Playboy editor, models investigated in Indonesia

I was recently hearing from some people about what a wonderful sign of Islamic tolerance was the fact that, although there was mob violence, the government was not moving against Playboy in Indonesia. So much for that. From Reuters, with thanks to Kaosktrl:

JAKARTA (Reuters) - The editor of Playboy Indonesia and two models whose pictures appeared in the magazine's first edition are being investigated for violating indecency laws, police said on Friday.

The magazine's first edition sparked protests in Indonesia in April although it had no nudity. Less flesh was visible in the issue than many other magazines on sale in the world's most populous Muslim country.

Jakarta police spokesman Ketut Untung Yoga said models Andara Early and Kartika Gunawan had posed indecently in the edition, which was issued from the Indonesian capital, and editor-in-chief Erwin Arnada should also be held responsible.

"There are three suspects. Each will be processed based on their roles. Many more may come," he said.

Nine-year-old girl sold into marriage to 60-year-old man to pay debt for rice in Pakistan

There's that number again: 9. And while the authorities have intervened, this case demonstrates how the adherence to Islamic law and the example of Muhammad regarding the "acceptable" age for marriage undermine civil laws aimed at protecting female citizens even in an "Islamic republic."

Sharia Alert from the Khaleej Times: "Pakistani police rescue bride aged 9 wed to pay debt"

KARACHI - Police in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province have rescued a nine-year-old girl who was married off by her father to clear a debt for 400 kg (880 lb) of rice.

Both the father, Jan Mohammad, and her husband of four days, Abdul Sattar, a man of around 60, have been arrested and will appear in court on Saturday, a senior officer said.

“The marriage has taken place but the girl is underage,” police officer Masroor Ahmed Jatoi in Jacobabad district, 480 Km (300 miles) north of Karachi, told Reuters on Friday.

“She was given as compensation by her father, so we are treating it as a criminal case,” said Jatoi.

The girl, Wahida, has been sent for medical examination, and would be transferred to a care centre until a court decides where she will be best looked after.

Her father had stood as guarantor for a friend who bought the rice on credit, but when the debt put at 50,000 rupees ($833) was not paid, the trader demanded that Mohammad give his daughter in marriage to his elder brother as compensation, Jatoi said.

Human rights activist and lawyer Rashid Rehman said the law bars marriages of girls under 14 and boys under 16.

“The law has defined the ages clearly. There is also a law that prevents children and women from being given in any form of compensation to settle a dispute or blood feud,” Rehman said, adding that the court could declare the marriage void.

The government says it promotes the rights of women, but it is still common in rural areas, where feudal and tribal ways hold sway, for girls to be given as compensation to settle disputes.

Earlier this week, Pakistan’s Supreme Court stopped five minor girls from being handed over as compensation in a double murder case and ordered the police to conduct an inquiry.

Hirsi Ali dispute brings down Dutch government

Anti-dhimmitude from D66. From the Financial Times, with thanks to Arjun:

A dispute over the citizenship of Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali brought down the Dutch government yesterday when D66, the junior member of the centre-right coalition, walked out after demanding the resignation of Rita Verdonk, the hard-line immigration minister.

Jan Peter Balkenende, prime minister, told parliament he would go to Queen Beatrix today to begin the process of consultations that could lead either to his Christian democrat alliance continuing to govern as a minority coalition with Mrs Verdonk's liberal VVD, or to a snap general election.

The crisis came as two D66 cabinet ministers and a state secretary with the centrist party resigned.

It is the second time in less than four years that a government led by Mr Balkenende has collapsed. He told Dutch television news: "It does not affect me that much. I am busy with the future, doing what I believe in."

Mrs Verdonk had survived a no-confidence vote yesterday, thanks to the support of her liberal VVD and the Christian democrat CDA, but D66, the junior member of the three-party coalition, insisted she resign anyway.

Muslim nations urged to create own world court

Imagine how the issues of jurisdiction, of legal interpretation, and of the Sunni-Shia rivalry would play out if any number of countries tried to implement this plan.

But what is noteworthy, alongside the proposal of a world Islamic court, is the extent to which responsibility is displaced: Not only are Western nations to blame for the problems of the Muslim world, but now the entire UN is just a tool of the West. And the IMF. And the World Bank.

Sharia Alert, from the Khaleej Times:

JEDDAH -- Muslim nations have been urged to create their own world court under the auspices of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) that can try and condemn all those nations and individuals who have instigated or committed crimes against the Muslims.

"Since its creation, the United Nations (UN) has been nothing but a Western tool, which has harmed Muslims more than it has benefited them," wrote Reem Al Faisal, a Jeddah-based Saudi photographer, in yesterday’s issue of Arab News.

Cue the violins...

"(The UN has) given our enemies and all who wish to destroy us a legal cover to pillage and kill in Muslim lands at will from Palestine to Somalia to Afghanistan -- the latest masquerade of boycotting the legally elected government of Hamas by the West and preventing all other nations from helping them is more proof that we can no longer get our rights from a Western organisation disguised as an international body built to protect the rights of all nations," she added.

Al Faisal said that it was time to liberate Muslim nations from the tyranny of Western institutions like the UN, the World Bank, and the IMF, "which have brought nothing but misery and pain to all of us."

"If we want our rights to be respected we have to impose them through our own international institutions and not look for justice from a source that only works to protect its national interests and which rarely conforms to our desires and even less to ideals as human rights or justice since justice is served only to those who demand it with strength," she added.

Al Faisal said that the West, which has conquered and destroyed two nations that have never attacked it, sees itself as the guardian of world peace. "Those who this very minute are directing or condoning some form of destructive behaviour towards innocent civilians either in Iraq, Afghanistan or Palestine have the effrontery to question Iran’s intentions," she said.

Niger: Mob stones 20-year-old girl to death

Islamic Tolerance and Sharia Alerts: "Mob stones 20-yr-old girl to death in Minna," from Vanguard, with thanks to Sugiero:

MINNA —The life of a 20yr old girl (name withheld) was prematurely terminated in Izom in Gawu Babangida Local Government Area of Niger State yesterday as she was stoned to death by irate youths for distributing inciting leaflets bordering on religion [sic].

Trouble started at about noon when the girl whose identity is yet to be ascertained was said to have walked straight into the Jumat Mosque in Izom where she dropped the inciting letter in the Mosque.

As the letter was opened, it was discovered that it was a letter full of unprintable materials accusing both Prophet Muhammad, Jesus Christ and even some living and dead Pastors of some misdeeds.

The lady was immediately trailed and arrested by the people who also handed her over to the police.

While the lady was under protective police custody for interrogation, the news of the inciting letter had spread to the town while the youth immediately mobilized and stormed the Izom Police station where they demanded for the release of the girl for instant judgement.

The police station was damaged by the youth with dangerous weapons like sticks and iron as they tried to force themselves to the station to capture the lady.

The DPO, ASP. M. Ibrahim, his DCO and some other police officers were injured as they attempted to ferry the girl away for protection as the irate youth descended on them with dangerous weapons.

The helpless policemen including those on highway patrol drafted to the scene to protect the girl were overpowered and eventually got hold of the girl.

As the policemen flee the scene, the youth rained stones, sticks and other dangerous weapons on her and killed her instantly.

Fitzgerald: Egypt should not be done any favors

Hugh Fitzgerald comments on the sale of advanced military materiel to Egypt:

Egypt should not be done any favors. And if it is suggested that if "we don't sell them" this equipment then Egypt will "buy it elsewhere" (the usual nonsense offered in defense of such things) then we have to ask -- where will Egypt get the money for buying this and other military equipment?

Egypt has been receiving Jizyah, nearly $60 billion, from the American taxpayers. It started out, apparently, as a reward to Saint Sadat, designed to ensure that Egypt would not, despite getting back the entire Sinai, despite getting those Israeli airbases and those developed oilfields, not break the "Camp David Accords." But Egypt did break the Camp David Accords. It failed completely to live up to its non-tangible, but nonetheless important commitments to end hostile propaganda and acts toward Israel. It has continued, and increased, such hostile propaganda, to the point where Egypt, its press, and radio, and television, is a world center of antisemitism as well as of anti-Americanism. Yet the money is taken from us, the Infidel taxpayers, and given to Egypt as classic Jizyah, that is, as a tribute paid by Infidels to Muslims, who have been given to understand that it will be received as if by right, and should be given in a spirit of recognizing that should that Jizyah (that foreign aid) be stopped, then the reaction of the Muslim to whom such Jizyah is owed will likely be most hostile, and otherwise unpleasant.

Does anyone think that the Jizyah paid to Mubarak, who has crushed the opposition, and come down much harder on the liberals (Ayman Nour, for example) than on the Ikhwan, is fostering democracy -- Democracy on the March -- in ways big or even little? He is not. He is there to stay, and then after him, in his Family-and-Friends Plan, of course he is grooming his slick and oily son to continue the Dynasty, the Nasserian Dynasty that goes Nasser-Sadat-Mubarak, and that will continue the stratokleptocracy (the corrupt military rulers) that is merely a variant on the family kleptocracies of Saudi Arabia and other monarchies.

Any such military equipment supplied to Egypt is one more headache for Israel. We know, only a fool would not know and a greater fool would claim not to know and expect to be believed at this point, that any military equipment sent to Egypt will be used against Israel. It is not Libya that Egypt intends some day to attack or if not to attack, to threaten along with other nations. It is not the Sudan.

The Egyptians are already threatening, with ever greater ferocity, Ethiopia about the latter's attempt to irrigate, as it has every right to do, using the headwaters of the Nile. Meanwhile, Egypt backs to the hilt the Sudanese government, protecting it at the U.N. from any effective intervention in Darfur. Yet nothing happens to Egypt. Egypt, here and there, does a few things for us. What are they? It has taken some terrorist suspects off our hands and dealt with them as we would not. And so? If Egypt collaborates on this, it is only doing what comes naturally -- torturing Muslims who are of course opposed to the regime in Egypt, not because it is genuinely opposed to Jihad (it isn't, not at all), but because that regime is corrupt, just as the Al-Saud are corrupt. But those who oppose this corruption can only define their opposition, can only think of their opposition, using the language and concepts of Islam. A despot's theft of national wealth means nothing, if that despot is a "Muslim." So those like the Al-Saud or Mubarak who must be opposed must be described, and treated, as "Infidels." And that is why the Egyptian regime gladly will do what it does to Al-Qaeda suspects, or to the Muslim Brotherhood. This is a matter of its own self-interest, not of doing something as a favor to the Americans.

