Barclaycard executive not in Sunni mood -- sacked after making Shi'ite joke

"There Are No Jokes In Islam" Update: "Barclaycard chief forced to quit after making 'joke' about Muslims," from the Daily Mail (thanks to Twostellas):

A Barclaycard executive has been forced to quit after making an insulting remark about Muslims.

Marc Howells, one of the company's leading figures, left his £200,000-a-year job following the tasteless quip during a staff meeting as he discussed quarterly figures.

Colleagues were stunned when he said: "The results were like Muslims - some were good, some were Shi'ite."

Offended members of staff complained to senior bosses about the "wholly inappropriate" comment.

Mr Howells, 42, who worked for Barclaycard's European arm and has a £2million home in St John's Wood, was forced out earlier this month after negotiating an undisclosed pay-off, classed as "redundancy under compromise".

A company source said: "No one could quite believe their ears when he came out with his Shi'ite joke.

"He had a very responsible job in a multinational company. What on earth was he thinking of?

"There were a few embarrassed guffaws but everyone except him knew he was for the high jump the moment he said it."

Such is the way of the world today.

Algeria: Islamic MPs ask for action against jihadists -- no, wait...

"We condemn the government's silence with regard to this phenomenon." Hey, great! Finally some Muslim moderates are going to get to work against those Islamic jihadists, eh? Well, no. It isn't Islamic jihadists they're upset about. It's Christian missionaries, of course.

"Algeria: Islamic MPs ask for action against Christian missionaries," from AKI (thanks to Insubria):

Algiers, 31 Dec. (AKI) - Lawmakers from the Algerian Islamic political party of al-Nahda have asked the government to intervene to slow down "the activities of Christian missionaries in the country".

Algerian MP Muhammad Hudeibi was quoted as saying this in the local el-Khabar newspaper.

"We want the government to cut down this type of activity because the expansion of evangelisation in Algeria has become an important problem and is not marginal as some think it is," said Hudeibi.

For some years, the local media in Algeria have reported on the activities of a number of missionaries, particularly those from evangelical and Protestant churches, who have succeeded in converting entire Algerian families to Christianity, particularly those who come from the eastern area of Kabilia.

"We condemn the government's silence with regard to this phenomenon," said the Algerian MP.

"We are collecting the signatures of other lawmakers in order to begin a discussion in parliament on this problem," he said.

Küntzel vs. Bostom on Islamic antisemitism

Does it arise from Qur'anic imperatives, or had those Qur'anic imperatives lain dormant until they were revived under Nazi influence?

Read the exchange between Matthias Küntzel and Andrew Bostom on this question at FrontPage.

Al-Azhar says women pregnant by rape must abort baby

The madness continues at Al-Azhar. From Agence France-Presse:

CAIRO - AL-Azhar, Sunni Islam's highest seat of learning, on Sunday declared that any woman pregnant by rape must abort the baby immediately in order to maintain 'social stability'.

'A raped woman must terminate the pregnancy immediately upon learning of the pregnancy if a trusted doctor gives her clearance for the abortion,' the Islamic Research Council of the Cairo-based institution said in a statement.

This would ensure 'social stability,' it said.

According to the independent Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights (ECWR), two women are raped every hour in this country of 76 million.

Many factors contribute to the increase in sexual harassment including rising unemployment, the huge cost of marriage and the fact that sex outside marriage is forbidden, experts say.

Egyptian law bans abortion except on the grounds of 'necessity", which includes instances when a woman's life or health is in danger or in cases of fetal abnormality.

Christians in Gaza keep Christmas celebrations quiet

For fear of You Know Who. Islamic Tolerance Alert from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

...MATT BROWN: It's a small, tight-knit community in one of the world's most intense hot spots. 3000 Christians live amongst 1.5 million Muslims, and the two groups usually get along well.

FATHER ARCHEMANDRITE ARTEMIOUS, GAZA GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH: We don't talk about friendship, we talk about brothership. Both of them are Palestinians but with different religions. Same blood, same nationality.

MATT BROWN: But lately, dark forces have been shadowing the Christians of the Gaza strip. The worshippers have been rocked by a murder.

FATHER ARCHEMANDRITE ARTEMIOUS: Afraid, very sad, they have a lot of questions.

MATT BROWN: Anisa Ayyad's son, Rami, has been killed. He was a prominent and vocal advocate for his faith. Ramzi Ayyad believes his brother was killed by a radical Muslim.

RAMZI AYAD, BROTHER (translated): Rami was well known in the Christian society as a very strong believer. He spent most of his time in the Church praying and teaching others, so he stood out.

MATT BROWN: In the lead up to the murder, Christians were targeted in a string of escalating attacks. And Christians and Muslims alike have been alarmed.

FATHER ARCHEMANDRITE ARTEMIOUS: For Christians, after what happened to Rami, so they are afraid to be here because they see bombing, then they see shooting, then they see hitting and then they see killing. What is the next one?

MATT BROWN: His family are Greek Orthodox Christians, but Rami Ayyad was a member of the Baptist Church, the only Evangelical Church in the Gaza strip.

When Rami Ayyad was confronted by Islamic radicals, he was warned to convert to Islam or face the judgement of God.

PASTOR HANNA MASSAD, GAZA BAPTIST CHURCH: He told us he would never give up his faith, even if it will cost him his life.

MATT BROWN: The tension was mounting. Then, finally, Rami Ayyad was stalked, kidnapped and killed.

PASTOR HANNA MASSAD: We believe it's because of his faith. They, the militant group who didn't like Christian and they tried to put pressure on him and when he continued to hold to his faith, they killed him.

MATT BROWN: The Islamist militant group, Hamas, seized control of Gaza in June and the eyes of the world have been upon them ever since. Hamas is more moderate than groups like al-Qaeda or the Taliban and it promised to safeguard the Christian minority. So it was alarmed at the message the execution of such a well known Christian could send.

AHMAD YUSSUF, HAMAS SPOKESMAN: Killing somebody who is a Christian, this will give the impression that there is a divide between the Muslims and the Christians and Hamas started it in Christian.

MATT BROWN: Some in Gaza believe al-Qaeda inspired radicals have been testing the limits under Hamas. A special team of the Hamas executive force has been ordered to investigate. The trail leads deep into the murky world of Gaza's gunmen, political factions and crime families. And Hamas has promised a sceptical Christian community it will catch the culprit.

AHMAD YUSSUF: He must go to justice and must be punished on his criminal act.

FATHER ARCHEMANDRITE ARTEMIOUS: For now, we're waiting. As they promised, that they'll find (inaudible) that killed Rami. So we're waiting.

MATT BROWN: Many Christians say there's a growing intolerant Islamist sentiment in Gaza, one Hamas has failed to quash. Church leaders complain that Hamas hasn't done enough to counter anti Christian incitement in the prayer rooms of Gaza's mosques....

Failed to quash? Why would they want to quash it? They want it to grow.

UN moves to kill free speech, passes resolution against "defamation of religions"

The OIC pushed it through. "Defamation of religions," of course, means "speaking the truth about the elements of Islamic teaching that jihadists use to incite to violence."

"Islamic Bloc Scores 'Defamation of Religions' Resolution at UN," by Patrick Goodenough for CNSNews.com (thanks to Jamie Glazov):

(CNSNews.com) - Alongside a resolution adopted by the U.N. General Assembly this week calling for a moratorium on the death penalty, the world body passed a raft of other human rights-related motions. One of them, introduced by Islamic nations, focuses on combating the "defamation of religions."

Resolutions on the human rights situation in North Korea and Iran also passed, although dozens of countries -- including human rights violators Cuba, Sudan, Syria and Zimbabwe -- voted against the motions.

An annual resolution on "the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination" also passed by an overwhelming margin, with only the United States, Israel, and three small Pacific island nations voting "no." There were four abstentions.

The motion on defamation of religions has been a priority for the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) since 9/11. It took on new impetus following a Danish newspaper's publication in 2005 of cartoons satirizing Mohammed.

Introduced by Pakistan on behalf of the OIC, it passed on Tuesday by a 108-51 margin, with 25 abstentions. As with many of the other votes, the U.S. lined up with democracies in Europe, Asia and elsewhere against developing nations, including repressive regimes.

Although the resolution refers to defamation of "religions," Islam is the only religion named in the text, which also takes a swipe at counter-terrorism security measures.

It expresses alarm about "discrimination" and "laws that stigmatize groups of people belonging to certain religions and faiths under a variety of pretexts relating to security and illegal immigration."

In other words, as far as the UN is concerned, it is now wrong to resist the jihad.

Muslim minorities are subjected to "ethnic and religious profiling ... in the aftermath of the tragic events of 11 September 2001," it says.

The resolution decries "the negative projection of Islam in the media" and voices "deep concern that Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism."

You see, this association is all the fault of non-Muslims. The fact that Muslims themselves routinely commit violent acts and justify them with reference to Islamic teachings is a fact we are not supposed to, indeed not allowed to, notice.

OIC secretary-general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu earlier this month addressed an international conference on "Islamophobia," held in Turkey, and told the gathering that freedom of expression was being used as a cover in the West to promote anti-Islam sentiment.

The OIC soon will release its first-ever annual report on "Islamophobia."

'Flawed and divisive'

On a number of the General Assembly resolutions passed Tuesday, the U.S. stood in the minority, including one dealing with practices that contribute to "fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance," and another on a report on preparations by the U.N.'s Human Rights Council for a major conference on racism, scheduled for 2009.

The international conference is intended to review progress achieved on a program of action adopted at an earlier racism conference, held in Durban, South Africa in 2001.

The Durban event was marred by controversy, with attempts spearheaded by Arab and Muslim states to equate Zionism with racism. The U.S. government sent a low-level delegation and then recalled it midway in protest against the attacks on Israel.

On Tuesday, only the U.S., Israel and the Marshall Islands voted against the resolution on preparations for the Durban review conference.

In an earlier explanation of vote, American envoy Grover Joseph Rees told member-states that although the U.S. supported the stated objectives of Durban gathering, "the outcomes of the conference were deeply flawed and divisive."

"The resolution now before us endorses that flawed outcome and is therefore itself seriously problematic," he said.

Indeed.

India: Tensions high after pork found in mosque

Outrage.

This reminds me of a story from about 1990 or 1991. There was a big Gay Pride march in a major American city. Afterward, I was talking to a couple of Catholic seminarians whose seminary was along the road the marchers used, and they said that marchers had slipped condoms through the mail slot in the seminary's front door. The seminarians threw them away, and that was the end of the incident. The marchers had meant to taunt the seminarians, and the seminarians shrugged off the taunt. There were no marches. Security was not beefed up. The incident got no publicity whatsoever.

Compare and contrast.

"Pork in mosque creates tension ahead of MK visit," from Express News Service (thanks to Twostellas):

ERODE: Tension prevailed in Dharapuram after a slice of pork was found inside a mosque at Kannan Nagar near the by-pass road in Dharapuram on Friday.

Sources said that the slice of meat was thrown into the mosque through the iron gates. A mosque worker Ibrahim spotted it when he opened the door of the mosque this morning.

Later in the day, over 5000 Muslims assembled near the Big Mosque, Jinna Maidan and took out a march to the RDO Nagarajan’s office and sought action against the miscreants behind the incident.

Superintendent of Police Sonal V Mishra, Town Inspector of Police Sivakumar and SI Shunmugam went to the mosque and held an enquiries. The local Muslims numbering more than 500 visit the mosque, wherein a Madarassa too functions, on a daily basis.

Since the incident occured on the eve of Chief Minister M Karunanidhi’s visit to Erode on Saturday, security has been beefed up in the town.

India: Fatwa issued over relationship between female Muslim journalist, Sikh politician; "Had she been in Saudi Arabia, she would have been stoned by now"

Rumor has it that a female Muslim journalist and a male Sikh politician might be romantically involved, though they maintain they're just friends. Either way, they're spending time alone together. Would she marry a non-Muslim? Would she leave Islam for him? None of the clerics' business? Oh, but it is. In fact, it's time for a fatwa.

"Shahi Imam issues fatwa against Aroosa," by Kanchan Vasdev for The Tribune:

Ludhiana, December 26 - Compounding problems for Aroosa Alam, the Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid, Ludhiana, today pronounced the "fatwa" against her for her proximity with the former Chief Minister, Capt Amarinder Singh.

He called upon the Sik clergy in the state to ask Capt Amarinder Singh about his relationship with Aroosa. “He should tell us whether he has turned a Muslim or she has changed her religion”. He even claimed that during the Captain's visits to England and Dubai, he was seen with Aroosa instead of his wife and MP Perneet Kaur.

While pronouncing the edict, Habib-ur-Rehman Saani, Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid, religious centre of the Muslims in the state, said Aroosa had violated the Sheriat law by visiting a man without being accompanied by any male relative.

Terming her stay with an “unrelated man” as an “unforgivable sin,” the Imam called for her social boycott. The fatwa, a copy of which is with The Tribune, reads: “It is a mortal sin for any woman to stay with an unrelated man. If a Muslim woman cannot even go to haj without her husband, brother or son, how can she stay with an unrelated man?”

The Islam does not permit man-woman friendship. If a Muslim woman has illicit relations with a man, she should be lynched. “Had she been in Saudi Arabia, she would have been stoned by now,” said the Imam.

[...]

The Shahi Imam claimed that she did not belong to a very respectable family in Pakistan. “Aroosa's mother was better known as ‘General Queen’ due to her relations with Gen Yahya Khan. She has spoiled at least 10 homes in her country and now she is trying to do so in Punjab”. He said he would call upon the Muslim clergy in Pakistan to excommunicate her.

The Shahi Imam urged the Prime Minister and the Chief Minister of Punjab to initiate a high-level probe into Aroosa's visits to the state. He suspected that she might be an ISI agent, who was purposely targeting Capt Amarinder Singh, who was well versed with the security and defence installations in the country.

Aroosa rejected the fatwa. According to the Times of India, she said, "I think Islam does not prohibit friendship and brotherhood. Religious interpretation of Islam is so wrong. Islam is a very liberal religion."

Time for an effigy burning: "Muslims to burn Aroosa’s effigy for her remarks on Islam," from Express India:

Ludhiana, December 27 The Muslims in north India have decided to burn the effigy of Pakistani journalist Aroosa Alam tomorrow, on her response to the statement regarding the fatwa issued on her.

The fatwa was issued by the Shahi Imam of Ludhiana.

In a statement issued here, Mustkin Ahrari, the spokesman of Jama Masjid said, “Her statements are not tolerable, and hence our organisations in the entire north India will burn her effigies.”

While a number of political parties are opposing Aroosa’s visit to India on one ground or the other, Balwant Singh Ramoowalia, state president of Lok Bhalai Party said that the political parties should stop issuing loose comments about Aroosa. Ramoowalia added that calling her an ISI agent is ridiculous.

He said, “I am not in good terms with Captain Amarinder Singh, but useless statements about Aroosa are not justified.” SGPC chief Avtar Singh Makkar has already stated that their body has nothing to do with this issue.

Sweden population boom!

As immigrants pour in, native Swedes pour out. How long before Sweden becomes a Sharia state?

"Sweden's population boom continues," from The Local (thanks to Dan):

Sweden's population is continuing to grow at a rapid clip, according to preliminary figures from Statistics Sweden....

The increase can be largely attributed to immigration figures, which are the highest since records began.

Some 100,000 new immigrants will have begun calling Sweden home by the time the fireworks are let off to mark the beginning of the New Year.

Birth rates were also higher than average in 2007, with the number of births (107,000) outnumbering deaths by 16,000. This can be compared to 2002, when the birth surplus was just 806.

Emigration figures, though practically unchanged since last year, remain relatively high. Some 45,000 people are expected to have left Sweden by the end of the year. As with immigration, Swedish nationals make up the largest group.

Others leaving the country in large numbers include, Nordic citizens, Germans, Brits, Chinese and Americans.

Jizya to the Palestinians only makes things worse for them

Daniel Pipes explains in "The Palestinian Economy in Shambles":

Western financial aid to the Palestinians has, I showed last week, the perverse and counterintuitive effect of increasing their rate of homicides, including terrorist ones. This week, I offer two pieces of perhaps even stranger news about the many billions of dollars and record-shattering per-capita donations from the West: First, these have rendered the Palestinians poorer. Second, Palestinian impoverishment is a long-term positive development.

[...]

Unsurprisingly, Hellman characterizes the Palestinian economy as "in shambles."

Such shambles should come as no surprise, for as the late Lord Bauer and others have noted, foreign aid does not work. It corrupts and distorts an economy; and the greater the amounts involved, the greater the damage. One telling detail: at times during Yasir Arafat's reign, a third of the Palestinian Authority's budget went for "expenses of the President's office," without further explanation, auditing, or accounting. The World Bank objected, but the Israeli government and the European Union endorsed this corrupt arrangement, so it remained in place.

Indeed, the Palestinian Authority offers a textbook example of how to ruin an economy by smothering it under well-intentioned but misguided donations. The $7.4 billion recently pledged to it for the 2008-10 period will further exacerbate the damage.

Paradoxically, this error might help resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. To see why, consider the two models, hardship v. exhilaration, that explain Palestinian extremism and violence.

The hardship model, subscribed to by all Western states, attributes Palestinian actions to poverty, isolation, Israeli roadblocks, the lack of a state, etc. Mahmoud Abbas, the PA leader, summed up this viewpoint at the Annapolis conference in November: "the absence of hope and overwhelming despair … feed extremism." Eliminate those hardships and Palestinians, supposedly, would turn their attention to such constructive concerns as economic development and democracy. Trouble is, that change never comes.

The exhilaration model turns the Abbas logic on its head: the absence of despair and overwhelming hope, in fact, feed extremism. For Palestinians, hope derives from a perception of Israeli weakness, implying an optimism and excitement that the Jewish state can be eliminated. Conversely, when Palestinians cannot see a way forward against Israel, they devote themselves to the more mundane tasks of earning a living and educating their children. Note that the Palestinian economy peaked in 1992, just as, post-Soviet Union and post-Kuwait war, hopes bottomed out to eliminate Israel.

Exhilaration, not hardship, accounts for bellicose Palestinian behavior. Accordingly, whatever reduces Palestinian confidence is a good thing. A failed economy depresses the Palestinians' mood, not to speak of their military and other capabilities, and so brings resolution closer.

Palestinians must experience the bitter crucible of defeat before they will drop their foul goal of eliminating their Israeli neighbor and begin to build their own economy, polity, society, and culture. No short-cut to this happy outcome exists. Who truly cares for Palestinians must want their despair to come quickly, so that a skilled and dignified people can move beyond its current barbarism and built something decent.

The huge and wasted outpouring of Western financial aid, ironically, brings on that despair in two ways: by encouraging terrorism and by distorting the economy, both of which imply economic decline. Rarely has the law of unintended consequences worked so imaginatively.

Read it all.

Malaysia: Hindu woman fails in bid to stop estranged husband from converting their youngest son to Islam

Islamic Tolerance Alert from modern, moderate Malaysia. "Malaysian Hindu loses bid to ban Muslim conversion," by Jalil Hamid for Reuters (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia (Reuters) - Malaysia's highest court threw out on Thursday a bid by a Hindu woman to stop her estranged husband from converting their youngest son to Islam.

Her case is another sign of strain in the social fabric of the multi-racial nation, where many non-Muslims believe their rights are being trampled by the Muslim majority.

R. Subashini took legal action after her husband converted himself and their elder son, now four, to Islam in 2006. She says she now fears the husband wants to take their two-year-old, who still lives with her, and convert him to Islam as well.

The Federal Court rejected her request for an injunction on technical grounds, leaving her free to try again, but one judge noted the court's jurisdiction was limited, given the husband was now a Muslim and therefore governed by Islamic or sharia law.

"The civil and sharia courts cannot interfere with each other's jurisdiction," said Nik Hashim Nik Abdul Rahman, one of two judges who dismissed the case. One judge dissented.

Family law has become an emotional battleground between Malaysia's religious communities, with non-Muslims complaining civil courts are too willing to surrender jurisdiction to their Islamic counterparts in cases involving a Muslim conversion.

Marriages between Muslims and non-Muslims are forbidden in Malaysia, so once a non-Muslim spouse converts to Islam, the union is broken, lawyers say. While it can still exist under civil law, in reality the Islamic court does not recognise it.

A lawyer for R. Subashini said that although his client's case failed on a technicality, the judges' comments made it clear they recognised the husband's right, as a newly converted Muslim, to have recourse to the Islamic courts....

Church bells go silent in Gaza

While a Palestinian priest utters sweet dhimmi nothings -- saying, as dhimmis have always said, that the Muslims are wonderful, and the Christians identify with them -- the reality suggests otherwise. "Christmas under Hamas rule," by Katya Adler for BBC News (thanks to Mark Durie):

Earlier this year, the Islamist Hamas party took control of Gaza, home to a thriving Christian community now preparing to celebrate their first Christmas under Hamas rule.

Manawel Musallam - priest, headmaster and Gazan - is a rotund, avuncular man, fond of wearing berets.

I have come to his office to ask how Christians in Gaza were faring on this, their first Christmas under the full internal control of Hamas.

"You media people!" Father Musallam boomed at me when I first poked my head around his door.

"Hamas this, Hamas that. You think we Christians are shaking in our ghettos in Gaza? That we're going to beg you British or the Americans or the Vatican to rescue us?" he asked.

"Rescue us from what? From where? This is our home."

[...]

"You see," Fr Musallam told me, as he gazed indulgently at the goings-on on stage. "Our identity is a multi-layered one."

"Of course, I am a Christian believer, but politically I am a Palestinian Muslim. I resist Israel's military occupation, obviously not with weapons.

"The Jihad can never be mine but with my words, my sermons, I am a Palestinian priest."

[...]

"We have lived alongside Muslims here since Islam was born," said Fr Musallam, waving his arm at the stage.

"They have a special word for us, the Christians of Palestine. They call us Nasserine - the people of Nazareth. They recognise that we have always been here.

"Even the more extreme Muslims see a difference between us and other Christians they regard as enemies and call Crusaders."

There is no evidence to suggest the Hamas government here officially discriminates against Christians but its takeover in Gaza - its military wing's leading role in armed resistance against Israel, along with the Islamic Jihad faction - have all led to the increasing Islamisation of Gazan society.

And that has encouraged some extremist Muslims to take action.

A Christian bookshop owner was killed here a couple of months ago.

There was a kidnap attempt on another Christian recently.

And a number of Christian families we spoke to say they had received death threats.

They question Hamas' willingness to take action to protect them.

However, it was under Hamas armed escort that we met the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, on a special pre-Christmas visit to Gaza.

It was quite a spectacle.

The Patriarch, dressed in a purple cassock, stepped out of a black, shiny Mercedes at the Latin Church in Gaza City.

'God's creatures'

A crowd of police cars screeched to a halt all around him, lights flashing and sirens screaming. Bearded gunmen dressed in black jumped out to guard him.

In previous years, the Patriarch's Christmas sermon has concentrated on the suffering of Palestinians under Israeli military occupation but this year he preached steadfastness in the face of intimidation by Islamist fanatics.

"They forget we are all God's creatures," he told a concerned-looking congregation.

"But nobody can tell us Christians how to dress, how to live or how to pray".

The patriarch called on the Hamas government to take responsibility and to protect the Christian citizens of Gaza, along with everyone else.

As the crowded church was belting out hallelujahs, I stepped into the church courtyard for some fresh air.

The Muslim call to prayer was beginning to echo from the myriad of mosques all around.

I thought how this reflected the situation in Gaza in Christmas 2007 - that while the muezzin were on loudspeaker, the church bells here are played from a cassette tape.

A nervous young nun adjusted the volume - loud enough to peel through the church but not to penetrate its walls - it might risk offending Muslim Gazans passing by.

Mark Durie sums it up:

I was reminded by this story of the text of the 7th century "Pact of Umar", in which Chrisitans, when surrendering to Islam, agreed to silence their bells: "We shall use only [wooden] clappers in our churches very softly."

The prohibition on ringing bells was one of the universal restrictions imposed by Islamic law upon 'dhimmis' - non-Muslims living under Islam after conquest. The bells of Middle Eastern Christians fell silent for more than a thousand years, until the European Powers dismantled the dhimmi system during the 19th and 20th centuries. Now the age-old discriminatory laws are being enforced again, and Hamas is proving as good as its word, for when it took power in Gaza the local Christians were told that as they were now in a full Islamic system they 'must accept Islamic law'. The silence of the bells bears witness that Hamas has told the truth about its intentions.

The silence is bad enough, but what distressed me most about Adler's report was her claim - paradoxically in the very same article - that "There is no evidence to suggest the Hamas government here officially discriminates against Christians…"

This Christmas season Gazan Christians are being resubjected to the odious, humiliating discriminations of the dhimmi system. This makes Christmas a very good time for the rest of the world to wake up and pay attention to the stark historical reality of dhimmi Christians' lives under Islamic rule, and to the intolerable reimposition of these conditions in many Muslim societies in the present day.

Israel: Saying "Muhammad is dead" is racist

A lame soccer chant brings a charge of racism. "Soccer: Betar J'lem punished for fans' racist chants," by Allon Sinai in the Jerusalem Post (thanks to Carl in Jerusalem):

Betar Jerusalem will play its next home match at Teddy Stadium in front of empty stands after an Israeli Football Association tribunal found the club's fans guilty of racist abuse during the Toto Cup semifinals at National Stadium in Ramat Gan two weeks ago.

Jerusalem supporters chanted insults against the prophet Mohammed during Sakhnin's semifinal match against Bnei Yehuda while they were waiting for the start of their team's game against Maccabi Haifa.

Ironically, Betar's next home game is against Sakhnin on January 12 .

"We don't accept this punishment and we plan to appeal," Betar spokesperson Oded Zargari told Betar's official Web site on Wednesday.

"We think that there's no reason that our fans, who behave well at Teddy, should be punished. The abuse was shouted at a stadium at which we as a management had no control."

"If the IFA feels that 'Mohammed is dead' is a racist chant than we think that they should also take action against the Sakhnin fans shouting 'Allah Akbar'. We hope the IFA's Supreme Court will overturn this decision."

Britain in secret talks with the Taliban

Still more short-sighted realpolitik. There seems to be an endless supply, and no amount of evidence will shake the false assumptions on which this sort of thing is based.

By Thomas Harding and Tom Coghlan for the Telegraph (thanks to all who sent this in):

Agents from MI6 entered secret talks with Taliban leaders despite Gordon Brown's pledge that Britain would not negotiate with terrorists, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Officers from the Secret Intelligence Service staged discussions, known as "jirgas", with senior insurgents on several occasions over the summer.

An intelligence source said: "The SIS officers were understood to have sought peace directly with the Taliban with them coming across as some sort of armed militia. The British would also provide 'mentoring' for the Taliban."

The disclosure comes only a fortnight after the Prime Minister told the House of Commons: "We will not enter into any negotiations with these people."

Opposition leaders said that Mr Brown had "some explaining to do".

Indeed.

Iraqi hairdressers forced underground

Because "making women look pretty can get a person killed in her Sunni-dominated Baghdad neighborhood."

By Diaa Hadid for Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 46 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Umm Doha cuts hair and waxes eyebrows in secret from her living room because making women look pretty can get a person killed in her Sunni-dominated Baghdad neighborhood.

Hardline Muslim extremists who believe it is sinful for women to appear beautiful in public have forced many beauticians to move their trade underground.

Sunni and Shiite militants began blowing up salons roughly two years ago. They killed several stylists and bullied others into putting down their scissors and makeup brushes for good, all in an effort to stamp out what they view as the corrupting spread of Western culture.

Besides beauty salons, militants have also targeted liquor stores, barber shops and Christian churches.

In the past year, most beauty salons in the Shiite-dominated southern city of Basra went underground, as they did in the Sunni-controlled neighborhood of Dora in west Baghdad.

Israel: No more "anti-Arab discrimination" at airport

Imagine the conversation among the Israeli authorities: Who cares if we get blown up? At least we won't be discriminating!

"Mofaz: No More Anti-Arab Discrimination at Airport," from Israel National News (thanks to Romy):

(IsraelNN.com) Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz will eliminate the criterion of nationality from airport security checks, thus making these checks "less racist" and more Arab-friendly, IDF Radio reported.

In a reply to a High Court petition against supposed anti-Arab discrimination at Ben Gurion Airport, the Transportation Ministry will present a new set of criteria for security checks, which will include age, occupation and military service. It will soon be brought before the Attorney General for review.

A law abiding Arab should not be treated differently from a Jew, Mofaz said. "Why should the Director of the Nahariya Hospital, an Arab Israeli, who saves lives every day, be delayed at the security check more than anyone else?", Mofaz told IDF Radio.

Certainly. Good point, Mofaz. But if you are planning to pretend that Muslims and Jews are equally likely to commit acts of terror against Israelis, you will be wasting time and resources.

"I want to study, but not in a burqa"

Sharia Alert from IndianExpress (thanks to all who sent this in):

Little girls in the militancy-hit Swat Valley in northwestern Pakistan hate a diktat issued by pro-Taliban rebels to attend school in burqas.

Burqas are the only option some girls' schools in northwestern Pakistan have against being shut down or worse, being bombed.

"I want to study, but not in a burqa," said Shah Rukh, a 12-year-old girl enrolled at a primary school at Saidu Sharif in Swat.

Shah Rukh is just one of many girls who have learnt to speak out against the burqa diktat in the picturesque Valley.

"My 11-year-old daughter cries every morning when she has to wear the burqa," Mohammad Roshan, who teaches history at Jahanzeb College in Saidu Sharif, one of the main towns of Swat, told Newsline magazine.

In a private school in Mingora, the headquarters of Swat district, students were enraged when their principal received a letter from militants saying they would shut down the school.

"It is our right to get education," one of the girls in the school said.

A parent said his daughter "is constantly told by her teachers to attend school in a head-to-toe veil ever since the principal of the school received a letter of threat".

Guardian columnist wonders why Blair didn't convert to Islam, since it's better than Christianity

In "Blair, the Muslim?" in The Guardian (thanks to LGF), Ajmal Masroor wonders why former British Prime Minister Tony Blair converted to Catholicism when he could have backed a much stronger horse: Islam. In the course of making his case, Masroor sounds all the usual Islamic apologetic notes: the Crusades, Christianity's alleged incompatibility with science, Christianity's alleged intolerance, etc. And he throws Blair's pro-Islam statements back at him:

Tony Blair's conversion to Catholicism does not come as a surprise to anyone but I would have liked him to turn to Islam instead. Blair has claimed on many occasions that he has read the Quran and has said he found its teachings "progressive". He is right that the Quran is progressive and as a revealed book of God, it is the latest testament. Why would Blair turn to the older versions of God's testament when there is the Quran? His conversion sounds rather regressive to me.

[...]

In an article published by Foreign Affairs early this year, Blair spoke of the Quran as being inclusive. His new Church has been the most exclusive and in the name of its own version of Christianity has murdered and destroyed the lives and properties of many fellow Christians over the years. In his role as a Middle East envoy he would have won the hearts and minds of the Muslim world if he had come to Islam. He might have found redemption for his crimes against Iraq and its innocent people. His conversion to Catholicism would no doubt remind the Muslim world, especially the Arab world of the history of the Crusades. The blood of millions of people still stain the cobblestones of the Holy Land from the cold-blooded murders committed in the name of Christianity and was blessed by the then Papacy in Rome.

According to Blair, Islam "extols science and knowledge and abhors superstition". I agree, but why has he embraced Catholicism with its history of hostility towards science and is embedded with superstition? If Jesus (may peace be on him) was to descend today and walk into a church he would not recognise anything that Christians are practising in his name. So why then convert to Catholicism?

Blair was very clear in his words when he said Islam "is practical and far ahead of its time in attitudes toward marriage, women, and governance". If Islam is a religion that values family and respects women why has he converted to a church that prohibits its priests from getting married, whose holy man are dogged by accusations of homosexuality and paedophilia?

Blair certainly admires Islam. He said "under its guidance, the spread of Islam and its dominance over previously Christian or pagan lands were breathtaking. Over centuries, Islam founded an empire and led the world in discovery, art, and culture." If I admired a faith so much I would convert to it. So I am baffled to know why he has converted to Catholicism and not embraced Islam.

Islam certainly stands for tolerance and demonstrates this by giving a special status to the Christians and Jews calling them people of the Book - Ahl al-Kitab. Christianity does not do the same. Blair reminded us that "the standard-bearers of tolerance in the early Middle Ages were far more likely to be found in Muslim lands than in Christian ones". Yes, but why has Mr Blair converted to Catholicism? Surely he stands for tolerance, progress and good governance.

And finally I have one last question for Blair. Did you not say "the faith of Islam is very peaceful and a very beautiful faith"? Why have you not tried Islam? I do not want to dismiss your journey to spirituality, but it is not too late to try Islam - you may like it.

Of course, this magnificent vision of a peaceful and tolerant Islam is completely at odds with the actual historical record of jihad warfare against non-Muslims and the oppression of the dhimmis, but the really noteworthy thing is that this bit of Islamic apologetic propaganda appears in The Guardian.

