's reneging, showed up at Debbie Schlussel's site with some interesting remarks. She defends homicide bombers and says "If it [America] falls to Islam, so be it." Read what she wrote on Debbie's site. And that, of course, raises larger questions about Sharia in the U.S., and the ultimate goals of the Muslim community here.

Turk official arrested for chewing gum at ceremony

Dalci was probably falling under the spell of decadent Western influences; he was probably thinking, "Don't wanna be a bum/You better chew gum/The pump don't work/'Cause the vandals took the handles."

In Turkey, it's either political Islam or the cult of Ataturk. If they don't clap you in the slammer for chewing gum at Ataturk's tomb, watch out: the jihadist vandals will take the handles.

Either way, forget about that pump working.

A Let-Them-Into-the-EU Alert; will the Eurodhimmis take notice of just how far Turkey is from being a Western pluralist free society? This is the kind of thing one might expect happening in Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia, but not in Modern Multicultural Europe. From Reuters, with thanks to Andrew Bostom:

ANKARA (Reuters) - An official in Turkey's ruling party has been arrested for chewing gum while laying a wreath at a monument to the country's revered founder Kemal Ataturk, the state Anatolian news agency said on Monday.

Veysel Dalci, head of the local branch of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the Black Sea town of Fatsa, was charged with insulting Ataturk's memory during Sunday's ceremony marking Turkey's National Sovereignty Day.

CNN Turk television quoted Dalci, a 38-year-old pharmacist and father of two, as saying he chewed gum to hide the smell of garlic which he had eaten the previous evening.

"After laying a wreath at the monument, I noticed I had gum in my mouth. I am very sorry," CNN Turk quoted him as saying.

Anatolian said Dalci was arrested after a local army garrison commander complained to state prosecutors. It was not immediately clear what kind of penalty Dalci would face.

Fitzgerald: Islam compatible with democracy?

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the dhimmi Dutch report asserting the compatibility of traditional Islam with Western notions of democracy:

The Dutch Scientific Council for Government Policy recently recommended that “instead of exporting democracy to Muslim countries, democratic attempts harmonious with their own traditions and cultures must be supported."

Yet the traditional laws of Islam flatly contradict every single principle of individual rights enshrined in the American Constitution and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That is why the Muslim nations of the world ultimately came up with their own, very different, version of that Universal Declaration -- the "Cairo Declaration of Human Rights." Put the documents side by side. The "universal" one, and then the "Islamic" one. You can track precisely the changes made from one to the other. And then you can study, in the texts of Islam, the reasons for those changes. Every single course given on Islam, or on comparative law, should have this as one of its required exercises for students.

Above all, the Cairo Declaration asserts that Sharia is the ultimate arbiter of human rights. If you don’t know what consequences that assertion has for women and non-Muslims, as well as for apostates from Islam, you haven’t been paying attention.

The most complete study of how Islam is incompatible with human rights, as these are understood today in the Western world (and which took two millennia, and more, to achieve), can be found in a book by an Iranian professor in exile, Reza Afshari. His tone is mild. His evidence is massive. His conclusions are irrefutable.

As for the statement from the Dutch Scientific Council for Government Policy, notice that there appear to be only two alternatives: either we, the Western world, continue "exporting democracy to Muslim countries" OR we try to encourage "democratic attempts" (what is a "democratic attempt," exactly?) "harmonious" with "their own traditions and cultures." And of course we will be treated to all manner of assurances that Islam is fully compatible with Western principles of human rights -- despite all the evidence marshaled by Professor Afshari, and despite the clear evidence of the systematic rewriting and gutting by Muslim legal experts of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and what that tells us about the Muslim view of such things. We will continue to be assured, always in the abstract of course, never in any deigning to dwell on detail, that Islam is "compatible" with "democracy." See Amartya Sen, now doing his Nobel-Prize-winner-who-becomes-an-expert-on-everything imitation (it didn't work for Linus Pauling or George Wald, and it won't work for Amartya Sen). See Bernard Lewis in one of his overenthusiastic moments, back in the fall of 2003.

Let's agree: Islam can be "compatible" with head-counting, but only, in the end, temporarily, and only by those Muslims who have the most heads to count. That is why the Shi'a in Iraq supported that purple-thumbed Experiment in International Misunderstanding, but not the Sunnis. The Shi’a did not support it out of principle. The Shi'a Arabs constitute 60-65% of the population; naturally they were all for this kind of "democracy." The Sunni Arabs constitute 19%; they, therefore, were against this kind of "democracy."

And let us further agree that "imposing democracy on Muslim countries" is impossible. But there is another way, a way that the Dutch authors of this report failed even to consider.

And that way is this: leave the Muslim countries to their own devices. Buy what oil you must, but limit all other contacts. No Jizyah of foreign aid. Let the rich Muslims help the poor Muslims, and leave the Infidels (who are getting poorer by the minute, what with the rise in oil prices, and the huge costs associated with monitoring, and then sometimes prosecuting, or jailing members of, the Muslim populations within their own, Infidel lands) out of the equation.

Let them, in other words, with the Infidels removed, be forced -- as Ataturk was forced by circumstances -- to consider carefully the belief-system of Islam, the inshallah-fatalism of Islam, the habit of mental submission of Islam, the limits on artistic expression and scientific inquiry of Islam, the morally unacceptable treatment of women and non-Muslims in Islam -- let them, over many decades, start to wonder about whether or not, just maybe, it is elements of Islam itself that explain their political, economic, social, intellectual, and moral failures.

And in the Infidel lands of the advanced West? Study your own histories. Return to those thrilling days of Spinoza and then Hume. Go back in time, or forwards. Be a bit more grateful, and a bit less interested in the doings of starlets and rock stars -- less interested, even properly contemptuous.

That will be good, all way round.

Pipes: Islamic law at Belmont U

Daniel Pipes in FrontPage discusses the Bill Hobbs case (news links in the original):

Who would have thought that Belmont University of Nashville, Tennessee, would apply the Islamic law to its staff? But just that happened earlier this month.