Egypt is not an ally of the United States. It never has been. Under Sadat, it was willing to substitute, when the Soviet aid proved to be second-rate, American money for Russian money. Egypt has no intention of observing a permanent peace with Israel, but is working mightily to disarm Israel, to strip it of the only thing that really keeps the peace in the Middle East, which is Israel's nuclear weaponry. Egypt is not only an ally of the Sudan. It is playing a double-game, pretending it is "talking sense" to the rulers in Khartoum just as it intermittently steps in, and then engages in ostentatious discussions with the "Palestinians" to demonstrate just how wonderful, how useful, what a "moderating" influence -- Egypt, "our staunch ally," is said to be.

And the Jizyah keeps flowing, and flowing. If there were a vote tomorrow in this country on whether or not to end the Jizyah of foreign aid to all Muslim states or entities, it would win overwhelmingly. It would arouse the public as they were aroused over the Dubai Ports Deal. All that needs to happen is for one Senator or one Congressman to tell the truth about this Jizyah, and to demand a halt. And then not all the king's horses and all the king's men, the army of Western hirelings of the Arabs -- diplomats, journalists, P.R. advisers, former intelligence agents, businessmen hoping to recycle petrodollars through contracts temptingly dangled before their eyes -- would be able to put the Arab propaganda machine, enormous as it is, back together again.

Fitzgerald: Death of a "settler"

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald discusses the dhimmi coverage of the murder of Eliahu Asheri:

I listened to the BBC last night. The announcer could not get enough of that word "settler." The "Palestinians" had executed "an Israeli settler." The "settler" had been kidnapped. And so on. One would have no way of knowing, unless one already knew -- and how many do? -- that this "settler" was a young boy, that he had "settled" on land that was in the original League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, even after all of Eastern Palestine (that is historic Palestine, east of the Jordan), was unilaterally closed by the British to Jewish immigration -- an act that infuriated the members of the League of Nations' Mandates Commission.

That land, of course, given by way of instant consolation prize to Abdullah, now grandly promoted to Emir of the Emirate of Transjordan. This young “settler” lived on land that still remained part of the absolute minimum territory that the British, as mandatory authority, were to hold and where they were supposed to promote, were required to promote by the terms of the Mandate, "close Jewish settlement on the land."

It is disturbing that all kinds of people, in all kinds of countries, who know nothing of the Mandate for Palestine or the longer demographic and cadastral history of that area, nonetheless make pronouncements without this knowledge. How many know, for example, that about 90% of the land was state and waste land -- that is, land owned by no one except, possibly, the Ottoman rulers, and that their title passed to the British as mandatory authority, to be held in trust for the intended successor government, that of the Jewish National Home?

It is intolerable that the BBC, an organ of the British government that served as the mandatory authority for Palestine, does not insist that its program speakers, or those who write their copy, demonstrate a clear understanding of, inter alia, the Mandate's provisions (quoting from them), and of the history of the various non-Arab and non-Muslim peoples of that area – that area which too many have been bamboozled into thinking of as the "Arab world" (an Aramco construction that has taken on a life of its own). BBC speakers should have to show also that they know something of the demography and land-ownership patterns.

If they did, they would never use that loaded word "settler" which they, and the European press and other media, have filled with such venomous meaning. If they did, they would never use that loaded word "occupied" (as in "occupied Arab lands" -- a phrase that says the case is closed, and we can all go home), or "occupation," which are terms that evoke goose-stepping Germans marching into Paris in June 1940, and clearly suggest that the "occupier" has no valid title, no claim, to the land he is occupying. But Israel does possess such valid title, a title far superior to that of the local Arabs, many of them descendants of the Egyptians and Iraqis and others who flooded in, in greater numbers than the Jewish "settlers," during the Mandatory period -- even though the place was supposed to be the one small sliver in the entire Middle East, that the Jews would have to reconstruct their commonwealth and not to be treated, as they were everywhere, as dhimmis. And while a few years ago one would not have known what that word means, we all now do -- not least because we can look around the world and see how non-Muslims or even non-Arab Muslims are treated everywhere that Arab Muslims rule.

The Jihad against Israel is relentless and endless. Yet it is still hard for Israelis to face reality. In not facing it, in not identifying what they face as a Jihad, they have done themselves and their own position a terrible disservice, and they have also confused the Europeans as to what it is that Europe faces. One can hardly fault them--it is not Israel's business to save the Europeans from their own folly, even as the E.U. does everything it can to de-legitimize the very idea of Israel. Still, one wishes that the sensible scholars of Islam -- there are some in Israel, though it too has all the problems that one finds in the larger Western world, including apologists, deniers, and the simply obtuse -- would be listened to by their own government, which is under Olmert still hellbent on believing there is a "solution" to be found in giving away territory.

US Customs and Border Protection gives CAIR a tour of O'Hare security

U.S. officials bend over backwards to make it easy for Muslims to get through airport security. "CAIR-Chicago, Muslims, Meet With U.S. Customs & Border Protection at O'Hare Airport" -- a CAIR-Chicago press release, with thanks to LGF:

On Wednesday, June 21, CAIR-Chicago’s Executive Director Ahmed Rehab and intern Susan DeCostanza along with other leaders in the Chicago Muslim Community attended a tour of U.S. Customs and Border Protection operations at O’Hare International Airport last week.

The meeting was part of an effort to build relationships between the Muslim community and different government and security organizations that work in the airport in order to proactively facilitate communication, avoid cultural misunderstandings and help to educate travelers about the ways that they can possibly avoid unwanted delays at the airport.

Brian Humphrey, Director of Field Operations, commenced the meeting by introducing the various Customs and Border Protection agents present.

Dr. Hytham Rifai - a well known physician and CAIR-Chicago client - related some personal stories of delays that relatives, friends, and community members have encountered upon re-entering the United States from travel abroad.

Ahmed Rehab outlined the community's purpose behind requesting the meeting and gave a brief synopsis of the number and nature of complaints that Muslims bring to the CAIR-Chicago office.

Sheikh Kifah gave examples of some of the problems his Mosque constituency have suffered.

Humphrey explained that U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents must move through an interactive, online cultural sensitivity course.

Humphrey reiterated that if a traveler encounters any difficulties, the agents must follow protocol, and do not have the authority to deviate from that procedure. If a traveler has questions, or believes they are being mistakenly delayed, the traveler should ask to see a supervisor.

The group walked through Customs and Borders operations beginning at the point of entry for passenger arrival to customs stations, agricultural screening, and the interview rooms. The agents described the "Passenger Lookout Override" system that was implemented two months ago, in which a passenger who has the same or a similar name as a person with a suspicious record can be distinguished from the actual suspected person.

This system is supposed to expedite common delays encountered by travelers within the Muslim and other communities who have common names that are similar to people with an actual or suspected tainted record.

CAIR-Chicago looks forward to continuing the relationship with U.S. Customs and Border Protection offices in the region, and to furthering understanding between the organizations as well as facilitating future communication in order to eliminate problems for Muslim travelers before they even arise.

Read about Ahmed Rehab's jihadist sympathies here.

NYT Demanded Financial Tracking To Combat Terrorism

We have long excoriated the dhimmis at the New Duranty Times, aka the New York Times, for following in the footsteps of their illustrious Pulitzer-winning reporter Walter Duranty, who lied about the Ukrainian famine to please his master Stalin. Now the New Duranty Times has been likewise ignoring the Islamic jihad, and generally peddling the Leftist line that global terrorism is a reaction to U.S. atrocities.

Of course, with their latest bid to aid the global jihad, the Times may have finally gone too far, but in any case, Sweetness and Light (thanks to LGF) has found a post-9/11 editorial from the Durantys calling on the Bush Administration to do exactly what it now condemns it for doing. Any port in a storm, eh Pinch?

rganizing the hijacking of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon took significant sums of money. The cost of these plots suggests that putting Osama bin Laden and other international terrorists out of business will require more than diplomatic coalitions and military action. Washington and its allies must also disable the financial networks used by terrorists.

The Bush administration is preparing new laws to help track terrorists through their money-laundering activity and is readying an executive order freezing the assets of known terrorists. Much more is needed, including stricter regulations, the recruitment of specialized investigators and greater cooperation with foreign banking authorities. There must also must be closer coordination among America’s law enforcement, national security and financial regulatory agencies.

US to supply Egypt with more mobile air defense units ideal for protecting invading forces

Why?

What has Egypt done for us?

What has Egypt done except trample the Camp David Accords in the dust and allow jihad and blood to be preached against Israel and America?

From IMRA:

ST. LOUIS --- Boeing has signed a Foreign Military Sales (FMS) agreement with the U.S. Army to deliver Avenger short-range air defense fire units to Egypt. The $50 million contract includes associated spares and logistics support.

The Avenger is the U.S. Army's mobile, shoot-on-the-move, short-range air defense system. Armed with Stinger missiles and a 50-caliber machine gun, Avenger provides effective tactical defense and convoy protection against helicopters, cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles.

"Avenger is a lethal forward-area air defense system with proven capabilities deployed worldwide," said Debra Rub-Zenko, vice president and program director for Boeing Integrated Missile Defense. "Through the cooperative efforts of the U.S. Army, Boeing is pleased to once again provide the Egyptian air defenders with increased Avenger force protection for their nation."

The new contract calls for Boeing to deliver the Avengers by September 2008.

The benefits of G-had

The British authorities should be watching this character very closely. I doubt they are. And this kind of "music" should not be legal in Britain: we are in a war. This would be like a pro-Nazi song being recorded in London in the middle of the Blitz. The fact that only two record company executives are upset about this shows just how far the British have already sunk into dhimmitude.

"G-had and suicide bombers: the rapper who likens Bin Laden to Che Guevara," from The Guardian, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Two record company executives are threatening to resign from a label over an album by a radical Muslim musician which has tracks about the immorality of the west, suicide bombers and Osama bin Laden.

Aki Nawaz is determined to release what is, by anyone's standards, a phenomenally angry album. He says he fully expects a knock on the door from MI5. As the main component of the band Fun-da-Mental, Nawaz has been producing politically challenging music since 1991 but accepts he is pushing those boundaries further.

The album, All is War (The Benefits of G-had), contains one track which uses the words of Bin Laden issuing "a statement of reason and explanation of impending conflict" and equates him with Che Guevara. Another forensically recreates a suicide bomber at work. The opening song is a rejection of what Nawaz sees as the hypocrisy and immorality of the west. One supposedly dream-like track predicts the demise of America at the hands of Islam.