It's no surprise, really: after all, The Guardian publishes Ali Eteraz, Karen Armstrong, Ed Husain, Inayat Bunglawala, and others. But do you think that The Guardian would publish a piece touting Christianity and criticizing Islam? Do you think that if I wrote a detailed rebuttal to this piece by Ajmal Masroor, that The Guardian would print it?

I think you know the answer to both of those questions. And so here's another question: why has The Guardian allowed itself to become a mouthpiece for Islamic proselytizing?

Pakistan's clerics using blasphemy laws to persecute Ahmadi community

"The laws mandate three years' imprisonment for Ahmadis who dare to call themselves Muslims, call their places of worship mosques, recite the Koran or announce the azan, the call to prayer."

Such is the degree of offense these clerics take at the Ahmadiyya community's belief in the existence of valid revelations after Muhammad. If only they were half so repulsed instead by the idea of open-ended jihad warfare, the draconian punishments of Sharia law, and the persecution of non-believers. Of course, since those come from the Qur'an and the example of Muhammad himself, attempts at reform would leave them vulnerable to charges of bid'a, or innovation, something for which they now persecute the Ahmadis.

"Pakistan clerics persecute 'non Muslims'," by Isambard Wilkinson for The Telegraph:

Hardline clerics are using Pakistan's blasphemy laws to persecute members of a small Islamic splinter group they say are not proper Muslims.

The two million-strong Ahmadiyya community, based in Rabwah in the Punjab, risks charges of "impersonating Muslims" under the country's controversial religious laws.

Shameen Ahmad Khalid, a community leader, said: "We have people serving long jail sentences for blasphemy or for 'posing as Muslims'."

The laws mandate three years' imprisonment for Ahmadis who dare to call themselves Muslims, call their places of worship mosques, recite the Koran or announce the azan, the call to prayer.

Twenty years ago, the people of Rabwah were charged with impersonating Muslims.

Since the charges are still outstanding, the town's 50,000 inhabitants have to hide their Islamic habits, keep their beards trimmed and avoid using Muslim invocations.

The word "Muslim" has been erased, on the orders of a magistrate, from an epitaph engraved on the tomb of Pakistan's most distinguished scientist, Dr Abdus Salam.

It used to read "the First Muslim Nobel Laureate".

The religious laws are used by hardline clerics to persecute minority groups.

Despite recent improvements in voting rights for Christians and Hindus, Ahmadis are effectively still disenfranchised as they are permitted to vote only as "non-Muslims".

Pakistani popular rhymes defame Ahmadis in lurid terms and militants have stamped thousands of rupee notes imploring believers to "put them to death".

[...]

Several months ago, a police officer killed Mohammed Ashraf, an Ahmadi, as he ate his breakfast in a hotel. As he opened fire the officer shouted: "You are an infidel and preaching the infidel creed."

The Ahmadis' reverence for a prophet who lived in the 19th century offends the principle orthodox Muslim tenet that the Prophet Mohammed was the final prophet.

Kuwaiti legislator renews pressure on female education minister who does not wear headscarf

An update on this story. "Lady MP under fire in headscarf row," from Gulf Daily News:

KUWAIT: A Kuwaiti Islamist MP presented a request yesterday to question the Gulf state's only woman minister, a liberal who has been under hardline fire for refusing to wear a head scarf.

Nouriya Al Subeeh had stirred the anger of Islamist MPs when she took the oath in parliament in April without wearing a head cover in line with strict Muslim laws. Since then she has been under scrutiny by Islamist MPs and could be dismissed if the grilling leads to a parliamentary no-confidence motion against her.

Saad Al Sharie said in the request that financial and administrative irregularities at the education ministry had raised questions about Subeeh's ability to head the ministry. He also accused Education Minister breaching the law in connection with several high profile appointments and dismissals.

He said she was responsible for 'serious deterioration' in education standards and blamed her over an incident in which four Asian workers stand accused of molesting three Kuwaiti boys at a primary school.

A decade ago Kuwait's elected parliament passed a law enforcing total segregation of male and female students.

Liberal MPs have dismissed the attacks against her as politically-motivated. "She is a strong woman with clear plans to reform the educational system. Islamists don't like this," said Nabila Al Anjeri, women rights activist.

When Nouriya Al Subeeh first took office, sans headscarf, an article noted that "When MPs passed a law granting women full political rights in May 2005, they attached a precondition requiring women to abide by Islamic Sharia regulations, which have never been detailed." Legislators like Al Sharie may now be looking to exploit this vague provision, concerning either gender segregation in schools, the issue of the hijab, or both.

Political analyst Ali Al Baghli, agreed, "The grilling is personal because she wears no veil. But she's one of the most capable ministers and if she resigns it would be a setback for the reform plans."

Muslims driving Christians out of Bethlehem, but media outlets choose to blame Israel

Big surprise! "Media's two-faced Christmas coverage," by Aaron Klein for YnetNews (thanks to Sr. Soph):

Ah, Christmas in Bethlehem. Manger Square is ablaze with colorful lights. The weather is usually a bit chilly. Aggressive merchants bombard passersby with “special sales” on all kinds of cedar wood statues and religious carvings.

And like clockwork, the mainstream media descend upon this city every year to ignore rampant Muslim intimidation of Christians and instead blast Israel - often with completely inaccurate information - for ruining Christmas and for the drastic decline of Christianity in one of the holiest cities for that religion.

Take a widely circulated piece by McClatchy Newspapers writers Dion Nissenbaum and Cliff Churgin.

The piece, published last week, cites Bethlehem's dwindling Christian population and paints a picture that squarely blames Israel.

"For generations, the Holy Land Arts Museum (in Bethlehem) has been selling olivewood manger scenes to thousands of pilgrims wanting souvenirs from the biblical birthplace of Jesus," starts the piece.

"Gone is the olivewood stable shielding the baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph. In its place, looming over the angelic family, are an Israeli watchtower and three towering sections of an adjoining wall."

Outright lying, the McClatchy Newspapers piece stated Bethlehem "remains largely isolated from the outside world by Israel’s 25-foot-tall concrete walls, part of Israel’s separation barrier."

The piece implied the wall caused the crash of Bethlehem's economy and prompted Christians to flee. Similar articles were churned out by Reuters, the BBC online and scores of local newspapers.

ABC News, for example, chimes in: "The (Israeli) wall has cast a shadow over this famous West Bank town."

Now let's get our facts straight. Bethlehem is not surrounded by any wall.

Israel in 2002 built a fence in the area where northern Bethlehem interfaces with Jerusalem. A tiny segment of that barrier, facing a major Israeli roadway, is a concrete wall, which Israel says is meant to prevent gunmen from shooting at Israeli motorists.

The fence was constructed after the outbreak of the Palestinian Intifada, or terror war, launched in 2000 after late PLO Leader Yasser Arafat turned down an Israeli offer of a Palestinian state, returning to the Middle East to liberate Palestine with violence.

Read it all.

Pakistan spending U.S. aid to build weapons systems against India while jihadists advance

But no strings can be attached to it. Oh, no. How dare you even suggest such a thing, you insolent infidel!

"U.S. Officials See Waste in Pakistan Aid," by David Rohde, Carlotta Gall, Eric Schmitt and David E. Sanger for Associated Press (thanks to all who sent this in):

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — After the United States has spent more than $5 billion in a largely failed effort to bolster the Pakistani military effort against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, some American officials now acknowledge that there were too few controls over the money. The strategy to improve the Pakistani military, they said, needs to be completely revamped.

In interviews in Islamabad and Washington, Bush administration and military officials said they believed that much of the American money was not making its way to frontline Pakistani units. Money has been diverted to help finance weapons systems designed to counter India, not Al Qaeda or the Taliban, the officials said, adding that the United States has paid tens of millions of dollars in inflated Pakistani reimbursement claims for fuel, ammunition and other costs.

“I personally believe there is exaggeration and inflation,” said a senior American military official who has reviewed the program, referring to Pakistani requests for reimbursement. “Then, I point back to the United States and say we didn’t have to give them money this way.”

Indeed not. But it is we who are ungrateful, doncha know:

Pakistani officials say they are incensed at what they see as American ingratitude for Pakistani counterterrorism efforts that have left about 1,000 Pakistani soldiers and police officers dead. They deny that any overcharging has occurred.

The $5 billion was provided through a program known as Coalition Support Funds, which reimburses Pakistan for conducting military operations to fight terrorism. Under a separate program, Pakistan receives $300 million per year in traditional American military financing that pays for equipment and training.

Civilian opponents of President Pervez Musharraf say he used the reimbursements to prop up his government. One European diplomat in Islamabad said the United States should have been more cautious with its aid.

“I wonder if the Americans have not been taken for a ride,” said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

They of course have been.

Jihadist cleric calls for ban on Christmas

Omar Bakri is at it again, fighting against pernicious jahiliyya. Islamic Tolerance Alert: "Hate cleric Omar Bakri calls for 'ban' on Christmas," from the Daily Mail (thanks to WriterMom):

Hate preacher Omar Bakri, who is barred from Britain, is calling on Brits to boycott Christmas.

Using the internet to post a rant against the festive season, Bakri claims Christmas should be "completely forbidden".

In another chilling post the radical cleric said Christmas Day would be the perfect day to launch a terror attack on the UK.

He said: "To have Christmas tree, visit so-called Christmas Father - that is completely forbidden.

"Make sure you do not watch TV. Do not let them hear jingle bells. Do not send your children on Christmas trip."

Anger over plan to broadcast Muslim call to prayer on loudspeaker in Oxford

Un-neighborly, yes. In The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon wrote that if the Muslims had won the Battle of Poitiers, "the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet." Well, this may come to pass after all, before too long.

From the Daily Mail (thanks to all who sent this in):

Muslim plans to broadcast a loudspeaker call to prayer from a city centre mosque have been attacked by local residents who say it would turn the area into a "Muslim ghetto".

Dozens of people packed out a council meeting to express their concerns over the plans for a two-minute long call to prayer to be issued three times a day, saying that it could drown out the traditional sound of church bells.

But a spokesman for the Central Mosque said that Muslim's also have the right to summon worshippers.

Dr Mark Huckster, who lives in Stanton Road and works at East Oxford hospice Helen House, told the Oxford Mail: "The proposal to issue a prayer call is very un-neighbourly, especially in a crowded urban space such as Oxford.

"I have lived in the Middle East and a prayer call has a very different feel to church bells and I personally found the noise extremely unpleasant, rather disturbing and very alien to the western mindset."

He added: "If an evangelical Christian preacher proposed issuing sermons three times a day at full volume there would be an outcry.

"There could be a sense of ghettoisation of East Oxford. Cowley Road would have a Muslim flavour and could become a Muslim ghetto which is contrary to what we want in a multicultural society."

Turkey: Christians celebrate low-key Christmas after recent attack

The remaining Christians in Turkey celebrate Christmas while suffering from increasing persecution. From AKI (thanks to Sr. Soph):

Istanbul, 24 Dec. (AKI) - Turkey's 100,000-strong Christian community was on Monday hoping that Christmas this year would pass uneventfully without further sectarian attacks such as that earlier this month against an Italian Catholic priest - the latest of several in little over a year.

As schools and offices in the overwhelmingly Muslim majority country will be open on Tuesday, 25 December will simply be a day that comes between Eid al-Adha (the Islamic festival of sacrifice) and the New Year celebrations.

Christmas trees decked in glass baubles and Christmas lights have been put up in some streets and shop windows. "These are signs of a blending of Christian and Muslim cultures that have nothing to do with the substance of Christmas," Monsignor Luigi Padovese, apostolic vicar in Turkey, told Adnkronos International (AKI)

The knife attack by a Muslim youth last Sunday against an Italian Catholic priest, Adriano Franchini, in the Turkish port city of Izmir, has undoubtedly marred the festivities for Christians and left many in a sombre mood.

Undoubtedly.

Muslim street peddlers block Christian stores outside Manger Square

"Several local Christians, speaking on condition of anonymity, charged the Muslim vendors set up their stations without required permits after paying what were described as 'special commissions' to the Palestinian Authority security forces."

"Muslims hijack Jesus' birthplace," by Aaron Klein for World Net Daily:

BETHLEHEM – Muslim street peddlers here bombarded tourists with discounted souvenirs in Manger Square – the hub of Bethlehem's holiday activity – setting up shop in front of Christian stores some of whose owners complained their businesses were being hijacked.

"Tourism is up this year. Christians are visiting from all over. They come out of the Church of the Nativity and before they arrive at my store they've already been approached by a half-dozen Muslim vendors selling the same stuff but cheaper," said the manager of one shop situated across from the Church of the Nativity alongside Manger Square.

The church is the believed birthplace of Jesus. It has seen an increase in the number of visitors since last year, according to locals. Directly outside the church begins the Manger Square thoroughfare, site of religious activity, Christmas decorations and mostly Christian-owned stores.

But the thoroughfare has been packed with Muslim vendors selling souvenirs and religious items such as crosses and cedarwood carvings – much the same objects found in the surrounding Christian stores.

Church visitors cannot exit the large structure without passing through the swarms of vendors.

Several local Christians, speaking on condition of anonymity, charged the Muslim vendors set up their stations without required permits after paying what were described as "special commissions" to the Palestinian Authority security forces that control the city.

WND asked three vendors if they had obtained permits, but they refused to respond.

Upon observing the scene for an afternoon, it was clear during that time the Muslim vendors were raking in the majority of business. According to local shopworkers, this has been the situation for the past two weeks.

The scene was the latest episode of Bethlehem's dwindling Christian population, which has reportedly been the target of rampant Islamic intimidation and persecution.

Bethlehem consisted of up to 80 percent Christians when Israel was founded in 1948, but immediately after the Palestinian Authority took over in 1995 in line with the U.S.-backed Oslo Accords, the Christian population quickly declined to about 23 percent, with a large majority of Muslims. The 23 percent Christian statistic is considered generous since it includes the satellite towns of Beit Sahour and Beit Jala. Some estimates place Bethlehem's actual Christian population as low as 12 percent, with hundreds of Christians emigrating every year.

Christian leaders and residents, most of whom spoke to WND on condition of anonymity during recent interviews, said they face an atmosphere of regular hostility. They said Palestinian armed groups stir tension by holding militant demonstrations and marches in the streets. They spoke of instances in which Christian shopkeepers' stores were ransacked and Christian homes attacked.

They said in the past, Palestinian gunmen fired at Israelis from Christian hilltop communities, drawing Israeli anti-terror raids to their towns.

Read it all.

Fitzgerald: Hitchens and Said

Christopher Hitchens likes to think of himself as a brave iconoclast, speaking-truth-to-power and all that I'm-George-Orwell-of-this-age-and-I-take-no-prisoners sort of thing. I've mocked him before at this site, many times, quand il fait son petit Orwell. But the longest whack at him, with Hitchens providing the evidence against himself, is the piece "Hitchens and Said." It appeared on February 21, 2007, and is here re-presented, lightly edited for clarity:

There are many examples that one can find on-line of the work of this "good egg" who "writes like a dream." [These were phrases used about Hitchens by someone who objected to some previous mocking of Hitchens by me].

A great friend and unctuous admirer of Edward Said, and though his tribute to Said does not reach the bathetic depths, or yawning heights, of Hamid Dabashi's tribute (google "Hamid Dabashi" and "Edward Said" -- you won't regret it), Hitchens own tribute to Said is memorable, for the same reasons, on a slightly different scale:

The loss of Professor Edward Said, after an arduous battle with demoralizing illness that he bore very bravely, will be unbearable for his family, insupportable to his immense circle of friends, upsetting to a vast periphery of admirers and readers who one might almost term his diaspora, and depressing to all those who continue hoping for a decent agreement in his birthplace of Jerusalem.

To address these wrenching thoughts in their reverse order, one could commence by saying quite simply that if Edward's personality had been the human and moral pattern or example, there would be no "Middle East" problem to begin with. His lovely, intelligent, and sensitive memoir Out of Place was a witness to the schools and neighborhoods in Jerusalem and Cairo where fraternity between Arabs, Jews, Druses, Armenians, and others was a matter of course. (His memory also comprised a literary Beirut where the same could be said.) He took an almost aesthetic interest in the details, eccentricities, and welfare of his own particular confession—the Anglican Christians of Jerusalem and especially St. Georges school in the eastern part of the city—but it's hard if not impossible to imagine anyone with less sectarian commitment. When talking to him about the various types of sacred rage that poison the region, one gained the impression of someone to whom this sort of fanaticism was, in every declension of the word, quite foreign.

Indeed, if it had not been for the irruption of abrupt force into the life of his extended family and the ripping apart of the region by partition and subpartition, I can easily imagine Edward evolving as an almost apolitical person, devoted to the loftier pursuits of music and literature. To see and hear him play the piano was to be filled with envy as well as joy: One was witnessing a rather angst-prone person who had developed the perfect recreation to an extraordinary pitch. To ask him for a tutorial and a reading list, as I more than once did, was to be humbled by the sheer reach of his erudition. I can still hear the doors that opened in my mind as he explicated George Eliot's rather recondite Daniel Deronda.

On one occasion in New York, after giving us a tremendous tour of the Metropolitan Museum during its show on the art of Andalusia (and filling out the most exquisite details on the syntheses and paradoxes of Islamic, Moorish, and Jewish Spain), he took my own wife on a tour of the shops to advise her expertly on the best replacement for a mislaid purse. I never met a woman who did not admire him, and I never knew him to be anything but gallant. As I look back, I am inclined to be overcome at the number of such occasions, where his bearing and address were so exemplary and his companionship such a privilege.

His feeling for the injustice done to Palestine was, in the best sense of this overused term, a visceral one. He simply could not reconcile himself to the dispossession of a people or to the lies and evasions that were used to cover up this offense. He was by no means simple-minded or one-sided about this: In a public dialogue with Salman Rushdie 15 years ago, he described the Palestinians as "victims of the victims," an ironic formulation that hasn't been improved upon. But nor did he trust those who introduced pseudo-complexities as a means of perpetuating the status quo. I know a shocking number of people who find that they can be quite calm about the collective punishment of Palestinians yet become wholly incensed at the symbolic stone he once threw—from Lebanon! Personally, I preferred his joint enterprise with Daniel Barenboim to provide musical training for Israeli and Palestinian children. But for Edward, injustice was to be rectified, not rationalized. I think that it was, for him, surpassingly a matter of dignity. People may lose a war or a struggle or be badly led or poorly advised, but they must not be humiliated or treated as alien or less than human. It was the downgrading of the Palestinians to the status of a "problem" (and this insult visited upon them in their own homeland) that aroused his indignation. That moral energy, I am certain, will outlive him.

I knew and admired him for more than a quarter-century, and I hope I will not be misunderstood if I say that his moral energy wasn't always matched by equivalent political judgment. Indeed, it should be no criticism of anyone to say that politics isn't their best milieu, especially if the political life has been forced upon them. Edward had a slight tendency to self-pity, and the same chord was struck even in the best of his literary work, which often expressed a too-highly developed sense of injury and victimhood. (I am thinking of certain passages in his Orientalism and some of the essays in Culture and Imperialism as well.) He was sometimes openly alarmed at the use made of his scholarship by younger academic poseurs who seemed to despise the classical canon of literature that he so much revered. Yet he was famously thin-skinned and irascible, as I have good reason to remember, if any criticism became directed at himself. Some of that criticism was base and outrageous and sordidly politicized—I have just finished reading the obituary in the New York Times, which in a cowardly way leaves open the question as to whether Edward, or indeed any other Palestinian, lost a home in the tragedy of 1947-48—but much of it deserved more patience than he felt he had to spare. And he was capable of stooping to mere abuse when attacking other dissidents—particularly other Arab dissidents, and most particularly Iraqi and Kurdish ones—with whom he did not agree. I simply had to stop talking to him about Iraq over the past two years. He could only imagine the lowest motives for those in favor of regime change in Baghdad, and he had a vivid tendency to take any demurral as a personal affront.

But it can be admirable in a way to go through life with one skin too few, to be easily agonized and upset and offended. Too many people survive, or imagine that they do, by coarsening themselves and by protectively dulling their sensitivity to the point of acceptance. This would never be Edward's way. His emotional strength—one has to resort to cliché sometimes—was nonetheless also a weakness.

I was astonished, when reading his memoirs, to learn that such a polished and poised fellow had never lost the sense that he was awkward and clumsy. And yet this man of enviable manners could be both those things when he chose. He did come, as a member of Yasser Arafat's Palestine National Council, to meet at Reagan's State Department with George Shultz. (Indeed, he could claim to have been the intellectual and moral architect of the "mutual recognition" policy of the PLO at the Algiers conference in 1988.) When invited to the summit between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat in Washington in 1993, however—which I happen to know that he was earnestly entreated to attend by the Clinton White House—he told me that it was quite simply beneath his dignity to take part in such a media farce. Now, by no standard did the 1993 meeting sink below the level of the Shultz one, and by no means had Arafat become on that day any more contemptible than Edward later discovered him to be. But it wasn't just that inconsistency that distressed me: It was the feeling that Edward was on the verge of extreme dudgeon before I could press the matter one inch further. I can't shake the feeling that a microcosm of the Israeli-Palestinian agony is contained in this apparently negligible anecdote.

There is at present a coalition, named the Palestinian National Initiative, which never gets reported about. It is an alliance of secular and democratic forces among the Palestinians that rejects both clerical fundamentalism and the venality of the Palestinian "Authority." It was partly launched by Edward Said, and its main spokesman is Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, a distinguished physician and very brave individual, to whom Edward introduced me last year. In our final conversation a few weeks ago, Edward challenged me angrily about my failure to write enough on this neglected group, which certainly enjoys a good deal of popular support and which deserves a great deal more international attention. Perhaps then I can do a last service, and also dip a flag in salute to a fine man, if I invite you to direct your browsers toward the sites for Barghouthi and the PNI.

From first to last, this is unbearable, stupid and sentimental and in many places, flatly false. As for that writing "like a dream" -- it would take about two minutes to edit the piece, cutting here and there, to make the prose, awful as it is (there's nothing to be done about the thoughts and feelings of this "good egg"), much better.

Said was dismembered in feline fashion by Bernard Lewis in "The Question of 'Orientalism'." Last year Robert Irwin's "For Lust of Knowledge," a refutation of Said, essentially a book-length footnote to Lewis' article, appeared. Irwin demonstrates conclusively what many (but not Christopher Hitchens) knew: that Said's misrepresentations of several centuries of distinguished Orientalists was comical in the things he got wrong, the things he left out, his inability to comprehend disinterested curiosity or disinterested scholarship, so foreign were they to the mind and even imagination of Edward Said. Everything that he could get wrong, Edward Said got wrong.

A few months from now Ibn Warraq's "Defending the West: A Response to Edward Said" will be published. [Update: it's available now.] I have read the manuscript. That book deals with how Edward Said, and his acolytes and worshippers and epigones, have so crudely misconceived and misrepresented the nature of the Western world and its art, its literature, its scholarship, its openness to what Said and friends like to call "the Other" and to then claim for that "Other" a long history of victimisation. At long last, here is an end to that Saidian wind that kills, and has had chilling and killing effects for nearly thirty years on innocent students and on fearful or careerist teachers. They have been bullied by Saidism in how they learn about, how they write about, how they teach about, how they comprehend or fail to, works of lasting artistic and literary value produced in the maligned West, works that always and everywhere, in the impoverished and thoroughly politicized mental universe of Edward Said were always reduced to ideological counters, and playthings, and weapons. For one example, consider only Said's comments on Jane Austen, and the reasons for his dismissal of her. Is that the work of a critic? Is that what Samuel Johnson, or Coleridge, or Matthew Arnold, or Jacques Barzun, or Vladimir Nabokov, or anyone of sense at all, would regard as legitimate literary criticism? Said did, and so did his worshippers. And among those worshippers was, for several decades, Christopher Hitchens, who is a "good egg" and who "writes like a dream." And Said did the same in his treatment -- not exactly reminiscent of Gombrich or Panofsky, is Edward Said -- of painters on Oriental themes (and this, too, is dealt with magnificently by Ibn Warraq).

Said's "Orientalism" gave license not only for him but for others to offer the same approach to books and paintings, and the results we see, circumspectly, all about us. And "Orientalism" was not the only ludicrous work that Said produced. There is his work of blatant propaganda, "The Question of Palestine," which a week in the library would cure anyone of taking seriously. It is so full of falsity, so easily rebutted -- but apparently a great many people never took the trouble to rebut it, the same people who go about prating about the "Palestinian people" who since time immemorial have been tilling the soil of a place called "Palestine." One wishes that those who took Said's work seriously, as Hitchens did, would have the decency, before continuing to spout off, to read something sober on the matter, such as the studies by the Australian scholar of jurisprudence Julius Stone, and then the nonsense would stop.

But Christopher Hitchens never had time to spare, and still doesn't, to engage in such reading, though he continues to hold all kinds of self-assured views on the "Palestinians" and on Israel, views entirely unaffected, one might note, by the glimmer of understanding he is beginning to show -- but just a glimmer -- about Islam. Nor would he likely to engage in a thorough study of the demographic and cadastral history of the area known as "Israel" or "Palestine," over the past two millennia or over the past few centuries, or even during the period from the establishment of the Mandate for Palestine. Why should Christopher Hitchens, at any time during the past three decades of pontificating about "Palestine" and the "Palestinians," ever have bothered to study the exact terms and intentions of the Mandates Commission of the League of Nations in establishing that particular Mandate, and how the Charter of the U.N. requires it to honor those terms and intentions, not to change them? That's too much for Christopher Hitchens. He's got a column to write. He's got lectures to give. He's got appearances on television to get ready for. He's got to have opinions on so many things. So many opinions to give, so little time. It would be like asking him to discuss Resolution 242, what those who carefully crafted it intended that Resolution to mean, and who opposed its adoption, or tried before its adoption to change its wording, or who afterwards deliberately denied that it meant what they knew perfectly well it meant (which is why they had tried so long to change it), and endowed it with a different meaning, one which they then convinced many others to accept. Does Christopher Hitchens have the time to find out Lord Caradon said, and Ambassador Arthur Goldberg, and British Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart, about Resolution 242, or such "details" and that little phrase "secure and defensible borders"? Of course he doesn't. It's too complicated, for the broad sweep of that truth-to-power legitimate heir to Orwell, Christopher Hitchens.

Hitchens never saw through Edward Said -- but Edward Said was a collection of things that could be seen through, and were seen through, by those whose, such as Bernard Lewis or Clive Dewey or Keith Windschuttle or a thousand other historians, art historians, literary scholars, were not for one minute taken in by, or inveigled to agreeing with, the primitive notions of art and literature and history that Edward Said held, and put into practice, and preached.

This should not be forgotten or forgiven just because more recently Hitchens has properly denounced George Galloway (is that an achievement?) and others of that ilk. If the bar is to be set that low, then all should win the glittering prizes.

What is offered here is just a sample of the quality of the thought, and of the prose, of Christopher Hitchens. Some are apparently satisfied with little here below -- Norman Mailer, say, rather than Nabokov or Joyce. Some may find Hitchens is perfectly acceptable, a "good egg" who even, another someone suggests, "writes like a dream." But I allow myself to believe that not everyone is so easily pleased, and that many not-easily-pleased souls come to this website because they expect something better, from those not so easily pleased.

Much more might be offered into evidence, but I don't have the time. All kinds of things have come up. But for now that is enough. That is more than enough.

Fitzgerald: The leader Israel needs and deserves

"The Israelis now living in the territories of the future Palestinian state should return to living within the borders of the state of Israel. No Jew in the world, now or in the future, as a result of this document, will have the right to return, to live, or to demand to live in Hebron, in East Jerusalem, or anywhere in the Palestinian state." --Sari Nusseibeh

What makes this outrageous but perfectly believable remark, by a so-called "Palestinian," of such note is that the utterer is one Sari Nusseibeh. Nusseibeh is supposedly the most "moderate" and "reasonable" of “Palestinians” -- because he is "Oxford-educated" (the epithet is Homeric, in Nusseibeh's case) and scion of one of those Arab families of Jerusalem. Left-wing Israelis, Peace-Nowists, and so on, have always loved Sari Nusseibeh.

His declaration that part of the original territory specifically allocated to Mandatory Palestine, which was specifically set up for the creation of the Jewish National Home, will someday soon be off-limits to Jews, is unacceptable. But will those Israelis and American Jews who fell all over themselves singing the praises of Sari Nusseibeh now see that all such hopes were false, that in the end (just as in Iraq) whenever Infidels put their hopes on this or that individual those hopes will be dashed? It is Islam that matters. Nusseibeh is simply being a good and dutiful Muslim. And thank god he has fully revealed himself right now, and not after the idiotic Israelis (surely there is a limit, even for Olmert, Livni, and the unbelievable Haim Ramon) give away more and more of what they have no right to give away.

The Nusseibehs are not as prominent as the Khalidis, the Nashashibis, and slightly lower down on the phylogenetic scale, the Husseinis, the leading Arab families of Jerusalem -- the ones whom many of the British in the Mandatory Authority found so attractive because they were so obsequious, in contradistinction to those noisy, un-obsequious East European Jews -- who were, in addition, devoid of the local color that those Arabs in their keffiyehs or burnooses offered in such abundance. Of course, there were a few who sided, correctly, with the Jews. There were a few who remained immune to antisemitism because they knew the history of the West. They knew what the Jews had meant to Western civilization -- and they knew their Bible.

These men included Colonel John Henry Patterson, who early on helped train the Palestine Legion, and Colonel Meinertzhagen, who was an intelligence officer on General Allenby's staff, and Captain Orde Wingate, who was forced to leave Mandatory Palestine because he had the poor taste to actually train Jews in the art of self-defense when they were being attacked constantly by marauding Arabs in the 1930s. And then back in London there was the inimitable Wyndham Deedes, and in Parliament there was Josiah Wedgewood, and Winston Churchill, who yelled to high heaven about the "betrayal" of the Jews by the British government, not least when the White Paper of 1939, limiting Jewish immigration to 15,000 a year for five years (at a time of the greatest peril) was proposed. These people were not the kind to be impressed by those Arab notables. Nor, if they were alive today, would they be taken in by the likes of "Oxford-educated" Sari Nusseibeh, or for that matter by Tariq Ramadan.

Even the most "moderate" and outwardly acceptable of Slow Jihadists, the kind who can smile, who can speak nearly-native English, turn out, in the end, to be loyal to Islam. They turn out to be loyal to the demand that, little by little, the Infidel nation-state must be destroyed. If the Israelis lose military control of the "West Bank," lose control, that is, of the traditional invasion route from the East, they will be unable to defend themselves. That's it. And if they lose control of the aquifers, the Muslims can interfere with, divert, or even poison the water on which Israelis depend. They must throw out the haim-ramons and the ehud-olmerts, and vote in those who know what the legal, historic, and moral claims of Israel are, and will state them firmly instead of fearfully worrying about offending the people who, in Egypt and among the "Palestinians," would gladly see them dead and their country destroyed, never to be rebuilt again. They will never repeat the mistake the Israeli government recently made in preventing the tapes showing the Egyptians helping Hamas from being shown to members of the American Congress.

And the big subject that no one will touch, the subject of Islam, and the Hate Whose Name We Dare Not Speak (that is, Islam’s general hatred for Infidels, as well as antisemitism), must be talked about -- to save Israel, and to save, as well, the rest of the threatened Infidel world. The first Israeli leader to talk about the Jihad against Israel, and about the attempt to disguise that Jihad, so far quite successful, as a "nationalist" struggle by the recently-invented "Palestinian people," is the one who will help save the people and state of Israel. And they deserve such a leader. They do not deserve what they currently have for "leaders" or, as they say so often in America today, "people taking a leadership role."

Pakistan's Christians prepare for Christmas amid threats and discrimination

We have posted several stories here over the years of Christians in Pakistan being victimized by that country's blasphemy laws. Here is some general background on the situation of Christians there. "Pakistan: Minority Christians prepare to celebrate Christmas," by Syed Saleem Shahzad for AKI (thanks to Insubria):

Karachi, 21 Dec. (AKI) - (by Syed Saleem Shahzad) - The minority Christian community in Pakistan has begun preparations for Christmas.

Although there are reports of Christians facing threats and discrimination in the overwhelmingly Muslim country, members of the community in the southern port city of Karachi are out in force to celebrate the festival.

"We do celebrate Christmas like the Muslims in Pakistan celebrate their Eids," said Herbert Fernandas, president of the Catholic Association of Pakistan in an interview with AKI.

[...]

"The Christians are very happy and have no problem living in Pakistan," a member of the Goan Roman Catholic Community in Karachi, Ralph D'Cruz, told AKI.

"The problems related to militancy and some laws concerning minorities are of some concern but this is for all Pakistanis and nothing specific to Christians or other minorities," said D' Cruz who works as a crime reporter with a government-owned news agency.