Bill Hobbs, a Republican political advisor, blogger, and news writer for Belmont, which bills itself as “the largest Christian university in Tennessee,” was upset in February 2006 about the cowardice of the American media in not publishing the Danish cartoons. So he drew a primitive cartoon of his own and posted it on his personal site. It sat in obscurity until April 5, when a Democratic political operative, Mike Kopp, wrote about it, calling it:

a bizzare page with the heading Draw Mohammed that spotlights a stick drawing of the Prophet Mohammed holding a bomb. The cartoon is entitled “Mohammend Blows.” Under the cartoon Hobbs issues an invite to “exercise your right to free expression by drawing pictures of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed”. He ends the post with the phrase “Here’s my first mo-toon.” All this was posted at 12:40 pm, on Friday, February 24, 2006.

Hobbs responded within a few hours on Kopp’s website, writing (spelling mistakes uncorrected):

I live in America, and am blessed to have the First Amendment, and am angry that the American media is too cowardly in the face of Islamofacists to run the cartoons. I posted that cartoon, and invited others to draw their own cartoons, as a way of protesting both American media cowardice and Islamist attempts to suppress free speech via threats of bombs and bullets and burning and beheading. But then I never publicized the site and, quite frankly, forgot is was up until today.

P.S. I am insensitve toward religions that have a large number of adherents who are running around blowing stuff up and threatening to kill non-believers over cartoons. Yes, I plead insensitivity. I would prefer my children not grow up in a world governed by Islamofacists.

On April 13, John Spragens of Nashville Scene picked up on this story in an article titled “One local blogger’s crude cartoon, posing as principle, betrays little more than tackiness.” He included a miniature version of the page in question (see illustration). As his headline implies, Spragens (who, another blog notes, is leaving the Nashville Scene to work for a Democrat, U.S. Representative Jim Cooper) came down heavily on Hobbs:

by deliberately desecrating Islam’s central figure—“the ‘Prophet Mohammed’” as Hobbs sneered, using quote marks for sardonic emphasis—he attacked an entire religion, not a group of fanatics who pervert the religion’s teachings. Then he drew him as a bearded stick figure holding a bomb and said he “blows.” It seems bearded Muslim terrorists are the new big-nosed, money-grubbing Jews. The more things change…. [ellipsis in original]

On the other side, Roger Abramson, Spragens’ predecessor at Nashville Scene, defended Hobbs early on April 14.

Nonetheless, the damage had been done. Hobbs announced in the late morning at NashvilleFiles.com, “I am resigning from Belmont University in an amicable and mutual parting of the ways, effective Monday [April 17].”

A week later, the university has let calls from the press asking for more information go unreturned and has made no statement about Hobbs’ resignation. Its silence attracted notice in the blogosphere (for example, from Hugh Hewitt) but still not a word was forthcoming.

Although it was an article in the Nashville Scene that prompted the resignation, that publication’s editor, Liz Garrigan, came down hard on Belmont:

Belmont’s action here—assuming this was a forced resignation, and I think everyone believes it is—is cowardly. I mean, Hobbs’ political views haven’t been a secret. Why is the school suddenly putting stock in what we have to say about one action by one individual? The school shouldn’t sacrifice him just because we happen to think that something he did was pretty tacky.

“Pretty tacky” is putting it mildly; Belmont’s actions have real consequences. Like the Danish corporation Arla Foods denouncing the cartoons or the Swedish foreign minister forcing the cartoons off a website, this firing in Tennessee amounts to a capitulation to Islamic law. Each surrender means the Shari‘a will move inexorably forward.

Fitzgerald: A tribute to Juan Cole

Jihad Watch Board Vice President discusses the impending apotheosis of Juan Cole:

What can one expect from Yale vis-à-vis Juan Cole? If the Director of the Whitney Center for the Humanities, Maria Rosa Menocal, has not been taken to scholarly task for her ill-informed feelgood Ornament of the World (which makes no mention of the relevant authorities, such as Levi-Provencal, in her bibliography), but rather has just been rewarded with a Sterling Professorship, that says a lot about Yale. Her Sterling Professorship, what’s more, is one of four such appointments, and the only one outside of science, with its more rigorous no-nonsense standards.

As for Juan Cole, everything Martin Kramer has written about him should be digested thoroughly by those at Yale who are even thinking of touching Cole with a ten foot pole. Then read around. Go to the Yale Library. Check out Joseph Schacht, C. Snouck Hurgronje, David Margoliouth, Arthur Jeffery. Start with those four. Or, if you prefer, read the samples of a few dozen great Western scholars of Islam, those included in the tremendously useful The Legacy of Jihad. Ask a few European scholars -- say, Alfred de Premare, or Hans Jansen -- or for that matter those who have received their scholarly formation in Europe but are presently in the United States, such as Bernard Lewis, Patricia Crone, and Michael Cook -- what they think of the level of Coke's "scholarship." For that matter, since the subject at hand is "contemporary" political developments, surely Fouad Ajami and Kanan Makiya should be asked (for there they will be truth-tellers) what they think of Juan Cole's "scholarship."

If this charlatan is appointed, it would be a final nail, or rather several final nails, in several coffins. One would be the coffin of MESA Nostra. The American government – or better, qualified and moneyed private individuals who know the truth -- should simply set up institutes to teach Americans about Islam and the Middle East, going carefully around the universities -- or perhaps carefully vetting every department that would wish to get in on the money. The second coffin, a far more luxurious affair (possibly on display at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home), will be that of Yale itself. Universities live and die now by phony "prestige" and by working up would-be students into a frenzy about it, and by keeping "in touch" with Alumni to remind them of how prestigious their prestigious university prestigiously is, and how all that prestige comes at a price -- the price that generous and loyal alumni, basking in that never-ending "prestige," should be happy to pay, and pay, and pay. (Have you gotten a call, or ten, or fifty, from your university yet? Have you had the good sense to tell them to stop their endless begging, and you choose not to swell their endowment still further?)

If such a scholarly nonentity, is appointed in the "full light of history," when his work can be easily compared with that of real scholars (Jeffery, Snouck Hurgronje, Schacht, etc.) of the past, and present scholars -- Cook, Crone, Lewis, De Premare, Jansen -- can give their opinions, what does that tell us about this prestige? And don't tell us that John Esposito, or Roger Owen, or Hamid Dabashi, or the egregious rock-musician and self-described polymath Mark LeVine (about whom more has been written here) have been the people supplying references for Cole, or that others, including the more plausible representatives of the apologist-lite school, such as Roy Mottahedeh, have been doing so. For god's sake, the mixture as before is not acceptable. We can't take more misinformation, nonsense and lies, about Islam. It's costing us too much -- just look at tarbaby Iraq and the dream of a Light Unto the Muslim Nations.