Nawaz, a former drummer in the Southern Death Cult, said yesterday: "I have a right to push the boundaries as much as anyone else has, whether it's Ken Loach or Harold Pinter or George Galloway or Neil Young or the Sex Pistols."...

The impending release of the album has already caused consternation. Nawaz says two silent directors of his label, Nation Records - Martin Mills and Andrew Heath of Beggars Banquet Records - have threatened to resign if he releases the album, which he intends to. Neither Mr Mills nor Mr Heath were prepared to comment yesterday.

Nawaz said he had respect for both men but added: "I'm kind of disappointed because it makes me think if Never Mind the Bollocks had landed on their tables they would have dismissed it. "They're in fear for themselves and they're in fear for me which is a telling tale of where we are at in the present scheme of things when it comes to freedom of expression."

Freedom of expression, once again, is not a suicide pact. He has all the freedom of expression he wants, but once he has revealed his real agenda, authorities have the responsibility to take notice. And as for his CD, he has no natural right to put out a recording. The record companies have no obligation to him.

Nawaz produced the album in London, Pakistan and South Africa and it also contains songs which address deaths in Afghanistan and Srebrenica.

He said rather than ask about the effect his album might have on impressionable people, the question should be asked of the government. "You've already got people at the top who are inspiring them to do wrong. It's like a mafia who say for us to do anything is legitimate but any resistance towards us is illegitimate. So you have legalised terrorism and illegal terrorism."

Nawaz, who grew up in Bradford, believes he is being honest. This "honesty" manifests itself in tracks such as the rap song I Reject, an angry polemical blast with lines such as "Reject your blood I reject your creed/Reject your queen and her stolen crown/Reject your media falsified news/Reject your patronising liberal views." It also takes a swipe at moderate Muslim voices who accept invitations to Downing Street....

Nawaz describes the songs Che Bin Parts 1 and 2 as a discussion on resistance and terrorism. He uses the words of Bin Laden and Che Guevara to suggest that they have more in common than differences. Nawaz said he challenged anyone to disagree with the statement by Bin Laden that he uses.

Cookbook DIY has lyrics about how a suicide bomber makes his bomb. It also has a verse about how a White House scientist makes his bomb - equating the two.

Nawaz denies that he is condoning suicide bombers. "Everything to me is tragic. I don't understand what the guys are doing. But I can feel what they're doing."...

Extracts

I Reject

Reject your thieving foreign policies
Reject your elitist congregation
Reject your mini skirt liberation
Reject your concept of integration ...

Parasites

But revenge will be mine, with my last breath I will rise to curse you
Because you, you dogs and parasites have made us helpless

Cookbook DIY

I'm strapped up cross my chest bomb belt attached
Deeply satisfied with the plan I hatched
Electrodes connected to a gas cooker lighter

UK: Mosque watchdog will vet clerics to tackle extremism

Fox Guarding the Henhouse Alert: "Mosque watchdog will vet clerics to tackle extremism," from GulfNews, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

London: An organisation that will vet imams and tackle extremism in mosques is being launched.

The independent Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board will accredit imams, monitor their teachings and ensure recruits are followers of mainstream Islamic thought.

It will also advise the government on the suitability of overseas preachers who want to enter Britain and help governing bodies counter infiltration by radicals.

The board is being set up by the Muslim Council of Britain, the British Muslim Foundation, the Muslim Association of Britain and the Al-Khoei Foundation.

Clerics will be expected to have good English and reject extremist views. The board will have no legal power to bar imams.

It hasn't been updated for many months, but here is a site that nevertheless contains useful information about just how "moderate" the Muslim Council of Britain really is.

Number of US visas to Saudis doubles

And no doubt without any screening to determine the applicants' adherence to the jihad ideology. Such screening would be imperfect, but at least it would be something. From the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to Infidel Pride:

For the first time since the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the US State Department has begun to sharply increase the number of entry visas granted to Saudi Arabian nationals seeking to visit the United States, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

Figures obtained by the Post reveal that after three years of steady decline, 2005 saw the number of US visas issued to Saudis remain relatively stable, while this year the number has more than doubled.

In an e-mail to the Post, Amanda D. Rogers-Harper, a spokeswoman for the US State Department, confirmed that as of June 10, a total of 18,683 non-immigrant US visas had been issued to Saudi citizens since the start of the current fiscal year.

"This," she noted, "is twice as many as the 9,338 issuances to Saudis" in the corresponding period last year, marking an increase of over 100 percent in just the past 12 months.

Denmark: Nine people convicted in honour killing

Clash of Civilizations Update from AP, with thanks to Kaosktrl:

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - Nine people were convicted Tuesday of murder or being an accessory to murder in the killing of a 19-year-old woman gunned down by her older brother two days after her wedding because her Pakistani family disapproved of her husband.

The 12-member jury returned guilty verdicts against the nine, all family members and friends, in the slaying of Ghazala Khan. Sentencing was expected later this week.

Khan was shot and killed Sept. 23 in Slagelse, 100 kilometres west of Copenhagen. Her husband was shot twice in the stomach but survived.

In testimony during the trial, Khan's older brother, Akthar Abbas, admitted to shooting the couple as they tried to flee to a train station, but he claimed he acted in self-defence because his brother-in-law, Emal Khan, had allegedly kicked him.

Akthar Abbas was found guilty of murder. His father, Ghulum Abbas, was found guilty of incitement to murder and masterminding the killing. Both face the maximum sentence of life imprisonment, automatically commuted to 16 years under Danish law.

Seven other people, including three of Khan's uncles, an aunt and a family friend, were found guilty of being accessories to murder.

Prosecutors alleged Ghulum Abbas had his son and other family members track down the daughter and her new husband and kill them. Ghulum Abbas pleaded not guilty.

The trial, which began in May, has highlighted disparate views on marriage between some immigrants and Danes in this country of 5.4 million. An estimated 200,000 Muslims live in Denmark.

"In some parts of the immigrant community, there are still some differences in understanding love marriages and cultural backgrounds and traditions," said Torben Ruberg Rasmussen, a professor with the University of Southern Denmark's Centre for Middle East Studies.

Abdul Wahid Petersen, a leading imam in Denmark, said Danish Muslims did not regard the honour killing as "their case."

"To us, it is not a religious case, it is a criminal case," Petersen told The Associated Press before the verdict was delivered. "But it is obvious that in many people's minds, it will be connected to Islam."

Mmm hmmm.

Give Islamists a chance, says top UN official

The UN decides jihadist and Sharia supremacism isn't all that bad. All they are saaaaaying...is give Sharia a chance. From DPA, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

VIENNA - Islamists should be given a chance to govern, Egypt’s Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (Unescwa), Marvat Tallawy, said on Tuesday.

The process of elections and democracy should not be stopped ”because we’re afraid of the result,” she said. Whether it was the Muslim Brotherhood or Hamas - “Give them the chance to govern!”.

Sure. They said that about Hitler in 1933 too.

Tallawi also called for more jizya:

If the same group was always in government, there would only be more corruption, she pointed out in the newspaper Die Presse.

Tallawi, who was Egyptian ambassador to the international organizations in Vienna from 1988 to 1991, and social affairs minister in the Egyptian government in the late 1990’s, also commented on the West’s relations with the Palestinians.

It would be negative and even “disastrous” if the EU completely halted its payments to the Palestinians. If the problems in Palestine grew, it would weaken the moderates in Arab countries and strengthen the extremists, she maintained.

Malaysia: money for Muslim clerics who marry non-Muslims and convert them

The Orang Asli are, as they say, the indigenous people of Malaysia. Islamic Tolerance Alert: "Incentives for marrying and converting orang asli," from The Star, with thanks to all who sent this in:

KELANTAN will offer RM10,000 to each Muslim preacher who marries an orang asli woman and naturally converts her as part of renewed efforts to propagate Islam among the 3,000-odd community in the state.

State Religious Affairs committee chairman Hassan Mahamood (PAS – Tawang) said the same incentive was applicable if the preacher was a Muslim woman who took an orang asli husband.

Asked if the preacher may court the orang asli as a second or third wife, Hassan said it depended on the individual.

The latest figures show that in the past five years, 2,904 of some 3,000 orang asli who reside in Gua Musang and Jeli districts, embraced Islam on their own free will.

Hassan said the state government was unhappy with the conversion rate of the orang asli, who traditionally did not subscribe to any main religion.

Besides the monetary incentive, the preachers would also receive free accommodation, a four-wheel-drive vehicle and a fixed monthly allowance of RM1,000.

On criminal activities and social ills among youths, Hassan said these were due to the influence of the western media.

“The Federal Government allowed sex-oriented movies, music and magazines to be accessible to the masses.

“Crime can only be controlled through the Syariah Criminal Procedure Code,” he said.

Police have no right to rush into action on dubious intelligence, say most Muslims in poll

Notice this: when polls show that Muslims have lost confidence in non-Muslim authorities, those non-Muslim authorities are expected to do something about it. And when polls show that non-Muslims have lost confidence in the loyalty and trustworthiness of the Muslims among them, non-Muslim authorities are expected to do something about it. Never, never, is any focus placed on any responsibility Muslims might have to win the confidence of authorities and the non-Muslim population.

From The Guardian, with thanks to all who sent this in:

Most Muslims have lost confidence in Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, and do not accept that officers have the right to take action to pre-empt potential terrorist attacks when the intelligence could turn out to be wrong, a Guardian/ICM poll shows.

So it's better to be blown up than risk inconveniencing innocent Muslims. I see.

The findings, in a poll of Muslim opinion, starkly illustrate the lack of confidence in the police following the raid on a home in Forest Gate, east London, this month. Police, acting on faulty intelligence that a chemical weapon was housed there, shot a Muslim man.

Fifty-four per cent of Muslims said Sir Ian Blair should resign over the Forest Gate raid, while 29% said he should not.

In the poll, carried out two weeks after the raid, Muslims were also asked: "Do you think it is right or wrong for the police to act to pre-empt potential terrorist attacks, even if the intelligence, information and warnings may turn out to be wrong?" Thirty-one per cent said it was right and 57% said it was wrong.

This view contrasts sharply with that held by the general public. When the same question was asked of a representative sample of all adults, 74% said the police were right to act and 17% said they were wrong.

Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said last night the respondents could be "reacting against the many hundreds of Muslims who have been arrested in high-profile raids across the country since 9/11"....