"These extremist jihadis are Pakistani establishment's ploy and nothing to do with Pakistani society," said D'Cruz.

"I never faced any problem being a Christian while covering criminal cases or the police department," he added.

D'Cruz's wife, even referred to the positive discrimination her community sometimes faces.

"We are sometimes given preference for jobs as English is our lingua franca," she said.

Despite being a long established community, Christians in other parts of Pakistan have faced problems. There have been reports of Christians in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) facing death threats if they did not convert to Islam.

Christians, like other religious minorities in Pakistan also have to deal with the country's blasphemy laws, which give the death penalty for defiling the Koran or insulting the Prophet, a sweeping definition that can be widely interpreted.

Muslim extremists have been known to use Pakistan's blasphemy laws as an excuse to attack Christians.

Although no Christian in Pakistan has ever been executed under the blasphemy laws, members of the minority community say that they have been victimised under the legislation.

Aftab Alexander Mughal, a Christian and a publisher of a magazine on minority communities, told AKI of a Christian woman named Martha Bibi, who this year was accused and convicted of making derogatory remarks against the Koran and of defiling the Prophet Mohammad.

Bibi has been in jail since January and the High Court in Lahore recently turned down her appeal to have the charges quashed.

It is estimated that it takes about seven to ten years for those convicted in such cases to be freed once the case reaches the Supreme Court.

Mughal said that although, no one found guilty of blasphemy has been hanged so far, some of those charged under the legislation have been killed while in police custody.

Many of those convicted of blasphemy are believed to be Christian.

Vanessa Redgrave helps Guantanamo suspects

Jihad chic.

By Philip Johnston for the Telegraph (thanks to all who sent this in):

Two suspected al-Qa'eda operatives released from Guantanamo Bay have walked free from court although they are still wanted in Spain on terrorism-related offences.

One of the men, who is accused of distributing extremist propaganda produced by Osama bin Laden, had half of his £50,000 bail surety met by the actress Vanessa Redgrave.

Jamil el-Banna, 45, who was said during a brief court hearing to have helped run a cell called the Islamic Alliance, recruiting people to fight jihad in Afghanistan and Indonesia, returned to his London home tonight.

The other man, Omar Deghayes, 38, a Libyan national freed from Guantanamo and allowed into the UK because he once lived here, is said to have had links to the same al-Qa'eda cell. He was also released on bail.

Spain issued European arrest warrants for both men within hours of their arrival in Britain last night from the Cuban detention centre. Miss Redgrave said: "It is a profound honour and I am glad to be alive to be able to do this.''

She added: "Guantanamo Bay is a concentration camp. It is a disgrace that these men have been kept there all these years."

But the City of Westminster Magistrates' Court heard of their alleged links to al-Qa'eda, which raised fresh questions over why the British government interceded on their behalf to allow their return here from Guantanamo....

Malaysian Catholic weekly told to drop use of 'Allah' in order to renew publishing permit

Arabic-speaking Christians generally use the word "Allah" for God -- with the notable exception of the Copts. But they are not referring, of course, to the God of the Qur'an, but to the God of the Bible. And one notable dhimmi bishop in the West has called for Christians to use the word "Allah" for God in order to show good will toward Muslims.

If both groups were in Malaysia, however, it would be a different story. Muslim spokesmen in the West endlessly tell us that Muslims, Jews, and Christians all worship the same God -- in accord with Qur'an 29:46. And when I and others point out that the Muslim view of God is quite different from the view of God of Jews and Christians, and that it is therefore hard to sustain a case that all worship the same God, we're vilified and dismissed. But this decision in Malaysia indicates that it is not we who have originated such ideas; they're held by many Muslims as well.

From The Associated Press (thanks to all who sent this in):

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: A Catholic weekly newspaper in Malaysia has been told to drop the use of the word "Allah" in its Malay language section if it wants to renew its publishing permit, a senior government official said Friday.

The Herald, the organ of Malaysia's Catholic Church, has translated the word God as "Allah" but it is erroneous because Allah refers to the Muslim God, said Che Din Yusoff, a senior official at the Internal Security Ministry's publications control unit.

"Christians cannot use the word Allah. It is only applicable to Muslims. Allah is only for the Muslim god. This is a design to confuse the Muslim people," Che Din told The Associated Press.

The weekly should instead, use the word "Tuhan" which is the general term for God, he said.

"Mr. Soharwardy has to realize he is in a free country now"

Website postings like the ones quoted in this article are obnoxious and wrong. When I see the like here, I take them down. But Ezra Levant is right: "...when someone hurts your feelings, you can respond, write a letter to the editor, call a talk radio show, start a political campaign. But you don't go running to the government."

Or at least he was right. Now that the magazine has apologized, Kathy Shaidle explains exactly what is wrong with such a gesture: "Here we see the difference between shame-based and honor-based cultures at work -- the imam and other Muslims will view this magnanimous gesture as a sign of weakness and more complaints will follow, each one even stupider than the last."

"Anti-Muslim web postings spark rights complaint," by Sean Myers in the Calgary Herald (thanks to Five Feet of Fury):

A local Muslim leader has launched a human rights complaint against the website of a defunct magazine, claiming a recent string of user comments on its blog promote hatred against followers of Islam.

Calgary police are also investigating allegations levelled by Syed Soharwardy of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, that comments on the Shotgun Blog of the Western Standard website advocating violence against Muslims could constitute a hate crime.

The entry, dated Dec. 5 and written by a user named Templar, said, "there is no such thing as innocent Muslims." Templar goes on to write "They must all be killed. All of them."

Syed Soharwardy of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada says comments on the Western Standard website constitute hate-mongering and are "against Canadian values."

Another user, OBC, responds by saying Muslims should be deported from western countries, adding that he'd be "in favour of their eradication" if they "don't behave back there."

"This is absolutely pure hate- mongering," said Soharwardy. "It's an abuse of freedom of speech. It's against Canadian (hate) laws."

Nagah Hage, chairman of the Muslim Council of Calgary which represents the majority of Muslims in the city, said the website should be forced to take down the offensive comments.

"The police have to do something about this," said Hage. "This is racism. This is filling the minds of people with hatred. Who knows what it might lead to down the road."

The original Dec. 2 posting that sparked the user comments was written by former Western Standard publisher Ezra Levant. He was discussing complaints by the Canadian Islamic Congress against Maclean's magazine.

It's the anonymous responses to Levant's posting that have angered Muslim leaders.

Levant, who no longer owns the website or the Western Standard name, said he doesn't personally agree with the comments, but argued they should be protected as free speech.

"In Canada, when someone hurts your feelings, you can respond, write a letter to the editor, call a talk radio show, start a political campaign. But you don't go running to the government," said Levant. "Mr. Soharwardy has to realize he is in a free country now."

But maybe he isn't.

"Magazine apologizes for 'hateful' blog comments," from CBC News (thanks again to Five Feet of Fury):

The Islamic Supreme Council of Canada cancelled a protest planned for Friday in Calgary over anti-Muslim comments made on a Western Standard blog site, after receiving an apology from the magazine's owner.

"Mr. Matthew Johnston, who is the new owner of the Western Standard, he called me last night and he apologized on the phone," Imam Syed Soharwardy, president of the Islamic council, said Friday.

[...]

The imam said Johnston told him the statements were hateful and offended not only Muslims but also the management and readers of the Western Standard, and that the magazine would try to better monitor what's posted on its site.

"They will have responsible journalism and editing and monitoring of their blog," Soharwardy said. "I thank him for his recognition of the problem and doing exactly what we wanted him to do, is to apologize and make sure it does not happen again."

The human rights complaints have now been withdrawn, he said.

Tariq Ramadan's suit for a U.S. visa thrown out

'Tis the season: Tariq Ramadan... Tariq Ramadan... Tariq Ramadan, prospero año y felicidad

An update on this story. "Islamic Scholar’s Suit for a Visa Is Rejected," by Alan Feuer for the New York Times:

Saying the government had acted properly and for “bona fide” reasons, a federal judge threw out a lawsuit on Thursday that was brought last year by an Islamic scholar who claimed that a portion of the Patriot Act had been used to deny him a work visa to enter the United States.

The judge, Paul A. Crotty of Federal District Court in Manhattan, said the Patriot Act had not, in fact, been used to deny the visa to the scholar, Tariq Ramadan, who was trying to enter the United States from his home in Switzerland in 2004 after being hired to teach an Islamic ethics course at the University of Notre Dame.

Judge Crotty said the government’s decision was made because, in a four-year period, Mr. Ramadan had given $1,336 to a Swiss charity later designated as a terrorist group.

Mr. Ramadan, a respected academic and a grandson of Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, a once-militant group, sought to portray himself in the suit as a victim of the Patriot Act and as a standard-bearer for academic freedom. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the suit on his behalf as well as on behalf of the American Academy of Religion, the American Association of University Professors and the PEN American Center.

"Once-militant." Bridge for sale!

The suit claimed that a portion of the Patriot Act denying visas to people who “endorse or espouse terrorist activity” was unconstitutional and that the free speech rights of the academic groups had been violated because they could not meet with Mr. Ramadan in the United States.

The government originally said Mr. Ramadan was denied the visa under the Patriot Act but later said it was because of his contributions. Mr. Ramadan maintained that from 1998 to 2002, when he made the donations to the charity, Association de Secours Palestinien, he did not know that it supported terrorism — specifically the Palestinian group Hamas. He also argued that the charity was not officially designated a terrorist group by the United States until 2003, after his donations had stopped.

Judge Crotty nonetheless ruled that he had not provided “clear and convincing” evidence that he was unaware of the charity’s links to terrorism.

In his 32-page ruling, Judge Crotty said American consular officials could bar foreigners from entering the country, without judicial review, if they could prove that there were legitimate and bona fide reasons for doing so. The judge did not address the Patriot Act issue because his ruling was based on the contributions.

Jameel Jaffer, Mr. Ramadan’s lawyer, said the decision was “legally wrong” and “deeply unfair.” He said he anticipated an appeal.

President of Al-Quds University in Jerusalem: Jews will not be allowed in Palestinian state

In this Dr. Sari Nusseibeh goes farther even than Hamas. Hamas spokesmen have discussed restoring the dhimma and charging the jizya to Jews and Christians in a Palestinian state. But Nusseibeh wouldn't even allow Jews in.

"Palestinian Researcher Dr. Sari Nusseibeh on the Return of Palestinian Refugees," from MEMRI (thanks to Cinnamon Stillwell):

Following are excerpts from an interview with Dr. Sari Nusseibeh, Dean of Al-Quds University, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on November 30, 2007:

[...]

The Israelis now living in the territories of the future Palestinian state should return to living within the borders of the state of Israel. No Jew in the world, now or in the future, as a result of this document, will have the right to return, to live, or to demand to live in Hebron, in East Jerusalem, or anywhere in the Palestinian state.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights or Islamic Charter?

Two NGOs appealed today to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louis Arbour on the possible conflict between the 1948 Universal Declaration for Human Rights and the 1990 Cairo Declaration for Human Rights in Islam -- with shari’a law as “the only source of reference” (articles 24 and 25). Their Appeal for a legal ruling was prompted by the message of the Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, posted on the OIC website on Human Rights Day (December 10). It stated that the OIC was “considering the establishment of [an] independent permanent body to promote Human Rights in the [56] Member States in accordance with the provisions of the OIC Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam and to elaborate an OIC Islamic Charter on Human Rights.” Will an Islamic Charter soon prevail over Universal Human Rights?

Report by David G. Littman, in his capacity as representative of the World Union of Progressive Judaism (WUPJ) to the United Nations Office in Geneva: "This letter from two NGOs representing over 6 million members -- the World Union for Progressive Judaism and the International Humanist and Ethical Union -- was faxed to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour on Friday December 21."

December 21, 2007

Your Excellency,

Primacy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The message of OIC Secretary-General, Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, on the occasion of Human Rights Day has just come to our attention, and his statement is noteworthy. It reads, in part:

Respect of Human Rights through effective protection and promotion of equality, civil liberties and social justice is a milestone in the OIC Ten Year Plan of Action. In this regard the OIC General Secretariat is considering the establishment of [an] independent permanent body to promote Human Rights in the Member States in accordance with the provisions of the OIC Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam and to elaborate an OIC Charter on Human Rights. The OIC is also committed to encourage its member States to reinforce their national laws and regulations in order to guaranty strict respect for Human Right[s].” [italics and bold type added] (http://www.oic-oci.org/oicnew/topic_print.asp?t_id=708).

On Friday, 14 December, I handed to you the two statements we addressed to the Council on 11 December, one concerning Darfur, the other the primacy of the UDHR. We were, however, unable to complete the latter statement because of a procedural ruling by the President, Ambassador Toru Romulus da Costea, but it was officially circulated at the plenum with the Secretariat’s approval. In this statement, we noted:

We were surprised that Pakistan’s Ambassador Masood Khan, speaking yesterday morning on behalf of the OIC, claimed that the Cairo Declaration was “not an alternative competing worldview on human rights”, but failed to mention the shari’a law as “the only source of reference” (articles 24 and 25) in that same Declaration – the shari’a law where there is no equality between Muslim men and women, and between Muslims and non-Muslims.

The Final Communiqué of the Third Extraordinary Session of the Islamic Summit held in Mecca on 7-8 December 2005 (…) provides a clear message regarding the UN system of human rights:

The Conference called for considering the possibility of establishing an independent permanent body to promote human rights in Member States as well as the possibility in preparing an Islamic Charter on Human Rights in accordance with the provisions of the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam and interact with the United Nations and other relevant international bodies.

We seriously question whether such a body would be “complementary” to the Human Rights Council or whether, given the wording of the Cairo Declaration, it will have shari’a law as its “only source of reference” and be seen as an alternative.

On 14 September 2000, in reply to a communication from the Association for World Education as to the “universality” of the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam published in Volume II: Regional Instruments, OHCHR, 1997, pp. 477-84 of, A Compilation of International Instruments), the legal advisor to the then HCHR replied:

The Member States which have acceded to and ratified United Nations Human Rights Conventions remain bound, under all circumstances, by the provisions of those texts as well as the erge omnes obligations under customary international law.

We are writing to you today to request an official ruling from your legal advisor as to whether the above official statement on Human Rights Day by the OIC Secretary General -- in regard to the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam and a future “Islamic Charter” based on shari’a law -- would clash with the UDHR and the Universal Instruments (in A Compilation... Volume I, 1993).

Please accept our season’s greetings, and our sincere appreciation for your multifarious effort in holding to the highest standards of human rights and in guiding the international community along that straight and narrow path toward an appreciation of the universality of the UDHR.

Respectfully,
David G. Littman
WUPJ Representative, UN-Geneva
Beith-GIL, 12 Quai du Seujet, 1201 Geneva

Roy W. Brown
IHEU Main Representative. UN-Geneva
1 Gower Street, London WC1E 6HD, UK

Cultural capitulation: Swedish Judge Proposes Approving Bill Permitting Polygamy

Eurabia Alert. So says the MEMRI Blog (thanks to Barry): "Swedish Judge Proposes Approving Bill Permitting Polygamy":

A leading Swedish judge, Prof. Stefan Lindskog, has submitted a draft bill permitting polygamy in Sweden, explaining that "the law should not interfere in religious matters or in matters pertaining to each individual."

The draft bill which expresses an essential change in the outlook of Sweden's religious establishment, is expected to spark extensive debate.

Source: Alarabiya.net, December 16, 2007

Islamic pressure closing churches in Indonesia

Islamic Tolerance Alert from CWNews.com (thanks to Twostellas):

Jakarta, Dec. 20, 2007 (CWNews.com) - The Indonesian Catholic bishops have called public attention to rising Islamic pressure against Christian churches, Vatican Radio reports.

Bishop Martinus Situmorang of Padang, the president of the country's episcopal conference, is the co-author of a new report on the campaign by Muslim activists to close down Christian churches. The report shows that from 2004 through 2007, 108 churches have been closed because of Islamic pressure.

The report notes that Indonesia's constitution guarantees freedom of religion, and challenged the government to honor that promise, protecting the Christian minority from Muslim extremists.

Don't hold your breath.

N.Y. Appeals Court Opens Door to 'Libel Tourism'

Judicial Stupidity Alert. This kind of ruling could ultimately preclude all counterjihad writing. An update on this story. By Joseph Goldstein in the New York Sun (thanks to all who sent this in):

New York's highest court has passed up an opportunity to protect American authors from the libel judgments of foreign courts. In a decision handed down yesterday, the Court of Appeals in Albany told a New York-based researcher that she could not use the courts here to challenge a British judgment ordering her to pay 30,000 British pounds — more than $60,000 — for defaming a Saudi billionaire.

The case was a test of how New York's courts will respond to concerns that the First Amendment rights of American authors are undermined by libel judgments imposed abroad, especially in Britain.

Libel law in Britain is far more plaintiff-friendly than libel law in America. This discrepancy has given rise to a practice that critics call "libel tourism." In recent years, American authors and journalists have found themselves sued by non-British nationals in British courts over articles and books published in America.

The researcher, Rachel Ehrenfeld, had asked a court in New York to declare the British judgment against her unenforceable under the First Amendment.

But the Court of Appeals said a New York court first needed jurisdiction over the Saudi financier who brought the case, Khalid bin Mahfouz, before it could take up Ms. Ehrenfeld's countersuit. The court found that Mr. Mahfouz had so few dealings involving New York that no local court had jurisdiction over a suit against him.

The decision does not preclude Ms. Ehrenfeld from challenging the judgment if Mr. Mahfouz goes to court in New York to try to collect. But Ms. Ehrenfeld's attorney, Daniel Kornstein, has said having the judgment hanging over Ms. Ehrenfeld has affected her research and writing, regardless of whether Mr. Mahfouz tries to collect in a New York court.

Read it all.

Fitzgerald: They prate and they blather, and Islam marches on

PARIS (EJP)---The French National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism has denounced a reported violent anti-Semitic aggression last Saturday in the 10th district of Paris….

One of the aggressors, Raymond reported, was a raid-haired man who did not cease swearing on the Koran while beating his victim. -- from this news article

The police will have to step up patrols in neighborhoods known to be Jewish, and to guard Jewish sites. They will more and more have to guard Christian churches from those intent on vandalizing the statuary (as happened to a statue of the Virgin and Christ in a church in northern France) and paintings -- not only because of their Christian imagery, but because they are paintings.

How much money does the French state spend now in protecting non-Muslim sites? How much will it have to spend in the future? How much money does the French state spend now on the free education, free health care (and obstetrical care), and free or subsidized housing for the millions of Muslim immigrants who fiddle the system for everything it is worth, and more, and whose male children spend their days vandalizing the property of non-Muslims (the usual thousand cars a day, or in moments of heightened tension, the figure goes up to many thousands)?

How much damage is done to the educational system, once the pride of France, the product of careful thought by nineteenth-century pedagogues (every little town has a "Jules-Ferry" school, to honor the most famous one), because undisciplined and even violent Muslim students intimidate not only non-Muslim French students, but the teachers too. They refuse to read about, inter alia, Voltaire, French Kings, the Holocaust, World War II, or anything that they think is purely a matter for Infidels, or might evoke sympathy for Jews, or might be associated with anti-Islamic attitudes (Voltaire is disliked because of his play "Mahomet"). How much has life in France been degraded by the fact of large-scale Muslim immigration?

And what intelligent Frenchman today would or could disagree with the observation that the large-scale presence of Muslims in European countries has led to a situation that is far more unpleasant, expensive, and physically dangerous for its Infidel indigenous inhabitants (and for non-indigenous immigrants who are not Muslims), than would be the case without such a large-scale presence?

Only those who are psychically marginal, that is on the maddened Far Left and on the antisemitic Far Right (their obsession with Jews prevents them from recognizing, or caring, about the threat from Islam) would disagree with that statement.

All others will agree -- some readily, and some, still, most reluctantly. But they will agree.

And so will those in Great Britain, Italy, Spain, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden. But the councils -- and counsels -- of the ruling elites will continue to pretend otherwise. For if they did not do so, they would have to do two things.

First, they would have to admit that those same elites had made a terrible error during the past thirty years, when they allowed in so many Muslim immigrants without adequately informing themselves. The warnings were there, in France as elsewhere, from Western scholars of Islam, such as Charles-Emmanuel Dufourcq, and from such well-known intellectuals as Jacques Ellul. They let them in on the unexamined theory that these were merely "economic immigrants" like any others, that they would either be Gastarbeiter (those Turks who were all going to move back to Turkey from Germany) or, in any case, would simply become upstanding loyal citizens, and their children and grandchildren too, to the Infidel nation-state, to its legal and political institutions, and to its ideas about human freedom and individual autonomy. That has happened, but only among those who have either jettisoned Islam (sometimes openly, sometimes quietly) altogether, or -- not quite sure of themselves, and with the possibility open that they, or their descendants, may "get religion" once again -- have become "cultural Muslims." That’s a way of saying: I don't believe the religious stuff, but I continue to identify with, and thus may even inadvertently promote, the "civilization of Islam." It has also happened among "Muslim-for-identification-purposes-only" Muslims, again with the same problem: that the laic father, if he doesn't make a clean break as an apostate, may give rise to a reverting-to-full-fledged-Islam son.

Second, those same elites would have now to realize that they have a permanent and terrible problem on their hands. And they are trying not to do that, because they don't have any idea even as to how to begin to talk about this properly, or to lead those whom they presume to protect and instruct to see things rightly.

How can they, after all, since it is those elites -- political and media elites -- that have done the damage to those people they now must help to inform. And those elites do not know how to start talking about the kind of measures that must be now adopted, other than those of securing the sites most likely to be subject to Muslim attack, and to monitoring and interrupting the plots of Muslim terrorists (which is a gigantic effort, involving many man-hours of police, lawyers, judges). They cannot face the matter of Da'wa, or of Muslim immigration. They cannot face the necessity of making it impossible for outside Muslims to pay for mosques, madrasas, and campaigns of Da'wa (seizing money that comes from Saudis abroad if the Al-Saud fail to stop the practice).

The elites in the Western world do not impress. They failed, they are still failing, to recognize the collapse of public education, one not to be rectified by such making-a-silk-purse-out-of-a-sow's-ears efforts such as that "no-child-left-behind" program that merely makes the best students into a persecuted minority, doomed to be kept back by the levelling tendencies apparent everywhere in American society (except, of course, when it comes to money, and then as far as differences go, the sky's the limit).

The day of recognition, the day that fateful anagnorisis comes, is being delayed by those elites. They prate. Sarkozy prates about "integration" and "government-funded mosques." Blair used to prate about "extremists" who "hijacked a peaceful religion" which he, Tony Blair, found truly inspirational (he kept a Qur'an in his pocket). They prate about this, they prate about that.

And so do our Presidential candidates. They prate and they blather. Meanwhile, Islam marches on.

Footage of Egyptian police helping Hamas not shown to Congress over Israeli diplomats' fear of "infuriating Egypt"

"That the tape was not shown to Congress reflects a desire by Israel's political and diplomatic echelon not to escalate tension with Cairo by becoming directly involved in lobbying against Egypt in Congress."

While diplomats dither over protocol, the weapons keep going over the border. And Egypt is certainly counting on that pattern to continue so that it can avoid being held accountable. "Why the US hasn't seen smuggling tapes," by Herb Keinon and Yaakov Katz for the Jerusalem Post:

Despite efforts by the country's top security echelon to share with Congress videotapes of Egypt assisting Hamas in arms smuggling, the footage has been shown only to some administration officials and never made it to Congress, to avoid infuriating the Egyptians, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The videotapes included footage of Egyptian border policemen allegedly assisting a group of close to 80 Hamas terrorists crossing illegally into Gaza through a hole they had cut in the border fence.

Defense officials said there was also evidence that the Egyptians were assisting Hamas with smuggling weapons into the Gaza Strip under the Philadelphi Corridor.

The decision to send the tapes to the Israeli Embassy in Washington was made by Israel's top defense echelon to influence the appropriations process in Congress ahead of a decision to withhold part of the foreign aid granted to Egypt.

That the tape was not shown to Congress reflects a desire by Israel's political and diplomatic echelon not to escalate tension with Cairo by becoming directly involved in lobbying against Egypt in Congress.

For months there has been a debate inside the government over how directly Israel should get involved in the issue inside Washington.

The perception that won the day this time was that over-involvement would be seen by Cairo as an infringement of certain diplomatic "rules" between the two countries and could lead to a major crisis.

The Bush administration is also opposed to pushing too far on the issue at the present time.

The defense establishment believes that showing the tapes can be an effective way of pressuring Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak into clamping down on Hamas's smuggling activities.

"If key congressmen and senators see this, then it will provide a clear picture of the situation and ensure that the money is withheld," a senior official said. "When this happens, Mubarak will feel that he has no choice but to stop the smuggling."

Congress on Wednesday sent a foreign aid bill to US President George W. Bush that for the first time conditions some Egyptian military aid on its efforts to crack down on smuggling into Gaza and improving its human rights record.

According to the legislation, $100 million of the $1.3 billion in Egyptian military aid has been set aside until the secretary of state certifies that Egypt has met these obligations, though the secretary can waive the requirements if she feels holding back the $100m. would harm American national security interests.

An earlier version of the bill would have held back $200m. and not have given the secretary of state a waiver, but it was watered down throughout the process.

Still, critics of Egypt's activities feel that the move sends a strong message that Congress is watching the country and is willing to take some moves that might anger what the administration feels is a key US ally.

Also, according to Washington sources, part of the rationale of continuing with the military aid - begun as part of the Camp David Accords - is that some of it will be used to combat smuggling.

Pakistani family, converts from Islam to Christianity, in hiding after death threats

Islamic Tolerance Alert: "Pakistan Couple And Children Threatened With Death For Embracing Christ," by Jawad Mazhar for BosNewsLife (thanks to Religion of Peace):

SARGODHA, PAKISTAN (BosNewsLife)-- A Pakistani Christian couple said Tuesday, December 18, they have gone into hiding in Pakistan's northeastern city of Sargodha because Muslim relatives threaten to kill them and their children for embracing Christianity.

Salhey Luca, a former Muslim, and his wife Tasneem John told BosNewsLife they have been "receiving death threats by Luca’s Muslim siblings" in this predominantly Muslim country "after accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior."

The couple said they also fear for the lives of their four daughters Sabahat Iqra, 14, Sanobar Maria, 11, Sarcilla Iffat, 10, and Sabeqa Ulffat, 7, and their only son, five-year-old Zephaniah Anjum.

Speaking by telephone from an undisclosed location, Tasneem John, who was raised in a Christian family, said the troubles began when her husband embraced Christianity five years into their marriage "in March 1997," after abandoning Islam. John said her his conversion was a dangerous step as her husband belonged to "a very conservative Islamic religious family."

DANGEROUS CONVERSION

Luca said soon after his conversion to Christianity family members, including his two sisters and only brother, now deceased, "turned against" him and his family. “My sisters even tried to force me to divorce my Christian wife and recant Christianity, otherwise they threaten to kill us” he added, his voice trembling. They are also trying to illegally occupy the couple’s inherited part of cultivated land, Luca said.

This year the situation worsened when Muslim in-laws allegedly stepped up the pressure and twice tried to kidnap the couple’s daughters from the girls’ hostel in the city of Rawalpindi near the capital Islamabad where they live and study.

John said that on September 11 this year Muslim in-laws and a Muslim security guard of the girls hostel "kidnapped" her eldest daughter Sabahat Iqra from the hostel. “Luckily Sabahat Iqra managed to escape from the vehicle of the kidnappers, as they stopped at a traffic signal and reached home," she said. Soon after in-laws allegedly tried to kidnap her second daughter as well, but this time they failed by “the grace of Lord Jesus Christ," she claimed.

Canada: Choir drops 'Christmas' from carol

So as not to offend those who celebrate neither Christmas nor Hanukkah. Hmmm. Whom might that be?

Western Cultural Self-Abnegation Update: "Choir drops 'Christmas' from carol," by Tony Lofaro for CanWest News Service (thanks to PRCS):

OTTAWA -- One of the more popular Christmas songs is getting a slight retooling by an Ottawa elementary school choir so as not to offend any students.

The teachers leading the Elmdale Public School choir -- made up of Grade 2 and 3 students -- have dropped the word Christmas from Silver Bells and replaced it with the word "festive."

So, when the choir performs the song tomorrow at a singalong assembly, instead of singing the line "soon it will be Christmas day" they will say "soon it will be a festive day."

[...]

The other songs in the musical program are Candles of Hanukkah, Candles of Christmas; Pere Noel and It's Christmas generally reflect the feelings about the holiday season, as well as the themes of Hanukkah and Christmas, she said.

"The choir teachers are trying to be as inclusive as they can be because not everybody is celebrating either Christmas or Hanukkah," Ms. Marinigh said.

The initiative for the lyric change came from the teachers and was not something imposed by the school board, she said.

"They [teachers] wanted to have a song that emphasized the holiday spirit, so they just changed the Silver Bells song to reflect a more generic flavour."

She said she supports the teachers' decision to alter the song, saying their intent in this case was not a problem.

"The idea in public schools is that everybody feels welcome and has a sense of comfort with the celebrations. I think it's being sensitive to not only the students in the choir, but also to the general population," she said.

Especially those pesky segments of the general population who might fly into a murderous rage at the drop of a hat, or a teddy bear, or a cartoon, or a Christmas carol.

Fatwa against television trashed

Haram?

Deobandi authorities have declared television sinful. But other Muslim authorities are unhappy with the ruling.

From the Telegraph (Calcutta), with thanks to Twostellas:

Lucknow, Dec. 19: Television is “haram (sinful)” and even watching religious programmes is not acceptable, an Islamic seminary said in a fatwa that has been trashed by scholars and community leaders.

The fatwa was issued by the Dar-ul Uloom in Deoband, near Muzaffarnagar, in response to a madarsa teacher’s plea to clarify whether watching Islamic channels and televised debates on religious issues was right.

The edict is being seen as regressive. “If watching TV is anti-Islamic, why do we watch Haj on TV?” asked Khalid Rashid Firangi Mahali of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board.

Khalid questioned how the clerics at Deoband, who are no strangers to television and often come on camera during debates, could take such a stand.

“These matters (watching Islamic channels) are related to religion, so you should see from whom you are taking your religion. You should learn from authentic and pious people,” the fatwa, issued on December 8, said.

The Deoband clerics argued that while television “is a tool of entertainment and enjoyment”, it was mostly used for “unlawful and prohibited things”.

A Dar-ul Uloom spokesperson tried to fend off the criticism, saying its muftis had always said fatwas were only an “interpretation” of Islamic law and not something that was being “pushed down the throats of people”.

“It is not compulsory for Muslims to follow it,” he said.

Rest easy, Uncle Miltie.

EU to help Palestinian trade with Arab countries

What exactly do the "Palestinians" produce, besides jihad propaganda kitsch? And isn't the multibillion dollar aid package enough? Or if they are engaging in trade, is the multibillion dollar aid package ultimately needed?

"PNA: EU To Help Palestinian Trade With Arab Countries," from ANSAmed (thanks to Insubria):

(ANSAmed) - BRUSSELS, DECEMBER 19 - The European Commission has signed an agreement with the Palestine Trade Centre (PalTrade) and the Palestinian Shippers' Council (PSC), to help promote Palestinian trade with neighbouring Arab countries and improve market access for Palestinian products. The project, which is worth 432.614 euro, will last for 17 months. The first phase of the project will involve comprehensive research and identification of the improvements for existing trade corridors into Egypt and Jordan. The private sector will be heavily involved in this research phase, providing in-depth analysis of the current situation, and recommendations for the future. The second component of the project will focus on engaging the Palestinian and Israeli public sectors, as well as officials in third countries (Jordan, Egypt), to promote policies and measures that will help to facilitate trade. The project will also produce an Export Information Guide on trade logistics for the use of Palestinian exporters. In addition, it will provide logistical cost analysis on importing from Egypt and Jordan.(ANSAmed).

Arabs Desecrate Graves of Biblical Joshua and Caleb

Jahiliyya Alert. By Ezra HaLevi in Israel National News (thanks to Neil):

(IsraelNN.com) Jewish worshippers Tuesday were stunned to find Arabs had desecrated the graves of the Biblical Joshua, Caleb and Nun (Joshua’s father).

Joshua served as the Jewish Nation's Prime Minister from the year 2488 until 2516 on the Hebrew calendar (1272 BCE - 1300 BCE).

Members of the One Shechem organization that organizes visits to the graves arrived in the village of Timnat (Kifl) Haress, near Ariel in Samaria, to prepare for a special prayer gathering, discovered that Arab vandals had desecrated the village’s Jewish tombs. The tombs of Yehoshua (Joshua) ben Nun, Nun, and Calev (Caleb) ben Yefuneh were covered with garbage and feces – both human and animal, and anti-Semitic and Nazi slogans and symbols had been painted in the area.

Islamic scholar opposes ban on female circumcision

It has nothing to do with Islam, we're endlessly told. Yet those who object to its banning so often turn out to be...Islamic scholars.