Donations do not matter to MESA Nostra. But they do, very much, to Yale. Yale should be made to suffer, suffer, suffer, if the apotheosis of MESA Nostra and all that is wrong with it, one Juan Cole, is rewarded for his nonstop nonsense by being elevated to the "prestige" of "prestigious" Yale. It is bad enough that the Mearsheimer-Walt parody of scholarship is allowed to go about the world as a "Harvard" product (the imprimatur was removed too late). To have "Professor Juan Cole of Yale” -- that's more of the same.

It may not be possible to recreate an atmosphere in American universities, or in other universities of the Western world, in which disinterested study, rather than transparent apologetics, would be offered to innocent students. Certainly the number of schools where such study is possible has diminished over the past 30 years. Esposito is the rule, not the exception. But one should at least try. And administrators at Yale and members of other departments, such as the history faculty at Yale, now have a duty to inform themselves fully of the extent of the scandal, and not to permit the fellow-travelers of MESA Nostra already ensconced at Yale to manage to smuggle in one more of their number. This was, incidentally, tried recently at Harvard Divinity School by Leila Ahmed, trying through her tools William Graham and Diana Eck to push through the appointment of Omid Safi. Fortunately, she was foiled. Surely those pushing, pushing, pushing for Juan Cole -- because he is one of them, and they are with him all the way -- can also be foiled at the last minute. They must be -- for the sake of Yale's innocent students, and for the continued support of Yale. For all of the faculty will suffer in the end from a decline in financial support that such an appointment will at this point, and fortunately, automatically trigger.

They might start by reading up on the phrase "MESA Nostra." They can even, if they wish, enter the "MESA Nostra Contest." Yes, their entries will be given special consideration.

West: Speak no evil: The new EU lexicon on terrorism

The redoubtable Diana West speaks truth to power about the EU's latest exercise in Orwellianism:

How wunderbar, merveilleux and perfectly ripping that the European Union is creating a new "lexicon" to discuss Islam and terrorism so as never to conflate the two. The Telegraph tells us that EU officials -- having double-checked that George Orwell and his satirical pen are dead and gone -- are putting together a "non-emotive lexicon for discussing radicalization."

Islamic "radicalization," that is. When it comes to dealing with Europe's Muslim populations, the old "Sticks and stones ..." proverb is out, particularly the "words can never hurt me" part. These days, the update goes: "Say words that hurt me and I'll blow up a train." As an EU official explained non-emotively, "The basic idea is to avoid the use of improper words that could cause frustration among Muslims and increase the risk of radicalization."

As they say over there: What rot. Only hothouse EU officials could believe that words such as "Islamic terrorism" cause radicalization. Fanatical bloodlust (not to mention 72-virgin-lust) inspires acts labeled "Islamic terrorism," not the other way around. But not in EU-land. "These words (Islamic terrorism) cannot sit side by side," Omar Faruk, a Muslim barrister and "adviser" to the British government, told Reuters. The phrase "just creates a culture where terrorism actually is identified with Islam," he continued. "That causes me a lot of stress."

Horrors! A lot of stress! The poor dear. I trust he is taking up his complaint with bin Laden, Zawahri, Zarqawi, etc.

Read it all.

Thousands Protest Brussels MP3 Murder. BBC Omits Facts

Paul Belien at the Brussels Journal (thanks to JS) reports on some anti-dhimmitude in Belgium, and predictable dhimmitude from the BBC (news links in the original):

Today, some 80,000 people participated in a silent march in Brussels to commemorate 17 year old Joe Van Holsbeeck, who was knifed on 12 April because he refused to hand over his MP3 player to two North African youths. The murder happened during the evening rush hour in a crowded Brussels central station. The murderers were filmed by security cameras, but it took a full week before the authorities released the footage. The assassins are still at large.

This BBC report about the march, which was the largest protest in the country since 1996 when 300,000 marched through Brussels in anger over the murdering of children, does not mention the ethnicity of the assassins, though many Belgians are worried about the extremely violent mentality of North African youth gangs. [update 24 April, 7:30am GMT: the BBC has added a few final paragraphs mentioning "racial tension"] In fact, the initiative for the march came from Fouad Ahidar, a Moroccan-born Flemish member of the Brussels regional parliament, who said last week that many immigrants are equally worried about violent Moroccan youth gangs.

Read it all.

EU stamps out Islamic terrorism!

Orwellianism is in the saddle in the EU, and the solons are busy sharpening their Newspeak lexicon. An update on this story. "Fighting terrorism one word at a time: The European Union balks at 'Islamic terrorism' and other phrases. It's working on a lexicon that counters the terrorists' terminology." From the Christian Science Monitor, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Officials in Brussels have embarked on an unusual exercise, combing their dictionaries to excise words and phrases that could cause offense.

When the review is complete and the rules laid down, you will not, for example, hear EU officials talk any more about "Islamic terrorism."

That sort of shorthand reference to the bombings in Madrid and London, and other outrages committed in the name of Islam, is commonplace today. But EU policymakers worry that it lumps all Muslims into the same category, and angers them.

"There is no justification at all for including all law-abiding Muslim citizens in our messages about terrorism," says Friso Roscam-Abbing, an EU spokesman. "The politically more correct term will be 'terrorism that abusively invokes Islam.' "

"That may be all very long and cumbersome," he acknowledges. "But millions of Muslims live in the EU, and they are simply not terrorists."

To speak of "Islamic terrorism" doesn't include "all law-abiding Muslim citizens in...messages about terrorism." It merely acknowledges the fact that the perpetrators of this terrorism justify and fuel it by reference to Islamic concepts. The idea that they "abusively" invoke Islam is highly questionable, since these "law-abiding Muslim citizens" have come up with no effective refutation of their theology on Islamic grounds, and have not made any move to bar them from their communities. If they are abusively invoking Islam, why aren't these law-abiding Muslim citizens leading efforts to resist them?