When Muslims were surveyed about their feelings in the aftermath of the July 7 bombings last year, their views offered scant comfort to the police, although the overall picture is complex. The poll asked whether their confidence in the police had increased, decreased or stayed the same since the bombings: 16% said it had increased, 29% that it had decreased, and 50% said it stayed the same.

Confidence in the police is higher in the south, which includes London: 23% say their confidence has increased. And there is more support for Sir Ian, too: 32% in the south say he should not resign.

Dr Bari said last night: "The police must, of course, have the right to act upon credible intelligence and try to pre-empt potential terrorist attacks against our country. They have a duty to maintain the public safety of all of us - Muslims and non-Muslims." He believed Muslims were reacting against the many hundreds of Muslims arrested in high-profile raids across the country since 9/11 - "the vast majority of whom were then released days later without charge".

He added: "The police must as a matter of urgency review the manner in which they assess the quality of the intelligence that they receive. Serious questions are being asked about how they have reviewed and assessed the intelligence, not just in the case of the Forest Gate raid, but many other similar raids since 9/11. This is a matter of professionalism and maintaining the trust of the wider society."

Man jailed for daughter's genital mutilation

How long will Sweden have the will to continue to proseecute such cases? Clash of Civilizations Update: "Man jailed for daughter's circumcision," from Sweden's The Local, with thanks to Twostellas:

A man who arranged for his daughter to be circumcised has been jailed for four years by Gothenburg District Court.

The man was found guilty of taking his daughter to Somalia to have her genitals mutilated. The case was the first prosecution under a Swedish law against female circumcision introduced back in 1982.

The man, a 41-year old Swedish citizen who has lived in the country since the eighties, had denied the charges against him. He said that other people had carried out the crime on his daughter, who was 12-years old when the procedure took place last year....

The father has been told to pay compensation for 300,000 kronor to his daughter. She had demanded 650,000 kronor.

Fitzgerald: Turkey has had a good run

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald wonders if policy should really be a matter of avoiding hurting other's feelings:

Turkey has had a good run. Ataturk, "secular" Turkey, Bernard Lewis and "The Emergence of Modern Turkey," Sanford Shaw, of course (without the Vryonis replique), those generals in Ankara meeting those American generals, the performance of those Turkish soldiers in Korea during the war, those airbases, that other base at Sinop, the assurance that Kemalism was forever, and that the numbers of the westernized Turks would always increase. Yes, a good run. And besides, what did it really matter -- because wasn't Islam throughout the Cold War seen only as "a bulwark against Communism"?

Now the discovery of another Turkey, la scoperta del imperio ottomano, or rather della Turquia, shows us that after the Cold War, when Turkey is no longer quite so necessary a place for listening-posts directed at the Soviet Union, the American bases are apparently not to be used for the only conceivable purpose for which they would now do much good: against those who, in Dar al-Islam, need to have their major weapons taken away. Turkey did not allow that fourth American division to invade from the north. Turkey has been critical of the invasion of Iraq for all the wrong reasons. An important Turkish official described the behavior of American soldiers as "worse than Nazis."

The Islamic party (that is, the party that if it could would undo the Kemalist constraints on Islam, but itself is still constrained) was the party first of Erbakan and now of Erdogan. Erdogan, of course, famously said that "the minarets are our bayonets, the domes our helmets, the mosques our barracks" ("Les minarets sont nos baionnettes, les coupoles nos casques et les mosquees nos casernes" is how Anne-Marie Delcambre puts it at the very end of her useful vademecum, "L'Islam des interdits.").

And this business of American soldiers in Iraq being "worse than Nazis" was not an isolated incident. It became the theme of the most popular Turkish movie in history, which in addition to those Americans outdoing the Nazis, has a Jewish doctor who harvests organs for resale in the United States from the bodies of Iraqis murdered by those American Nazis at Abu Ghraib. It did boffo box office in Turkey, and is now playing to Muslim audiences in Europe and elsewhere. And Mein Kampf became a surprise best-seller in Turkey. Why was that, do you think? What unsettlements of the collective Turkish soul, what unpleasant revelations about things, about Islam itself, can no longer be hidden from view? Yet the response has been not to own up or to investigate the Armenian genocide and to blame, as rightly they could be blamed, not "Turks" but rather "Turks and Kurds both inflamed by the attitudes that were prompted by passages in the Qur'an and Hadith." If, however, "secular" Turks merely pocket the benefits of the Kemalist constraints, but do not vigilantly ensure that those constraints are not undone, and do nothing to continue to press for further constraints on Islam, they are lost. Yet what are they doing to create even more secularists in Turkey who can support one another against the ever-present black reactionaries (some of them "Grey Wolves")? The latter may talk the language of "the Turk" and the "Sun People," but under it all, as under pan-Arabism as well, it is really a deeply Muslim view that infuses things.

Which Turkey is it? Last in time. And last in time is not #1 above, but #2.

Turkey is still a member of NATO. But NATO has to begin to make plans while keeping in mind the dangers, within Western Europe, of a large Muslim population, and of what might happen should that population be able to lay its hands, even through the political process, on Western armories. How long will this matter be delayed? And what will be the inhibiting effect of having a Turkish delegation -- even a delegation of seemingly secular generals -- be in the same room?

Shall policy now be a matter of not hurting anyone's feelings, not letting the Turks feel left out? Or will it be a matter of protecting the Western world and its people, physically and in all other ways -- or is that too much to ask?

Occupied Byzantium: Denigrating Dervishes Dance on Image of Christ, and the World Yawns

A horrible story from Western Resistance, with thanks to Andrew Bostom:

Russian and western media are ignoring how the Turkish Tourism Board is airing an advertisement where drug-entranced Muslim dervishes dance on an image of Christ taken from a destroyed church, reports Fontanka.ru, a web-based newspaper in St. Petersburg.

So far, the offending advertisement has been seen on St. Petersburg's Channel 22, Rambler NBN, and was most likely shown elsewhere in Russia and the world, but the Turks who paid for the advertisement cannot be reached.

Until the mid 15th century, the Muslim country now referred to as `Turkey' was the Christian Byzantine Empire, one of the most advanced civilizations in the world. After the Muslim conquest, most Christian inhabitants were slaughtered or forced to convert. Thousands of churches were destroyed or converted into mosques. The Turks then launched an invasion of Europe, occupying most of the Balkans for centuries, and carrying out similar destruction and carnage.

Even though Russia is primarily a Christian Orthodox country, no one objected to the offending advertisement, until finally an Armenian resident of St. Petersburg, Artak Aleksanyan, undertook his own investigation. He hired a lawyer at the prominent firm of Naryshkin and Associates, which made a number of inquiries that revealed the advertisement violates Russian law, specifically Article 152 of the Criminal Code, ``Protection of the Honor and Dignity of Citizens.'' The offending Muslims who made the advertisement can be brought up on criminal charges.

But they probably won't be.

Read it all.

Tension in Bangladesh as Sunni jihadists threaten Ahmadiya mosque

Islamic Tolerance Alert: "Tension in Bangladesh as Sunni militants threaten Ahmadiya mosque," from DPA, with thanks to Twostellas:

Dhaka - Tension was mounting in a northern suburb of the Bangladesh capital Dhaka Saturday after an Islamic militant group threatened to blow up a mosque of members of the minority Ahmadiya Muslim sect, officials said.

The Sunni Islamic group Khatme Nabuyut Movement called a 48-hour strike in the capital city's Uttara suburb following fierce clashes between riot police and Islamic militants marching on the Ahmadiya mosque in a bid to capture it.

'The Ahmadiyas are kafirs (non-believers) and must be declared non-Muslims by the government,' Noor Hossain Nurani, a senior member of the anti-Ahmadiya movement, told a gathering of an estimated 1,000 activists before an overnight attempt to seize the mosque.

Nurani warned the government that his supporters would destroy the heavily guarded mosque if the Ahmadiyas were not officially declared non-Muslims by Sunday.

Muslim rape victim ostracised in India

As I have noted many times, Islam's evidence laws put victims of rape in Islamic societies at considerable risk -- and because of the strong emphasis on purity, they also can face the kind of treatment that Sabia is enduring. "Rape victim ostracised in Bihar," from the Indo-Asian News Service, with thanks to Daisy:

MUZAFFARPUR: Forced by a religious leader, a Muslim-dominated village in Bihar has asked a rape victim to leave the place after calling her 'napak' (impure) for giving birth to a child.

The husband has also deserted Sabia, a mute woman in her 20s and mother of two, following pressures from the leaders, the woman's distraught father Samsher Ali said.

The woman, who was raped last year by a neighbour, Mustafa, now lives with her parents in their thatched hut in the same village, Chandkiwari, in Muzaffarpur district, about 70 km from here. Mustafa is on the run.

Sabia's parents are facing the ire of the villagers for giving shelter to their "impure" daughter.

"No one talks to us; we have no social life. We are treated like animals for no fault of ours," Samsher Ali lamented.

Says Sabia's mother: "I fail to understand why my mute daughter was punished when she did not commit any crime. She was rather a victim of the heinous crime of rape. But these people do not realise it."

Maulana Abdul Haleem, a Muslim leader of the village, however said that as per Islamic law Sabia had become impure due to the rape and the "illegitimate" child.

"We have instructed the villagers to boycott her," he said without mincing words.

The villagers are following his instruction. "We are bound by the decision to boycott her," said Pir Mohammad, a villager.

He added: "This is not an individual decision. It was taken by the community."

Not, in other words, just by a Tiny Minority of Extremists.

From captive of the right hand to TV writer

The Qur'an forbids a Muslim man to have sexual relations with a woman who is married to someone else, except for "those (captives) whom your right hands possess" (4:3). This is the Qur'anic term for a woman captured in warfare and kept as a slave. Thus there is nothing preventing a pious Muslim male from having, as the Indo-Asian News Service rather luridly terms it, a "sex slave." So while it is likely that some will, or will try, to take the fact that Osama had a sex slave as evidence that he is not a fervent Muslim, in fact it establishes nothing of the sort.

Others, of course, will say: You can't say Osama is a pious and fervent Muslim. Why, that would be undercutting all the moderates. They would enlist us in their giant, global game of pretend, as if we are all five years old again and all we have to do is close our eyes and wish the dragon away.

Well, I myself think it is preferable to stick to reality, and to try to frame a course of action that is based on that reality, rather than on wishes, however politically correct and comforting.

"Osama’s former sex slave writes for TV" from IANS, with thanks to all who sent this in:

NEW YORK: Kola Boof, the former sex slave of Al Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, is writing for the NBC soap opera Days of Our Lives.