By Marwa Al-A'Sar for DPA (thanks to all who sent this in):

In an act that has sparked outrage among Egyptian women's rights activists, a controversial Islamic scholar filed a lawsuit against the minister of health protesting against a recent ban on female circumcision, a practice referred to by rights groups as female genital mutilation (FGM).

Egyptian Sheikh Youssif al-Badri claims the ministerial decree violates the Egyptian Constitution as well as Islamic principles.

Conservative Muslim and Christian Egyptian families have their daughters circumcised as a means to preserve their chastity. Recent studies revealed that about 90% of Egyptian women have been subjected to the practice.

In June, the Health Ministry banned doctors and nurses from carrying out the procedure. The announcement followed the death of an 11-year-old girl in Upper Egypt as a result of the procedure. Medics who carry out circumcisions may face imprisonment and being stripped of their medical licences.

While al-Badri argues that the practice is necessary in curbing women's sexual inclinations, women's rights activists and physicians disapprove of his view.

"Many of the circumcised women who seek our help were traumatised, having no ability to lead a normal sex life, which affects their relationships with their husbands," said Nihad Abul-Qomsan, head of the Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights.

She accused Muslim sheikhs in the Arab world of being distracted from the vital issues. "No one of the sheikhs coming up with such arguments has ever considered in his agenda the deteriorating socio-economic conditions we are undergoing," she noted. "Instead they try to play the role of the Islam advocates."

Egypt's top Islamic and Christian authorities were quick to voice support for the ban, saying the practice had no basis either in the Qur'an or in the Bible.

"The Constitution is based on the Islamic sharia law, which does not stipulate FGM, giving a wife the right to enjoy sex with her husband," Khalil Mustafa Khalil, who holds a master's degree in FGM legislation, told the independent al-Badeel newspaper.

US approves 785 million dollar aid for Pakistan

No strings attached. No conditions about fighting against the jihad. The Bush Administration made sure of that. From ANI (thanks to PRCS):

Washington, Dec 19 (ANI): The US House of Representatives has passed a 785 million dollar aid package for Pakistan for the fiscal year 2008 despite its reservations over the state of emergency imposed on November 3.

The US Senate is also expected to approve the package, which includes 300 million dollar of military assistance. The other major item on the approved list is that of 350 million dollar for economic support fund.

The package for Pakistan includes 50.9 million dollar of development assistance, 39.8 million dollar for child survival and health, 10.3 million dollar for anti-terrorism activities, 32 million dollar for anti-narcotics efforts, and two million for training and education of military officers in the United States.

This is part of a five-year 3.5 billion dollar package signed in June 2003, when President Pervez Musharraf visited the Camp David presidential resort for a meeting with President George W. Bush.

The bill approved by the House also includes a provision authorising the Bush Administration to provide assistance to build the capacity of Pakistan's other security forces critical to the success of counter-terrorist operations....

One resolution calls for conditioning US military assistance to "demonstrable progress by the government of Pakistan in achieving certain objectives" towards the restoration of full democracy.

But the Bush Administration warned the lawmakers not to attach conditions to US assistance to Pakistan.

Censorship In The Name Of 'Human Rights'

"Canada's human rights tribunals, once tools for fighting racism and discrimination, have been transformed into a politically correct shakedown racket." Indeed.

By Ezra Levant in the National Post (thanks to all who sent this in):

The Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) is taking Maclean's magazine to a human rights commission. Its crime? Refusing the CIC's absurd demand that Maclean's print a five-page letter to the editor in response to an article the CIC didn't like.

It may shock those who do not follow human rights law in Canada, but Maclean's will probably lose.

Forcing editors to publish rambling letters is not a human right in Canada. But that's not how the CIC worded their complaint, filed with the B.C., Ontario and federal human rights commissions. Maclean's is "flagrantly Islamophobic" and "subjects Canadian Muslims to hatred and contempt" according to a CIC statement. "I felt personally victimized," said Khurrum Awan at the CIC's recent press conference. All this because Maclean's dared to run a column discussing the demographic rise of Islam in the West.

It's a new strategy for the CIC, which in the past has tried unsuccessfully to sue news media it disagreed with -- including the National Post -- using Canada's defamation laws. But Canada's civil courts aren't the best tool for that sort of bullying. In a defamation lawsuit, the CIC would have to hire its own lawyers, follow the rules of court and prove that it suffered real damages -- and the newspapers would have truth and fair comment as defences. Launching a nuisance suit against Maclean's would result in an embarrassing loss for the CIC, a court order to pay the magazine's legal fees and it would deepen the CIC's reputation as a group of radicals who don't understand Canadian values. (Three years ago, Mohamed Elmasry, the CIC's Egyptian-born president, declared that every adult Jew in Israel is a legitimate target for terrorists).

So civil lawsuits won't work. Criminal charges are a non-starter, too: Canada's hate-speech laws are reserved for extreme acts of incitement, and charges can only be laid with the approval of the justice minister. And in criminal court, the accused must be proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. No chance there.

That's why human rights commissions are the perfect instrument for the CIC. The CIC doesn't even have to hire a lawyer: Once the complaint has been accepted by the commissions, taxpayers' dollars and government lawyers are used to pursue the matter. Maclean's, on the other hand, will have to hire its own lawyers with its own money. Rules of court don't apply. Normal rules of evidence don't apply. The commissions are not neutral; they're filled with activists, many of whom aren't even lawyers and do not understand the free-speech safeguards contained in our constitution.

And the punishments that these commissions can order are bizarre. Besides fines to the government and payments to complainants, defendants can be forced to "apologize" for having unacceptable political or religious opinions.

Read it all.

Iran: Women excluded from sports in the name of Islam

"Severe punishment will be meted out to those who do not follow Islamic rules during sporting competitions." From AKI (thanks to all who sent this in):

Tehran, 19 Dec. (AKI) - The vice president of the Iranian Olympic Committee, Abdolreza Savar, has announced new rules to fight what he defines as the sport's "subjugation to western customs and practices."

In a memorandum sent to all sporting federations, Savar, who is in-charge of the "proper behaviour of male and female athletes" said that "severe punishment will be meted out to those who do not follow Islamic rules during sporting competitions" both local and abroad.

The memorandum also said that "no male coach can train or accompany the athletes when they travel abroad."

"If female trainers are not found, our female teams will not participate in international competitions," said Savar.

Iran's athletes are considered among the best in the Middle East, but due to severe restrictions imposed by the government, women are sometimes excluded from competition and prevented from fully exploiting their potential.

An example of this is the Iranian volleyball team, which has not been able to qualify to any international competition, as it does not have a trainer.

"In volleyball there aren't any female trainers capable, and the Olympic committee does not allow us to employ males to train the female team," said Saiid Derakhshandeh, president of the Iranian Voleyball Federation.

Iran's voleyball team was once considered to be among the best in Asia.

Radio Mullah vs Gandhara Buddha

Oh, what fun they'll have in Europe.

A report on the jihad against the Buddha of Jehanabad, by Caroline Watson in Asia Times (thanks to Twostellas):

"Impermanence or decay is the inherent nature of everything that exists in the universe - whether animate or inanimate." - Buddhist teaching

PESHAWAR- On December 15, President Pervez Musharraf addressed the nation. Pakistan's state of emergency is over, he said, and the country can look ahead to free and fair elections in January. Although Musharraf may have had power-clutching motives for declaring the emergency last month, one key reason he has repeatedly given for the move was the emergence of Pakistan's new pro-Taliban frontline in the Swat Valley.

Following the imposition of the emergency, military operations in the Swat Valley began. Swathes of Pakistan's troubled North-West Frontier Province were placed under strict curfew. As pro-Taliban militants fought the military, families in the areas which saw the worst clashes, like Shangla, were forced to leave their homes. Swat found itself amid a war of ideas and beliefs, a war for the imposition of hardline sharia (Islamic) law.

This is where the Swat Valley finds itself now. But, long ago, this area was a capital of the Gandhara civilization. A mighty empire, under a dynasty of Buddhist Kushun kings. At that time these lush alpine valleys must have been filled with thousands of statues and examples of Buddhist art, furnished by the rich civilization that reigned.

Now there is only one such statue left - the Buddha of Jehanabad. A beacon of Gandhara heritage, the Buddha of Jehanabad is the only remaining Buddha of its size and quality carved into the rock in the area. Standing at 23 feet, the 7th-century statue is considered the most important carving of its kind. It is unique, the most complete and priceless remains of Gandhara.

Recently, the Buddha of Jehanabad come into conflict with another famous personality of the region: the cleric-turned-militant who has led the campaign in the Swat Valley, Maulana Fazlullah - the "Radio Mullah".

The Buddha of Jehanabad lost. The statue suffered two attacks by militants led by Maulana Fazlullah. The second attack succeeded in seriously defacing it after explosives were detonated on the Buddha's face.

Quiet outrage has been expressed by a few. Others have grown numb to such acts, for they have happened before: this was a copycat attack, mimicking the destruction in 2001of Afghanistan's Bamyian Buddhas.

In March 2001, the world recoiled as the Taliban began dynamiting the giant statues and continued for several weeks until the Buddhas were destroyed. As the Taliban ascended to power, they banned all forms of imagery, music and sports, including television. In March 2001 they declared that "all the statues should be destroyed because these statues have been used as idols and deities by the non-believers before". The Swat Valley's Buddha of Jehanabad was considered second in importance after the Buddhas of Bamyian.

The defacement of the Buddha has come to symbolize the changing face of Swat. Swat was once a favorite tourist spot - the "Switzerland of South Asia". Domestic and foreign visitors flocked to the green, peaceful valleys, in the foothills of the Hindu Kush. In winter, they sped down its ski slopes. The region's cultural heritage, fronted by the Buddha of Jehanabad, was a major attraction and a testament to its long and diverse history.

The Swat Valley was famed for its peace, serenity and beauty. But, today, its public image is dominated by another imposing figure. With a taste for the theatric and an eye on his own supremacy, Maulana Fazlullah is holding Swat in an ever-increasing grip.

Judge Bans Mass Lamb Slaughter On First Day Of Islamic Holiday

Watch for the howls from the rights groups. From AP (thanks to all who sent this in):

SMITHFIELD, N.C. -- Hundreds of Muslim families don't have a place to perform a religious ceremony to start the three-day Islamic holiday, Eid al-Adha.

A Johnston County judge refused Tuesday to lift a ban on a farmer hosting a mass slaughter of lambs on Wednesday, the first day of a holiday also known as the Festival of Sacrifice.

Judge Tom Lock barred the slaughter at a farm owned by Eddie Rowe at the request of state agriculture officials, who said the farm does not have proper sanitary facilities.
sponsor

Several Muslim families from Wake and Johnston counties asked the judge use the U.S. Constitution to eliminate a ban they said hinders religious practices.

Lock said the ban doesn't prevent the free exercise of religion because the families are allowed to slaughter their own lambs at a state-licensed facility.

Iran: Top cleric says women without veils must die

And their husbands and fathers, too. Iranian Depopulation Alert from AKI (thanks to Twostellas):

Tehran, 19 Dec. (AKI) - A top Muslim cleric in Iran, Hojatolislam Gholam Reza Hassani said on Wednesday that women in Iran who do not wear the hijab or Muslim headscarf, should die.

"Women who do not respect the hijab and their husbands deserve to die," said Hassani, who leads Friday prayers in the city of Urumieh, in Iranian Azerbaijan.

"I do not understand how these women who do not respect the hijab, 28 years after the birth of the Islamic Republic, are still alive," he said.

"These women and their husbands and their fathers must die," said Hassani, who is the representative of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei in eastern Azerbaijan.

UNICEF Photo of the Year calls attention to child marriage

Caption to this AP photo (via Snapped Shot, with thanks to Pamela):

U.S. freelance photographer Stephanie Sinclair poses with her winning photo of the 'UNICEF Photo of the Year 2007' competition in Berlin, Germany, on Monday, Dec. 17, 2007. The photograph shot by U.S. freelance photographer Stephanie Sinclair shows a wedding couple in Afghanistan who could not be more opposite. The groom, Mohammed, looks much older than his 40 years. The bride, Ghulam, is still a child; she just turned 11. Stephanie Sinclair works as a freelance photographer based in Beirut, Lebanon. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

And from the UNICEF site (thanks to Anne Crockett):

The UNICEF Photo of the Year 2007 is one of a series of photos about child marriages taken by Stephanie Sinclair between 2005 and 2007 in Afghanistan, Nepal and Ethiopia. During a stay in Afghanistan, it consistently struck the 34-year old freelance photographer, how many young girls are married to much older men. She decided to raise awareness about this topic with her pictures. According to UNICEF estimates, about 50% of Afghan women are married before they turn 18. In Afghanistan, in most parts of South Asia and in Southern Africa, marriage is often seen as a business transaction that has nothing to do with personal desires. In this process, the bride is the article of trade - the younger she is, the higher the bride price. “What are you feeling today?” Stephanie Sinclair asked Ghulam on her engagement. “Nothing,” the bewildered girl answered. “I do not know this man. What am I supposed to feel?”

Gratitude, probably, at having the chance to emulate Aisha, the "Mother of the Believers":

The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death). (Bukhari 7.62.88)

US joins "Quartet for Middle East peace" in rebuking Israel

While Abbas' not being involved with Hamas apparently absolves him of all responsibility for Palestinian jihad terrorism. "U.S. joins rebuke of Israel," by Nicholas Kralev for the Washington Times (thanks to Ruth King):

PARIS — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice joined her counterparts in the international "Quartet for Middle East peace" yesterday in a rare formal rebuke of Israel for its plans to expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Meeting at a donors conference in Paris that won $7.4 billion in pledges for the Palestinians, the Quartet also warned that the money will help improve the Palestinian economy only if Israel lifts some of the physical and administrative obstacles to Palestinian travel and trade.

The Quartet expressed "concern" over the recent announcement of 300 new housing tenders for an East Jerusalem neighborhood known to Israelis as Har Homa and to Palestinians as Jabal Abu Ghneim.

"The Quartet called on both parties to make progress on their Phase One road-map obligations, including an Israeli freeze on settlements, removal of unauthorized outposts and opening of East Jerusalem institutions," the group said in a joint statement.

On the Palestinian side, it also urged "steps to end violence, terrorism and incitement," for which the West blames the militant group Hamas, and not the government of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who was in Paris.

Convenient.

Fitzgerald: The Jizyah continues to flow

Topping the donors' list [to the "Palestinians"] were the European Union, which pledged $630 million, the United States, with a $555 million pledge, and Saudi Arabia, which will donate $500 million. -- from this news article

$555 million from the United States? And only $500 million from Saudi Arabia?

That's a half-day's revenues for Saudi Arabia. That's it?

And what about Kuwait, the U.A.E., Qatar, Libya, and all the other Muslim oil states that have done nothing to deserve their fabulous wealth?

It is a great error for any Infidel state or people to supply what is seen, by Muslim recipients, and soon after comes to be treated by the Infidel donors themselves, as the due of the Muslims, owed to them by the Infidels -- in other words, a classic payment of the Jizyah.

It is madness. It infuriates. If Congress can stop this 555 million dollar "donation" (as it is piously called) from the United States, it should. This has to stop because there is no need to transfer wealth to Arabs and Muslims when it is the Arabs and Muslims who keep prating of their unity -- a unity in the desire to destroy Israel, or to push Islam until it everywhere dominates, a unity only of hatred for the Infidels. And yet, having received ten trillion dollars in unearned and unmerited wealth, those rich Arabs and Muslims do not share it with poorer Arabs and Muslims, but expect the Americans and other Infidels to support them. This assumption must end and so too should the cringing attitude of Western governments toward Muslims.

Presidential candidates of both parties should make an issue of this. It is the product of ignorance of Islam and of the attitudes of Islam, including the triumphalism and the desire to everywhere force Infidels to pay, in whatever form, that Jizyah. If those Infidels wish to save face by calling it "foreign aid," the Muslims don't care. They know that the Infidels are too scared to deny Muslims this aid. There was a brief, uncharacteristic halt after Hamas won the “Palestinian” elections, but only to the aid to the "Palestinians," and not to Egypt, Pakistan, or that being lavished on corrupt Iraqis. Now, however, the spigot has been turned on again, and the "Protected People" have tugged at their forelocks in Paris.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and John Edwards have as much right as Romney and Giuliani and Huckabee and the others to ask aloud why the Americans have contributed more than a trillion dollars to Iraq, and hundreds of billions to Afghanistan, and $60 billion to Egypt, and $27 billion (the figure calculated by Selig Harrison) to Pakistan since 2001 alone, and billions to the "Palestinian Authority" -- along with other billions sent by the Europeans. Many of those billions disappeared without a trace, when Arafat died. Where are those billions? And why is it that the "Palestinians," who have received in aid, per capita, more than any other group in history, should continue to receive that aid? Why should they continue to receive it above all when the Slow Jihad boys have semaphored or said, in every forum, that they have no intention of making a permanent peace, but only a hudna, a hudna to be accompanied by demands so grotesque, so dangerous for Israel's survival, that they can never or should never be met? The reason for the future breaching of that "truce treaty" is already contained in the proposals now being made.

When will the Infidels of threatened Europe begin to realize that they are no different from those of threatened Israel, but are just a little further down on the To-Do List?

How horrible it is that, with ten trillion dollars having been transferred since 1973 alone from the oil-consuming nations to the Muslim oil states, that now the profligate and ignorant and timid West is spending still more billions and tens and hundreds of billions. Western governments are spending all this money in the mistaken hope that "poverty" is what makes the "Palestinians" or any other Muslim Arabs insistent on waging war. It is not "poverty." It is Islam.

The Infidels refuse to take Islam seriously. This incredible offer shows it. Utter folly. It disgusts. It maddens.

Kenyan Christians could be subjected to Sharia law

“This is not a stand-alone incident; rather, it is part of strategy to Islamize Eastern Africa and the Horn of Africa, through the introduction of Sharia law.” Islamic Tolerance Alert. By Daniel Blake for Christian Today (thanks to Twostellas):

Raila Odinga, the current frontrunner in the upcoming presidential election in Kenya has promised that he will implement strict Islamic Sharia law if he receives the Muslim vote in the country and is elected president.

A memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed on 29 August 2007 by Sheikh Abdullahi Abdi, chairman of the National Leaders Forum (Namlef), and Raila Odinga, presidential candidate from the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).

Despite being signed in late August, the MOU was not made public until 27 November 2007.

However, according to International Christian Concern (ICC) there are in fact two versions of the MOU. Persecution watchdog International Christian Concern claims that a private MOU was signed between Sheikh Abdi and Odinga which is very different from the one presented to the public.

ICC says that in the secret version of the MOU, Odinga, if elected, would “within six months, rewrite the Constitution of Kenya to recognise Sharia as the only true law sanctioned by the Holy Quran for Muslim declared regions”.

Odinga is currently seen as the favourite for the election which takes place on 27 December 2007.

In response to the revelations the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya released a statement in which church leaders said, “In both MOUs, honourable Raila comes across as a presumptive Muslim president bent on forcing Islamic law, religion and culture down the throats of the Kenyan people in total disregard of the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of freedom of worship and equal protection of the law for all Kenyans.”

The chairman of the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya, Rev Dr Wellington Mutiso told ICC, “Kenya should continue to be a secular state. Christians want a level playing ground where [Christians and Muslims] are treated equally.

“We [Kenyan Christians] are opposed to any move at favouring a particular religious group by political parties.”

In addition, the ICC regional manager for Africa, Darara Gubo said, “This agreement made with Muslim leaders undermines the secular nature of Kenya and opens a Pandora’s box of chaos and conflict similar to what happened in Nigeria and Sudan.

“This is not a stand-alone incident; rather, it is part of strategy to Islamize Eastern Africa and the Horn of Africa, through the introduction of Sharia law.”

UK intelligence official: Don't exaggerate terror threat

"What we shouldn't do is play into al Qaeda's hands by exaggerating the extent and nature of the threat they present globally." Fine. There are many other jihad groups. Shouldn't the jihad and Islamic supremacism, rather than a narrow focus on Al-Qaeda, take its place beside global warming and the flu pandemic? If we turn away from the jihadists, will they stop fighting us, while we tend to flu vaccines?

"U.K. Official: Don’t Exaggerate Terror," from CBS News (thanks to all who sent this in):

(CBS/AP) Britain is in danger of exaggerating the threat from al Qaeda, the former top adviser on terrorism to Prime Minister Gordon Brown was quoted Sunday as saying.

Richard Mottram, who retired last month from his post as an adviser on intelligence and security, said focusing too tightly on the terrorist movement risked underplaying other important threats such as climate change or a possible flu pandemic, a British newspaper reported.

"What we shouldn't do is play into al Qaeda's hands by exaggerating the extent and nature of the threat they present globally," Mottram was quoted by The Observer newspaper as saying.

"This focus is not smart when it comes to dealing with people who are trying to make us think that they are the greatest threat," he told the paper.

Among the significant problems Mottram identified deserving of equally serious attention: global warming; flu pandemics; the emergence of rogue states; globalization and its impact on power balances; global poverty and its impact on population movement; energy security; the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; and organized crime.

15 OIC States abstain at UN Human Rights Council on “All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination based on Religion or Belief”

Brief comments on the last day of the Sixth Session of the Human Rights Council by David G. Littman, NGO Representative of Association for World Education (AWE) and World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ) to the UN Office in Geneva.

In the last hour of the 6th session of the Human Rights Council (December 14), a nine-page resolution was passed – L.15/Rev.1: Elimination of all forms of intolerance and of discrimination based on religion or belief. Sponsored by 57 States, of which 16 were Members of the Council and 41 were non-Member States, only two members of the 56 countries of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) co-sponsored it: Albania and Turkey, both non-Members.

The vote of the 47 Member State Council was, Yes: 29; No: 0; Abstention: 18. All the 15 OIC Member States of the Council, abstained – as did China, South Africa and Sri Lanka. Of those who provided an “explanation” of their vote, the delegate of Saudi Arabia insisted that shari’a law should not be criticized and declared that Islam was a religion of fraternity, tolerance and equality, without discrimination whatsoever. (UN interpretation from the Arabic)

Dhimmis pony up $7.4 billion in jizya for Palestinians

Now this will make them moderate. Uh, won't it?

More on this story. "French FM: World donors pledge $7.4 billion to boost PA economy," by Avi Issacharoff and Assaf Uni for Haaretz (thanks to WriterMom):

International donors pledged $7.4 billion for the Palestinians at a conference in Paris on Monday, a massive sum that beat the Palestinians' own expectations, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said.

"The real winner today is the Palestinian state," Kouchner told a news conference after the gathering of nearly 90 countries and international organizations. "We wanted $5.6 billion, we have $7.4 billion, not bad."

According to Kouchner, $2.9 billion will be transferred to the Palestinian government in 2008, and the remainder of the sum will be transferred over the next three years.

The Palestinian government had asked for $5.6 billion over the course of three years to shore up its economy amid a renewed push for a Palestinian state.

Topping the donors' list were the European Union, which pledged $630 million, the United States, with a $555 million pledge, and Saudi Arabia, which will donate $500 million.

The Saudis could have and should have been the lead, and indeed the sole, donors.

Canada bans truth-telling, goes after Mark Steyn

More on the Canadian bullying of Mark Steyn: how dare he tell the truth! "Canada's Thought Police," from the New York Post (thanks to all who sent this in):

December 16, 2007 -- Celebrated author Mark Steyn has been summoned to appear before two Canadian judicial panels on charges linked to his book “America Alone."

The book, a No. 1 bestseller in Canada, argues that Western nations are succumbing to an Islamist imperialist threat. The fact that charges based on it are proceeding apace proves his point.

Steyn, who won the 2006 Eric Breindel Journalism Award (co-sponsored by The Post and its parent, News Corp), writes for dozens of publications on several continents. After the Canadian general-interest magazine Maclean's reprinted a chapter from the book, five Muslim law-school students, acting through the auspices of the Canadian Islamic Congress, demanded that the magazine be punished for spreading “hatred and contempt" for Muslims.

The plaintiffs allege that Maclean's advocated, among other things, the notion that Islamic culture is incompatible with Canada's liberalized, Western civilization. They insist such a notion is untrue and, in effect, want opinions like that banned from publication.

Two separate panels, the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal and the Canadian Human Rights Commission, have agreed to hear the case. These bodies are empowered to hear and rule on cases of purported “hate speech."

Of course, a ban on opinions - even disagreeable ones - is the very antithesis of the Western tradition of free speech and freedom of the press.

Of course.

"It scares me to think what will happen to Muslim girls who do not have this option and are seen to be 'shaming' their families"

The high physical and financial cost of maintaining proper Sharia appearances. "Why one Muslim girl became a born-again virgin for her wedding night," by Diana Appleyard for the Daily Mail (thanks to all who sent this in):

When Aisha Salim marries her fiance in Pakistan next March, it will be the wedding of her dreams.

Wearing a veil and gown, she will be every inch the fairytale virgin bride and as befits her strict Muslim religion, after the ceremony, she will hand her blooded wedding-night sheets to her in-laws as proof of her virginity.

But far from being the traditional untouched bride that many Muslim families demand, she is a modern-day university graduate who has smoked, drunk, made love to - and even lived with - a previous English boyfriend.

To disguise the fact that she has had sex, she has paid for painful surgery to "restore" her virginity.

It is a drastic and costly measure but as she takes her husband's hand in marriage, she knows it is one which may - quite literally - save her life.

The horror and outrage that would ensue if it was discovered she had already slept with a man would be so damning that her own strictly religious relatives might kill her rather than face public shame.

"My virginity was restored in a delicate operation just last week, and I honestly view it as life-saving surgery," says Aisha.

"If my husband cannot prove to his family that I am a virgin, I would be hounded, ostracised and sent home in disgrace. My father, who is a devout Muslim, would regard it as the ultimate shame.

"The entire family could be cast out from the friends and society they hold dear, and I honestly believe that one of my fanatically religious cousins or uncles might kill me in revenge, to purge them of my sins. Incredible as it may seem, honour killings are still accepted within our religion.

"Ever since my family arranged this marriage for me, I've been terrified that, on my wedding night, my secret would come out. It has only been since my surgery last week that I've actually been able to sleep properly. Now, I can look forward to my marriage."

Aisha is far from alone in seeking such drastic - and almost barbaric - surgery.

[...]

"I feel very sad that women like me feel so torn between our two cultures. Our religion is so rigid - yet I was brought up among Western friends who thought nothing of sleeping with their boyfriends.

"It makes life so confusing and I feel so deeply for all the many Muslim girls in Britain who are caught in the same dilemma.

"I was lucky, I suppose, in that I could afford to repair my 'mistake' so no one would know.

"But it scares me to think what will happen to Muslim girls who do not have this option and are seen to be 'shaming' their families. They are the ones whose lives will be at risk."

Indeed.

Fitzgerald: Will Bernard Lewis explain himself?

Bernard Lewis constantly contradicts himself. At Harvard's Kennedy School, a few years ago, he noted that "reform" in the Islamic world -- not to be confused with "reform" of Islam -- took place because of what enlightened despots had achieved. And then, once the Iraq venture was underway, he co-signed (but claims he did not write) with James Woolsey an article in The Wall Street Journal about the usefulness of having such an enlightened despot in Iraq, and their suggestion was for an (unnamed) Hashemite Sunni monarch. This was merely a transparent piece of special pleading for plummy-voiced Prince Hassan of Jordan, a host and possibly friend of Lewis.

Later, he began to write about how those who denied a democratic strain in Islam were being unfair. This was not as vulgar as Bush's charge that it was "racist" to argue that Islam and democracy, as we understand that term in the advanced West, are incompatible, but unacceptable nonetheless. When Lewis confuses "democracy" with mere "consultation," and when he further ignores the question of how much "consultation" was done by the Ottoman Sultan with the heads of non-Muslim communities, or rayas -- just how much was there? -- he misuses his prestige, a prestige that in any case he, more than anyone else, has been chipping away at. Posterity will not be as kind to him as it might once have been.

He is reputed to have met, frequently, with Cheney. What did he tell Cheney about Islam? What did he tell him, and when, about the Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations project?

And then there is Natan Sharansky, who spoke at Harvard a few weeks ago. According to reports I received, Sharansky, known for promoting to Bush, who seized on with his characteristic unquestioning enthusiasm the notion that a lack of "democracy" is what ails the Islamic world (and not Islam itself), the naive (and wrong) idea that "democracies do not make war on each other." Sharansky now insists that all along he, Sharansky, had in mind "democracy" that would not be imposed but would begin from the bottom up, beginning with the creation of a "democratic culture." There is still no hint in Sharansky's insufficiently chastened presentation that a "democratic culture" and Islam are incompatible. When he was queried about this, he did not answer the question, but simply referred to the fact that he had met, on several occasions, with Bernard Lewis, and learned what he knew about Islam, and "democracy" as a cure for the ills of Muslim polities, from Lewis.

Lewis has a lot to explain. But the podhoretzes of this world think they can continue, formulaically and without challenge, to blandly refer to Lewis as "unquestionably the world's leading (foremost, number one) historian (scholar, student) of Islam." Others allow this formula to stand unchallenged. Yet Lewis is neither a scholar of the Qur'an, or of the Shari'a, or of the doctrine of Jihad (compare what Lewis writes about Jihad, at pp.77-78 of "The Political Language of Islam," with what Armand Abel writes, as quoted in "The Legacy of Jihad"). Nor has he bothered to study the dhimmi. In his 400-page "The Middle East" he devotes exactly three paragraphs, two of them exculpatory, to the treatment of non-Muslims under Muslim rule.

Will he explain himself now? Or is he unable at this point to do so? Will he ever explain, in detail, why he was such an enthusiast for the Oslo Accords, rather than simply say, laconically, "I was mistaken"? Will he locate his mistake in the nature of Islam? Or will he say that it was Arafat's fault, or the "time was not right," or locate the problem in something other than the doctrines of Islam about Infidel nation-states on land once part of Dar al-Islam? Will he ever concede that the dreams for Iraq were both naive and sentimental? Will he ever concede that the demographic conquest of Western Europe can best be prevented by those who are not inclined to be thinking always of how to appeal to Muslim "reformers" and the Muslim-for-identification-purposes Muslims, or those who at least are worldly Western men who do not take their Islam too seriously -- the very people, in Turkey, or in Amman, or elsewhere, whom Lewis meets with, and who pay him flattering visits, and are able, as others are not, to appreciate his objets d'art, his books, his linguistic gifts, his everything?

Is it just possible that Lewis has missed something important about Islam, beginning with the need, in the formulating of Western policy to preserve and protect the West, to consider how Islam holds in thrall not the people Lewis knows, not the Ahmad Chalabis and Prince Hassans and appreciative secular thoroughly westernized Turks among Ottomanist colleagues in Istanbul, but all the hundreds of millions of Believers Bernard Lewis has never met, and chooses to overlook: the primitive masses? What moves them, and will continue to move them, and who moves them, in the end, are what count.

Minnesota community college's interfaith "meditation room" is actually a mosque

And it's a mosque full of Islamic supremacist literature -- which in itself may explain why other religious groups don't use the room anymore. "Normandale's 'meditation room' is home to a single faith," by Katherine Kersten in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune (thanks to Andrew Bostom):

Last week, I visited a Muslim place of worship. A schedule for Islam's five daily prayers was posted at the entrance, near a sign requesting that shoes be removed. Inside, a barrier divided men's and women's prayer space, an arrow informed worshippers of the direction of Mecca, and literature urged women to cover their faces.

Sound like a mosque?

The place I'm describing is the "meditation room" at Normandale Community College, a 9,200-student public institution in Bloomington.

Until recently, the room was the school's only usable racquetball court. College administrators converted the court into a meditation room when construction forced closure of the previous meditation room.

A row of chest-high barriers splits the room into sex-segregated sections. In the smaller, enclosed area for women sits a pile of shawls and head-coverings. Literature titled "Hijaab [covering] and Modesty" was prominently placed there, instructing women on proper Islamic behavior.

They should cover their faces and stay at home, it said, and their speech should not "be such that it is heard."

"Enter into Islaam completely and accept all the rulings of Islaam," the tract read in part. "It should not be that you accept what entertains your desires and leave what opposes your desires; this is from the manners of the Jews."

"[T]he Jews and the Christians" are described as "the enemies of Allaah's religion." The document adds: "Remember that you will never succeed while you follow these people."

A poster on the room's door advertised a local lecture on "marriage from an Islamic perspective," with "useful tips for marital harmony from the Prophet's ... life." Other fliers invited students to join the Normandale Islamic Forum, or participate in Ramadan celebrations.

One thing was missing from the meditation room: evidence of any faith but Islam. No Bible, no crucifix, no Torah.

Normandale's administration is facilitating the room's Islamization. The college's building crew erected the barrier separating men's and women's sections, according to Ralph Anderson, dean of student affairs. College officials also posted signs at the room's entrance asking students to remove shoes -- a Muslim custom before prayers. This was "basically a courtesy to Muslim students," Anderson said.