Mr. Roscam-Abbing may be prepared to admit to political correctness, but he rejects accusations that the EU is soft-soaping "Islamic radicals" - another phrase that is coming under the microscope.

"We are very tough on combating terrorism," he insists. "We will absolutely continue to detect the bad guys and prevent them from committing terrorist acts. But at the same time we are respectful of citizens' beliefs."

Sure, Roscam-Abbing. But unfortunately, pretending that you don't have the problem that you have will not make it go away.

Holland: Writer who took over Theo van Gogh's column attacked

I just received this message from a well-placed contact in the Netherlands:

On Friday, April 21, the Dutch writer Ebru Umar, of Turkish background, was attacked in Amsterdam by two Moroccan young men. She was hurt, but not seriously. She has been lucky. It was just a warning.

Ebru Umar took over Theo van Gogh's weekly column in the daily newspaper Metro. The Dutch media mentioned this yesterday and today. Ms Ebru Umar confirmed the story. The Moroccans probably wanted to convince her once more that Islam is a religion of peace.

More on this as it becomes available.

Yale dhimmitude watch: Talibulldog's days may be numbered, but they're hiring...Juan Cole

In "Cole Fire: Yale is set to ditch Taliban Man and may hire a notorious anti-Israel professor," John Fund in the Opinion Journal (thanks to Romy) brings us a Rahmatullah Update: the former Taliban spokesman may be on his way out at Yale, but not because anyone there has had an attack of conscience.

This is abundantly demonstrated by the fact that they considering hiring the dhimmi academic Juan Cole. One small indication of Cole's sense of academic objectivity is indicated by the fact that he printed his comrade-in-arms Mark LeVine's reply to my article about him, but declined to publish my further reply (yes, I did send it to him). (For the record, I would not perform the same discourtesy. If either Cole or LeVine dared to debate me, I would print their full remarks here.)

Cole also purveys howlers such as this: "Dangerous falsehoods are being promulgated to the American public. The Quran does not preach violence against Christians." Then he quotes a few verses that indeed do not preach violence against Christians, but, predictably enough, he makes no mention of Qur'an 9:29, which -- you guessed it -- preaches violence against Christians: "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."

As Juan will tell you, the People of the Book that Muslims must fight in this verse are primarily Jews or Christians.

Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi's luck is running out. Eight weeks ago the Taliban diplomat turned special Yale student made a media splash on the cover of the New York Times magazine in which he proclaimed: "In some ways I'm the luckiest person in the world, I could have ended up in Guantanamo Bay. Instead I ended up at Yale."

But the continued outrage over the news that an unrepentant former official of a criminal regime whose remnants are still killing U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan is part of the Ivy League is catching up with him. Yale is about to establish tougher standards for the program under which he is applying to become a degree-status sophomore next fall, and the consensus is that Mr. Hashemi won't measure up.

Taliban Man's days as a Bulldog look to be numbered. But Yale may be about to stir up new controversy as it appears to be on the verge of offering a notorious anti-Israel academic a faculty position....

Meanwhile, Yale faces a new challenge. In the next few days the university may hire Juan Cole, a history professor at the University of Michigan, to fill a new spot as a professor of contemporary Middle East studies.

Mr. Cole's appointment would be problematic on several fronts. First, his scholarship is largely on the 19th-century Middle East, not on contemporary issues. "He has since abandoned scholarship in favor of blog commentary," says Michael Rubin, a Yale graduate and editor of the Middle East Quarterly. Mr. Cole's postings at his blog, Informed Comment, appear to be a far cry from scholarship. They feature highly polemical writing and dubious conspiracy theories.

In justifying all the time he spends on his blog, Mr. Cole told the Yale Herald that "when you become a public intellectual, it has the effect of dragging you into a lot of mud." Mr. Cole has done his share of splattering. He calls Israel "the most dangerous regime in the Middle East." That ties in with his recurring theme that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee effectively controls Congress and much of U.S. foreign policy. In an article titled "Dual Loyalties," he wrote, "I simply think that we deserve to have American public servants who are centrally commited [sic] to the interests of the United States, rather than to the interests of a foreign political party," namely Israel's right-wing Likud, which was the ruling party until Ariel Sharon formed the centrist Kadima Party. Mr. Cole claims that "pro-Likud intellectuals" routinely "use the Pentagon as Israel's Gurkha regiment, fighting elective wars on behalf of Tel Aviv."

Read it all.

Bush adviser dismisses Eurodhimmi call for talks with Iran

This doesn't necessarily mean that the Bush Administration will not play the dhimmi for Iran, but it's a good sign nevertheless -- except for the nonsense about democratization, which any schoolchild ought to be able to see is just bringing more mujahedin to power. "Bush adviser dismisses call for talks with Iran," from the Financial Times, with thanks to JE:

One of the US government’s top advisers has rebuffed European calls for Washington to negotiate directly with Iran over Tehran’s nuclear programme.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Philip Zelikow, counsellor at the US State Department, also said the Bush administration’s commitment to the democratisation of the Middle East was undimmed, despite the recent victory of Hamas, the militant Islamist group, in Palestinian legislative elections.

“The US position has been that at this time we don’t see value in having direct talks with the Iranians about, say, the nuclear issue,” he said, rejecting calls for such negotiations from Frank-Walter Steinmeier, German foreign minister, and other senior European diplomats.

UK: St. George "offensive to Arabs and Muslims"

St. George the Great Martyr, the new patron saint of Jihad Watch

Today is (on the Byzantine calendar, at least, and maybe others too) the feast day of St. George the Great Martyr (martyr, that is, in the Christian sense: St. George didn't murder anyone to win his martyr's crown). But the dhimmi Chris Doyle would like to see to it that it's the last one he celebrates. "St George comes under fire," from the BBC, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Over the centuries, George and his red cross have become associated with many causes - some admirable, others not.

In legend, he was the figurehead of King Arthur's knights.

Edward III chose him as patron when he founded the Knights of the Garter in 1348.

Red Ensign

St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle was built as the order's spiritual home.

The red cross has been used on the flags of The Royal Navy and the Church of England - and on the official seal of Lyme Regis.

Richard II ordered every man in his army to wear the cross when he invaded Scotland.

Now the Scots have to fly their invaders' mark on the Union Flag.

Crucially, it was also the emblem of the Crusades against the Islam.