The TV network is already trying to distance itself from the new hire, according to reports by pagesix.com. The show’s executive producer Stephen Wyman says: “Yes, Kola Boof has had writing assignments from Days of Our Lives since May. However, she does not hold a staff position with our writing team.”

In 2003, Boof had to pull her son out of school after rumours were spreading that bin Laden was his father. Boof claims that she was held prisoner and was forced to have sex with bin Laden in 1996 when she was pursuing an acting career in North Africa. She adds that he raped her and forced her to live with him for four months at a hotel in Morocco.

She escaped to Spain and in 1998 bin Laden threatened to kill her after reading her book of poetry, which was critical of Islam. She has also been marked for death by the Sudanese-based National Islamic Front in response to her writings condemning slavery in Sudan and the ill-treatment of African women.

Germany kicks in 20 million euros for Palestinian jizya

They should call it the Adolf Hitler Memorial Jizya Fund. "Germany grants EUR 20m to Palestinian fund," from DPA, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

BERLIN - Berlin is granting 20 million euros (25 million dollars) to an aid fund for the Palestinian territories in the interests of "freedom and more stability in the region," the German aid minister, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, said Wednesday.

Wieczorek-Zeul said in parliament that the European nations had so far pledged 150 million euros for such funds, replacing official European Union aid which stalled in March after the election of the radical Hamas movement.

Fitzgerald: Yesterday's Men

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald offers a tribute to Olivier Roy and other like-minded "respected scholars":

"Olivier Roy, a respected French scholar of Islam, says Muslim silence is a 'classical psychology of immigrants' -- wanting to be 'normal' and become mainstream. 'For them, integration means to be recognized as citizens. They don't want to be recognized for their specificity.'" -- from this silly AP article dissected by Robert here

What gives the writer for this singularly jejune AP piece the authority to insist that Olivier Roy is a "respected French scholar of Islam"? He's not respected by all kinds of people who know about Islam. Bernard Lewis thinks little of him, and I heard him telling this to someone. The intelligent scholars of Islam at the Universite of Aix-en-Provence, possibly the most solid program in Islam in France, do not think much of Olivier Roy. All kinds of people find him only marginally better, in his repeated misunderstanding, over at least a decade or two, of the nature of Islam and the menace of French Islam, than that other pontificating sociologist, Gilles "Always Wrong" Kepel.

Don't tell us so-and-so is an "expert" or "respected." Tell us only that so-and-so "teaches" X or "has written" on Y or "has studied" Z. None of this argument from authority stuff here. We'll decide, after we study what X or Y or Z says, whether or not X or Y should be respected. Should I be impressed that Cornel West is a University Professor at Princeton? Should I be impressed that Jeffery Sachs has written 5 books, or 8 books, or 12 books, while someone else has written half as many, or possibly none at all? Should I be impressed that Professor Hamid Dabashi is the Kevorkian Professor at Columbia, the very same school at which Jacques Barzun taught for nearly fifty years, and in the same department, practically, as those two great scholars of Islam, Professor Joseph Schacht and Professor Arthur Jeffery? No. No. No.

What about Olivier, respected or possibly, man, "disrespected" right here by me and my posse? What shall we say of his observations in the AP article? What do you think of his attempt to make us believe that the problem with Muslim immigrants is nothing special, nothing worrisome, nothing out of the ordinary, just what all immigrant groups have always exhibited or endured? Do you think that the Muslims in France now, in their behavior and attitudes, are merely one more group in a world they never made, who simply want to become "normal" and "mainstream"? Is that what they are taught in mosques and madrasas? Is that what they acquire, from the general attitudes of Muslims, even those who never attend a mosque? Is that how most of them think, or begin to think as they become a generation or two removed from those who came to France from elsewhere, and have been born there, and speak French, and have that linguistic and cultural barrier torn down by the remarkable efforts of the French state and its pedagogic civilizing mission?

Are they, in other words, as Olivier Roy claims, merely trying, perhaps a little uncertainly, a little awkwardly, to integrate fully into French society? (Help them, help them, French people, have patience, help them to find their way!) Are they merely trying to accept its laws, its customs, its institutions, to embrace with an immigrant's touching enthusiasm the essence of being French? (Who can forget those immortal maserpieces by Leo Rosten, "Hyman Kaplan" and "The Return of Hyman Kaplan," both set in a night-school of English for all kinds of immigrants in New York, circa 1930?) So, are they just like the Portuguese, say, who came to France in the 1950s? Or the Indochinese who came in the 1960s and 1970s? Is it merely a case of immigrants trying to be "normal" and fitting in, and not quite succeeding, and nothing more?

This difficulty has nothing whatever to do, in other words, with the actual contents of the Qur'an and Hadith, nothing about the figure of that Perfect Man Muhammad, uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil? Nothing about what they have been taught, in every possible way, at every possible turn, to think about Infidels, with whom, for now, they must live, and whom, for now, they must endure until such time as the goal of Islam -- to remove all obstacles to its dominance and to the rule of Muslims, which accords with the natural Allah-given and Allah-driven order of things -- comes to pass?

And let's look outside France for a minute. We have Spain to look at. How do the Muslim immigrants behave in comparison, say, to all those Ecuadorians now in Spain? Oh, you will say-- but those Ecuadorians are fellow members of the Hispanidad. Not fair. Alright then, how do they compare, the Muslim immigrants, with the black African Christians? With the Eastern Europeans? With the Chinese who can now be found all over Europe?

And the same question must be asked of the Muslims in Italy. How are they doing, as compared to, say, those Filipinos who now make up the army of GOLF, or maids, nannies, domestic help of all kinds? Why is it that the Filipinos fit in, even if they do not know any Italian, while Somalis, for example, many of whom do know Italian, or even Libyans (ditto), remain such a problem for the Italians? In Germany, which has received all kinds of immigrants, from the former Yugoslavia, from the former Soviet-bloc countries of Eastern Europe, from the former Soviet Union, and also large numbers of Muslims from Turkey and, to a lesser extent, assorted Arab countries, why is it that most of the problems with crime, with hostile behavior in schools (including, as in France, the refusal of Muslim students to obey or to study certain topics in the required curriculum) are linked to Muslim students?

Scandinavia? See the essay at Jihad Watch by Fjordman for more on the crime rates of Muslims in Scandinavia. Compare the behavior of Muslims in Malmo, Sweden, or in Denmark (where Muslim immigrants joined in not merely opposing, but in whipping up hatred and death threats made against Danes among Muslims outside of Denmark), or in Norway, with the behavior of the non-Muslim immigrants -- say, Chinese, or Hindus, or Bulgarians, or anyone else.

Belgium? Holland? Switzerland? It doesn't vary.

No. Olivier Roy, the "respected French scholar of Islam" Oliver Roy, refuses to recognize the peculiar problem that the belief-system of Islam poses to Infidels. He refuses to recognize that at the heart of this belief-system, which owes its origins, at least in its present form, to the need for a "faith of our own," a faith for the Arabs that would both promote, and justify, their conquest of far more advanced, wealthy, settled populations of Christians and Jews, in the lands that were their first conquests.

Olivier Roy will not see, cannot allow himself to see, just as the willfully blind author of this AP piece cannot see, that something important here is being missed. That something important is that belief-system's uncompromising division of the world between Muslim and non-Muslim, between Believer and Infidel, who are engaged in a struggle that will not end except in the final triumph of Islam. For it is the duty of Muslims to participate in the struggle to spread Islam, until Islam dominates everywhere, and everywhere Muslims rule.

Of course it is understandable why the "respected French scholar of Islam Olivier Roy" could not possibly bring himself to recognize this, just as Gilles Kepel could not. Nor could any of the other "experts" who have for years been enablers to those successive French governments that did nothing to stop, and everything to encourage, Muslim migrants from entering France. This has gone on with government after government failing to study the matter of Islam, failing to appoint real, as opposed to the Kepel-Roy variety of experts, to study what problems large numbers of Muslims pose to the political and social cohesion of France, to its institutions, to the continuity of its history, to the physical safety of French Christians and Jews and even French Hindus and Buddhists. For France also has a duty, of sorts, to those immigrants who arrive and who assume that the advanced Western society of which they would willingly be a part, will protect them from those who would willingly destroy that society.

He's part of the problem. He can't admit it. Nor can Chirac, Dominique de Villepin, or Giscard d'Estaing, who fell for that policy of letting the Algerian and other maghrebin workers "be reunited with their families" (i.e., their numerous wives, their endless children), which was accepted as a way to end the otherwise inexplicably sociopathic behavior of those Arab immigrants.

We can see the results. We can draw conclusions about those who refused to permit, as the philosopher (perhaps I should add, for those who like to be told what to think, "respected" or "world-famous" philosopher) Jacques Ellul noted back in the 1980s, any criticism of Islam to be voiced. We can draw conclusions about those who mocked anyone who knew about Islam, including Jacques Soustelle. Soustelle was the "respected" scholar of Mexico who made the fatal mistake of not being quite enthusiastic enough about handing Algeria over to the Arabs. And he was not quite willing to dismiss as a shameful episode, the 132 years of French rule, with its hospitals, universities, publishing houses, modern agricultural techniques, that gave Algeria exactly 132 years of civilization between, to borrow a phrase from Nabokov, "two eternities of darkness."

We can draw conclusions about Olivier Roy as well, for he was one of those who never saw the problem, would not see it, still cannot allow himself to see it. And so he is one more of those who can be pushed to the side, seen as part of the problem, as Yesterday's Man.

"respected." "scholar." "Islam." "French."

Times columnist: "To allow Islamists to direct the post-7/7 debate was a disaster"

Michael Gove is correct that "the British State has failed to tackle the underlying ideological currents that favour Islamism." But the real problem is still deeper: the British State, and all Western states, have failed to tackle the sources of those ideological currents, and to realize why "moderates" like the MCB, with whom they are so desperate to collaborate, so often turn out not to be so moderate at all.

From the TimesOnline, with thanks to Ruth King:

THE BRITISH State has come under severe criticism following the Forest Gate raid for its intelligence failures in the fight against terrorism. But the biggest failure of all in the battle against Islamist extremism has gone practically unnoticed.