Despite the room's Islamic atmosphere, Anderson says it "is open to everyone."

Why is the meditation room segregated by sex? "Muslim students prefer that areas be divided into male and female," he said. "Other students don't care."

Doesn't sex-segregation present a constitutional problem in a public educational institution? "I don't want to comment on that," he said.

And the literature regarding Jews and Christians? "I would probably take it out if I knew it was in there," said Anderson.

Normandale's zealous effort to accommodate Muslim students is not new. Chad Lunaas, a former student who works at the college part time, cites examples.

Last year on Fridays, he says, he often entered the bathroom to find that "every sink and toilet stall had someone washing his feet." Other students couldn't use the bathroom at these times, and those who tried felt awkward.

Lunaas finally expressed his concerns to a Muslim student who "seemed to be in charge."

"His attitude was, 'We don't have to listen to you, we can do whatever we want,' " he said.

Confrontations also erupted in the sex-segregated meditation room, according to Lunaas. "Muslim students just took it over. They made people who were not of the Muslim religion feel very uncomfortable, especially if they were female."

One female student tried to use the room when Muslim students were in it, said Lunaas. "She believed she should be treated equally. They were telling her to leave, to take off her shoes, to go to the other side of the divider."

Anderson says he met several times with concerned students. But "the whole thing was just basically swept aside," according to Lunaas.

Anderson said that in the incident involving the young woman, "both sides were probably out of line."

Howard Odor, who advises the college's Somali Student Association, said he has not been aware of "any issues" since the meditation room has been in the racquetball court. "I can guarantee that college policy is that anyone who wants to go in there and pray or meditate can do so."

But many at the college see a bigger issue.

"For all practical purposes, this meditation room is essentially a Muslim prayer room," said Chuck Chalberg of Normandale's history faculty. "Something this unprecedented goes beyond religious toleration."

Why, yes. Yes, it does. Now, why is that?

Bernard Lewis says authoritarianism in Islam is an import from Europe; Andrew Bostom responds

Lewis apparently confuses the practice of rulers consulting with advisers with democratic government. In fact, authoritarian governments were always the rule in the Islamic world, and there was no remotely democratic government until the establishment of modern secular Turkey in the 1920s -- and that society may not be long for this world.

This is now the second time Bernard Lewis has attributed a feature of modern Islamic culture to European influence. He did it at the beginning of the year with antisemitism, and now with authoritarianism. In the case of antisemitism, he never dealt with the virulent antisemitism of the Qur'an (see, for example, this IslamOnline article) or Islamic tradition. In this present case, he likewises glosses over centuries of Islamic history -- history that he more than anyone else has opened for modern Westerners -- to make an ahistorical and inaccurate claim.

Whenever we have run material critical of Bernard Lewis in the past, people have written in saying, "How dare you criticize Bernard Lewis? Your scholarship will never amount to a hundredth of what he has done," and the like. And to that I say: Granted. Bernard Lewis is hundreds of times greater than I am. He is a world-class historian and scholar. His achievements are undeniable. But with all respect, he is not infallible, and one need not have any more credentials than the facts of the case in order to question his conclusions. And here, as with Islamic antisemitism, the facts of the case are not with Bernard Lewis, and all his lifetime achievement does not change that.

Here, Andrew Bostom points us toward some earlier scholars who are well aware of those facts, and whose conclusions differed sharply from that of Lewis. "Another 'Just So' Story?," by Andrew G. Bostom in The American Thinker:

Speaking at a December 10-11, 2007 Rome Conference entitled, "Fighting for Democracy in the Islamic World," renowned historian Bernard Lewis intoned,

"The authoritarianism present in the Middle East region is not part of the Arab and Muslim tradition, but it has been imported from Europe...."

Lewis, according to the account of his lecture in Adnkronos International, then offered as putatively convincing support for his thesis the non-sequitur observation that during the Ottoman Empire, the Sultan (presumably, in the course of making decisions) consulted all the dignitaries, and when he ascended the throne he would greet the crowds, uttering "Allah is greater than you are."

This ahistorical contention, accompanied by an equally vacuous example of Ottoman era "proof," seems like a desynchronized "Spy Versus Spy" Mad Magazine segment with Lewis playing the role of both "Department of Joke and Dagger" agents, simultaneously, when juxtaposed to Lewis' own entry on hurriyya-Arabic for freedom-which appears in the venerable Encyclopedia of Islam.

Hurriyya and the uniquely Western concept of freedom are completely at odds. Hurriyya "freedom" - as Ibn Arabi (d. 1240) the lionized "Greatest Sufi Master", expressed it - "being perfect slavery." And this conception is not merely confined to the Sufis' perhaps metaphorical understanding of the relationship between Allah the "master" and his human "slaves."

The late American scholar of Islam, Franz Rosenthal (d. 2003), who wrote the first part of the Encyclopedia of Islam entry on hurriyya, analyzed its larger context in Muslim society. He notes the historical absence of hurriyya as "...a fundamental political concept that could have served as a rallying cry for great causes."

An individual Muslim, "...was expected to consider subordination of his own freedom to the beliefs, morality and customs of the group as the only proper course of behavior..."

Thus politically, Rosenthal concludes,

"...the individual was not expected to exercise any free choice as to how he wished to be governed...In general, ...governmental authority admitted of no participation of the individual as such, who therefore did not possess any real freedom vis a vis it."

[...]

A decade later (in 1950), G.H. Bousquet (d. 1978), one of the most widely acclaimed 20th century scholars of Islamic Law, confirmed Pribichevich's conclusions, unfettered by our current mind numbing, politically correct cultural relativism, which appears to have afflicted even Mr. Lewis:

"Islam first came before the world as a doubly totalitarian system. It claimed to impose itself on the whole world and it claimed also, by the divinely appointed Muhammadan law, by the principles of fiqh [jurisprudence], to regulate down to the smallest details the whole life of the Islamic community and of every individual believer... the study of Muhammadan Law (dry and forbidding though it may appear)... is of great importance to the world of today."

And Ibn Warraq, in a brilliant, dispassionate contemporary analysis, has described 14 characteristics of "Ur Fascism" as enumerated by Umberto Eco, analyzing their potential relationship to the major determinants of Islamic governance and aspirations, through the present. He adduces salient examples which reflect the key attributes discussed by Eco: the unique institution of jihad war; the establishment of a Caliphate under "Allah's vicegerent on earth," the Caliph-ruled by Islamic Law, i.e., Shari'a, a rigid system of subservience and sacralized discrimination against non-Muslims and Muslim women, devoid of basic freedoms of conscience, and expression.

Read it all.

Boycotted Radio Host Remains Unbowed

Savage is no cringing dhimmi.

By Jacques Steinberg for the New York Times (thanks to Sr. Soph):

SAN FRANCISCO — The humbling of Don Imus last spring over his remarks about the Rutgers women’s basketball team has done nothing to quiet Michael Savage, a radio host with a far bigger following and far more checkered track record.

Mr. Savage, whose program reaches an estimated eight million listeners a week on nearly 400 stations, suggested over the summer that a group of college students on a hunger strike in support of easing immigration restrictions should “fast until they starve to death.” In October the Board of Supervisors of San Francisco, the city from which Mr. Savage often broadcasts, took the unusual step of passing a resolution condemning him for the remarks.

Then, a few weeks ago, Mr. Savage uncorked a cascade of invective about Islam. Among his on-air comments: the Koran is “a book of hate”; some Muslims, at least, “need deportation”; and adherents of Islam would do well to “take your religion and shove it up your behind” because “I’m sick of you.”

In response the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose stated mission includes correcting mischaracterizations of Islam, tore a page from the playbook of Mr. Imus’s critics. It made Mr. Savage’s comments widely available on the Internet and called on advertisers to boycott his program, which is behind only Rush Limbaugh’s and Sean Hannity’s in number of listeners, according to Talkers magazine, an industry publication.

At least two of his major sponsors — Citrix, which sells remote access to computers, and Trusted ID, which provides protection against identity theft — have pulled their spots. Thus far, Mr. Savage said in an interview last week, the boycott had cost his program more than a million dollars in advertising revenue committed for next year.

On Dec. 3 Mr. Savage fired back at his critics in a way Mr. Imus never did: He filed a lawsuit in United States District Court against the council, not only for taking his comments out of context — he says they were made within a broader discussion of the president of Iran — but for then making audio of them available on its Web site, cair.com.

With his suit, Mr. Savage has put himself in an odd position for someone who makes his living talking and is a fierce advocate for free speech: He is complaining about others quoting him.

But in the interview Mr. Savage contended that the council had violated the copyright protections on his broadcast by using his words, in effect, to raise money. He cited the bright orange button labeled “Donate” that appears on the council Web site just to the right of the “Action Alert” it put out against him.

“If they are trying to hang me by my own petard, they have no right to use my petard,” Mr. Savage said after Monday’s show. “It’s my petard, not theirs.”

A spokesman for the council, Ahmed Rehab, said, “We think the suit is a P.R. ploy.” (A spokeswoman for Citrix would not discuss the reasons for the company’s decision; the chief executive of Trusted ID, Scott Mitic, said it had abandoned Savage’s program because his audience wasn’t buying the company’s product.)

Yes, and CAIR never engages in P.R. ploys.

Eurodhimmis pledge $650 million for Palestinian aid

Assurance that Fatah will not make war on Israel? None. Assurance that Fatah can rein in Hamas? None. Assurance that all these millions and billions will not fall into Hamas hands and be used for the jihad against Israel? None. But that doesn't stop them for a millisecond. "Donors pledge $650M for Palestinian aid," by Karin Laub for Associated Press (thanks to all who sent this in):

PARIS - Donors began committing funds from around the world Monday for the moribund Palestinian economy amid a renewed international push for a Palestinian state, with the European Union promising $650 million in 2008.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is asking for $5.6 billion over three years. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged the international community to fulfill the Palestinian needs and more.

"What we must do now is work together before the end of 2008 for the creation of an independent, democratic, viable Palestinian state," French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the meeting's host, said in a speech to representatives from nearly 90 donor countries and international organizations.

Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Monday that he has ruled out dialogue with rival Islamic militant Hamas, and that without international support Gaza is "heading into disaster."

Gaza has been virtually cut off from the world since Hamas seized control of the territory by force in June. Israel and Egypt sharply restricted border access in response, and the blockade has further deepened poverty there.

Abbas, speaking at the conference in Paris, said Gaza is already "close to catastrophe," and would head into disaster without continued international aid.

Saudi king 'pardons rape victim'

International pressure works.

From the BBC (thanks to all who sent this in):

The Saudi king has pardoned a female rape victim sentenced to jail and 200 lashes for being alone with a man raped in the same attack, reports say.

The "Qatif girl" case caused an international outcry with widespread criticism of the Saudi justice system.

The male and female victims were in a car together when they were abducted and raped by seven attackers, who were given jail sentences up to nine years.

Press reports say King Abdullah's move did not mean the sentence was wrong.

Quoted by the Jazirah newspaper, Justice Minister Abdullah al-Sheikh said the king had the right to issue pardons if it served the public interest.

Women in Saudi Arabia are not allowed to mix with men who are not close family members.

The custodial sentence plus 200 lashes was imposed after the woman, who has not been named, appealed against an earlier sentence of 90 lashes.

Egyptian Muslims attack Christian-owned shops

Yet another Islamic Tolerance Alert from Egypt.

From AP (thanks to Twostellas):

CAIRO (AP) — Angry Muslims attacked and destroyed shops owned by Coptic Christians on Sunday in a town in southern Egypt that been witnessing sectarian tensions, a police official said.

The attackers set hurled stones and set fire to several shops, smashed windows of a church and damaged two cars in the early morning hours before the shops in Isna were opened for business, said the police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Police detained 15 people suspected of taking part in the attacks in Isna, located about 350 miles south of Cairo, he said.

The riots followed reports that two Coptic Christians pulled down the veil of a Muslim woman in a car park on Saturday evening. Dozens of Muslims started to gather in protest very early Sunday, but police managed to disperse them.

Police blocked all main streets leading to the town, but witnesses said some people managed to attack the shops in two of the town's streets. Peace returned to the town after several hours of rioting, they said.

Earlier this week, dozens of Muslims went on a rampage following rumors of an attempt of abduction and sexually assault a teenage Muslim girl by some Coptic Christians. The rioters hurled stones and smashed windows of a pharmacy were they suspected the Copts forced the girl to have sex with them.

On Thursday, police arrested two Coptic Christians suspected of taking part in the abduction of the girl. They were ordered detained for 15 days on charges related to sectarian tensions, police said.

Fitzgerald: Second-class citizens?

"…what seems to be a nasty little secret within a certain segment of the community; women are treated as second-class citizens." -- from this news article

The phrase "second class citizens" -- a phrase also used about non-Muslims in Muslim-dominated countries -- does not convey the full scope of the mistreatment of such people. This mistreatment, in the cases of both women and non-Muslims, does not change or steadily diminish over time (as it did in the case of blacks in the American South after segregation in schools was ended "with all deliberate speed" and other forms of legalized discrimination declared unconstitutional, from lunch-counters to municipal swimming pools). The word "citizens," too, misleadingly implies a Muslim polity of the kind we have in the West, of which those women and non-Muslims can be "citizens." But the very word "citizen" implies people with political autonomy in advanced democracies, their rights enshrined in the law, their governments dependent on the expression of the will of those "citizens" in regular elections, in opinion polls, in all the activities that "citizens" of advanced democracies engage in.

Can one use the word "citizen" about Saudi Arabia? Are the people in the Sudan, the Islamic Republic of Iran, or Pakistan in any sense "citizens" of their respective states? Or are they more akin to subjects, pushed about, and above all, self-subjugated to the dictates of Islam, "slaves of Allah" ideally? If they begin to act up, if they begin to act as if they wish to considered akin to Western "citizens," they are overwhelmed by the vast primitive masses of Muslims, led by clerics, who have on their side the texts of Islam. And those "citizens" cannot confront, deny, or wish away those texts. Therefore, the small groups of the enlightened, in Pakistan or elsewhere, will continue to fail, until one or more of three things happens.

The first is that the people in this or that Muslim state willingly submit, for a while, to an enlightened despot of the Ataturk school, someone who is strong enough to systematically constrain Islam as a political and social force, and over time to create a secular class. That class must be large enough to permanently expand on the original despot's plans, and to defend secularism from the Rasputin-like reappearance of the True Believers. Apparently, as the example of Turkey teaches, not even Ataturk, whose cult of personality lived on, and whose Kemalism did so much to limit the power of Islam over Turkish minds, did not do enough, or his successors did not do enough, to ensure that the erbakans and erdogans -- who want Islam back, back in all the places from which the Kemalists had banned it -- would not reappear and succeed, as they have been doing.

The second is that an outside power forces changes upon them, as the Soviet Union did, when it, in many places successfully, managed to smash Islam (as it smashed other religions) in Central Asia. It raised up several generations of people who were not inclined to return to Islam, even if they shared the general resentment at Soviet power. The Islamic movements in several of the five stans have so far been crushed, in some cases using methods no Western state would dare to use.

The third is that the Western powers, unable to put pressure of the kind the European powers did on the Ottomans so that they would change the legal mistreatment of the rayas, or communities of non-Muslims, under Ottoman rule, will do something else: show, again and again, that Islam is the cause of the failures of Islamic states and societies. Instead of trying to rescue or aid Muslim peoples with huge infusions of Infidel money, aid that quickly becomes impossible to end (for fear of "offending" the donors) and that the Muslim recipients quickly regard as theirs by right, which is pocketed, and pocketed, but for which no real or lasting gratitude is felt (in other words, the aid becomes Jizyah), the West should insist that the aid for poor Muslims should come from the fabulously rich Muslim oil states. Those states have tiny populations and trillions of dollars, with which they are now buying up large stakes all over the Western world, not least in media companies.

Any one or more than one of these might help create, as in Turkey, "citizens" rather than subjects. But for now, the phrase "second-class citizens" misleads in two ways. The word "citizen" does not describe the reality of the Muslim in a Muslim nation-state, but conveys a false idea of the Muslim polity. And the phrase "second-class citizen" does not adequately convey the mistreatment, deep, systematic and permanent, of women and, especially, of non-Muslims in a state where Islam dominates and Muslims rule.

And in what sense can a woman living in Mississisauga, Canada be a "second-class citizen" of the Canadian state? She is not. But she is subject to a state within the state, one that inflicts, even if it is not the law of the land, all of the cruelties of the Shari'a. It inflicts all the cruelties of the texts, and the tenets, and the attitudes, and the atmospherics of Islam, that are carried about by Muslims who take their Islam seriously in their mental baggage wherever they go, whatever the particular passport they acquire. That "virtual state" exists wherever Believers exist. Sometimes they act on the dictates of that virtual state; sometimes, they prudently do not. But even if they do not, that may merely reflect their desire to stay deep within Infidel lands, to protect their own position, and to practice as much taqiyya-and-tu-quoque, to keep up a steady fog-machine of distraction and confusion, and not for a month but for years and years, until their numbers swell, and their power grows, until it is too late, or so it may seem, for Infidels to protect themselves and their legal and political institutions adequately.

It is an amazing feat, one would have said an impossible feat, save for the willingness, as we have seen, of so many in the Western world to remain willfully ignorant and to participate in their own long-term bamboozlement and, alas, destruction.

Exposed: U.S. funded Hamas university

More realpolitik genius from the U.S. government.

By Aaron Klein for WorldNetDaily.com (thanks to Amillenialist):

JERUSALEM – An audit has revealed the U.S. government authorized nearly $1 million in aid to a Hamas-controlled university senior terror leaders told WND is openly utilized by Hamas to recruit fighters, manufacture explosives and train on campus grounds for attacks.

The audit concluded the American tax dollars were provided to Gaza's Islamic University between 2002 and 2006. It stated officials from both the U.S. Agency for International Development in Tel Aviv, which initiated the fund request, and the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, which conducted an investigation, found no "derogatory information" on the university.

Also in March 2007 State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told WND U.S. officials concluded after a review Islamic University does not supports terrorist activities.

But Israeli and Palestinian security officials and Palestinian terrorist leaders themselves scoffed at the State Department claims.

An Israeli security official took offense with McCormack's statement.

"It's the height of absurdity to hear Hamas' Islamic University is not involved in terrorism," the official said.

Islamic University was founded by Hamas spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin, who was assassinated by Israel in 2004. Hamas leader in Gaza Ismail Haniya sits on the college board, which was raided in January by Palestinian security forces who seized rocket-propelled grenades and rockets.

Abu Abdullah, considered one of the most important operational members of Hamas' so-called military wing, told WND Islamic University is regularly used by Hamas to support "resistance activities."

"It is no secret that we utilize all tools at our disposal, including our fighters at Islamic University in preparations to fight the Zionists," said Abu Abdullah of Hamas' Izzedine al-Qassam Martyrs Brigades, Hamas' declared "resistance" department.

Muhammad Abdel-Al, spokesman of the Popular Resistance Committees, a Hamas-affiliated terror group, told WND Islamic University is "extremely important" for recruitment of militants. He said several members of his group study chemistry at the university to aid in the manufacture of explosives and suicide belts. The Committees is responsible for hundreds of rocket attacks from Gaza aimed at nearby Jewish cities.

According to Israeli and Palestinian intelligence officials Islamic University's main campus in Gaza City has been used by Hamas' so-called military wing to recruit terrorists and suicide bombers. The officials told WND chemistry labs were used to manufacture and improve explosives for Hamas-affiliated militias.

Reuven Erlich, director of the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center and Israel's Center for Special Studies, told WND his organization analyzed material captured in previous Israeli raids of Islamic University, which yielded mass quantities of weaponry and Hamas incitement material supporting terrorist attacks.

Officials from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party last February claimed they captured seven Iranian military trainers – including a general of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards – inside Gaza City's Islamic University, which they said was being utilized as a Hamas military training ground.

The Fatah officials said they also found some 1,000 Qassam rockets, rocket-propelled grenades and equipment to manufacture the rockets inside the university. They previously suspected kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was being held for a time on the university grounds.[...]

USAID the past two years has reportedly provided $4 million to Arkan, a Palestinian program that funds law schools at several universities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including Al-Najah University. The Arkan program is entirely funded by USAID.

Israeli security officials say Al-Najah University is one of the most important recruitment grounds for West Bank terror organizations. The Israeli Defense Forces a number of times has raided the college and arrested terror suspects. At least 15 Palestinians who carried out suicide bombings the past six years attended the school.

Senior members of the Islamic Jihad and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror groups are openly enrolled at Al-Najah, WND has learned.

One senior leader of the Brigades, the declared military wing of Abbas' Fatah party, told WND many Brigades leaders study at the university, which he described as a "recruitment center for jihad."

The senior leader said he is studying sports education.

A leader of the Islamic Jihad terror organization said he is studying chemistry to enhance his terror group's bomb-making capabilities. He said others in the chemistry department manufacture explosives for Palestinian groups.

Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades has taken joint 2006 bombing in Tel Aviv last April that killed eight Israelis and American teenager Daniel Wultz.

According to the U.S. Foreign Operations Bill of 2006, it is illegal to fund universities which the Secretary of State "knows or has reason to believe advocates, plans, sponsors, engages in, or has engaged in, terrorist activity."

USAID has a history of funding anti-American Palestinian projects.

WND first reported a northern West Bank street funded by USAID was renamed for Saddam after his execution.

Zacharias Zubeidi, leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Yaabid, told WND the city changed the name on the U.S.-funded street to show "Saddam Hussein is still alive."

"We will honor his memory until the American and Zionist occupation is driven from our land," Zubeidi said.

WND reported USAID also reconstructed roads and municipalities in areas in the Gaza Strip controlled by Hamas.

In a WND interview, Hamas Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar thanked USAID for its efforts.

According to Palestinian Media Watch translations, after USAID funded road projects in the West Bank city of Jenin in 2004, a central street there was named after the first Iraqi suicide bomber, who killed four American soldiers in Fallujah. The mayor of Jenin reportedly participated in an anti-American dedication ceremony in which speakers blessed the "resistance of the residents of Fallujah"

Darfur Debacle at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva

Comments on the last day (Friday) of the 6th Session of the Human Rights Council by David G. Littman, NGO Representative of Association for World Education (AWE) and World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ) to the UN Office in Geneva.

At the last meeting of the sixth session of the Human Rights Council, Egypt – on behalf of the African Union – sponsored a watered down resolution which, although it reluctantly renewed for another year the country-specific Special Rapporteur on the Sudan, ended the High-level Mission of Experts on Darfur. Their comprehensive team Report of 100 pages was contested implicitly by Egypt the day before (again speaking for the AU), when it asked for a stop to the proliferation of human rights mechanisms on Sudan – as they were a burden on the State. Not surprisingly, the African group even wished to end the Special Rapporteur’s mandate, but a ‘compromise’ was negotiated in order to obtain a face-saving ‘consensus’ (i.e. ‘no vote’) by the Council of 47 States Members, thereby back-staging the Darfur genocide once again.

On December 31, the joint UN-African Union peace-keeping force of 26,000 men is due to arrive in Darfur under Security Council resolution 1769 – to take over from the ineffective 7,000-strong AU force. In a revealing IHT article (Dec. 10), “Hobbling the UN in Darfur” – read by many at the UN – Prof. Eric Reeves predicted cataclysmic destruction in Darfur if the UN does not rally the resources and exert the pressure on Khartoum. Time is running out.

In a joint statement for 5 NGOs the next day, we reiterated a prediction, signed by 43 NGOs in a May 23, 2006 letter to the High Commissioner on Darfur: “We believe that the role of the new Human Rights Council will be, in part, tested by the way the Darfur conflict is faced.”

One need not be either the prophet Daniel or a Hamlet to read the ‘writing on the wall’ at the Palais de Nations in Geneva: Something is rotten in the state of… the Human Rights Council.

Fitzgerald: Middle Eastern studies must be removed from departments of Middle Eastern Studies

Middle Eastern studies must be removed from departments of Middle Eastern Studies. Those who obtain their degrees in such studies get them from such places as Columbia's MEALAC, and are thus presumably indoctrinated by such disinterested souls as Hamid Dabashi, Joseph Massad, Rashid Khalidi, the inimitable George Saliba, and Ms. Al-Haj. The latter is fresh from her incredible and intolerable achievement in obtaining tenure, despite her utter failure to meet minimal standards of scholarship, from a department that has lost its collective senses, and in a vote that can only be explained by a Namierian exercise in prosopography, examining each faculty member for prejudice or parti pris, or in the case of one particular voter, his wife or ex-wife, whatever she now is supposed for the outside world to be.

Presidents and Provosts must swallow their fear of interfering with "faculty autonomy." Other faculty members should not be shy, especially if they are trained in History and other relevant fields, to look into how their "colleagues" in Middle Eastern departments are actually teaching about Islam, for without Islam, no discussion of anything in the Middle East makes sense. (It would be like putting on Hamlet without the vacillating prince.) And one cannot rely on Muslims to demonstrate the same objective presentation that, for example, one can expect about the presentation of Western history by those who are real or nominal Christians, at least as scholarly standards developed in the West -- and never did in the world of Islam, which has no universities or scholarship equivalent to what both the West (Europe and North America) and, with a lag, now the East (of Japan, China, Korea, and also non-Muslim India) have both developed.

If such follies as Iraq are not to be repeated, with all their unnecessary squandering of men, money, materiel, then Islam must be understood. If it had been understood, had Americans in the corridors of power known that in Islam political legitimacy is located in the will expressed by Allah and not in the expressed will of the people, that might have prevented the whole absurd Light-Unto-the-Muslim-Nations project, by which "democracy" was to be transplanted in the sandy soil of Iraq, for "ordinary moms and dads" were said to long for it, rather than to long for settling scores, and seizing, or seizing back, power from their sectarian and ethnic enemies, and making sure that their sect, or their group, had as much power as it could grab, and keep.

And had Islam been properly understood, the naive and fruitless attempts to "solve" the Arab-Israeli dispute would end. They would be replaced by the recognition that there is no "solution" but rather merely a situation to be managed, because of the immutable Muslim belief that the Infidel nation-state of Israel must be whittled down and then destroyed, and because its continued existence, no matter what its size, constitutes a permanent affront to the Muslims -- for it does not accord with their world-view about land once part of Dar al-Islam having to be recaptured. Of course, in the end the entire world must submit to Islam, but until large numbers of Muslims were allowed to settle deep within Infidel lands, and until the Money Weapon supplied by oil revenues (some ten trillion dollars since 1973 alone), that larger dream seemed impossible, but it no longer does, especially in certain parts of Western Europe.

What if the KGB had had the kind of money to play with that the Saudis do? During the 70 years of its existence, Soviet Communism spent about 7-8 billion on propaganda worldwide. The Saudis alone have spent about one hundred billion, over the past few decades, with more being spent every year. It is spent on mosques, and madrasas, all over the Western world. It is spent on academic "centers," most connected with universities, and some stand-alone, as well as endowments for well-upholstered chairs at universities that are chosen either because they are conveniently located to centers of power (Esposito's Muslim-Christian Understanding operation is in Washington, at Georgetown, and so is the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies), or to curry favor with a new President (that Islamic studies money lavished on the University of Arkansas when Clinton was President), or at places where the reflected glory can do the cause some good (the "Guardian of the Two Noble Sanctuaries" professorship at Harvard Law School, with Frank Vogal now presumably passing the Saudi-lit torch to that thrusting young academic, whose entire oeuvre is not worth a page written of Joseph Schacht, Noah Friedman), such as Harvard and the other usual self-promoting self-described "world-class" universities.

And if the presidents and provosts and other alarmed faculty do not start looking into this, or even if they do, alumni should withhold contributions, no matter how keenly they may feel a loyalty to their alma mater. They owe a higher loyalty to the political and legal institutions, and to the conditions of freedom that make art and science possible, and that are under assault, slowly but steadily, by those who derive the meaning of their existence, and the regulation of that existence, from Islam. Ignorant undergraduates, unfortunately, are also impressionable. They are being carefully misinformed and mis-schooled, systematically so, by many of those, Muslims and also non-Muslim apologists for Islam, who are determined that the real Western scholarship about Islam -- that of C. Snouck Hurgronje, and Joseph Schacht, and Arthur Jeffrey, and Charles-Emmanuel Bousquet, and Georges Vajda, and Henri Lammens, and Antoine Fattal, and so many others -- is never brought to the students' attention, or is first carefully discredited by heavy doses of Edward Said's Orientalism That book was Said’s attempt, for so long successful, to undercut, in advance, centuries of Western scholarship on Islam. But recent books, and especially that by Ibn Warraq, have blown Said sky-high. All the horses, and all the men, even of those sinister maecenases, all daggers-and-dishdashas, with their sneers of cold command, deploying the money weapon from their palaces in Jiddah and Riyadh, can't put Orientalism back together again.

Wait a minute. I thought Israel was reaching out to Fatah, not Hamas

Yet another unreciprocated gesture of good will. "Palestinians say Israel releases Hamas-linked mayor," from Reuters (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Israel has released from jail a senior Hamas member who was elected mayor of a West Bank town while in Israeli custody, Palestinian security officials and Hamas said on Friday.

Jamal al-Tawil, mayor of the town of Al-Bireh near the city of Ramallah, was released on Thursday after being held in an Israeli prison for almost six years, Hamas said on a Hamas-affiliated website.

The release was confirmed by Palestinian security officials in the occupied West Bank, but Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment due to the Jewish Sabbath.

Brussels Court removes Christmas decorations out of respect for Muslims

Dutch-language article, "Kerstversiering Brussels Justitiepaleis verwijderd voor moslims," here (thanks to Rudi). Here is my own rough translation of the Babel Fish mess. Corrections welcome:

Christmas decorations have been removed from two offices at the entrance of the Brussels Court of Justice a few hours after they were installed. "We took them away so as not to scandalize anybody. We have to be neutral for the Muslims..."

Gang that specialized in kidnapping Christian doctors arrested in Kirkuk

They were only in it for the money, and "what’s more according to sharia taking money from a Christian is legitimate”.

"Arrested in Kirkuk a gang specialised in kidnapping Christian doctors," from Asia News (thanks to Insubria):

Kirkuk (AsiaNews) – Yesterday in Kirkuk Iraqi police captured the remaining members of a gang specialised in kidnapping Christian doctors. The criminal organisation was made up of 4 brothers, arrested in various raids between December 11th and 13th. Tow unemployed relatives aided the brothers. All of the gang members have confessed to the crime. They are Muslims who have no connection to terrorist organisations, or Islamic extremism. They, themselves confessed that they chose the kidnapping industry to “make easy money, what’s more according to sharia taking money from a Christian is legitimate”. The group had a complete list of doctors and pharmacists, possible future targets.

The Chaldean Archdiocese’ excellent relations with other civil and religious authorities in Kirkuk greatly contributed to the capture. Committed to protecting the community, Church leaders frequently visit and meet with political parties, government authorities, Imam’s, Sheiks and police and National Guard commanders.

The medical profession has long been a target for terrorists and criminals throughout Iraq. Recently in Kirkuk 4 specialised doctors have been kidnapped. Their families were forced to pay extortionate sums for their release, amounting to thousands of dollars. Under increased pressure from constant threats 3 doctors had already left the city in the last few weeks heading for the safer climate of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Turkish health workers condone wife beating

"Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them." -- Qur'an 4:34

A Let-Them-Into-The-EU Update from Physorg.com (thanks to Pamela):

Domestic violence is an inherent problem in Turkey, and healthcare workers are doing little to combat the prevalence of wife beating, according to research published in the online open access journal, BMC Public Health. A survey of medical personnel reveals that a lack of training and a cultural acceptance of domestic violence may prevent victims from obtaining the support they desperately require. 173 medical staff from the emergency department of a Turkish university hospital responded to a questionnaire about domestic violence. 69.0% of the female and 84.7% of the male respondents declared that they agreed or partially agreed to at least one reason to justify physical violence.

Accepted grounds for intimate domestic violence included lying to or criticising the male and failure to care for children. Moreover, about three-quarters of the nurses and male physicians and over half of female physicians agreed that deceiving the husband justified physical punishment. Deceiving the husband is a taboo in Turkey and it is among the most important reasons for honour murders.

Homeland Security ignores Somali jihadist's US fundraising visit

Homeland Insecurity, Homeland Indifference, Homeland Cluelessness, Homeland Let's-Not-Offend-The-Islamic-Advocacy-Groups.

"Homeland Insecurity: Terrorist Fundraising in the Heartland," by Patrick Poole at Pajamas Media:

Nearly 15 years after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and 6 years after 9/11, the federal agencies responsible for our domestic security against terrorism appear to be entirely unaware, unequipped and unconcerned about the continued operations of Islamic terrorists inside the US.