Richard the Lionheart wore it, and legend tells how St George appeared to his knights during the siege of Antioch, inspiring them to victory.

Centuries have passed since, but the Crusades are still a cause of resentment among some muslims.

Holy war

Chris Doyle, of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding, says the red cross is an insensitive reminder of the Crusades.

He said: "It is offensive to Arabs and muslims, including many from non-Arab countries.

"They see the Crusades as Christendom launching a brutal holy war against Islam.

"Because of what has happened in the 20th Century, when most of the Arab world was colonised, the memory of the Crusades has resurfaced."

On the other hand, the saint - if not his sign - is revered in Palestine for his courageous martyrdom.

By the way, for the truth about that "brutal holy war against Islam" that Christendom supposedly launched, see my book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).

UPDATE: My apologies. I see this is a 2002 BBC piece. I always check the dates, except when I don't. But I am going to keep this up, as the substance of the story is still illuminating.

Hirsi Ali: condemns Islam's attitudes towards homosexuality

Meanwhile, the gay community in Europe and the U.S. is much more concerned about people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who are not, unlike imams in many countries, calling for the deaths of homosexuals. "Dutch MP condemns Islam's homophobia: Ayaan Hirsi Ali condemed Islam's attitudes towards homosexuality," from the UK's PinkNews, with thanks to Dhimmi Infidel:

A Dutch Muslim-born politician has condemned Islam's attitudes towards homosexuality and claims that the Netherlands have not done enough to protect gay asylum seekers who face death in their country of origin.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, first gained international attention with a film documenting voilence against women within Islamic societies. Her new film claims that Islam is responsible for a great deal of homophobia.

"By that I do not mean that people of other religions do not persecute homosexuals ... but coming from that background that is what I have witnessed and I think that it is my responsibility not to remain quiet," said Ms Ali who has faced death threats since her 2004 film on the role of women.

She also stressed the Dutch government and other European governments had not done enough to protect those trying to flee such persecution.

Ms Hirsi Ali claimed that the Dutch government have not protected the human rights of gay asylum seekers. This claim follows the comments made by Dutch immigration minister Rita Verdonk who claimed that gays did not face persecution in Iran as long as they were discreet.

"Far-right" leader decries "Islamisation of France"

Perhaps some French readers of Jihad Watch can fill me in on Philippe de Villiers; I don't know if he is "far right" just because he is speaking forthrightly about the Islamization of France (as Bat Ye'or, who has never been a figure of the Right, has been tarred because of her ground-breaking work in uncovering the machinations of Eurabia), or if he is really a "far right" politician.

In any case, if he is, this is another indication of how the abdication of responsibility of the mainstream political parties all over Europe has created an opportunity which the racist fringe is all too eager to take advantage of. The Islamization of France, and of Europe, is a reality, as we have abdundantly documented here, and has been harrowingly recounted by Bruce Bawer in While Europe Slept. It is not a matter of race, but of ideology. It should not be the concern only of Rightists, but of any and all who believe in the equality of dignity and rights of all people. The mainstream European parties, Left, Right, and Center, should be talking about Islamization. That they are not, and that it is only a "Far Right" issue, is an indication of their cowardice and intellectual and moral bankruptcy.

More's the pity, because the more that the cultural and societal defense of Europe is seen only as a "Far Right" issue, the more people of good will will turn away from it, and continue to believe that the right combination of concessions, accommodations, and multiculturalist initiatives will set everything right.

Well, it won't.

"Far-right leader decries 'Islamisation of France,'" from Reuters, with thanks to Sugiero:

PARIS (Reuters) - A far-right French politician launched his 2007 presidential campaign on Sunday denouncing what he called the Islamisation of the country and declaring Islam incompatible with France's secular values.

Philippe de Villiers, head of the anti-immigrant Movement for France (MPF) party, also charged that Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport was endangered by Islamist radicals who he said had infiltrated the ground staff there.

Villiers has stirred up controversy in recent weeks with increasingly tough statements about Muslims, which critics call racist and officials describe as exaggerated. France's 5 million Muslims make up the largest such minority in Europe.

"I am the only politician who tells the French the truth about the Islamisation of France," he said in a Europe 1 radio interview kicking off his campaign for the election next year.

He plans to publish on Thursday a book entitled "The Mosques of Roissy" detailing his charges about radicals at the airport. His main rival on the far-right, National Front head Jean-Marie Le Pen, has also stepped up his preparations for the 2007 vote.

And they're doing it again

The New York Times Book Review today reviews The Man Who Invented Fidel: Castro, Cuba, and Herbert L. Matthews of The New York Times by Anthony DePalma. In the review, the Times owns up to its reporter Herbert Matthews' role in helping Fidel Castro gain power by means of biased reporting:

DePalma shows that Matthews was a determined liberal but not a faker like Walter Duranty, the Times correspondent who won a 1932 Pulitzer Prize for his fawning coverage of Stalin and was probably in league with the Soviet secret police. Matthews's articles were for the most part factually accurate. But he comes across as a self-righteous and credulous analyst who sided with those who gave him access and then refused to reassess, whatever the changing facts. While other reporters who also misread Castro toughened their coverage after he began ordering summary executions, Matthews stuck stubbornly to his original myth.

While his pacing and historical context are first-rate, DePalma — himself a correspondent at The Times — might have quoted more extensively from the many rationalizations of Castro that Matthews undertook in books and articles in the 20 years between the famous interview and his death in 1977. Did he ever go beyond comparisons to Oliver Cromwell and John Brown and call Castro by his proper name — dictator? Apparently not, though DePalma doesn't say.

The Times editors were able to publish this review, apparently, without noticing any parallels to their contemporary coverage of the global jihad. Yet in its stubborn refusal to discuss the jihad ideology and its role in Islamic violence, the Times comes across as a self-righteous and credulous analyst that has sided with those who gave it access and then refused to reassess, whatever the changing facts. Will the Times ever go beyond comparisons to genuine insurgent and militant groups and call the present conflict by his proper name — jihad? Apparently not.

And that's why we call it the New Duranty Times.

Amsterdam Mulls Axing Dole for Women in Burqas

Anti-dhimmitude in Holland from Der Spiegel, with thanks to JS:

An official in Holland's biggest city wants to introduce legislation that would ban unemployed women who wear a burqa from receiving welfare payments if it prevents them from finding a job. The issue is the latest Dutch soul-searching over its relations with its own immigrants.