Tony Blair has acknowledged that the fight against Islamist terrorism cannot be restricted to a police action against isolated individuals or small groups. Last summer he spelt out that a much broader effort is required to tackle, at root, the ideology of Islamism that has bewitched so many minds. But in the struggle against extremism the British State has failed to tackle the underlying ideological currents that favour Islamism. Organisations such as the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) and the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), whose members have shown sympathy for extremist positions, are rarely challenged, and certainly not publicly by the Government or its agencies.

For moderate Muslims the picture is dispiriting. They see the most religiously conservative and politically provocative groupings enjoy the lion’s share of attention and they wonder how serious the British State is about countering extremism. How can they convince young men within their community that the path of moderation brings respect and a voice in the nation’s deliberations when the most influential voices are seen to belong to those with radical agendas?

In Islamist circles a complementary message is absorbed. The British State does not have the courage to face down the advocates of political Islam. Islamists in Britain scent weakness. Just as Islamists abroad believe the West does not have the stamina to resist for long, so Islamists within the UK believe the momentum is with them. Islam’s Leninists have drawn the bayonet, probed, and found mush.

Christians still 'swine' and Jews 'apes' in Saudi schools

Another story on Saudi dissembling about their textbooks. And of course, why wouldn't this material be in them? It's in the Qur'an (2:62-65; 5:59-60; 7:166). From the Telegraph, with thanks to Anon:

Saudi Arabia has been accused of continuing to foster religious hatred in its schools, despite its repeated assurances since the September 11 attacks that it would rewrite textbooks that refer to Jews as "apes" and Christians as "swine".

The charges come after Freedom House, a non-partisan American research group which monitors civil rights worldwide, examined textbooks that it smuggled out of Saudi Arabia. The group found that despite promises of change from leading Saudi officials, including Saud al-Faisal, the foreign minister, and Turki al-Faisal, the ambassador to America, schoolbooks in the kingdom still promote hatred of those who do not practise its strict form of Wahhabi Islam.

The report also alleged that some of the textbooks are used in official Saudi schools around the world. Senior staff at the King Fahd Academy in Acton, west London, which has 750 pupils, said that it was not for the school to comment.

"Even if only a small percentage of the people who are exposed to this take it to heart and act on it, that's still a lot of people," said Nina Shea, Freedom House's director, after the release of the 39-page report, Saudi Arabia's Curriculum of Intolerance.

The report cites extracts from textbooks used in religious education classes for children aged between five and 16. It quotes the following exercise for the youngest children: "Fill in the blanks with the appropriate words (Islam, hellfire): Every religion other than ------- is false. Whoever dies outside of Islam enters -------."

It claims that older students are taught: "It is part of God's wisdom that the struggle between the Muslim and the Jews should continue until the hour (of judgment)."

The report is an embarrassment for the Saudi government, which has made great efforts to restore its image since being painted as a bastion of extremism after September 11. When it emerged that 15 of the 19 hijackers that day were Saudi, many blamed the kingdom's education system for breeding hatred.

Last month, however, only days before the report was released, the Saudi education minister gave a joint press conference with the American secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, in which he boasted of Saudi school reform.

"The education reforms in Saudi Arabia go beyond textbook rewriting," he said. "They go into teacher training [and] the messages that are given to children in the formative years… The whole system of education is being transformed from top to bottom."

When asked about offensive language in textbooks, he said: "This is taken out." But, according to Miss Shea, this is not true. "Teaching methods that ask kindergarten children to give examples of 'false religions', like Judaism and Christianity, add up to an ideology that runs throughout," she said. "It is not hate speech here and there. It adds up to an argument, an ideology of us versus them."

Pakistan: Woman Raped for Leaving Islam

Another story about the desperate trouble in which apostates from Islam all too often find themselves. Islamic Tolerance Alert from Compass Direct:

June 23 (Compass Direct) – Attacked by her own family, one Muslim’s decision to convert to Christianity highlights the precarious situation of Muslims in Pakistan who leave their faith.

Sehar Muhammad Shafi, 24, has fled her home city of Karachi with her husband and two young daughters after being attacked and raped for changing her faith.

With help from the Center for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement, the Christian couple has relocated to another city. But as long as Shafi and her family remain in Pakistan, they must hide the truth of Shafi’s conversion.

Shafi was born the fourth child of a Muslim proselytizer in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi. Her family belonged to Ahle Sunnat wa-al Jimmat, a non-violent Muslim group that focused on converting non-Muslims. Members were instructed not to share food and eating utensils with “pagans” considered unclean.

Shafi’s father taught fellow members of his religious community how to proselytize. As a teenager, Shafi often attended her father’s training sessions on how to convert non-Muslims.

“It wasn’t normal for a girl to participate in those sessions,” the young woman told Compass. “But I was the daughter of an ‘evangelist’ and was eager to bring others to my faith.”

In 1999, Shafi began work for a medical company, Glaxo Wellcome plc, where she focused her energy on proselytizing a co-worker, a Christian named Naveed Paul. Paul had an interest in apologetics and engaged Shafi in religious discussions, inviting her to church with him.

Four years later, Shafi decided to become a Christian, and a local pastor secretly baptized her. “I had shared Islam with [Paul] and wanted to convert him, but instead I realized that my life was empty without Jesus,” Shafi said.

Secret Marriage

Shafi’s family was not aware of her conversion, but sometimes they would beat her when they found her singing Psalms to herself. Once they ripped up a Bible they discovered her reading.

Read it all.

Fjordman: What Does Muslim Immigration Cost Europe?

A new essay by the notable European writer Fjordman:

Do gang rapes boost GDP? Was that an offensive question, you say? Well, according to Sweden's finance minister Pär Nuder, more immigrants should be allowed into Sweden in order to safeguard the welfare system. However, in reality estimates indicate that immigration costs Sweden at least 40 to 50 billion Swedish kroner every year, probably several hundred billions, and has greatly contributed to bringing the Swedish welfare state to the brink of bankruptcy. An estimated cost of immigration of 225 billion Swedish kroner in 2004, which is not unlikely, would equal 17.5% of Sweden's tax income that year, a heavy burden in a country which already has some of the highest levels of taxation in the world.

At the same time, the number of rape charges in Sweden has quadrupled in just above twenty years. Rape cases involving children under the age of 15 are six times as common today as they were a generation ago. Resident aliens from Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia dominate the group of rape suspects. Lawyer Ann Christine Hjelm, who has investigated violent crimes in one court, found that 85 per cent of the convicted rapists were born on foreign soil or by foreign parents. Swedish politicians want to continue Muslim immigration because it boosts the economy, yet the evidence so far indicates that it mainly boosts the number of gang rapes. Meanwhile, research shows that fear of honor killings is a very real issue for many immigrant girls in Sweden. 100.000 young Swedish girls live as virtual prisoners of their own families.

An ever growing group of non-western immigrants in Norway is dependent on welfare. This was the conclusion of a study by Tyra Ekhaugen of the Frisch Centre for Economic Research and the University of Oslo. Ekhaugen's research contradicted the often heard assertion that Norway's labor market depends increasingly on immigrants. The study indicated quite the reverse. If the present evolution continues, immigration will increase the pressure on the welfare state rather than relieving it because many immigrants do not join the tax-paying part of the population. "Non-Western immigrants" in Norway are recipients of social security benefits ten times as frequently as native Norwegians. If we remember that "non-Western immigrants" include Chinese, Indians and other non-Muslims who are known for (and statistically proven to be) hard working, this speaks volumes of the heavy burden Muslims constitute on the welfare state.

Journalist Halvor Tjønn from newspaper Aftenposten, one of the few genuinely critical journalists in the country, in June 2006 cited a report from NHO, the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise. NHO stated that the current immigration policies were a serious threat to the country's economy. Norway is the planet's third largest exporter of oil, next to Saudi Arabia and Russia. Yet according to NHO, there is a risk that much of the profit Norway earns from oil could be spent on paying welfare for a rapidly growing immigrant population. The most profitable immigration would be high-skilled workers who stay for period of limited duration, but at the same time not too brief. A Danish think tank has estimated that the net cost of immigration was up to 50 billion kroner every year, and those were cautious estimates. Denmark could thus save huge sums by stopping immigration from less developed countries. A study found that every other immigrant from the Third World -- especially from Muslim countries -- lacked the qualifications for even the most menial jobs on the organized Danish labor market.

Professor Kjetil Storesletten at the University of Oslo said that the net contribution of immigrants to the economy was probably negative in
Norway, too. "Admitting immigrants with low levels of education leads nowhere. We cannot continue the immigration policies we have followed until now," said Storesletten. In Norway, social benefits and salaries for low-skilled workers are among the highest in the world. At the same time, the salaries for highly skilled workers are comparatively lower and the taxes are high. This compressed salary structure is the result of decades of Socialist policies in Scandinavia. It leads to attracting people with lower skills and little education, but also makes the countries less attractive for researchers and scientists. Still, the agency that handles immigration to Norway, UDI, in 2005 thought that the country must make it more attractive for both skilled and unskilled workers to move to Norway. "We need more immigrants," claimed UDI chief Trygve Nordby. "Too few dare to say that we have a large need for non-professional workers as well," he said. UDI, in turn, should be able to have more flexibility in deciding cases, and process cases more quickly and efficiently. As it turned out later, the bureaucrats of UDI were in fact so "flexible" that they had been running their own, private immigration policies, and that the agency's liberal interpretation of asylum rules had "stretched the boundaries" of the law. UDI violated both the law and political directives when it granted residency permits to nearly 200 Iraqi Kurds in the fall of 2005. A commission that probed the controversial permits blasted the former head of UDI, Trygve Nordby, and his successor resigned. More than half of the social security benefits in the city of Oslo are spent of non-Western immigrants, a portion that has grown tremendously over the years. City council leader Erling Lae warns against prejudice and states that without immigrants, there would be "complete chaos" in Oslo. Meanwhile, Norwegian newspapers are worried that online debates are "flooded with racist comments" about Muslims. One of the racist comments they mentioned was this one: "A large number of Muslims out of their own, free will choose to live in parallel societies where they speak their mother tongue, watch foreign TV, despise the society they have moved to and pick spouses from their original homelands. The only contact they have with the natives is in the social security office."

"The debate is often colored by ignorance. It is not a human right to be heard at any given time. It requires a certain minimum of social intelligence to be allowed to participate in the public debate," says Esten O. Sæther, online editor of the Leftist, pro-Multicultural newspaper Dagbladet. Sæther warns that the newspapers may have to impose stricter censorship on their online discussion forums and the comments to online articles. However, Dagbladet seems to have little understanding of why so many people are fed up with Muslims and their demands. Neither have they admitted that they were wrong in their one-sided praise of the positive effects of Muslim immigration for decades, nor apologized for demonizing the right-wing Progress Party and its leader Carl I. Hagen throughout the 90s for their "racism" for questioning the real costs of this immigration.