Exhibit A in support of this thesis is the recent fundraising visit to the US by major Somali terrorist leader Zakaria Mahmoud Haji-Abdi. Abdi is deputy chairman of the Eritrean-based Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS). The ARS is organizationally integrated with the al-Qaeda-backed Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which is waging the deadly terrorist insurgency in Somalia against the UN and US recognized Transnational Federal Government (TFG). The insurgency is responsible for the violence that has caused the deaths of nearly 6,000 Somalis this year in Mogadishu alone and forced at least another half million refugees to flee from there.

Abdi was the keynote speaker at a fundraising event and conference hosted by the United Somali Diaspora and held at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Minneapolis on November 24. An article published the following day by SomaliTalk (in Somali) features numerous pictures of the event, documenting Abdi’s attendance. (Minneapolis is home to the largest Somali population in the country.) A follow-up conference was held the following weekend at the Days Inn in Falls Church, VA, (right outside Washington, D.C.) by United Somali Diaspora and several other US-based Somali groups.

[...]

According to one law enforcement source familiar with Abdi’s recent visit, the Department of Homeland Security was contacted more than a week before the Minneapolis conference. The agency determined that, since Abdi did not have a Social Security Number (he is neither a US citizen or resident) and it was not known where he would enter the US from, nothing could or would be done to stop his visit. Repeated phone calls and emails from this reporter to the DHS public affairs office asking for explanation on why Abdi was allowed in the country did not receive a reply.

The failure of Homeland Security to act in any way to keep Abdi out of the country prompted heated criticism of the agency by Steven Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism. “It is absolutely scandalous that federal authorities cannot or will not stop jihadists from entering the US. Homeland Security should be called Homeland Insecurity,” Emerson said.

Read it all.

Mohammed to beat Jack as top UK boys' name

Eurabia Alert. By Sarah Womack in the Telegraph (thanks to Writer Mom):

Mohammed is set to overtake Jack as the most popular boys' name in Britain as a result of the high birth rate in Muslim families, which is driving the British population to a record high.

A report from the Office of National Statistics says the highest birth rates are in the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities, both predominantly Muslim.

Jack was the most popular boys' name last year, chosen for 6,928 babies. Mohammed - taking into account all of its variant spellings - overtook Thomas to lie in second place with 5,991 babies named.

Congressmen who voted for resolution commemorating Ramadan vote against Christmas resolution

Probably they didn't want to congratulate believers in the religion they believe to be the greater threat.

Michelle Malkin has the details in a message from Rep. Steve King, who supplies the names:

Nine Democrats voted No – Ackerman, Clarke, DeGette, Hastings (FL), Lee, McDermott, Scott (VA), Stark and Woolsey. Nine Democrats voted Present – Conyers, Frank (MA), Holt, Payne, Schakowsky, Schwartz, Wasserman Schultz, Welch (VT) and Yarmuth

This is interesting because of this group 17 of the 18 Ds above voted FOR a resolution honoring Ramadan (Lee missed the vote).

UNHRC agenda: “importance of the principles of universality and indivisibility and the primacy of all human rights” – Yes/No?

Comments on the second day (2nd Part, 6th Session) of the Human Rights Council by David G. Littman, NGO Representative of Association for World Education (AWE) and World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ) to the UN Office in Geneva:

On December 11, we attempted to deliver a statement on the second day of the renewed 6th session of the Human Rights Council. Having received a copy beforehand of our joint statement, the HRC president, Ambassador Toru Romulus da Costea of Roumania, sent his assistant to advise us – to our great surprise – that the theme addressed was outside the scope of the interactive dialogue, which was now concentrated on the “rectification of the legal status of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR)”. We asked that the president consult the Annotations to the Agenda (A/HRC/6/1/Add.2), the only written information on the matter available to delegates. It states, under §35, that: “In the same resolution [4/7 of 30 March 2007], the Council decided to convene in its last session in 2007 an interactive dialogue highlighting the importance of the principles of universality and indivisibility and the primacy of human rights, with a view to deciding on the future direction of this process.” When inscribing our two NGOs on December 10, we informed the NGO liaison officer of the theme of our joint statement, specifically referred to agenda §35, even showing our text – nothing was hidden – but we were not informed then that it was an inappropriate subject to address under item 3. This notwithstanding, the president’s assistant made it very clear that if the president’s advice was not accepted for our joint statement it would be considered “out of order” in this context – since all the State delegates had spoken only on “the legal status of the CESCR” (§34) .We made it crystal clear to him that we preferred to uphold NGO rights under article 19 of the UDHR: “the right to freedom of opinion and expression” – clearly within the context of the ‘Draft programme of Work’ (version November 29), as indicated in the Order of the Day under : “Item 3 (cont’d). Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. Rectification of the legal status of the CESCR” – as in §35 of the Annotated Agenda, this being pertinent to the subject of the joint statement, to be delivered on behalf of the WUPJ and the IHEU.

Being the first speaker on the NGO list, David G. Littman was then given the floor, but soon was interrupted by the president – the first time is indicated by an asterisk. He was finally requested not to continue with his statement and the floor was then given to the next speaker. The passages actually pronounced by Littman are in bold type. This and the ‘exchanges’ with the president were filmed by the UN technicians as is customary, and are available on the website of the OHCHR’s website – section HRC.

Neither the president, secretary, or NGO liaison officer are to blame for this situation. Later, it was made clear to the speaker that a ‘point of order’ from several Member States was inevitable in such a case, and was already being manifested to the president before he cut off the speaker in order to avoid lengthy recriminations thereby saving time for NGOs.

The passages that were actually pronounced by the speaker have been put in bold type.
The first intervention by the president is marked by an asterisk. The passages in brackets could not have been pronounced within the three minutes time allotted, but they are retained in smaller type, as in the statement given to the Secretariat. At the fourth intervention, the speaker was not allowed to continue – this is indicated in the text below.

A 2nd joint statement was made later on Darfur when the speaker was not stopped.

Statement by David G. Littman on Tuesday, December 11 (a.m.)

Theme: “Interactive dialogue highlighting the importance of the principles of universality and indivisibility and the primacy of all human rights.”

Mr. President, this is a joint statement [on behalf of the World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ) and the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU)]

Sir, we welcome this interactive dialogue on, inter alia, “the importance of the principles of universality and indivisibility and the primacy of human rights”, as referred to specifically in §35 of the Annotations to the Agenda, which makes our statement 100% relevant to this dialogue.*

* * * * *

We realise that such idealistic goals are utopian, as they can be nullified by devious attempts to redefine human rights. The reasons given for non-compliance are often based on “cultural relativism” – with religious overtones. For example, the Islamic Republic of Iran has always had major objections to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights which were expressed and recorded in 1981 two years after the Islamic Revolution, and again on 7 December 1984 at the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee [A/C.3/39/SR.65, §91-95]. It is worth pondering those words quoted in our text as Iran’s position has not changed an iota:

[The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which represents a secular understanding of the Judeo-Christian tradition, cannot be implemented by Muslims and does not accord with the system of values recognized by the Islamic Republic of Iran.; his country would therefore not hesitate to violate its provisions, since it had to choose between violating the divine law of the country and violating secular conventions.]

On 28 December 1989 [– the year of Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie –] a Committee of Legal Experts, meeting in Teheran for the Nineteenth Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers, sponsored a “Declaration of Human Rights in Islam”, adopted in Cairo in 1990. It established shari’a law as “the only source of reference” for the protection of human rights in Islamic lands, thus giving it supremacy over the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

[The speaker was not allowed to continue beyond this sentence.]

We were surprised that Pakistan’s Ambassador Masood Khan speaking yesterday morning on behalf of the OIC, claimed that the Cairo Declaration was “not an alternative competing worldview on human rights”, but failed to mention shari’a law as “the only source of reference” (articles 24 and 25) in that same Declaration – the shari’a law where there is no equality between Muslim men and women, and between Muslims and non-Muslims.

[The universality of human rights was again called into question when on 18 January 2006, the OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu: “denounced and strongly disapproved the recurrence of the publication of blasphemous and insulting caricatures of Prophet Mohammed.” One passage from this text speaks volumes:

It is the common sense that Islamophobic acts, which are also against the internationally promoted common values, can not and should not be condoned in the pretext of freedom of expression or press. Principle of freedom of expression can not be promoted by offensively hurting and trampling on the sincere religious beliefs of millions of people.]

The Final Communiqué of the Third Extraordinary Session of the Islamic Summit held in Mecca (7-8 December 2005), was covered by the media only in regard to the threats by President Ahmadinejad against Israel, but it provides a clear message about the OIC position on the UN system of human rights and the Islamic interpretation of human rights:

The Conference called for considering the possibility of establishing an independent permanent body to promote human rights in Member States as well as the possibility in preparing an Islamic Charter on Human Rights in accordance with the provisions of the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam and interact with the United Nations and other relevant international bodies.* This was re-confirmed in May 2007 in Islamabad, as indicated by Ambassador Khan yesterday.

Madam High Commissioner, Mr President, it is 62 years since the horrors of the Second World War and the founding of the United Nations: a body often more ‘Divided’ regionally, politically and spiritually, than ‘United.’ The principal aim of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights was to create a framework for a world society. That society needed and still needs universal codes based on mutual consent in order to function. We must remain vigilant to prevent these international standards being challenged and eroded by those who call into question the essential universality of human rights – at the United Nations or elsewhere. By so doing, we shall be honouring the memory of René Cassin, Charles Malek and Eleonore Roosevelt who inspired us all with this beacon of light.

Thank you Mr. President.

* http://www.oic-oci.org/ex-summit/english/fc-eexsumm-en.htm. See, II. In the Political Field, §13.

Statement by David G. Littman on Tuesday, December 11 (p.m.)

DARFUR: Our ‘Watchman’ (HCHR) must blow the trumpet loud

Mr. President, this is a joint statement on behalf of 5 NGOs [the Association for World Education (AWE), Association of World Citizens (AWC), World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ), the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), and B’nai B’rith International.]

Sir, we are intervening regarding Council resolution OM/1/3, and resolution 4/8 of 30 March 2007.

[Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has launched a year’s campaign for the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The theme, Dignity and justice for all of us, reinforces the vision of the UDHR as a commitment to universal dignity and justice.]

[We should never forget that the Universal Declaration was adopted on 10 December, the day after the adoption of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.]

We wish to thank and congratulate Ms. Sima Samar [Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Sudan] for her very lucid statement and the remarkably comprehensive report by her team.

On 7 April 2004, here at the Palais, then Secretary-General Kofi Annan solemnly declared: “We must never forget our collective failure to protect at least 800,000 defenceless men, women and children who perished in Rwanda ten years ago…we must all acknowledge our responsibility for not having done more to prevent or stop genocide.” Nearly 4 years later, “never” is again “ever”.

Madam High Commissioner, in your lecture last month at Trinity College Dublin – my alma mater – you stressed that: “rooted in human rights and international humanitarian law” there is now a “norm” “an emerging doctrine known as responsibility to protect”. You then expressed a desire “to focus on the content of this norm” – indeed, this was the central theme of the 2006 High-level Mission to Darfur authorised by the Council. The brutal, ongoing genocide in Darfur is an important test of this “norm”.

[As a joint UN-African Union peace-keeping force of 26’000 is waiting to move, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently stated that he is "mobilizing all possible means" to get the Government of Sudan to agree on key issues so they can start deploying in Darfur next month, but there was no mention then of a “responsibility to protect”, although he stated clearly that he was “disappointed with all that is happening now." Yet President Omer Hassan al-Bashir has consistently resisted the deployment of any UN peacekeepers to replace the overwhelmed 7,000-strong African Union force now in Darfur, where over 200,000 people have died, and 2.5 million have been cruelly displaced since 2003.]

Today, we wish again to express our deep anxiety for the future of the Human Rights Council. We have expressed this concern on numerous occasions – especially in the 23 May 2006 letter to you on Darfur, signed by 43 NGOs, which concluded with a prediction, now widely recognised by the international community: “We believe that the role of the new Human Rights Council will be, in part, tested by the way the Darfur conflict is faced.”

We again appeal to you Madam High Commissioner, to the 47 member States of the Council and to all delegations and NGOs, to do everything in your power to halt the continuing genocide in Darfur. A week ago, Arte TV devoted 2 hours to this ghastly tragedy, with two moving documentary films and a debate. Only yesterday, Sudan expert Prof. Eric Reeves published a powerful warning in the IHT, entitled, “Hobbling the UN in Darfur”, concluding: “Unamid must succeed. If it does not, how long it will be before Darfur slides into cataclysmic destruction, with no means of halting the slide. This is the stark choice before the inter-national community: Is it prepared to see the mission fail? Or will it rally the resources and exert the pressure on Khartoum, both of which are critical to the mission’s success.”

Madam, Mr. President, We must never forget Darfur!

At this moment of great anxiety worldwide, we call on you, Madam, to address all delegates on this, perhaps fateful, occasion. You are our watchman who, as in the Book of Ezekiel, sees the sword approaching and must blow the trumpet loud and clear so that all people will hear that sound and react.

Thank you, Madam, Mr. President, and all delegates and representatives, for your close attention.

Kosovo: Throwing the jihadists a bone

Throwing the jihadists a bone in the form of the Serbian province of Kosovo still dominates official thinking (if one can call it that) in Washington. Counter Walid Phares:

Will the US also please the Wahhabis by forcing India to relinquish Kashmir, the Philippines to let go of Mindanao, Russia to cut Chechnya loose, Cyprus to abandon its Turkish north and last but not least, Israel to slice out half of the Galilee to its own Muslim minority? Playing this Jihadi-inspired card would ultimately strengthen al Qaeda's lexicon of "Islamic causes" at the expense of potential legitimate causes for ethnic minorities, including those who happen to be of Muslim background. Western gaming of these crises with an Islamic dimension, including Kosovo, can only backfire and cause even more tension.

Read it all.

UK: Muslims cover crucifix while using common prayer room; hospital porter suspended after asking them to remove cloth when they were finished

He didn't ask them to remove the cloth while they were praying. He asked them to remove it after they were finished. "Porter in row over crucifix," by Neal Keeling in the Manchester Evening News (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

A HOSPITAL porter has been suspended after a row over a crucifix being covered up in a prayer room.

The male porter had allegedly gone to use the room, which is available to visitors and staff of all faiths, at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital in Pendlebury, Salford.

When he entered the room the crucifix, which was on a table, had been covered with a cloth as several Muslims were using the room.

A source said: "The porter apparently asked them to remove the cloth when they had finished as he and others wanted to use the room later.

"There was then some kind of incident and as a result the porter was suspended. It is the talk of the hospital and many staff are astounded that the porter has been sent home, and feel he has been unfairly treated.

"It has been claimed that he was verbally abused by those in the prayer room."

Complaint

A spokeswoman for the Central Manchester and Manchester University Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs Pendlebury, said: "We have received a complaint, following an incident which occurred last week, involving one of the porters who works at the hospital. The porter has been suspended and we are currently looking into what has taken place. Until we are in receipt of the full facts we cannot provide any further detail at this time." [...]

Another source said: "Some staff believe the porter is the victim in this situation, but because an official complaint has been made the management have had no option but to suspend him."

There's a dhimmi history in Manchester:

In October, a Manchester airport boss was suspended after he hung an image of Jesus on a staffroom wall. Car parks supervisor Gareth Langmead, who is Catholic, was sent home after a Muslim colleague complained.

He was suspended for three days while airport chiefs investigated the complaint then reinstated without a blemish on his record.

The suspension was blemish enough.

Mecca: 19-year-old girl escapes after being chained by parents

"Abdullah Al-Morai, a lecturer at the Um Al-Qura University in Makkah, said that chaining one’s children in such a demeaning way is against the teachings of Islam. He described it as an act of 'ignorance.'”

All right, Al-Morai, but in a world where some Muslim parents consider honor killings fully justified, and the Jordanian Parliament rejects on Islamic grounds a law stiffening penalties for honor killings, chains seem positively...moderate.

"Parents Chain Young Woman at Makkah Home," by Badea Abu Al-Naja for Arab News (thanks to all who sent this in):

JEDDAH, 5 December 2007 — Authorities in Makkah are investigating the case of a 19-year-old girl who left her home yesterday and climbed into a taxi with her feet in chains.

The driver of the taxi reported the girl to police after noticing the chains.

On questioning, the girl told the police that she was heading to meet her boyfriend, who had proposed to marry her but had been refused by her family....

Makkah Police spokesman Maj. Abdul Muhsin Al-Mayman said that the Community Protection Office has been notified. “Parents should be more cautious about the safety of their children’s mental and physical health,” he added.

Abdullah Al-Morai, a lecturer at the Um Al-Qura University in Makkah, said that chaining one’s children in such a demeaning way is against the teachings of Islam. He described it as an act of “ignorance.”

Iraqi policewomen are told to surrender their weapons

Sharia Alert from Brave New Iraq.

By Tina Susman for the Los Angeles Times (thanks to Zack):

BAGHDAD -- The Iraqi government has ordered all policewomen to hand in their guns for redistribution to men or face having their pay withheld, thwarting a U.S. initiative to bring women into the nation's police force.

The Interior Ministry, which oversees the police, issued the order late last month, according to ministry documents, U.S. officials and several of the women. It affects all officers who have earned the title "policewoman" by graduating from the police academy. It does not apply to men in the same type of jobs.

Critics say the move is the latest sign of the religious and cultural conservatism that has taken hold in Iraq since Saddam Hussein's ouster ushered in a government dominated by Shiite Muslims. Now, that tendency is hampering efforts to bring stability to Iraq by driving women from the force, said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. David Phillips, who has led the effort to recruit female officers.

Fitzgerald: The nastiest of all conceivable Christmas scenes

Those behind this, whether they are in the Amos Trust or simply talked those in the Amos Trust into this act of vulgar antisemitism, are either sly and sinister, or possibly merely completely ignorant. They demonstrate either willful denial or complete ignorance of the history of the Arab Muslim war on non-Muslims, a permanent war if not always open warfare, and that is not limited to that focus of the world's media, the siege of Israel.

In that siege, every conceivable means -- economic and diplomatic warfare, and nonstop propaganda -- supplement both nonstop terrorism as well as intermittent attacks by regular Arab forces. Those military attacks by regular Arab armies have been repulsed and the Arabs pushed back (in 1948-49), or those attacks have been pre-empted just in time (June 1967), or the Arabs have been fought to a standstill with a return to antebellum lines (October 1973).

But terrorism, of which Israel until recently was the primary victim, is another matter. Now the entire Western world is getting a taste of what Israel, and to a less-publicized extent India, has endured. Now the entire Infidel world is enduring and will continue to endure, as best it can, the thing that explains, and justifies, that "Wall." That “Wall,” in fact, is only for a very short distance a wall at all, but is almost entirely a far less forbidding thing, a fence. And such fences or walls are planned, or being built right now, all over the Middle East -- beginning with Saudi Arabia, that plans to build a gigantic barrier all along its Eastern Province. But not a word is said about that.

No. We are expected to denounce "The Wall" because it was constructed by Israel. And the Jews of Israel are far from being seen as what they are, and always will be: people merely trying to stave off, with fantastic odds against them, the Arab Muslim siege that is prompted by the texts and tenets of Islam, and that comes out of the Muslim insistence and unshakeable conviction that no land, no matter how tiny, can revert to non-Muslim rule if once it has been ruled by Muslims and once formed part of Dar al-Islam. The size of Israel -- already ludicrously tiny, even if Israel does not continue to surrender territory as it has, so foolishly, so many times in the past -- does not matter in the Muslim Arab view. Israel is an Infidel nation-state. It must disappear.

There are differences among Muslim Arabs, and among the local Arabs who serve as the immediate shock troops of the Lesser Jihad, the ones carefully renamed as "Palestinians" after the Six-Day War. But their differences are those of tactics and timing, not of ultimate goals. The Slow Jihadists of Fatah want the Western aid to continue to flow, so that the corrupt leaders can continue to do as their Great Leader Arafat did: siphon off billions of the largesse to be provided, without their say-so, by long-suffering Western taxpayers, because their governments, in the impasse of the their own ignorance, can't think of anything better to do than to keep supplying the disguised Jizyah of aid, aid to be largely diverted to military uses, or stolen, but still...aid. And once that aid starts, the attitude of the Arab Muslim recipients becomes one of thinking that they are entitled to such aid. And meanwhile the Infidel donors assume that they for some reason must continue to supply such aid -- as if the "Palestinians" had some claim on us, when they have none.

Still more outrageous is the refusal of the Western leaders to insist that if those "Palestinians" insist on remaining on someone's dole, that someone ought not to be Infidels but Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the U.A.E., which have received trillions of dollars without lifting a finger, and are now in the process of receiving many trillions more, still without lifting that figurative finger.

But it is not only the cruelty and viciousness of this nastiest of all conceivable Christmas scenes that enrages. It is also the fact that it is being put out by a supposedly "Christian" group, when Christians everywhere in the world of Islam -- including, for god's sake, even the "Palestinian" Christians, who were for so many years loyal to the Arab Muslims, who were the very same "islamochristians" that the Amos Trust apparently harbors -- are facing persecution from the jihadists. Look at how the percentage of Christians in Bethelehem has dropped from 60% to 20%, with the Christians under assault and many afraid to talk publicly lest they be murdered. Look at the Christian "Palestinians" being murdered in Gaza.

Look, for that matter, at the two million black Africans, many of them Christian, who have died in the southern Sudan over the past twenty years as a result of deliberate murder, either through killing or starvation, by the Muslim Arabs of the north. Look at the attacks on Christians in the Moluccas, hardly limited to those schoolgirls decapitated on their way to school, and the burning of thousands of Christian churches in Indonesia (see the reports of the Barnabas Fund).

The Amos Trust should be held up for inspection, ridicule, attack, and stripped of whatever facade of "Christian" respectability it may still pretend to possess. It has done an evil thing. It should be shunned, and not merely by refusing to buy that intolerable piece of propaganda on behalf of the Jihad. Have nothing to do with it.

Iran: Man faces death by stoning for adultery

But remember: if you mention that some Muslims still believe the stoning penalty is justified, you are a venomous Islamophobe.

From AKI (thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

Tehran, 11 Dec. (AKI) - A 48-year-old man with two children faces death by stoning in Iran after he was accused of having had extra-marital sex.

Iran's Supreme Court has sentenced Abdollah Farivar Moghaddam to death by stoning in the city of Sari, in the north of the country.

Abdollah was accused of adultery and the Supreme Court confirmed the sentence that was passed by the judges in the tribunal in Sari.

In March, another man was stoned in the city of Ghazvin, which is about 100 kilometres from the capital Tehran....

Gordon Brown wants to talk with the Taliban

“Sometimes you have to talk to the enemy, but Gordon Brown has got to be careful he is not placing too much emphasis on doing a deal with people who are unwilling or unable to deliver.”

"Government backs Taliban talks," by Rob Winnett in the Telegraph (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

Britain is understood to have given the green light to President Hamid Karzai to undertake talks with Taliban militants as part of a long-term strategy to bring peace in Afghanistan.

The controversial announcement, which is likely to meet resistance from American hardliners, is now seen as essential amid intense fighting in the war-torn country with the prospect of British troops becoming tied up for more than a decade.

The Prime Minister is due to set out a new long term strategy for Afghanistan today after visiting the country earlier this week.

He will reveal a new “three-pronged strategy” with the establishment of security by Nato and the Afghan army to be followed by economic and political development.

The most controversial part of the strategy is the proposal to hold formal discussions with the Taliban – with the aim of dividing forces opposing British troops, splitting local Afghan fighters from militants linked to al-Qa'eda.

[...]

Tory defence spokesman Gerald Howarth said: “Sometimes you have to talk to the enemy, but Gordon Brown has got to be careful he is not placing too much emphasis on doing a deal with people who are unwilling or unable to deliver.”

Fitzgerald: Islamic dress and the accommodation of Islam

A Jihad Watch reader recently wrote: "My favorite example of Muslim ‘attitude’ was that of a young woman who had converted and started wearing appropriate hide-all clothing. She complained that people on the street related differently to her, in a less friendly manner."

But her new clothes were a sign. Those clothes said: I am not merely a Muslim, but a true-blue Believer. As a true-blue Believer, you may hold me to knowledge of, and submission to, the dictates of the Qur'an and the Sunnah. When, for example, the Qur'an tells me, as it tells all Believers, "do not take Christians and Jews as friends, for they are friends only with each other," I must obey, and not take them as friends. When I am told, as a Believer, that I must not to greet non-Muslims before they greet me (as a sign of their inferiority), I obey.

And my dress semaphores to the world that I obey. It further semaphores, that somber head-to-toe dress in which I now go about, that I willingly submit to Allah and his dictates, as expressed in the Qur'an and glossed by the Hadith and the Sira (for Muhammad is the central figure in Islam, far more present as an exemplary model than distant and whimsical Allah). That means that I agree to regard the key division in the world, the only one that really matters, as between Believers and Infidels, and am ready to participate, as my duty as a Muslim, in the struggle or Jihad to remove all barriers to the spread, and then the dominance, of Islam. I am ready to do that even if it means I must work to change beyond recognition the political and legal institutions of the Infidel nation-state in which I now happen to be living, and of which I now happen to be a citizen -- it hardly matters to a true Believer, for whom all Infidel nation-states are virtually fungible.

That is why you might, if you dress in a way that says I Am A Believer in a Total System that does not wish Infidels well, garner a few stares from Infidels. Would that the expressions of hostility went beyond that, to make it very difficult for those who wish to change for all time our legal and political institutions, so that they could be refused citizenship, or not allowed into the country in the first place -- or if natives, could be stripped of their citizenship if they swear allegiance not to a "foreign power" but to an ideology that, if it were to be believed and followed, would mean an end to the Constitution, an end to this young, bumptious, sometimes hopelessly naive and sentimental Republic.

The West is no place to raise a decent Muslim family. May it remain so forever: no place to raise a decent Muslim family, given what that, in the largest sense, implies or means. Those who in the West, free from constraints, societal and family (the Muslim family, backed up by the Muslim society and the Muslim state), shed Islam, and become apostates, or at least Muslims-for-identification-purposes Muslims, will find the West something to be embraced, its freedoms supported. However, those who remain real Muslims will not embrace the Infidels among whom, and the Infidel nation-state within which, they have managed to settle. They will work to chip away at those Infidel freedoms, even while exploiting some of them, in order to remove every barrier to the spread, and then hoped-for dominance, of Islam.

Muslims should be told not, as Karen Hughes naively did, that Muslim life in America is thriving, and isn't it all so wonderful, but rather that it is difficult to live islamically, and still fit in, in America and the rest of the West. And as Infidels learn more and more about Islam, become more and more wary and disturbed, it will only become -- as from our point of view it should -- more difficult.

Instead of doing everything to accommodate Islam by changing our legal and political institutions, and social arrangements, Western societies should be reinforcing the barriers to such change, with volunteers supplementing the work of the government, in piling high those sandbags. Some may be discouraged from coming to those places where their numbers are not large and the Infidels are now, too early, wary. Others may decide to leave, whether to participate in the oil bonanza if they came from oil-states (or can obtain work in the Gulf), others to participate in Jihad (Iraq, Somalia), others simply to remain among fellow Muslims, in a Muslim state, where Islam rules.

Otherwise there will be more such incidents such as we saw in Mississauga, where a young woman has been murdered by her father for refusing to wear the hijab. This incident is telling but entirely comprehensible to those who know what Islam is all about. It is a source of wonderment to those who do not (and may think it is just a particular father, behaving inexplicably). And it could just as easily have been a Muslim family in Mississippi, or anywhere else in the Western world.

Dhimmi British Christian Charity Selling Palestinian Propaganda Nativity Scene

Maybe if they equipped the wise men with suicide vests, or put up a big mosque right next to the manger, with loudspeakers blaring the call to prayer into it, this thing would be more realistic.

"Dhimmi British Christian Charity Selling Propaganda Nativity Scene.......," from Tundra Tabloids (thanks to Pamela):

It's that time of the year again. For most Christians it's a time for celebrating the birth of their Lord and saviour, and sharing the "spirit of Christmas", its message of goodwill and peace towards all mankind. For other Christians --those naive enough to be taken in by Palestinian Arab propaganda-- it's an opportune time to stick it to Israel.

"A British charity is giving the traditional nativity scene a political twist this year by dividing it with a wall symbolizing Israel's controversial security barrier.

The Amos Trust, a Christian group that works with needy communities around the world, is selling what it calls a nativity set with a difference -- one where "the wise men won't get to the stable."

Organizers say the purpose of the sets -- made by Palestinian carpenters with olive wood from Bethlehem -- is to draw attention to the security measures put in place by the Israeli government."

Fortunately, Israel has the solid backing of Christians who are not taken in by the lies of the Muslim Arabs and their supporters. These Christians are knowledgeable about the traditional violent nature of Islam towards Christianity and Judaism (where Islam has the upper hand), and can see through the rhetoric and the propaganda.

Note: The positive side being, that this will serve to highlight what is ACTUALLY HAPPENING THERE. The CNS report details: "Some scholars attribute the shrinking Christian population to harassment and intimidation by Islamists, however....

Read it all.

Merry Christmas, dhimmis

Feel the love. "Grenade is thrown in Christian area of Beirut," from DPA (thanks to Twostellas):

Beirut - An unidentified assailant late Tuesday threw a sonic grenade in a Christian neighbourhood at the outskirts of Beirut's mainly Shiite southern suburbs, a Lebanese security source said.

According to a police report, the grenade - thrown near a school in Ain Rumanah area - caused panic, but no casualties or damage....

Maldives: non-Muslims to lose citizenship

Dhimmi laws in the Maldives: Non-Muslims won't be second-class citizens; they won't be citizens at all. From Inspire Magazine:

The Maldivian constitutional assembly has passed an amendment stating that “none, except Muslims can be Maldivian citizens”.

According to the Barnabas Fund, an organisation that supports the persecuted Church, the implementation of this amendment to the constitution means that a number of Maldivians will lose their citizenship and become stateless. In the Maldives it is illegal to practise any other religion than Islam.

While there are a few Christians in the country among the expatriates, there are also some Maldivian Christians, converts from Islam, who would lose their citizenship. Although the current constitution does not specifically mention this, any person who follows, preaches or simply reads texts of other religions is punished until he or she turns to Islam.

Under President Gayoom, whose autocratic regime has recently come under attack, militant Islamism has become more widespread. After a bomb explosion earlier this year, which injured a number of tourists and was attributed to an Islamic militant group, the president promised to take measures to combat Islamic extremism. This seems to contradict this latest amendment to the constitution.

Indeed. In the aftermath of recent jihadist bombings, do they think this gesture will make them safer? Or are they attempting somehow to balance the recent crackdown on Islamic militancy?

More information from the Maldivian Democratic Party:

Non Muslims are to be denied Maldivian citizenship in the new Constitution, after 78 members of the Peoples Special Majlis (Constitutional Assembly) voted on 19 November 2007 in favor to approve an amendment that requires all Maldivian citizens to be Muslims. Prominent Maldivian lawyers have expressed concern following the passage of the clause in the new Constitution stating fears that the prerequisite to be a Muslim for Maldivian citizenship would create complications. Lawyers predicted that the new clause would deprive a number of current citizens of Maldivian citizenship, resulting in some Maldivians becoming stateless after the proclamation of the new Constitution.

“Under the existing Constitution, every child born to a Maldivian mother or father is a Maldivian citizen. But we know there are non-Muslims among them. There are such children living in Australia and Europe. They have Maldivian passports. Under the existing Constitution, it is possible for a foreigner of another faith to become a Maldivian citizen. Therefore, with the passage of this clause, a lot of Maldivians will be stripped of citizenship the day the new Constitution comes into effect,” Member for Seenu Atoll and prominent lawyer Mr. Husnu al Suood, told reporters on 19 November 2007. Other lawyers have noted that Islam allowed Muslim men to marry Jewish and Christian women and that the new clause would suppress the rights of such spouses.

Prominent evangelical pastor Rick Warren not sure what he apologized to Muslims for

Rick Warren, the "purpose-driven life" pastor, signed the dhimmi apology that a large number of Christian leaders recently offered to Muslims. But he's not sure what for. Don't bother him with details! If there was ever something Christians did that was unjust or unkind to Muslims, Rick Warren is sorry for it!

"Rick Warren: 'I always own up to mistakes,'" by Art Moore for WorldNetDaily.com: (thanks to all who sent this in):

LAKE FOREST, Calif. – Widely regarded by mainstream media as one of America's most influential leaders, he's met with dictators, apologized to Muslims on behalf of Christianity, accepted blame for global warming and invited pro-choice politicians to speak at his Southern California megachurch.

All of that, and more, raises red flags with a sizeable number of evangelicals who share the traditional theological and social views of Rick Warren's Southern Baptist roots. The blue jeans-clad pastor of 22,000-strong Saddleback Church in Orange County says that with guidance from Billy Graham, he has intentionally tried to avoid engaging his critics. But on the heels of an appearance by Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton at his church's conference on AIDS, he welcomed the opportunity to sit down and talk with WND.

[...]

Last month, Warren drew some fire for signing a dialogue-seeking letter in which Christian theologians and ministers responded to an initiative by 138 Muslim leaders by apologizing for the medieval Crusades and "excesses in the war on terror."