If this burqa is keeping you from getting a job, Amsterdam Social Affairs Alderman Ahmed Aboutaleb argues, you shouldn't be wearing it.

Watch for the outcry.

German mayor: Ahmadinejad unwelcome

Anti-dhimmitude from Dr. Ulrich Maly. An update on this story from Ynetnews, with thanks to Gabrielle Goldwater:

BERLIN - Nuremberg Lord Mayor Dr. Ulrich Maly is hoping for a miracle to solve the big embarrassment awaiting him in a month and a half.

On June 11, at 6 p.m., the first game of the Iranian national team in the World Cup will get under way. Nuremberg's stadium is situated
just dozens of meters from the first Nazi marching square and the enormous conference hall built for Hitler. The huge structure, which was never completed, is used today as historical testimony to the Nazi era.

The arrival of Iran's soccer team would not be causing such a stir, would it not be for the Holocaust denials of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his plans to arrive at the city in order to cheer on his team.

In the halls of government in Berlin, officials believe that the Iranian president will not arrive in the end. Therefore, they do not see a point in comply with a call by the Wiesenthal Center to declare Ahmadinejad as persona non grata.

"Ahmadinejad won't be our guest and he is not wanted among us," Maly told Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's leading newspaper.

"From the minute FIFA decided not to boycott Iran in the world cup, the arrival of the Iranians turned into a problem for the German government. We would prefer that other teams play here. I don't plan to prevent demonstrations against Ahmadinejad and against his intolerable statements on the Holocaust and the destruction of the State of Israel," he said.

Fitzgerald: The Lesser Jihad and the Greater Jihad

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the Lesser Jihad and the Greater Jihad, by which he means not the distinction between warfare and the struggle within the soul, but the struggle against Israel and that against the rest of the world.

It by now should be clear that the war against Israel is a Lesser Jihad, and always has been. It was such before the Infidels, in this case Jews, dared to buy land and dared to dream of possessing a small sliver of land in which they would not have to live as they and Christians, and all other non-Muslims had had to live: as dhimmis under Shari'a law or some version of it. This was true whether the overlords were Arabs or, as for the past four centuries, the Turks.

"Should be clear." But the Israelis themselves have done everything they can to hide that painful recognition. They would prefer to believe that Islam, and especially the most virulent form of Islam, that possessed by the Arabs who have no other identity to conceivably draw upon, contains no elements that are not benign, and that their struggle is against nationalist Arabs. Yet those same Arabs’ sense of Islam is interwoven with "Uruba" or "arabness." This makes even many Christian Arabs (though not the Arabic-speaking, but non-Arab Maronites and Copts) accept, parrot, and promote the Islamic agenda, including the Lesser Jihad against Infidel Israel that, were it to be successful, might actually improve the prospects for a continued Christian presence in the Middle East.

Israelis do not wish to contemplate the notion that the relentless war against them has no solution. Yet the Cold War also seemed to have no solution, and in the end, Soviet Communism crumbled because the West held firm, and a sufficient number of people realized that Communism had failed to deliver on its own terms. Whether that will ever happen to the Islamic jihad is unclear, but it is not impossible for its role and its power, and therefore its menace, to be sufficiently reduced -- say, to what it was in 1930, long before the oil money arrived, or those millions of Muslims were permitted to settle behind enemy lines, in Western Europe.

During the Cold War, the American government, and with it the rest of NATO, paid little attention to Islam. The Muslims were without OPEC oil money. There were only a handful of Muslim migrants within Europe; in Holland, for example, even by 1970 there were no more then 50,000 (now there are a million). Why worry about Islam? Islam was then thought of mainly as a useful "bulwark against Communism" -- which meant that left-leaning Nasser could not have been a real Muslim (but he was), and anti-Communist Saudi Arabia was to be supported to the hilt (which it was). This brought about the silly CENTO military alliance of Great Britain (the initiator), the United States, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan. CENTO collapsed when the old regime in Iraq was overturned in 1958; it had never amounted to anything except as a way for Muslim armies to begin to extract military equipment and knowhow from the Western powers. Then the Americans favored those Pakistani generals, and of course Turkey, where Kemalism, it was believed, was solidly entrenched and was making Turkey ever more modern, more secular.

The Israelis committed the same error -- or a variant on that error. They tried to woo, naturally, the one non-Arab country in the region -- Iran under the Shah. From sentimental invocation of the pre-Islamic alliance between Persians and Jews to the appeal to the Shah's advanced, westernized, and largely secular court, which would want to distinguish the advanced civilization of the "Persians" from that of the "Arabs," it seemed to work on both sides. But the Shah was temporary; Islam was permanent. And the same happened to that very brief alliance of Turkey and Israel -- which the government of Erdogan has so discouraged, except in those moments when Erdogan shows up in Washington to be introduced at a think-tank, by Richard Perle. Then the anti-Israel viciousness is muted for the audience.

The Lesser Jihad against Israel was the one that has attracted the most attention. Who, outside of India, paid any attention to the steady persecution of Hindus in West Pakistan or East Pakistan, or after 1971, in the renamed Bangladesh or what was now called Pakistan? Who paid attention to what Col. Ojukwu forthrightly called a "jihad" against the Christians in Nigeria during the Biafra War? Who saw the Muslim dimension to the war against the Christians in East Timor? In the Southern Sudan? In the southern Philippines? In the statements by Izetbegovic about reinstituting a Muslim state, and the full Shari'a -- statements which terrified the Serbs but which no one else paid any attention to?

Since the early 1970s, several things permitted the Muslims, and especially the Muslim Arabs who run Islam (for they brought it to the world, and the Qur'an was in "their language" and they "are the best of people" and all Muslims, everywhere, must look to seventh-century Arabia, or failing that, to the Arabs today, for spiritual/political/intellectual guidance) to become more aggressive.