On the contrary, although information about the costs of Muslim immigration has been available for several years, this was a non-issue
in Norwegian media prior to the national elections in 2005. Instead, they were focusing on "poverty" in Norway and the need for increased welfare spending. This in a country that is among the wealthiest in the world and which provides its citizens with the highest social security benefits in Europe. Norway's media coverage of the national elections revealed a desire for a Leftist government, said Election expert Aarebrot, a professor at the Institute for Comparative Politics at the University of Bergen. He argued that, with few exceptions, most of Norway's media leans to the left politically. "Most newspapers are what I would call politically correct. By politically correct in Norway today I mean slightly radical, urban and liberal," Aarebrot said. Nearly 70 percent of journalists vote Labor (Ap), Socialist Left (SV) or Red Electoral Alliance (RV) according to a poll, and this is reflected in the press, Aarebrot said.

Oslo will have a non-Western majority in a few decades, if the current trends continue. There are now several researchers who predict that in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, the native population and their descendants will become a minority in their own country within this century. The only question is when. Since the Islamic Jihad usually enters a much more aggressive and physical phase once the Muslim population reaches 10 – 20% of the total in any given area, this does not bode well for the future of the urban regions in Scandinavia. Will they turn out different from similar regions in Thailand, the Philippines or Nigeria?

Admittedly, part of the problem lies with the Western European welfare state system itself and cannot be blamed on the immigrants alone. Iranian Nima Sanandaji tells of his family's meeting with the Swedish system: "In Sweden my family encountered a political system that seemed very strange. The interpreter told us that Sweden is a country where the government will put a check into your mailbox each month if you don't work. She explained that there was no reason to get a job." "Although my mother got several jobs, we concluded that this really didn't improve our family's economy. During the sixteen years we have been in Sweden, my mother has in total worked less than one year."

However, part of the problem is also due to the mentality of some of the Muslims who move there, yet display no loyalty to their new countries. Immigrant men who divorce their wives according to secular law, but stay married to them according to sharia, Islamic law, represent an increasing problem in the city of Odense, Denmark, according to Erik Simonsen, deputy major in charge of administration. The result is a large number of "single" women who receive welfare support. From other countries, it is known that some Muslim men to do this trick with several women at the same time. Some observers blamed the Muslim riots in France in 2005, accurately described by writer Mark Steyn as the "first welfare funded Jihad in history," on polygamy practiced by Muslim men, paid for by French taxpayers. But also immigrants who are financially independent are cheating, says Simonsen. "80 percent of the immigrant economy in Odense is a black market economy. That's a lot, and it cannot be tolerated, because the law is equal for all."

As one Muslim in Norway stated: "I worked in a Pakistani shop, but all of the work there is 'unofficial.' Neither the boss nor I pay taxes to Norwegian authorities. In addition to this, I receive 100% disability benefits and welfare. I have to be cunning to make as much money as possible, since this is my only objective with being in Norway." Undoubtedly, many Muslims view welfare money from the infidels as Jizya, the poll-tax non-Muslims according to the Koran are supposed to pay to Muslims as tribute and a sign of their inferior status and submission to Islamic rule. In Britain, one member of an Islamic group warned an undercover reporter against getting a job because it would be contributing to the kuffar (non-Muslim) system.

One of the reasons for the low participation in the work force among Muslims is a very high drop out rate from schools, especially for boys. Although Muslims themselves blame this on "poor integration efforts" and "marginalization," some of them are actively obstructing their kids' education, lest they become too much like the infidels. Thousands of Muslim children with Scandinavian citizenship are sent to Koran schools in Pakistan and other countries, to prevent them from becoming "too Westernized." When this practice was documented and criticized by the Norwegian organization Human Rights Service, Pakistanis in Norway had the galls to ask for a school for their children in Pakistan, funded by Norwegian taxpayers. They will probably get it.

According to the Copenhagen Post, in Denmark when the country's schools open their doors again after the summer holidays, not every student is there to enter. Some schools report one in every five students missing from the schoolrooms. Daily newspaper Berlingske Tidende reported that some children had not returned from vacation in their homelands with their parents. 'When students are kept away from school start, it's a big problem for their integration and can affect the children's educational level,' said Integration Minister Rikke Hvilshøj. She said a committee would discuss methods to get parents to send their children to school from day one. 'These are children who have problems beforehand following what's going on at school,' Hvilshøj said. 'Not being there when the school year starts won't make it any easier. We need to make parents understand that if their children are to get a good chance in Denmark, they need to make sure that they are there when school starts.' Author and journalist Rushy Rahsid said she had often gone on long vacations to Pakistan with her parents as a child. 'Families go on such long trips to give their children a healthy dose of religion, culture, traditions, and family,' she said. 'If you buy a very expensive ticket, you want to take full advantage of the trip and meet the entire family.'

Not that the problems always disappear when they actually attend school, either. Going to school is no child's game for many children in Copenhagen, where beatings, kicks, robberies, and threats have everyday occurrences. The perpetrators are normally their own age. Violence and threats pose such a big problem in high schools in Malmö, Sweden, that the local school board wants to install surveillance cameras and security guards in the buildings. The city's education director Matz Nilsson said unruly and aggressive students had become a more common sight in the high schools of Malmö, the home of some of Scandinavia's biggest and roughest slums.

In the spring of 2006, police were deployed at a Berlin school after teachers complained that they could not cope with their students' aggression and disrespect. A teacher who recently left the school told the Tagesspiegel newspaper that ethnic Arab pupils were bullying ethnic Turks, Germans and other nationalities. "School for them," said Petra Eggebrecht, former director of the Rütli school, "is simply a place to fight for peer recognition, where young criminals become idols." Young people are also easy targets for Islamist organisations. Outside the Rütli school, the children greeted visitors in Arabic.

When reporters went to school they were pelted with paving stones by masked youths from the schoolyard as the district's mayor stood helplessly at the entrance of the building. An increasing problem in German schools is that Arab male students often refuse to respect the authority of women teachers. Students at the Ruetli Hauptschule were not shy about expressing their views to reporters. "The German (students) brown nose us, pay for things for us and stuff like that, so that we don't smash in their faces." But there are also conflicts between Arab and Turkish students, mirrored in battles between the city's foreign-dominated youth gangs. Integration of foreign youths in Berlin is often poor. Even second and third generation children frequently do not speak fluent German and many fail to complete school - all of which leads to a high jobless rate among immigrant youths. White German families are moving out of districts like Neukoelln.

Muslim immigration has led to a spike in organized and violent crime, too. As early as 2002, Lars Hedegaard together with Dr. Daniel Pipes wrote about how Third-world immigrants - most of them Muslims from countries such as Turkey, Somalia, Pakistan, Lebanon and Iraq - constituted less than 5 percent of the population but consumed upwards of 40 percent of the welfare spending. What's worse, however, is that Muslims were only 4 percent of Denmark's 5.4 million people but made up a majority of the country's convicted rapists, an especially combustible issue given that practically all the female victims were non-Muslim. Similar, if lesser, disproportions were found in other crimes.

In 2005, it was reported that 82 percent of crimes in Copenhagen were committed by immigrants or descendants of immigrants, and the police pressed charges against second-generation immigrants five times as frequently per capita as against ethnic Danes. Doormen working in the Danish capital are now often armed with guns or clubs so as to be able to defend themselves against violent immigrant gangs. There is more violence than ever before and some immigrant gangs have even been known to seek out doormen at their private homes. Immigrant criminal gangs are much more active than previously believed, and their brutality has them surpassing biker crime gangs like the Hell's Angels or Bandidos, the State Police said. A Norwegian researcher warned that ethnic gangs could give Norway the kind of immigrant-related organized crime that had previously been unknown in Scandinavia. Arne Johannessen from the Norwegian Police Organization warned in 2003 that the cost of crime may have been doubled during the previous decade, in part due to immigration.

In Sweden, there has been a steep rise in all kinds of crime and violence at the same time as an unprecedented amount of immigration to the country. Of course, Swedish politicians would never dream of connecting the two. However, in one of those rare cases where a Swedish newspaper has actually told the truth, Aftonbladet revealed that 9 out of the 10 most criminal ethnic groups in Sweden were Muslims, a trend known from other European countries such as France, where Muslims make up 10% of the general population, but maybe 70% of the prison population. The number of people under the age of 18 who are serving sentences in juvenile detention centres in Sweden has risen sharply over the last five years.

Not that Western European prisons will scare immigrant children too much. The relaxed regime at a prison housing some of Holland's most dangerous criminals has caused controversy. Pictures of tattooed prisoners enjoying a "social evening" and beer embarrassed the authorities which are sensitive to claims abroad that they are soft on crime. One inmate at Esserheem serving 14 years for murder said: "We have a party every weekend in our own prison bar. We can enjoy wonderful snacks, ice cream, beers, play cards or billiards and listen to music. If the weather is warm we can play tennis." Another prisoner spoke of "perfect" fresh food and said: "We can buy everything in the prison shop including sushi and sake." In the Netherlands, the economic argument deployed by both leftwing Multiculturalists and free-market conservatives - that immigration revives aging populations, provides new labor resources, and generates entrepreneurial activity – "simply does not apply." There has been no overall economic benefit to population change since unskilled guest workers were invited to the Netherlands in the early 1970s. According to Paul Scheffer, a leading critic of Multiculturalism and professor of urban sociology at Amsterdam University, up to 60% of first-generation Turkish and Moroccan populations are unemployed.

Andrew Bostom, editor of The Legacy of Jihad, quotes the observations made by Dr. Muqtedar Khan, a much-ballyhooed Muslim moderate from the U.S., after a trip to Belgium. Even Khan admitted the largesse of Belgium's welfare state towards its Muslims: "…the welfare check was normally 70 percent to 80 percent of the salary. For those [Muslims] who were married with children, welfare provided comfortable living and with low property values, even those on welfare could actually own homes." American expatriate writer Bruce Bawer, living in Norway, has documented in his book While Europe Slept how Oslo imams preach brazenly that Muslims should expect these welfare benefits—and feel justified in supplementing them by stealing from stores—as a form of jizya extracted from their infidel "host" societies. As Bostom points, out, "such attitudes, whatever their origins, raise this larger basic question: why does the West continue to validate the raw, imbalanced bigotry that denies non-Muslims any access to Mecca and Medina—upon pain of imprisonment, torture, and death—while Muslims demand and are granted the ability to settle, with generous accommodations, within Europe or America?"