Asked specifically which excesses he had in mind, Warren replied:

"Ahhh, you know what … I have no idea," he said. "Because I didn't sign it sentence-by-sentence."

Similar to his endorsement of an initiative acknowledging man-made global warming, Warren said, "There might have been statements there I didn't agree with, but generally I'm saying, I think it's a good idea to get people talking."

"It comes back to," he said, referring to the letter to Muslims, "I am a pastor, not a politician. And what I've learned is that, in marriage if I'm trying to keep a divorce from happening … I've found as long as I can get the husband and wife talking, they're not going to divorce. The moment the talking stops the divorce is inevitable."

Warren insisted he's "not a Pollyanna, thinking getting different interfaith groups together is going to bring world peace."

"We know that isn't going to happen," he said. "It just isn't going to happen. That's not what the Scripture says."

All religions are not alike, he emphasized, and one can't be a Christian and adhere to any other faith. But he argued, "There's a difference between compromise and civility."

As long as I'm talking with my enemy, Warren said, "he's not sending a bomb my way.

No, but he may be trying to make you more susceptible to his efforts at subverting your society.

"Don't think that you're going to bring in the kingdom with dialogue, you're not going to do it," he clarified. "It isn't going to happen. But it can keep things from escalating."

He interjected that this approach has led to productive discussions with prominent political and religious leaders in the Muslim world.

"What I don't talk about publicly is the talks with people who call me behind the scenes," he said.

"On the other hand – it's going to sound like I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth, but I'm not, I believe this – the Bible says evil has to be opposed. Evil has to be stopped," Warren continued. "The Bible does not say negotiate with evil. It says stop it. Stop evil. Hitler could not be negotiated with. And there are some people you cannot negotiate with."

Warren argued there are many different kinds of Muslims in the world, and he's met a sampling, from those "who wanted to cut my throat" to those who feel "like a brother."

"Al-Qaida no more represents Islam than the Ku Klux Klan represents Christianity," he contended. "Actually, if you study the background of al-Qaida, they were influenced by the same people who influenced Hitler. It was a lot of secular writers and Nietzsche and nihilists and stuff like that."

Not the Qur'an, despite Osama's tendency to quote from it copiously. Heavens, no.

Many of his critics take exception to that inference about Islam and further argue that agreeing to "excesses" in the war on terror and apologizing for the Crusades actually reinforces al-Qaida and other movements that use the claims as pretexts for their global jihad.

"Well, I understand that argument," Warren said. "I disagree with it, because I'm not about to defend something that wasn't Christianity. And the Crusades weren't Christianity. Not as I see it.

Then why apologize?

"I do apologize, because I apologize for anything done in the name of Christ, that Jesus would disavow," he said. "I think Jesus would have disavowed the Crusades. Because the Crusades were largely about territorial land and not even about a personal relationship with Christ."

Never mind that the Crusades may, by preventing the total conquest and Islamization of Europe, have kept Rick Warren from becoming a dhimmi. He is well on his way to becoming one anyway.

Critics also argue the Crusades were a defensive response to Islamic jihad, and today Muslims are the aggressors in most of the world's hot spots. Muslims aren't apologizing for this, yet the letter to the Islamic leaders essentially puts Christians in the position of taking the blame.

"I'm not interested in what the radicals will do with that statement," Warren said. "I'm interested in what the far-more majority of moderates will do with it, and say, Hey, maybe we should listen to this guy Rick Warren."

Yes, I'm sure they're lining up at Saddleback.

MSNBC Senior Political Analyst admits he's afraid to criticize Islam publicly

Lawrence O’Donnell, Jr., is MSNBC’s Senior Political Analyst and a panelist on “The McLaughlin Group.” He has won a reputation over the years for a volcanic temper, and has gained attention recently for an emotional attack on Mormonism. But will he speak out about the elements of Islam that Islamic jihadists are using to recruit and motivate terrorists? Don't hold your breath. Here he is with Hugh Hewitt, via Hot Air:

HH: Would you say the same things about Mohammed as you just said about Joseph Smith?

LO’D: Oh, well, I’m afraid of what the…that’s where I’m really afraid. I would like to criticize Islam much more than I do publicly, but I’m afraid for my life if I do.

HH: Well, that’s candid.

LO’D: Mormons are the nicest people in the world. They’re not going to ever…

HH: So you can be bigoted towards Mormons, because they’ll just send you a strudel.

LO’D: They’ll never take a shot at me. Those other people, I’m not going to say a word about them.

HH: They’ll send you a strudel. The Mormons will bake you a cake and be nice to you.

LO’D: I agree.

HH: Lawrence O’Donnell, I appreciate your candor.

Lawrence O'Donnell is emblematic of the cowardice of the mainstream media in the face of the biggest crisis of our age. He is no different in this cowardice from virtually everyone else in the mainstream media. The only difference is that he admits it.

Edward Said, lying charlatan

The man who did more than any other to destroy legitimate Middle East studies in the United States, the late professor Edward Said, author of the notorious Orientalism, is the subject of a devastating critique in the Middle East Quarterly, "Did Edward Said Really Speak Truth to Power?" by Efraim Karsh and Rory Miller (thanks to Hot Air).

Their conclusion:

Said's substitution of politics for scholarship in the name of "speaking truth to power" has spawned scores of students, professors, and journalists who seek to emulate his path to fame. Justifying any polemic under the rubric of speaking truth to power now brings reward in most Western universities. Said once described himself "as a teacher of how language is used and abused";[64] indeed, he provided a global audience with a master class on the subject.

It is ironic that while Said and his intellectual successors—Dabashi, Columbia University associate professor Joseph Massad, University of Michigan professor Juan Cole, and Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer and his Harvard University coauthor Stephen Walt—seek to profit from false claims of persecution and censorship, across the Arab world, a plethora of reformers and opponents of authoritarian regimes suffer for attempting to speak truth to power. By substituting polemics for research and conflating academic freedom with freedom from academic standards, Said's legacy may ultimately be to harm fact-based and lasting Middle East studies scholarship and instruction in American and European universities.

And even better is Ibn Warraq's outstanding new book, Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said's Orientalism -- a remarkable destruction of Said's central thesis, that Western study of Islam was merely an ethnocentric handmaiden of imperialism, and an erudite exploration of Western intellectual and artistic attitudes toward the Islamic world, which in reality have been far more multicfaceted and complex than Said ever acknowledged or, probably, even knew.

Girl, 16, dies after hijab dispute with father

The father has been charged with murder.

An update on the story immediately below. By Rob Roberts in the National Post (thanks to all who sent this in):

The 16-year-old Mississauga girl who was allegedly strangled by her father in a dispute over her refusal to wear the hijab has died.

Aqsa Parvez, a Grade 11 student at Applewood Heights, succumbed to her injuries late last night, Peel Regional Police said today.

The girl’s 57-year-old father, Muhammad Parvez, has been charged with muder. Aqsa’s 26-year-old brother, Waqas Parvez, has been charged with obstructing police.

Friends believe Aqsa...was the victim of a dispute over the teenager's desire to be more western.

“She wanted to live her life the way she wanted to, not the way her parents wanted her to,” classmate Krista Garbhet told the Post this morning.

“She just wanted to be herself, honestly she just wanted to show her beauty, and not be pushed around by her parents telling her what she has to be like, what she has to do. Nobody would want to do that.”

Ontario: Father nearly chokes girl to death after she refuses to wear hijab

It's voluntary, we're told endlessly. And it is, except when it isn't. "Teen girl in critical condition after alleged dispute over hijab," by Barry Hertz in the National Post (thanks to LGF):

A 16-year-old girl is in critical condition after being choked by a man believed to be her father, apparently after a dispute with her family over her refusal to wear the hijab, the Islamic headscarf worn by some Muslim women.

The Post's Chris Wattie updates this developing story:
Peel Regional Police arrested a 57-year-old man yesterday morning after receiving a 911 call from a suburban home in Mississauga from a man saying he had killed his daughter. When police and paramedics arrived at the house they found a 16-year-old lying on the floor without any vital signs, police said....

However, early police reports indicated the teenager had been choked and that the attacker was her father.

The girl was rushed to Credit Valley Hospital and later transferred to the Hospital for Sick Children, where she was listed in critical condition last night with life-threatening injuries.

Her condition is so grave that police have not yet charged the man arrested at the scene until they know whether he will be charged with murder or attempted murder. He was scheduled to appear in Brampton court on Tuesday.

Friends of the teenager, a Grade 11 student at nearby Applewood Heights high school, identified her as Aqsa Parvez and said they were shocked by the attack on the outgoing, likeable girl, but said she had been threatened by her strictly religious family before.

“She got threatened by her father and her brother,” said Dominiquia Holmes-Thompson, who had known Aqsa since they both started high school together. “He said that if she leaves, he would kill her.”

Ebonie Mitchell, 16, another friend of the victim, said the conflict with her father over wearing Islamic dress came to a head at the beginning of this school year. “She just wanted to dress like we do,” she said.

“Last year she wore like the Islamic stuff and everything, the hijab, and this year she’s all Western. She just wanted to look like everyone else. And I guess her dad had a problem with that.”

I guess he did.

Fitzgerald: Start with Shakespeare. Go from there.

How a Muslim should treat his non-Muslim relatives is an important question in Islam. Historically, after Muslims conquered non-Muslim lands and peoples with military force, almost at once and from then on people tried to escape from what turned out to be (they had initially misunderstood what the supposed kindness of their conquerors would be) not a pleasant but a most difficult, onerous, and at times intolerable existence: that of being a dhimmi, a condition that involved permanent humiliation, degradation, expense, and physical insecurity.

Younger people, obviously, would be the ones who would convert or "revert" most often, while those set in their ways would probably cling to their beliefs, faiths, rituals. So what early Islam had to deal with was not the case of Muslim parents dealing with a non-Muslim child, but the reverse: the new convert ("revert"), in the lands conquered by Islam by military force. Today, of course, that kind of military conquest is not possible, except at the edges of Islam, or where Infidel lands can be persuaded to give in or even to take the Muslim side -- as in the Balkans. There the West seems determined to rip part of Serbia where Muslims are the majority right out of Serbian control, as if head-counting were the final authority. This is an idea that will come back to haunt France, Great Britain, and other countries as Muslim populations are permitted to rise, inexorably, and where, in this city or in that region, the same Muslim writ will then inevitably run.

In the West today, the instruments of Jihad are the Money Weapon (which comes from donors and suppliers among the Arab oil states), the allowing of the building of mosques and madrasas, and the use of Western hirelings (journalists, lawyers, businessmen, academics, and others) to protect not only the "image" of Saudi Arabia but also of Islam, and to use that money to intimidate or silence critics of Islam -- or at least to everywhere attempt to do so. Da'wa and demographic conquest. The latter has been written about extensively by Muslims, though whenever an Infidel quotes such things, it is he who is attacked. See the vicious misreporting on Mark Steyn, whose quoting of Mullah Krekar's phrase about Muslims in Europe "breeding like mosquitoes" was mistakenly attributed to Steyn himself by someone quick with the idiotic charges of "racism" that we have all grown so used to, and that look more ridiculous and desperate every day.

The campaign in the West for Da'wa is accompanied by efforts, amazingly aggressive and relentless in every respect, by Muslim groups and communities. They use every instrument of dissemination that the Infidels have invented and provide, to present themselves simultaneously as:

1) Just like us, and to be accepted as perfectly fine (Americans, British, French, etc.);

2) Not like us, but purer and better than we are, and therefore deserving of having their demands to apply the Shari'a, as much as they can, agreed to, and, as much as they can, to have changes made in the legal and political institutions to accommodate Muslim demands and Muslim needs. These could be for hijabs in French schools, to make a political issue. Or, if the Muslims are in a system that is not so wedded to removing "religious" symbols, as the American school system, so that a fight cannot be had over the hijab, then it might be about other things: the demand for release from classes, or work, for five-times-a-day prayer, and the providing of prayer rooms on site. Or it could be zoning changes to allow mosques, or looming minarets that are symbols of Muslim power. Or a demand that municipal pools have Muslim-women-only days. It starts with that kind of thing, but it has essentially no end: every single obstacle, as Muslims define them, to the practice of Islam, and to the spread of Islam, and then to the ultimate dominance of Islam (that must come: not merely the existence, but the future dominance), must be removed.

Every kind of technological advance made possible by Infidels is exploited: radio, television, the Internet. Every bit of publicity that will further the cause of Islam is taken advantage of, so as to confuse or distract the Infidels, or make them, or some of them, think that Muslims are being "victimized," by likening them to whatever real historical victims exist. So the persecution and mass-murder of European Jewry is invoked by Muslims -- often the same Muslims who are completely at ease with their own brand of home-grown, Islam-prompted antisemitism (with a different prompting than that to be found historically in Western Christendom), and their own history of mistreatment, over 1350 years, of Jews as of other non-Muslims.

In this country, it happened the other day when a planted Muslim questioner undertook his propagandistic questioning of John Edwards. "Martin" (i.e., Martin Luther King) and the Civil Rights movement will be invoked by Muslims who, in fact, have not the slightest interest in or natural sympathy for blacks, and who, in their own countries, routinely make remarks and demonstrate racist attitudes that flabbergast visiting Americans there.

Thus in this country we are forced to endure the spectacle of Muslim Arabs asserting Islam as a vehicle of social justice. Yet it was Muslim Arabs who started and conducted for centuries before and after all others the slave trade in black Africa. Even today they enslave blacks in Mauritania and in the Sudan. And if we are to believe such keen observers as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, they do also in Saudi Arabia, beyond the prying eyes of any Infidels -- who hardly can be said, over the past century, and especially in the last few decades, to have done much prying, or much reporting, on what really goes on in Saudi Arabia, the country that has been far more successful than any Communist regime at shutting out or shutting off inquiries or investigations by reporters.

Then there is the Muslim propaganda of the "aren't Muslims just like us" variety. These "Muslims-are-just-like-us" heartwarming articles are always about the same two or three things: the observance of Ramadan and then the Iftar dinner, and then Muslims "integrating" into American society, trying so hard, so very very hard if only we would let them (what utter nonsense), as in that story in The Times a week ago about "Muslim Girl Scouts" in America (all 1,500 of them, which given the Muslim population is very few). The Times journalist made certain we would be led to believe that these "scouts" are emblematic of the touching Muslim desire to be just like us, when in fact the story ignores entirely not the Girl Scout uniforms, or the Girl Scout cookies, but what those little girls are taught to believe, taught to believe as Muslims, the attitudes and tenets of Islam that arise naturally from the texts, Qur'an and Hadith and Sira.

So nowadays, a new situation has developed. Along with all the psychically and economically marginal people who are those deemed most vulnerable to appeals of those carrying out Da'wa, there are, among the Muslims, those who have somehow managed, through intellectual effort and moral revulsion at Islam, to fight their way through to leaving Islam and, in many of those cases, embracing Christianity. It happens very rarely and requires enormous courage to do so, of course, in Dar al-Islam. And it happened in this case, with this girl, in Egypt.

Islam is hardly silent on how a Muslim child should treat, or rather how he should deal with, his non-Muslim parents. Read about it, merely by googling a bit. He should keep them at bay, making sure they are not able to re-convert him back to his original faith. This is not different from the way that the Nazis and the Communists (Pavel Morozov!) taught little Hitler Youths and Oktobryata to treat their parents: as people to be watched, people who, of course, might have to be reported to the authorities, and sacrificed For The Good Of The Cause. And of course the same would go for any other relatives, and parents would be expected, as well, to turn in their children.

Islam, like other ruthless totalitarian belief-systems, demands of its adherents that they be willing to sacrifice everything if need be, for the Good of Islam. And that includes the willingness to overcome what, we have been led to believe, are the natural ties that bind children and parents with ties of affection and loyalty and love. The ties may not always bind in the Infidel world, but no other faith teaches its adherents to think or behave toward relatives as Islam does.

We see the "Palestinian" mother (or many such mothers) who is taped for everyone to see, expressing her delight that one of her children has blown himself, or herself, up, "killing Jews." She tells the camera how delighted and proud she is, and she has another six or seven or ten at home, whom she has raised up to do the same. And we read of, though seldom see, the relatives who gather round to cause the death, by lapidation, of a girl convicted under Shari'a law of adultery, and it is the father who casts the first stone. All because Allah wills it, Islam demands it. Humans are merely the slaves of Allah, and must do his bidding, at every step. It is an incredible system of brainwashing, and then of rigorous reinforcement, and enforcement, at every level of society, in every way. Who can get out? Who can be mentally free or, still more amazing, once that mental freedom from such enslavement is achieved, who can remain free? And the same Islam that teaches disloyalty to parents and other relatives, and ignoring of natural tendencies of affection where the cause of Islam demands otherwise, also tugs -- or exploits. Filial piety makes someone keep declaring himself a Muslim, or defending the father who, in Iran, casts the first stone in the series that will cause the death, by lapidation, of his own daughter.

In the early conquering days of Islam, it was the younger non-Muslims who would convert to Islam. And it was therefore important to spell out exactly how they should treat with, deal with, “handle” their disapproving parents and relatives. Little attention was paid to the possibility that a child of Muslims might dare to leave Islam. Such a case, however, was dealt with under the general rule that applies to all Muslims, a rule that has been ratified time and again by Muslim clerics, including those who met with Prince Charles a year or so ago (see the testimony of Patrick Sookhdeo).

That is the case here. She has disgraced, dishonored her parents. She deserves to be attacked, beaten, possibly killed. And her relatives, her own parents, will be happy not merely to participate, but to lead the frenzied mob. It is the only way that they can redeem themselves in the eyes of fellow Believers and Allah. Their station here below is at stake, as is their possibility for that Muslim Paradise, the languor and lilies of that la-illah au-dela.

Punch and kick her, boys. Stab her if you feel like it. Here, let everyone join in. It will be like “Murder on the Orient Express,” where everyone shares in committing the murder. Except that was a mere fiction to be solved by the moustachioed Hercule Poirot. This is fact, and this happens all over the world, in Dar al-Islam, and now, right smack in Dar al-Harb, in England, land of hope and glory.

Yes, they can be screaming, and trying to beat down the door to kill such a young girl, right smack in the middle of old Londinium, or any other large city or town, in a flat just round the corner from the church, the caff, the fish-and-chips, the pub, the place where you can get bangers-and-mash, the one that has a faded picture of Elizabeth at her coronation tacked to the wall, and perhaps, upstairs (now we are renewing our poetic license with a vengeance), the sound of Gracie Fields being listened to by a pensioner in the flat upstairs (Her Grace, and Our Gracie, together again at last). Right there: the primitive minds and mores of people with minds on Islam. How does Her Majesty’s Government intend to deal with this? By continuing to pretend that Islam does not possess the immutable texts it does possess? By continuing to pretend that they are not taken seriously, and that those who do not take them seriously but continue to call themselves Muslims, will never take their religious texts seriously, and never will do so for all time, with no possibility of re-acquiring at any point, they or their burgeoning progeny, that old-time religion that means menace and more for Infidels?

Forget it all. Play that record one more time, will you? Louder, so that we can remember only the past, and drown out the present, and never ever think about our future, or of any conceivable future:

Gracie Fields: 'Shipyard Sally' Land Of Hope And Glory

Again, but turn up the sound so everyone in the house can hear it.

Now start thinking. Start with Shakespeare. Go from there.

Turkish lawyer asks for cancellation of Italian team's soccer victory because winners wore "offensive" t-shirt featuring cross

The t-shirt of outrage

If you can't win on the field, play the dhimmi card. "Fenerbahce To Ask Uefa For Three Points From Inter Match," by Danilo Pochini for Goal.com (thanks to Freedom4Expression):

A Turkish lawyer has filed a complaint to Uefa after Inter wore a shirt with an offensive symbol, at least to Islamic culture, in their recent match against Fenerbahce.

A Turkish lawyer who's an expert on European law, Baris Kaska, is asking Uefa to cancel the three points Inter earned in their win against Fenerbahce in the recent Champions League match.

The Nerazzurri had beaten the Turkish champions 3-0 at home to qualify for the next round of the Champions League.

The reason for the appeal is unusual: the celebratory shirt for Inter's centenary worn by the team that night, and on several other occasions this season, offended many people in Turkey.

The shirt's scheme saw a big red cross on a white background, a symbol of the city of Milan, and reminded many of an emblem of the order of the Templars, which is considered offensive in Islamic culture.

Inter consciously did not wear their 'centenary shirt' in their first match against Fenerbahce in Istanbul, but at home, they did not think it was necessary to do the same.

However, the very sensitive Turkish media reacted bitterly and that led to the official appeal filed by Kaska, who announced this decision during an interview to Barcelona daily La Vanguardia.

Keep hijabs off judges, teachers, say Quebec union bosses

Anti-dhimmitude in influential circles. By Jeff Heinrich for the Montreal Gazette:

MONTREAL - No public servant - including Muslim teachers and judges - should be allowed to wear anything at work that shows what religion they belong to, leaders of Quebec's two biggest trade union federations and a civil-servants' union told the Bouchard-Taylor commission Monday.

"We think that teachers shouldn't wear any religious symbols - same thing for a judge in court, or a minister in the National Assembly, or a policeman - certainly not," said Rene Roy, secretary-general of the 500,000-member Quebec Federation of Labour

"The wearing of any religious symbol should be forbidden in the workplace of the civil service . . . in order to ensure the secular character of the state," said Lucie Grandmont, vice-president of the 40,000-member Quebec union of public employees.

Quebec needs a "fundamental law" akin to the Charter of Rights that sets out clearly that public institutions, laws and the state are all neutral when it comes to religion, said Centrale president Rejean Parent. The new law would also "define (people's) rights and duties . . . in other words, the rules of living together."

Under a secular charter, employers would understand that they don't have to agree to accommodate religious employees if, for example, they ask to be segregated from people of the opposite sex, Carbonneau said.

Similarly, religious students in public schools would understand they can dress as they like, but not if it means wearing restrictive clothing like burkas, niqabs and chadors, which make communication difficult, she told commissioners Gerard Bouchard and Charles Taylor.

And in the courts, "there are cases that are clear - I wouldn't want to see a judge in a veil," she said. Judges need to appear "neutral" so as to inspire confidence in their judgment, she added.

Cadillac targets Saudi women with cars sporting rear-seat controls

What will they call them? The Sharia Cruiser? The Gilded Cage? "Car makers target Saudi women despite driving ban," from Reuters:

RIYADH - If Saudi Arabia ever lets women drive, it will be a windfall for the automobile industry which has already seen sales to women rise, executives said at a motor show this week.

Saudi Arabia, which imposes a strict version of Islamic law, is the only country in the world where women are banned from driving. Religious authorities say allowing women to drive would lead to gender-mixing and take women away from their role as child-rearers.

But industry figures at the Riyadh Motor Show 2008 this week said they are already reaping the benefits from women owning cars, even if they need chauffeurs to drive them. The economy is booming in Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter with a population of 24 million.

More and more Saudi women are buying cars and manufacturers are responding to the trend, said Ali Alshihri of Toyota 7203.T, citing the Camry, Aurion and Avalon as women’s favourites.

‘Older women and single mothers are the main buyers from our showrooms,’ he said, adding manufacturers are producing colours seen as more appealing to women such as pink and purple.

Car ownership by women rose 60 percent from 2003 to 2006, according to figures published by state oil firm Saudi Aramco this year. It said 75,522 women owned 120,334 vehicles by the end of 2006.

Some residents believe the rising sales could create more pressure on the authorities to sanction women driving.

King Abdullah has said such a change could happen when society is ready to accept it. The ban on women’s driving has been a hot topic of debate since the king came to power in 2005 promising reforms.

‘If women can drive, then the car industry will be booming,’ said a sales executive with a major car manufacturer.

‘There is increasing demand to buy cars, especially from working women. The women’s workforce in Saudi Arabia is becoming powerful and influential. You find business women everywhere and business geared towards women is growing rapidly.’

Wednesday, the last day of the four-day show, is reserved for ‘families’, as is Saudi custom—the only day when women are allowed to visit the exhibition.

An executive from Nissan 7201.SE said the Japanese firm would target Saudi women with its Infiniti model.

Yann Lassade of General Motors GM.N in Dubai said its new Cadillac was being marketed in Saudi Arabia for the first time with female buyers in mind—but not those who drive.

The Cadillac comes with special control mechanisms in the rear seat for everything but the steering wheel.

‘The new design is perfect for a chauffeur-driven car, with all the space and controls at the back seat,’ Lassade said.

'Teddy' teacher blames herself

And she notes with embarrassment that she celebrated her release by drinking an alcoholic drink in the presence of Muslims. It seems she has learned her lesson well: do not offend your overlords. And if they take offense at something you have done, it is your fault -- no matter how far-fetched and absurd the offense may be.

From IOL.co.za (thanks to Twostellas):

London - A British teacher who was jailed in Sudan for naming a teddy bear Mohamed said in an interview published on Sunday she blames herself for what she went through.

Gillian Gibbons was convicted of insulting Islam after she allowed her six-year-old pupils to name the class teddy bear "Mohamed" - a violation under Sudan's Islamic sharia law.

While Gibbons expressed incomprehension at how anyone could interpret her actions as intentionally insulting, she told the newspaper she blamed herself for the incident.

"I shouldn't have done it," the newspaper quoted her as saying. "Ignorance of the law is no defence."

[...]

Gibbons also described moments of absurdity during the trial - including an incident in which the teddy bear was produced as evidence by a prosecutor - and how she toasted her release with a vodka and orange in her first-class cabin on her way back home.

"I'm not a drinker, but I felt obliged to have an alcoholic drink, even though I was with Lord Ahmed and Baroness Warsi, who are Muslims," she said.

"I was a bit embarrassed about it, but I thought I deserved that vodka."

Authorities in West Jakarta stop a parish priest from celebrating Mass

Islamic Tolerance Alert: "The authorities in West Jakarta stop a parish priest from celebrating mass," by Mathias Hariyadi for Asia News (thanks to Insubria):

Jakarta (AsiaNews) – Indonesian authorities have prevented the parish priest of Christ’s Peace Church in South Duri (West Jakarta) from celebrating mass. The Catholic parish church in which the function was supposed to take place is at the centre of controversy ever since a group of Muslims have challenged its legal status. As a result of strong pressures from Muslim extremists Tambura Sub-district officials banned all activities in the church to avoid “social tensions.”

The parish priest, Fr Matthew Widyalestari MSC, signed an agreement forcing him to cease all activities in the church but expressed a desire to celebrate a Sunday mass for his 4,000 parishioners who now find themselves unable to practice their faith.

On Friday after a meeting between local Catholic leaders and officials from the West Jakarta District and the Tambura Sub-district, local political authorities insisted on cancelling the Eucharistic function as well. The same reason or excuse was given, “public order,” and the fear of sectarian clashes as Father Widyalestari told AsiaNews.

“The faithful want their spiritual needs fulfilled; they feel like they are on a most wanted list, forced underground to find another place to practice their religion,” the priest said.

United States: State Sponsor of Judeophobia

Pamela Geller reports on Annapolis in Israel National News:

A terrible line was crossed at Annapolis.

Last week, a line was crossed. A terrible line was crossed at Annapolis. With the world looking on, the President of the United States sponsored Judeophobia. Jew-hatred was okay, understandable even.

Under the auspices of a global "peace" conference, the White House sanctioned Jew-hatred. The Jew is contemptible, inferior, ignorant, politically and socially disenfranchised: separate entrance ways, service entrances for the Jews, refusal to touch or shake hands with a Jew, refusal of audience members to wear the translation earphones when Ehud Olmert spoke.

"Saud Al-Faisel's ears, underneath his red keffiyah, were left bare. And no, it wasn't because he understood Hebrew. It was the Saudi method of demonstrating their relationship to the State of Israel. Even as the Israeli Prime Minister was greeting him and speaking of peace, they were refusing to listen. For a minute I thought I was wrong that maybe there was a technical problem. But then I saw his aide next to him - also leaving his ears demonstrably naked."

Then, as Olmert's speech ended, and the audience applauded: "The Saudi representative also brought his palms together in order to appear polite. Only someone who sat very close to him could see that the never touched. The little game that the Saudis were playing was just one contradiction - the least noticeable one - in a day full of contradictions." ...(Read more here.)

Submitting to Saudi demands, the Americans prohibited Israeli representatives from
It is unfathomable to consider this with any other race, creed or color.
entering the hall through the same door as the Arabs. Vile - all of it; sanctioned and institutionalized by the President of the United States. I thought George Bush was a Christian, a man of faith. Shocking. He has squandered his second term and has not acted in good faith. We did not elect him to carry Condi's water.

It is unfathomable to consider this with any other race, creed or color. Imagine separate entrances for the leader of an African nation because a "white" leader refused to walk through the same door as the black man, because it would be unclean?

And Israel took it like the ghetto Jew. They should have walked out like any self-respecting human would have done. But no, they lowered the bar yet again. Offering all and getting nothing. Sheba Farms, Golan, Jerusalem - all of it in play. The post-Oslo Jew has returned to the pre-Holocaust mentality of the "ghetto Jew." The Jew who doesn't want to be noticed, the Jew who will do anything to appease those who hate us, just to live in peace. Instead of asserting our rights, our will, that we have a right, that we are the rightful heirs of Israel and Jerusalem, we are acting as if we have no rights. Instead, we are begging - begging - our enemies to recognize us and accept us!" Behaving like beggars! And the silence of American Jews - well, it's the ghetto mentality mixed with those who have assimilated into American culture: the "let's not rock the boat" crowd.

Continuing this tragedy, Condoleezza Rice later proclaimed, "I know what it's like as a Palestinian." Such willful stupidity is unacceptable in a US Secretary of State. Rice knows little about the history of the Middle East, the politics, the Koran, the Jews - none of it. This ignorant remark says it all. The Palestinians are not the blacks of the Civil Rights movement or era; Abbas is not the great non-violent civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King (what an insult to even think this!); and Dr. King was a Zionist, a lover of Israel and the Jewish people's right to it. The Jews are not the KKK or the police with the dogs, either; this is not the old South, this the very violent, blood-lusting Middle East.

She doesn't know what it means to be a Jew, to watch innocent people, babies, children, the old, the young, the tourist be blown to bits; shards of flesh flying in every direction, blood, guts strewn everywhere, missing body parts, and the survivors, with nails, nuts and bolts throughout their bodies, marred for life. My dear friend Wolf nailed it when she she said Rice doesn't know what it's like to have monsters throwing rocks at your car as you drive, to have bombs thrown at you, to live under constant mortar fire and have to spend the night in a bomb shelter. She doesn't know the feeling of the parents who lost their sons when the boys went on a hike near where they lived, only to be brutally murdered by barbarians who had bashed in their heads beyond all recognition. They were left to be discovered in a cave. She knows rien, nothing.

A line in the sand was crossed last week. And anyone who claims that Annapolis was a big yawn and that nothing would come of it is living in the land of unicorns and moonbeams. The Jew as dhimmi was made official and the world was there to bear witness. Moreover, Israel laid down. Sheba Farms, Golan, Jerusalem - all were thrown on the table like so many marbles.

Bat Yeor was dead right in her reply when I asked her what had become of the people of Israel: "Israel is unworthy of her ancestors."

Convert from Islam to Christianity: "Mum, Dad - you're saying you should kill me… but I'm your daughter! Don't you realise that??"

Here is a good piece on the difficulties that converts from Islam to Christianity face, including death threats -- in the UK. And "moderate" Muslim leaders are reluctant to condemn these things, to the puzzlement of British authorities who are as clueless as are all other Western officials about the universality among all the schools of Islamic law of the death penalty for apostasy.

"Muslim apostates threatened over Christianity," by Alasdair Palmer in the Telegraph (thanks to all who sent this in):

Sofia Allam simply could not believe it. Her kind, loving father was sitting in front of her threatening to kill her. He said she had brought shame and humiliation on him, that she was now "worse than the muck on their shoes" and she deserved to die. And what had brought on his transformation? He had discovered that she had left the Muslim faith in which he had raised her and become a Christian.

"He said he couldn't have me in the house now that I was a Kaffir [an insulting term for a non-Muslim]," Sofia - not her real name - remembers.

"He said I was damned for ever. He insulted me horribly. I couldn't recognise that man as the father who had been so kind to me as I was growing up.

"My mother's transformation was even worse. She constantly beat me about the head. She screamed at me all the time. I remember saying to them, as they were shouting death threats, 'Mum, Dad - you're saying you should kill me… but I'm your daughter! Don't you realise that?'?"

They did not: they insisted they wanted her out of their house.

After three weeks of bullying, and just before her parents physically threw her out, Sofia left. "They put their loyalty to Islam above any love for me," she says, her voice faltering slightly.

"It was such a shock. I remember thinking when they brought all my uncles round to try to intimidate me - all these men were lined up telling me how terrible a person I was, how the devil had taken me - I remember thinking, how can this be happening? Because this isn't Lahore in Pakistan. This is Dagenham in London! This is Britain!"