These were:

1. OPEC, and the manipulation of the market that permitted the quadrupling of oil prices in 1973. This has led in the past one-third century to the greatest transfer of wealth in human history, that from the oil-consuming to the oil-producing nations. The Muslim oil states have taken in approximately $10 trillion. They have failed to create modern economies or societies. They exist on the basis of wage-slaves from outside. But they have bought arms and more arms, of every kind; they are by far the largest buyers of armaments from foreign suppliers in the world, with hundreds of billions spent. They have paid for mosques all over the world, and especially in the capitals of the Western world. They have paid for madrasas. They have paid for Da'wa -- Muslim missionaries. They have paid for every sort of propaganda, beginning with those special inserts in The New Duranty Times, The Financial Times, The Economist, and so on. They have established, or bought up, or contributed to, academic centers carefully chosen -- usually in capitals (as at Georgetown, which has both a Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and a Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding -- both of which are exactly what you suspect they are). They have paid for hirelings all over the Western world to run their propaganda. These hirelings are often chosen from among the former diplomats and former intelligence agents who were posted in the Arab countries. Many of them, even before they retire from their official duties, are made keenly aware of the sums they can make if they play their cards right, starting in their present job. The incredible failure of successive American governments to realize that gasoline had to be taxed, that oil consumption had to be forcefully, and forcibly, diminished, is a tribute to the Saudis and to such people as James Baker (whose Baker Center, just like the Presidential libraries of Bush Senior and Clinton and Carter, has received major donations from -- do I really have to tell you, or can you guess?).

2) The admission of millions of Muslims into the countries of Western Europe. Cupidity and stupidity -- the Esdrujula Explanation -- help to explain this. Few in the governments of West Germany, France, and England, as they admitted Turks (as gastarbeiter who didn't leave), realized the implications of what they were doing. They admitted them as single male workers, who then were permitted to bring in their "wives" and children, for it was believed that this would diminish the evidence of what was wrongly perceived as sociopathic criminality, when it was merely Muslims treating Infidel women, property, laws, and customs with the contempt all things Infidel deserve. In England, it was Pakistanis, who kept being referred to as "Asians" as if the problems in Bradford or Manchester or anywhere else had to do with geography. Yet the Hindus were, and remain, loyal and inoffensive, and lumping them in with the Muslim immigrants is deliberately meretricious.

3) The ability of Muslims to exploit Western technology -- audiocassettes, videocassettes, satellite television stations, the Internet -- for the purposes of disseminating the doctrines of Islam. Examples include the role of audiocassettes of Khomeini's speeches that flooded Iran before the Revolution; the decapitation videos; and I.E.D. bombings in Iraq. All serve as recruitment tools for proud mujahedin showing examples of their handiwork.

All these developments have enabled Muslims to go from the Lesser Jihad that focused on Israel (and which continues, of course, unabated, though now there are two schools: the Abbas school of Slow Jihad, and the Hamas school of Fast Jihad), to the much wider Jihad. The latter is wide enough to take in the entire world. This should by now be apparent, if not to everyone, at least to those who should, in Washington and London, in Paris and Rome, in Madrid and Amsterdam and Oslo, have been studying the tenets, attitudes, atmospherics of Islam nonstop over the past four years. They should have studied as well the history of Islamic conquest of non-Muslims, and the subjugation of the latter as dhimmis, a status clearly of permanent degradation, humiliation, and physical insecurity.

That is where we are today. But many Israelis, and those whose belief that their hearts are in the right place, because they "support Israel" (what does that mean?), believe that they are exempt from the duty of finding out exactly what it is that menaces Israel. Understanding what really menaces Israel would involve learning enough about Islam to realize that further surrenders of the legal, moral, and historic rights that the Israelis have been so consistently been so willing to surrender (and certainly for the past 30 years have been unable, or unwilling, to articulate forcefully), will merely whet, not sate, the appetites for Jihad. For the very idea of an Infidel sovereign state on land once possessed by Muslims is intolerable -- especially one ruled by the contemptible, and supposedly weak, Jews. Borders mean nothing. The size of Israel means nothing. The "state" of a recently-invented "Palestinian" people (invented for the purposes of disguising the Jihadist impulse -- and done most successfully, because the world was eager to believe that this was merely a case of "two tiny peoples, each...etc.") means nothing.

Yet in the face of the Lesser Jihad and the Greater Jihad, and all we get from Washington is talk about that "war on terror." Look at the population figures for Rotterdam, for Malmo, for France itself. Look at the demands made for changes in local customs and laws. Look at the demands at the international level, at the U.N., to force Infidels to accept Muslim ideas of what free speech should be. Look at the mosques opening. Look at the Da'wa being conducted among the most vulnerable populations in the Western world. Look at the fear of "reverts" who, one suspects from what they have written, might now wish to leave Islam, but are frightened to do so. At least one such revert appeared, from his postings at JW, to have such doubts. He no longer appears, apparently infuriated by the mockery which greeted his attempts to inform all of us of his Spiritual Search and Dilemma and so on, which not all of us found quite as fascinating as he did.

Look at all that, and tell me what you want to do when you hear someone blithely say "we have to win this war on terror" or "we are fighting the terrorists in Iraq so we won't have to fight them here."

Tell me what decibel level is reached by your scream of frustration and fury.

Penn State censors exhibit on Palestinian jihad terrorism

"PSU censors exhibit," from The Collegian of Penn State, with thanks to Esther:

For Penn State student Josh Stulman, years of hard work ended in disappointment yesterday when the university cancelled his upcoming art exhibit for violation of Penn State's policies on nondiscrimination, harassment and hate.

Three days before his 10-piece exhibit -- Portraits of Terror -- was scheduled to open at the Patterson Building, Stulman (senior-painting and anthropology) received an e-mail message from the School of Visual Arts that said his exhibit on images of terrorism "did not promote cultural diversity" or "opportunities for democratic dialogue" and the display would be cancelled.

The exhibit, Stulman said, which is based mainly on the conflict in Palestinian territories, raises questions concerning the destruction of Jewish religious shrines, anti-Semitic propaganda and cartoons in Palestinian newspapers, the disregard for rules of engagement and treatment of prisoners, and the indoctrination of youth into terrorist acts.

"I'm being censored and the reason for censoring me doesn't make sense," Stulman said.

Well, Mr. Stulman, the fact is that your being censored was part of the dhimmi impulse that is advancing everywhere. If you would like to post images of your exhibit at Jihad Watch, please contact me at director@jihadwatch.org.