Indeed, some of the Muslims are actively involved in supporting Jihad activities, verbally or physically. Mullah Krekar is convicted of terrorism in Jordan, he has been suspected of links to the Madrid terrorists, and the CIA claims he has been ordering bombings in Iraq. He has lived off Norwegian welfare money in Oslo for years, and reputedly gets a lot of free taxi rides from Muslim cab drivers who think he's a great guy. Norway's most controversial refugee has lodged a threat against the country that has hosted him and his family for the past 14 years. Mullah Krekar continues to fight deportation back to Iraq, and calls any such order "an offense" that should be punished. "I defend my rights in their court just like Western people defend their rights. I am patient like they are patient. But if my patience runs out, I will react like Orientals do." Asked how "Orientals" react, Krekar said: "I don't want to comment on that." Krekar has also spoken positively about terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and the recently killed Iraqi al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

In Britain, the police have been investigating allegations that the four suspected London bombers from July 2005 collected more than £500,000 in benefits payments. The suspects are supposed to have used multiple aliases and addresses. One, Mr Ibrahim, is said to have had six aliases. Some are also shown to have claimed several nationalities, ages and national insurance numbers while in Britain. Investigators believe that bogus names were used to make some benefit claims. Two are also alleged to have obtained asylum using bogus passports and false names and nationalities. Mr Ibrahim, alleged to be the Hackney bus bomber, is believed to have used two dates of birth, six aliases, two national insurance numbers and two addresses. Mr Osman apparently went under five names, variously claimed that he was Eritrean or Somali, and used four addresses in southwest London. Mr Omar, 24, who is linked with the attack on a Tube train near Warren
Street, had five aliases.

The London Times quoted a report that expressed fears that Britain was "sleepwalking its way to apartheid" due to increased ethnic segregation. The paper, which took into account the background of the four July 7 suicide bombers who attacked London, pointed to social and economic deprivation as key drivers in their conversion to terrorism, ignoring the numerous calls for violent Jihad in the Koran and the hadith. It found that the Muslim community was the most "disadvantaged" faith group in the country, with lower educational attainment and higher unemployment. The document found that the unemployment rate among Britain's 1.6m Muslims was more than three times that of the general population and was the highest of all faith groups. About half of all Muslims were economically inactive (52%). That was higher than any other religious group.

DP111, an articulate British commentator at such websites as Jihad Watch, Little Green Footballs and Fjordman blog, points out that as Muslim families are very large, a single wage earner will find it hard to support all. They will need to supplement this by getting considerable benefits from the state. Thus at a minimum, "some 80% of the Muslim population" subsists on welfare benefits: "A considerable amount of this money to Muslims from the British taxpayer, finds its way to finance the Jihad. The same scenario must hold in all European states that have a considerable Muslim population." "We are in the ridiculous position of sheltering and feeding a population that is hell bent on destroying us. Islam's people, from the very outset, were nothing but a collective to gain plunder and loot at the expense of other people's work. In the past, it was conducted by war, conquest and then pillage. Now it is conducted by immigration (invasion), begging or crime. Meanwhile Muslim nations are given huge loans (aid), which we and they know will never be repaid. Thus, from a purely economic point of view, Islam seems to be a collective of people who live by the ethos of "beg, borrow or steal." So why do we, the capitalist countries, who do not believe in offering anyone a free lunch, subsidise the most lazy yet aggressive bunch of people on God's planet, who are bent on subverting our democratic system? The nub is, how has it come about, that the natural progression of the most advanced civilisation on earth is towards stupidity?"

He also points out that the cost of Muslim immigration is much higher than just welfare. "One really needs to factor the loss of confidence in the markets, loss of new investment because of a fear of flying or the disenchantment with intrusive security. Then there is the increased cost of insurance on all businesses." All this affects the competitivess of business with nations that do not have a significant Islamic presence, such as Japan, Korea and Taiwan. We may be talking of million dollars or more per Muslim individual per year. "And to top it all, we give them huge amounts of aid, welfare benefits on a grand
scale, while we live in fear, and our freedoms compromised."

Former Muslim Ali Sina claims that even in the USA, which has a smaller Muslim population and less social security benefits than Western Europe, Muslims are a huge drain on the economy: "Because about 2 million Muslims live in America and among them there are some who are terrorists, Americans are forced to expend hundreds of billions of dollars on homeland security. I have no idea how much is the actual cost. Let us be conservative and say it costs only $200 billion dollars per year. I reality it could be many times more. Does anyone have any idea? With just $200 billion dollars, every Muslim, including their children cost the taxpayers $100,000 dollars per year. This is the real "contribution" of Muslims to America Mr. President. Once you add the cost of the real damage caused in terrorist attacks, such as to planes, buildings, etc. this cost will be much higher. And here we are only talking about monetary cost. Can anyone calculate the cost that the families of the victims of terrorism pay? What is true in America is true in anywhere governments are forced to expend money to increase the security."

Bat Ye'or in her book Eurabia - The Euro-Arab Axis describes how we are in the middle of a total transformation of Europe, which is the result of an intentional policy. In an interview with Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Bat Ye'or fears that Europe will become more and more Islamized until it becomes "a political satellite of the Arab and Muslim world." "The European leaders have decided on an alliance with the Arab world, through which they have committed to accept the Arab and Muslim approach toward the United States and Israel. This is not only with respect to foreign policy, but also on issues engaging European society from within, such as immigration, the integration of the immigrants and the idea that Islam is part of Europe."

Former French PM Charles de Gaulle, disappointed by the loss of the French colonies in Africa and the Middle East, as well as with France's waning influence in the international arena, in the 1960's decided to create a strategic alliance with the Arab and Muslim world to compete with the dominance of the United States and the Soviet Union. This alliance became the position of the European Community (pre-European Union) during the course of the 1970s, when an extensive European-Arab dialogue developed. However, this alliance, in the context of which Europe allowed the immigration of millions of Muslims to its territories and adopted an anti-Israeli and anti-American policy, will ultimately "transform Europe into a continent under the thumb of the Arab and Muslim world."

As Bat Ye'or points out, most of the workings of Eurabia are hidden from the public view, but sometimes we can catch glimpses of it if we know what to look for. Italian Leftist PM Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission, the Politburo of the EUSSR, from 1999 to 2004, wants more cooperation with Arab countries. He talks about a free trade zone with the Arab world, but this implies the four freedoms of the EU, which includes the free movement of people. This is made clear in a document from 2003. This fact, and the implications of it, is virtually never mentioned in European media. During the Sixth Euro-Med Ministerial Conference in Brussels, 2003, it is stated that this initiative offers the EU's neighboring partners "gradual integration into the expanded European internal market and the possibility of ultimately reaching the EU's four fundamental freedoms: free movement of goods, services, capital and people." Ministers were also expected to back the Commission's proposal to set up a Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue of Cultures, a Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly and a reinforced European Investment Bank (EIB).

In June 2006, after his Leftist coalition government signalized that they would be much more lenient with Muslim immigration to Italy, Romano Prodi announced that "It's time to look south and relaunch a new policy of cooperation for the Mediterranean." He was thinking of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, launched in 1994 in Barcelona. Prodi said he had raised the issue with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The prime minister then explained that the Barcelona Process – which includes the creation of a free trade zone by 2010 - was no longer sufficient and a new different approach was needed. "The countries on the southern shores of the Mediterranean expect that from us" he added.

Muslim immigration is costing enormous sums and creating havoc across Western Europe, and EU leaders are working to give Muslims easier access to Europe – because Arabs expect this from them. Thank you for pointing this out, Mr. Prodi. And thank you for removing all doubts whether the European Union needs to be dismantled, and its treacherous and corrupt political elites removed from power.

Cathy Young strikes back

In a post entitled "'Islamophobia' and Islamic radicalism" at her website, Cathy Young has responded to my reply to her attack on Jihad Watch in Reason magazine.

By the way, Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch has replied to my columns and has also challenged me to a debate, in which I have no intention of engaging. I will, however, reply to two points.

On the subject of Fallaci's failure to distinguish between Islamic terroists [sic] and " Somali vendors of fake designer bags who urinate on the street corners of Italy's great cities," Spencer has this to say:

There are several problems with this. One is that the Somali vendors and other Muslims in the West have not made any serious attempt to root jihad terrorists out of their ranks. Another is that such people as Young's Somali vendor do exist, and while they are not members of terrorist groups, they are manifesting disrespect for the country and culture to which they have come. Is Fallaci wrong to be indignant about that? Such disrespect, of course, stems from the same sources as jihadism: contempt for the infidel and for jahili society, the non-Islamic society of ignorance and impurity. Thus one feeds into the other.

Point one: If Spencer or Fallaci know of any instances of terrorists in the ranks of Somali street vendors, let's have them.

That was not my point, of course. But it's an interesting response from Young. Does Cathy Young not know that jihadists have emerged from the ranks of ordinary, peaceful, law-abiding Muslims in Western countries? Raed Hijazi was a cab driver in Boston. Maher Hawash was a highly respected Intel executive. Sami Al-Arian was a college professor. Does she really think it inconceivable that a Somali street vendor could become a terrorist? On what grounds?

Point two -- public urination as a mini-jihad -- doesn't really merit an answer, but I'll answer anyway. Apparently, in the world according to Spencer and Fallaci, peeing on street corners and in other public places is a behavior peculiar to Muslim immigrants. (Has either of them ever been to New York?) As it happens, I have travelled in Italy a lot and have seen a lot of the Somali street vendors. On two occasions, I have seen men urinating in the street. Neither of them was a Somali or a Muslim.

Here Young veers sharply toward the ridiculous. Does the existence of public urination among non-Muslims somehow mean that public urination by Muslims is not ever and cannot be an expression of contempt for infidel society? Even when that urination targets landmarks of that society, as Fallaci has documented?

Spencer also challenges my assertion that "Christian doctrine for centuries mandated Christian rule by force," and writes:

She should produce such a doctrine, but she can't, because it doesn't exist.

Oh yeah? Well, how about the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), which codified the idea of heresy as a high crime? See, also, this article in First Things in which conservative Catholic Michael Novak discusses Thomas Aquinas' view of heresy as a capital crime. (Aquinas recommends toleration for the religious practices of Muslims and Jews, but so does Islam with regard to Jews and Ch