Three Finns may face charges for posting Muhammad cartoons

They are suspected of "violating the freedom of worship"? In what conceivable way did they do that? Eurabia Alert: "Three Finns may face charges for posting Mohammad cartoons," from NewsRoom Finland, with thanks to DZ:

Finnish police said Friday it had given the preliminary investigation material pertaining to three individuals it suspects of violating the freedom of worship to Mika Illman, a state prosecutor.

The three men are members of Suomen Sisu, a nationalistic movement that has posted Jyllands-Posten's controversial Mohammad cartoons on its website.

Abbas heading to Europe to herd the dhimmis back into line

"Abbas Heading for Europe to Break Through Isolation of Hamas," from Palestine Media Center – PMC, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Meanwhile Abbas arrived in Jordan on Friday en route to Turkey, Norway, Finland and France.

On Thursday, Abbas received a letter from British Prime Minister Tony Blair, delivered by his Middle East envoy, Lord Levy, outlining proposals to revive the moribund peace process with Israel.

“The letter contains ways to unfreeze the peace process and the role that Britain can play in this regard,” Rafiq Al-Husseini, said after Levy met with Abbas in Ramallah.

“There are strong indications that intense international efforts are being deployed to restart the peace process after the formation of a government in Israel,” said Al-Husseini.

Speaking to MPs on Wednesday, Blair reiterated his support for a negotiated two-state solution for the Middle East conflict.

“The whole of the international community stands ready and willing to take forward a negotiated solution on the basis of a fair deal that allows for an independent and viable Palestinian state, providing that Hamas recognise the state of Israel and give up violence,” he said.

The EU said Friday its freeze of budget aid for the PNA will stay in effect indefinitely but blamed Israel for the PNA government's financial crunch, said spokeswoman for EU External Relations Commissioner.

Complying with a diplomatic boycott of the Palestinian government, France has refused a visa for the Palestinian Planning Minister, Samir Abu Eisha, to attend a conference in Paris, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said Friday.

However France announced Wednesday that it would not halt relief aid to the Palestinians, a move, which it said would be a “major political mistake.”

Ahead of his tour, Abbas said: “If the European countries don't want to have contact with the Palestinian government, there are other means to maintain aid directed towards the Palestinian people,” he said in an interview with French daily Le Monde published Friday.

Abbas said he would explain his position during visits to the leaders of Norway, Turkey and France, “so that the Palestinians are not penalized by the economic blockade.”

“I believe that the stop in European aid is unjustified,” he told Le Monde.

Abbas said government employees' salaries should be paid, in full or in part, as soon as possible.

“We are going to make proposals along this line to the Americans and Europeans in the hope that they will be accepted,” he said.

Earlier this month, Yasser Abed Rabbo, member of the PLO Executive Committee, told the “Voice of Palestine” radio that Abbas would visit the Brussels-based European Commission and address the European parliament during his tour.

On Friday Chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erakat, said the president would also talk to European leaders about reviving peace negotiations with Israel, frozen since a Palestinian uprising erupted in late 2000.

“He will ask for assistance in holding an international conference for peace as preparation to negotiate a permanent agreement in accordance with the road map,” Erakat said, referring to a UN-adopted blueprint for peace.

How can he do that with Hamas' opposition?

'I Cannot Say Where This Hatred Comes'

I can. But anyway, here is a vivid report on the recent attacks on churches in Egypt. From the New York Sun, with thanks to all who sent this in:

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt - In temporary offices near the Virgin Mary Church in the Asafra neighborhood here, Father Bejimey Shawky catalogs the damage the Muslim rioters wrought.

First they smashed his church's windows.Then they unhinged the rear door.

The pious Muslim looters broke the electrical switch for the air-conditioner. They burned the anteroom near the main hall reserved for baptism; they burned the father's offices, and they burned the cupboards and shelves that contained the church's library.

"I cannot say where this hatred comes from," Father Bejimey said, his voice low and weary. "We have coexisted for generations."

The church, which smelled faintly of smoke, was barely fit for worship. But Father Bejimey's flock turned out every night for the evening service between the Coptic Palm and Easter Sundays to recite lines from the Gospel and remember Christ's last week before the crucifixion. A few members of the congregation had bandages on their arms and legs from the clashes two days before....

One of the elders at the church yesterday said the funeral procession turned into anarchy the moment the mourners bared the cross. "When the Muslim youths saw the cross in the sky, and the people saw our soul, the animosity in their hearts became evident," Talat Megala said.

Four other Christian eyewitnesses confirmed this account. A Muslim eyewitness, however, did not recall the moment the rival demonstrations turned violent.

Interesting: this account would be in line with traditional dhimmi laws forbidding Christians to display the cross in public.

Read it all.

Muslim women fight to exercise away from men

Sharia in Dearborn. From the Detroit Free Press, with thanks to all who sent this in:

When Arrwa Mogalli agreed to plunk down $1,465 for a lifetime membership with the Fitness USA chain of gyms, she did so after being promised that its Lincoln Park facility would be open only to women on certain days.

As a devout Muslim, Mogalli firmly believes her religion frowns on her working out where she could see men -- and men could see her -- moving and dressed in a manner that might seem immodest.

So when the Lincoln Park gym decided this month to open up part of the center to both sexes every day, the 28-year-old Dearborn resident and other area Muslims felt cheated. So far, about 200 Muslim women with Fitness USA memberships have signed a petition asking the chain to return to gender-specific days for the entire gym or to put up a divider so men and women can't see each other while working out.

Fitness USA officials met with one of the women and a Muslim advocate this week at their corporate office in West Bloomfield and said they are working on a response to the women's concerns. But they also noted that their written contracts say nothing about gender.

The women's concerns reflect the ways many Muslims in metro Detroit are trying to blend their American lifestyles with Islamic traditions. In recent years, for example, Dearborn Public Schools has offered gender-segregated gym and swimming classes. The move came after a growing number of Muslim parents expressed concerns about their children attending physical education classes with the opposite sex, school officials said.

UPDATE: Debbie Schlussel comments:

Americans must decide if we are going to willingly accept the imposition of others' religious rules, or if we will stand up for our own freedoms while we still have them.

That is the debate at the center of America's culture clash with Mid-Easterners who want to impose their Islamist mores on us--on our own shores. At least, it would be a debate, if we would not