Religious persecution of the kind Sofia suffers, however, is increasingly common in Britain today. It is hard to get an accurate notion of the scale of the problem, not least because very few of the people who leave Islam are willing to complain to the police about the way they are treated.

"Intimidation is very widespread and pretty effective," says Maryam Namazie, a spokesperson for the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain. She believes that many of the deaths classified as "honour killings" are actually murders of people who have renounced Islam.

"I get threatened all the time: emails, letters, phone calls," she says. "When I returned home this afternoon, for example, there was a death threat waiting for me on my answering machine…" She laughs nervously.

"A lot of them aren't serious, but occasionally they are. I went to the police about one set of threats. They took a statement from me but that was it - they never contacted me again."

[...]

But it is not only extreme Muslim families that believe it is their religious duty to threaten, and even kill, members who renounce the religion.

"My father could not be described as an extremist," insists Sofia, who is now 31. "We read the Koran and prayed regularly together, but he never insisted on my wearing Islamic dress and he was quite happy that I went to the local comprehensive, which was all girls, but not by any means dominated by Muslims."

There were conflicts when Sofia's parents tried to arrange a marriage for her at the age of 18, but they seemed to accept her decision to continue her education.

[...]

"She confronted me one morning with, 'Are you still a Muslim?' I had to tell the truth: I didn't think I was. From that moment on, she basically disowned me. My father was shocked and saddened. But the reality was that my parents behaved to me as if they thought it would be much better if I was dead."

Most leading Muslims in Britain are unequivocal in their denunciation of British Muslim parents who threaten to kill their children for leaving Islam.

Ibrahim Mogra, of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), says that it is "absolutely disgraceful behaviour… In Britain, no Muslim has the right to harm one hair of someone who decides to leave Islam."

Inayat Bunglawala, also a spokesman for the MCB, insists that such behaviour in Britain is "awful and quite wrong. The police should crack down on it."

And yet a significant portion of British Muslims think that such behaviour is not merely right, but a religious obligation: a survey by the think-tank Policy Exchange, for instance, revealed that 36 per cent of young Muslims believe that those who leave Islam should be killed.

There is considerable support, from the Koran and other sacred Islamic texts, for that position - which may explain why, out of the 57 Islamic states in the world today, seven have a legal code that punishes Muslims who leave the religion with death.

That number may soon increase: Pakistan is currently considering a Bill that would make apostasy a capital crime for men and one carrying a sentence of imprisonment for women.

As it is, ordinary Pakistanis take the law into their own hands and kill Muslim apostates. The same thing happens in Turkey where, earlier this year, two people were killed for "having turned away from Islam".

Patrick Sookhdeo was born a Muslim, but later converted to Christianity. He is now international director of the Barnabas Fund, an organisation that aims to research and to ameliorate the conditions of Christians living in countries hostile to their religion.

He notes that "all four schools of Sunni law, as well as the Shia variety, call for the death penalty for apostates. Most Muslim scholars say that Muslim religious law - sharia - requires the death penalty for apostasy.

"In 2004, Prince Charles called a meeting of leading Muslims to discuss the issue," adds Dr Sookhdeo. "I was there. All the Muslim leaders at that meeting agreed that the penalty in sharia is death. The hope was that they would issue a public declaration repudiating that doctrine, but not one of them did."

The reluctance to condemn sharia law is widespread. I asked Mr Bunglawala, for instance, to condemn the Islamic states that imposed the death penalty for apostasy. He did not do so, merely commenting that "it was a matter for those states"....

"My dad was shouting through the letter box, 'I'm going to kill you', while the others smashed on the window and beat the door"

Why hasn't her father been arrested? Has he even been questioned about her allegations?

More information on this story. "Imam's daughter in hiding after her conversion to Christianity sparked death threats," by Liz Hull and Daniel Bates in the Daily Mail (thanks to all who sent this in):

The daughter of a British imam is living under police protection after receiving death threats from her father for converting to Christianity.

The 31-year-old, whose father is the leader of a mosque in Lancashire, has moved house an astonishing 45 times after relatives pledged to hunt her down and kill her.

The British-born university graduate, who uses the pseudonym Hannah for her own safety, said she renounced the Muslim faith to escape being forced into an arranged marriage when she was 16.

She has been in hiding for more than a decade but called in police only a few months ago after receiving a text message from her brother.

In it, he said he would not be held responsible for his actions if she failed to return to Islam.

Officers have agreed to offer her protection in case of an attempt on her life.

Last night the woman said: [...] "I know the Koran says anyone who goes away from Islam should be killed as an apostate, so in some ways my family are following the Koran. They are following Islam to the word.

Al-Shafi'i, the Muslim jurist who founded the school of Sunni jurisprudence that bears his name, held that Qur'an 2:217 called for the killing of the apostate: "And they will not cease from fighting against you till they have made you renegades from your religion, if they can. And whoso becometh a renegade and dieth in his disbelief: such are they whose works have fallen both in the world and the Hereafter." Others point to Qur'an 4:89 -- "But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them" -- as calling for the execution of apostates. The Qur'an interpreter Baydawi explained this verse this way: "Whosoever turns back from his belief (irtada), openly or secretly, take him and kill him wheresoever ye find him, like any other infidel."

"But I do not think every Muslim would act on that.

"My situation is frightening, but I'm not going to let it frighten me to the extent I can't live my life.

"I pretty much feel like I've lost my family and that's very hard.

"Some days I feel very low and what my father might do preys on my mind. But I regularly change my phone number to avoid him catching up with me.'

Hannah was born in Lancashire to Pakistani parents who raised her and her siblings as strict Sunni Muslims.

She prayed and read the Koran, wore traditional Muslim clothes and was sent to a madrassa, a religious Muslim school.

She ran away from home at 16 after overhearing her father organising her arranged marriage.

Hannah was taken in by a religious education teacher and decided to convert to the Christian faith.

Although unhappy, her parents tolerated their daughter's dismissal-of Islam as a "teenage phase".

But when she opted to get baptised, while studying at Manchester University, her family were incensed and the death threats began.

Her father arrived at her home with 40 men and threatened to kill her for betraying Islam.

"I saw my uncle and around 40 men storming up the street clutching axes, hammers, knives and bits of wood," she said.

"My dad was shouting through the letter box, "I'm going to kill you", while the others smashed on the window and beat the door.

"They were shouting, 'We're going to kill you' and 'Traitor'.

"It was terrifying. I was convinced I was going to either die, but suddenly after about ten minutes the noise stopped and the men suddenly went away."

Since then Hannah, who gives talks to churches on Islam, has been on the run from her family, often being forced to flee her home with only a few minutes' notice.

After receiving the latest text threat from her brother, in June, she finally went to the police.

No one has been arrested or charged in connection with the death threats, but officers have put her on an "at risk" register and have given her a panic number to call if she fears for her own safety.

Tiny Minority of Extremists Alert:

A study this year found that 36 per cent of British Muslims between 16 and 24 believe those who convert to another religion should be punished by death.

Gaza Christian leader: "Radical Islamic groups are waging a campaign to get rid of us and no one seems to care."

Islamic Tolerance Alert. "Muslim gunmen target Christian in Gaza," by Khaled Abu Toameh for the Jerusalem Post:

Muslim gunmen in the Gaza Strip tried to kill another Palestinian Christian over the weekend, sources in Gaza City told The Jerusalem Post.

They said four masked gunmen tried to kidnap Nabil Fuad Ayad, who works as a guard at a local church. Nabil's cousin, Rami, was kidnapped and murdered two months ago by the same group, the sources said.

The sources identified the gunmen as members of the radical Islamic Salafi movement.

"They were dressed in the traditional Salafi clothes," said an eyewitness. "They were also carrying guns."

The gunmen tried to force Ayad into their car as he was walking in the street, but he managed to escape to a nearby shop. Shopkeepers who began shouting drove the gunmen away.

As they fled the scene, the assailants fired several shots into the air.

Salafism represents a Sunni Islamic school of thought whose followers argue that Islam was perfect and complete during the days of Prophet Muhammad, but that undesirable innovations have been added due to materialist and cultural influences.

The Salafis, who have become very active in the Gaza Strip in recent months, are totally opposed to common Western concepts like economics, constitutions and political parties. They refer to the 2,500 Christians in the Gaza Strip as Crusaders and have vowed to drive them out of the area.

But, it bears repeating, they don't hold a monopoly on violent jihad or oppression of religious minorities.

Hamas denied any involvement in the attack, saying its security forces had launched an investigation after receiving a complaint from the victim.

Christians living in the Gaza Strip told the Post that they were very worried about the increased attacks on members of their community and religious institutions. "The latest incident is aimed at sending a message to all the Christians here that we must leave," said a Christian leader. "Radical Islamic groups are waging a campaign to get rid of us and no one seems to care."

Turkey investigates reported ties between police, alleged killers of Christians

Let them into the EU. That'll fix everything.

An update on this story. "Turkey Investigates Alleged Ties Between Police, Alleged Killers of Christians," from the Associated Press:

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey has launched an investigation into alleged collusion between police officers and at least one of the suspects charged with killing three Christians earlier this year at a publishing house that produces Bibles, an official said Saturday.

Two senior police inspectors will be assigned to investigate whether any officers provided assistance to the suspects, an Interior Ministry official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. He did not provide further details.

The three Christians — a German and two Turks — were killed in the southern city of Malatya on April 18. The killings — in which the victims were tied up and had their throats slit — drew international condemnation and added to Western concerns about whether Turkey can protect its religious minorities.

Five people were arrested and charged with murder. The trial opened last month, but was quickly adjourned until Jan. 14 because defense attorneys requested more time to prepare their arguments.

The Interior Ministry decided to open an investigation after several newspapers published stories Saturday alleging cooperation between police and at least one of the suspects.

Radikal newspaper quoted two of the suspects, Abuzer Yildirim and Salih Guler, as saying in their testimonies that a third suspect Emre Gunaydin told them that he had met with police officials and learned about the locations of Christian churches in the city.

"I asked him who are the police chiefs that you are speaking to, he said: 'Don't ask, take it easy,"' Radikal quoted Yildirim as saying.

[...]

Many Turks are convinced that a so-called "deep state" — a network of state agents or ex-officials, possibly with links to organized crime — periodically targets reformists and other perceived enemies in the name of nationalism.

Christian leaders have said they are worried that nationalists are stoking hostility against non-Turks and non-Muslims by exploiting uncertainty over Turkey's place in the world.

The uncertainty — and growing suspicion against foreigners — has been driven by Turkey's faltering EU membership bid, a resilient Kurdish separatist movement and by increasingly vocal Islamists who see themselves — and Turkey — as locked in battle with a hostile Christian West.

Bomb threat after Qur'an verse ends up on dance CD

The Ayat al-Qursi, or Throne Verse, is Qur'an 2:255:

Allah! There is no god but He, the Living, the Self-subsisting, Eternal. No slumber can seize Him nor sleep. His are all things in the heavens and on earth. Who is there can intercede in His presence except as He permitteth? He knoweth what (appeareth to His creatures as) before or after or behind them. Nor shall they compass aught of His knowledge except as He willeth. His Throne doth extend over the heavens and the earth, and He feeleth no fatigue in guarding and preserving them for He is the Most High, the Supreme (in glory).

According to Islamic scholar Mahmoud Ayoub, this verse is “regarded by Muslims as one of the most excellent verses of the Qur’an. It has therefore played a very important role in Muslim piety.” Muhammad approves of a statement about its power, “Whenever you go to your bed, recite the Verse of ‘Al-Kursi’ (2.255) for then a guardian from Allah will be guarding you, and Satan will not approach you till dawn” and of another about its being the “greatest verse in the Book of Allah.” Qurtubi reports that “when the Throne Verse was revealed, every idol and king in the world fell prostrate and the crowns of kings fell off their heads,” and recounts a saying by Muhammad in which Allah tells Moses of the many blessings that people will receive if they recite the Throne Verse.

But do not -- do not -- put it on a music CD.

I will doubtless get the usual flood of emails from Muslims saying, "You approve of blasphemy," "You have no respect for religion," etc. But in fact, this is not a question of whether or not one approves of blasphemy. One may consider this CD blasphemous without thinking it necessary to issue a bomb threat. One may consider Cry Lehlaka a blasphemer who is headed for hell, but that concerns his soul, and need not require a response from anyone else. The assumption that many Muslims have -- that they are the executors of Allah's wrath in this world -- is a source of many of the problems they face in dealing with a pluralistic society. Unfortunately, the concept of "Vengeance is mine, says the Lord" -- that is, the Lord's and not any agent of his on earth -- does not exist in the Qur'an.

"Bomb threat after prayer ends up on CD," by Janet Smith in IOL.co.za (thanks to Sugiero):

Producer Cry Lehlaka only realised the serious error of judgment which DJs Tea and Kay had made on their latest hit house mix when he received a bomb threat.

The sound of the Muslim prayer known as the Ayat-ul-Qursi had "simply appealed" to them, so they had lifted a version of it and used it as part of their new House Therapy compilation.

But it wasn't long before Lehlaka, operations manager at the popular House Therapy production house in Pretoria, was taking calls from Muslim fans furious at the apparent blatant exploitation of a sacred verse.

"There was only one person who threatened me with a bomb," Lehlaka said, "but most people who phoned were angry. We honestly didn't realise how serious the lyrics were, so we immediately promised to take the song off the CD, which is what we have done."

Lehlaka has since been on community radio station Channel Islam to set the record straight, and was scheduled to go on SABC1 last night to emphasise the unbiased position of his production house to Muslim house music fans - and the Muslim community.

"We had gone to see an Islam expert and he explained that we were not supposed to use the prayer in this way," Lehlaka said on Friday. "Now the people have been very understanding and we've removed all the offending lyrics."

The debacle has cost House Therapy dearly, as the company has had to recall hundreds of discs. But it appears both potential legal action - and bombings - have now been averted.

Suraya Dadoo, of the Media Review Network, said: "We accept that they did not realise that this was an important verse from the Qur'an."

Phew. Good thing, eh? Next thing you know someone will name a teddy bear Muhammad!

Islam’s Silent Moderates

Trenchant observations about Sharia law and the deafening silence of the Vast Majority of Moderates from Ayaan Hirsi Ali, in this New York Times editorial:

The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication, flog each of them with 100 stripes: Let no compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by Allah, if you believe in Allah and the Last Day. (Koran 24:2)

In the last few weeks, in three widely publicized episodes, we have seen Islamic justice enacted in ways that should make Muslim moderates rise up in horror.

A 20-year-old woman from Qatif, Saudi Arabia, reported that she had been abducted by several men and repeatedly raped. But judges found the victim herself to be guilty. Her crime is called “mingling”: when she was abducted, she was in a car with a man not related to her by blood or marriage, and in Saudi Arabia, that is illegal. Last month, she was sentenced to six months in prison and 200 lashes with a bamboo cane.

Two hundred lashes are enough to kill a strong man. Women usually receive no more than 30 lashes at a time, which means that for seven weeks the “girl from Qatif,” as she’s usually described in news articles, will dread her next session with Islamic justice. When she is released, her life will certainly never return to normal: already there have been reports that her brother has tried to kill her because her “crime” has tarnished her family’s honor.

We also saw Islamic justice in action in Sudan, when a 54-year-old British teacher named Gillian Gibbons was sentenced to 15 days in jail before the government pardoned her this week; she could have faced 40 lashes. When she began a reading project with her class involving a teddy bear, Ms. Gibbons suggested the children choose a name for it. They chose Muhammad; she let them do it. This was deemed to be blasphemy.

Then there’s Taslima Nasreen, the 45-year-old Bangladeshi writer who bravely defends women’s rights in the Muslim world. Forced to flee Bangladesh, she has been living in India. But Muslim groups there want her expelled, and one has offered 500,000 rupees for her head. In August she was assaulted by Muslim militants in Hyderabad, and in recent weeks she has had to leave Calcutta and then Rajasthan. Taslima Nasreen’s visa expires next year, and she fears she will not be allowed to live in India again.

It is often said that Islam has been “hijacked” by a small extremist group of radical fundamentalists. The vast majority of Muslims are said to be moderates.

But where are the moderates? Where are the Muslim voices raised over the terrible injustice of incidents like these? How many Muslims are willing to stand up and say, in the case of the girl from Qatif, that this manner of justice is appalling, brutal and bigoted — and that no matter who said it was the right thing to do, and how long ago it was said, this should no longer be done?

[...]

But while the incidents in Saudi Arabia, Sudan and India have done more to damage the image of Islamic justice than a dozen cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, the organizations that lined up to protest the hideous Danish offense to Islam are quiet now.

I wish there were more Islamic moderates. For example, I would welcome some guidance from that famous Muslim theologian of moderation, Tariq Ramadan. But when there is true suffering, real cruelty in the name of Islam, we hear, first, denial from all these organizations that are so concerned about Islam’s image. We hear that violence is not in the Koran, that Islam means peace, that this is a hijacking by extremists and a smear campaign and so on. But the evidence mounts up.

Islamic justice is a proud institution, one to which more than a billion people subscribe, at least in theory, and in the heart of the Islamic world it is the law of the land. But take a look at the verse above: more compelling even than the order to flog adulterers is the command that the believer show no compassion. It is this order to choose Allah above his sense of conscience and compassion that imprisons the Muslim in a mindset that is archaic and extreme.

If moderate Muslims believe there should be no compassion shown to the girl from Qatif, then what exactly makes them so moderate?

When a “moderate” Muslim’s sense of compassion and conscience collides with matters prescribed by Allah, he should choose compassion. Unless that happens much more widely, a moderate Islam will remain wishful thinking.

Plans to ease headscarf ban in Turkey

One-way religious freedom moves forward: You are free to be as observant a Muslim as you possibly can. But if the shoe were on the other foot, would they be as forthcoming in granting rights to those who don't care to wear the headscarf?

From Reuters:

Turkey's ruling AK Party, which has Islamist roots, signalled plans to ease a ban on the wearing of the Islamic headscarf in universities under a new draft constitution.

"This (new) constitution will solve the headscarf problem in a more libertarian spirit," Dengir Firat, a deputy chairman of the AK Party, told CNN Turk television.

No compulsion in religion. But again, what about in lack of religion?

The AK party has hinted many times that it wants to modify or if possible remove the headscarf ban, which also applies to government offices.

Any moves to scrap the ban is sure to revive tensions between Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's centre-right AK Party government and Turkey's secular elite, which includes powerful army generals, top judges and university rectors.

The secularists view the headscarf as a symbol of political Islam and, therefore, as a direct challenge to Turkey's separation of religion and state.

They also distrust the AK Party because of its Islamist past and the fact the wives of Erdogan and other senior ministers wear the headscarf.

[...]

The AK Party is due to publish its draft constitution on December 15.

It has said the draft, due to replace a text dating back to a time of military rule in the 1980s, will boost individual freedoms in Turkey, a European Union candidate.

Firat said the government wanted a wider debate about the principles and aims of the new constitution, adding that opponents were trying to whip up secularist fears artificially by concentrating solely on the headscarf issue.

"The headscarf is an extension of freedom of belief," he said.

So is not wearing a headscarf. Would that preference be honored if the Islamists had their way? That is at the root of the secularists' concerns.

Muslim woman sues San Bernardino County -- for having to remove her hijab when she was arrested

And of course the ACLU is right on the case. As Charles says, "Here’s a particularly egregious example of ACLU-radical Islamic collaboration." By Maeve Reston for the Los Angeles Times (thanks to LGF):

A 29-year-old Muslim woman sued San Bernardino County and its sheriff Wednesday, alleging that deputies violated her rights by forcing her to remove the head scarf she wears because of her religious beliefs.

The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California filed the complaint on behalf of Jameelah Medina in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana -- accusing the county and the Sheriff's Department of breaching Medina's right to practice her religion as well as a 2000 federal law enhancing protections of prisoners' religious liberty. She was arrested in 2005 for carrying an invalid Metrolink pass.

Cindy Beavers, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department, said she could not comment.

"I can tell you that anybody who comes in wearing any type of head covering -- they would have to remove it at the time of booking and that would be for security purposes," Beavers said.

Indonesia: Islamic groups secure closure of two churches

Fear of competition rather than confidence in the power of their message. Evidence of a tottering, bankrupt ideology. From Compass Direct:

JAKARTA, December 3 (Compass Direct News) – Attacking the house of a Baptist pastor and protesting the presence of a Catholic temple, radical Muslim groups got authorities to close down two churches in the past two weeks.

In Banten province, extremists from the Islamic Defender Forces (Front Pembela Islam, or FPI) on November 21 attacked the Tangerang home of the Rev. Bedali Hulu, pastor at Jakarta Christian Baptist Church (GKBJ), kicking out doors and windows, breaking glass and throwing the pastor’s belongings from the house. The church had been meeting in the pastor’s home.

At the time of the attack, only the pastor’s mother-in-law and a member of the church, Temaziduhu Laoli, were in the house, located at Perumahan Permata Sepatan, Desa Pisangan Jaya in Tangerang. Habib Muhammad Assegaf led the attack.

As a result of the attack and objections to the church, Rev. Hulu met with Pisangan Jaya village leaders on November 22 – with the result that officials asked him to leave the territory until tensions cooled. Activities at the church, which has a permit and is registered with Religious Affairs authorities, came to a halt.

“It’s okay for a while, but I’ll be back,” said Rev. Hulu. His wife and his mother-in-law were allowed to remain in their house.

British imam's daughter under police protection after converting to Christianity

"Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him." -- Muhammad

Islamic Tolerance Alert from the Brave New UK. By Ruth Gledhill in The Times (thanks to all who sent this in):

A British imam's daughter is living in fear of her life under police protection after she received death threats from her family for converting to Christianity.

The young woman, aged 32, whose father is a Muslim imam in the north of England, has moved house 45 times to escape detection by her family since she became a Christian 15 years ago.

Hannah, who uses a pseudonym to hide her identity, told The Times how she became a Christian after she ran away from home at 16 to escape an arranged marriage.

The threats against her became more serious a month ago, prompting police to offer her protection in case of an attempt on her life.

She was speaking on the eve of the launch of a new charity in London today to promote greater religious awareness. Muslims in Britain who wish to convert to Christianity are living in fear of their lives because of Islamic apostasy laws, a senior Church of England bishop will warn at the invitaton-only launch in west London.

The Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, will claim "freedom to believe" is under threat in Britain because of Islamic hostility to conversion....

Fitzgerald: The freeing of Gillian Gibbons

This freeing of Teddy Bear teacher Gillian Gibbons was based not on some new view that Muslims had arrived at, some new understanding of the primitiveness of their reactions, and desire to change their attitudes. There will be no discussion, in the ranks of Muslim clerics, in the Sudan or elsewhere, about the absurdity of the original charge, the original punishment, the original "good-natured" crowds in Khartoum "good-naturedly" screaming for Gibbons' "good-natured" decapitation.

The "freeing" of Gibbons, after what has already been an ordeal, may lead to a further unseemly spectacle. For it is not unlikely, it is likely, that she will return to England, and safely home, instead of discussing her amazement at the crazed behavior of so many Sudanese, and the Sudanese government, and the supposedly “advanced” parents -- it’s the Sudanese elite that sends its children to the school at which Gibbons taught -- she will tell us all, possibly selling her story to the tabloids, just how well-treated she was by her Sudanese captors, how wonderful those children and the Sudanese “in general” had been. She will even add, no doubt, that if things die down a bit, she wouldn’t hesitate to return to the Sudan and take up teaching again if she were asked to do so.

Of course, she may surprise us. She may not end up gushing insensately about what happened to her, as so many Western hostages taken by Muslims do. They seem unable to understand the significance of what happened, and certainly incapable of publicly stating what one should state about such treatment, and such a government, and such a Total Belief System of which, I am sure, Mrs. Gibbons has not the faintest idea. She doesn’t look as though she might in a year pull an Yvonne-Ridley, and “embrace Islam” after being invited to study it by a local imam, eager to win her favor, and then some. But who knows? Nowadays anything is possible when it comes to non-Muslim naifs who have been captured, sometimes only figuratively, by the forces of Islam.

And she might even declare how grateful she was to Lord Ahmed and Lady whatshername, the two Muslims who had come to Khartoum in a noisy effort to obtain her release, hoping thereby to win points for themselves, and for Islam. If anyone thanks them for their effort -- which did not succeed in its goal because the cruel and murderous Bashir, the man behind the Janjaweed, had decided, for good and sufficient reasons of his own, it will be outrageous. He freed her to insure no interruption in the extensive British and other Western aid, and to make sure that there is no Western reaction on the ground, that the Western Infidels don’t decide to seize the southern Sudan and Darfur and hold them, as I have suggested dozens of times here, until a referendum on independence can he held.

For this business of Muslims in this or that Infidel land taking it upon themselves to go and attempt to free non-Muslim citizens taken by Muslims elsewhere, always done highly selectively of course, if in any degree praised, when it should be denounced, will merely give Muslims, and some non-Muslims, the idea that “our” Muslims are “our secret weapon.” For they, you see, can always be sent out to prevent the worst from happening. And it will give them a quasi-official role, and instead of being regarded as part of the problem of Islam, they will be regarded as part of the solution. Lord Ahmad and Lady whatshername are nothing of the sort. They were merely trying, by attempting to free the Gibbons lady, to promote Islam, to burnish the image of Islam, in Great Britain. In other words, they were using the same incident to strengthen Islam as the Sudanese judge who sentenced Gibbons, and the rioters who demanded her death, thought they were doing.

We, as Infidels, know that Lord Ahmed, unlike those Sudanese calling for the death of Mrs. Gibbons, has a much greater knowledge of the outside world, of how Infidels think, and of how Infidels can get angry, and how there are certain danger signs that possibly the Infidels are getting just a little too fast, too large a dose of the real Islam -- and not what the smylers with the knyfs under their clokes present as the real Islam. He was protecting his own position, and the position of Islam, in Great Britain. Don’t let him or the well-heeled Muslimah who went with him get away with this. They are, in their own way, furthering the Jihad, indeed furthering it far better than are those who wanted Gibbons punished, or even killed, for her act of sweet innocent all-too-understandable non-Muslim ignorance of the nature, and scope, of the menace of Islam.

Fitzgerald: Clean out the BBC

The BBC needs to be cleaned out, top to bottom, and this requires a Parliamentary investigation. It needs to have John Simpson (see here for more) discharged as head of the World Service. It needs to be asked why it is refusing to reveal the contents of an investigation into bias in its coverage of the "Middle East conflict" (which means the Lesser Jihad against Israel).

In a few -- just a few -- cases, the outcry was too strong, and the outrageousness of the coverage too egregious, to be ignored, so a few transfers were made. For example, there was Orla Guerin, married to a "Palestinian" and a determined propagandist herself for The Cause. The steady drip-drip-drip in her outrageous coverage did so much to poison the minds of so many listeners, steadily over so many years, about Israel. She's now been sent to South Africa, where she will continue to do what she can -- for example, she'll never cover the growing Muslim threat in Capetown, because for her, with her view, there is no Muslim threat.

There is Barbara Plett, who on air wept after Arafat -- that great man -- died, and who, only because of that on-air sobbing, revealing her bias, had to be transferred. In other words, her years of viciously one-sided reporting from Israel (along with Orla Guerin) could have continued forever, had she not wept for Arafat those real, not crocodile, tears. She's now in Afghanistan -- or is it Pakistan?

And then there is Lys Doucet, of the unusually hard and nasty voice, who was a cross between Guerin and Plett. Quite a trio. She's been transferred, for her outrages, to Pakistan -- or is it Afghanistan?

But what about all the Arabs and Muslims on staff, who influence the kind of young, leftist, Englishman, already trained to accept an anti-Israel narrative, already raised up to "know" that is this place called "Palestine" and people who apparently -- so they think -- always called "Palestinians" which must mean it's their country, and those terrible Jews -- yes, we regret the Holocaust but for god's sake that was a long time ago, wasn't it, and (now repeating a staple of Arab Muslim propaganda) "why should the Arabs have to pay for the crimes of Europeans"? Never a hint of wondering over the position of Jews under Islam, never a recognition that more than half of the Jews in Israel never left the Middle East. No hint of recognition that Islam must be understood if Arab opposition, and permanent Muslim refusal to countenance an Infidel nation-state is to be understood. That refusal that can be ignored if, and only if, Israel remains militarily overwhelmingly stronger, and if, and only if, it has the ability to deal with the demographic conquest that threatens not only Israel, but ultimately, Great Britain and the other countries in Western Europe.

The BBC has been attacked for its totalitarian anti-Western bias by Vladimir Bukovsky. If you don't know that name, look him up -- he should be known. Its coverage has been dissected by Trevor Asserson and others now monitoring the BBC. But as yet there has been no outcry in either House of Parliament. And we need an outcry, well-informed and devastating, like the outcry in the House of Lords, forty years ago, when Lord Shackleton and Lord Maugham (in his maiden speech) ripped into slavery in Arabia, especially that malign place, Saudi Arabia. Their efforts, that outcry, forced the Saudis and other Arabs, by 1962, at least formally, to end the practice of slavery, at a time when there were nearly half-a-million slaves in that country, our "staunch" ally then and now.

The BBC is the source from which many obtain their news and therefore their worldview. Like the U.N., it has been infiltrated and captured by Muslims ably abetted by non-Muslims who are -- not all, but many -- subject to those two mental pathologies that has done such damage in Western Europe, anti-Americanism and antisemitism. There have been recently cases of people quitting the BBC, people who did not share either the anti-Americanism or the antisemitism, and who are disgusted by what may be called the "culture" (as that word is now used) of the BBC. They too should testify. The few decent papers should make a stink, raise holy hell. And in this country, people should raise holy hell about the BBC being transmitted by NPR -- and supported, therefore, by American taxpayers, either as donors, or as those who subsidize NPR because it has charitable status.

Abbas to double the jizya, double the fun

And doubtless the suckers will go for it. "Abbas to Seek Almost Twice as Much Aid From Abroad," by Amr Nabil for Associated Press (thanks to Sr. Soph):

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Dec. 5 (AP) — Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, will ask foreign donors to provide $5.8 billion in aid, through 2010, nearly double the current level.

Mr. Abbas says he needs help with a huge deficit run up in years of strife, but he is also promising to curb spending and stimulate economic growth.

The Abbas government will give its development plan for 2008 through 2010 to officials from donor countries in Paris on Friday, before a high-level donor meeting there on Dec. 17.

Seventy percent of the aid is to be used for continuing operating expenses, including $120 million a month for wages for public employees. Thirty percent is to be spent on development projects.

The government hopes to decrease its deficit gradually, stimulate the economy, including private investment, and to become less and less dependent on aid, said Samir Abdullah, the Palestinian planning minister.

“Our ultimate goal is to end economic stagnation,” he said, holding out hope for a balanced budget in six years, perhaps sooner if Israel moves fast to lift restrictions on trade and travel.

Indonesia: Muslims imprisoned for 14-19 years for beheading Christian schoolgirls; Muslims angered by severity of penalty

After all, it wasn't as if the victims were Muslims. 14-19 years in prison for murdering Christians? It's an outrage!

"...[I]f a Muslim deliberately murders another Muslim he falls under the law of retaliation and must by law be put to death by the next of kin. But if a non-Muslim who dies at the hand of a Muslim has by lifelong habit been a non-Muslim, the penalty of death is not valid. Instead the Muslim murderer must pay a fine and be punished with the lash....Since Islam regards non-Muslims as on a lower level of belief and conviction, if a Muslim kills a non-Muslim…then his punishment must not be the retaliatory death, since the faith and conviction he possesses is loftier than that of the man slain...Islam and its peoples must be above the infidels, and never permit non-Muslims to acquire lordship over them." — Sultanhussein Tabandeh, A Muslim Commentary on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1970.

"Muslims given prison for beheading schoolgirls," from WorldNetDaily.com (thanks to all who sent this in):

Three Muslim extremists have been sentenced to prison for their roles in the ambush of four Indonesian schoolgirls, three of whom were decapitated – with their heads wrapped in plastic and delivered to nearby villages.

While the sentences of 14-19 years may seem light considering the horrific crime, the minister at large for Open Doors USA, a Christian ministry that has worked in the area of Indonesia where the attack happened, said it not only is a relatively severe penalty, it also is raising fears of violence as the Christmas season approaches.

The report of the sentences comes from Compass Direct News, which confirmed Rahman Kalahe was given 19 years, Agus Nur Huhammad was given 14 years and Yudi Heryanto 10 years after being found guilty of beheading Theresia Morangke and Yarni Samubue, 15, and Alfita Poliwo, 17, in an Oct. 29, 2005, attack.

A fourth girl attacked, Noviana Malewa, then 15, was seriously hurt but survived the machete attack.

As WND reported earlier, three militant Islamists earlier were given prison sentences of 14 and 20 years for their part in the girls' deaths.

Islamist Hasanuddin, the son-in-law of Islamist militant leader Adnan Arsal, reportedly has trained in the Philippines with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. He said the attack on the schoolgirls was in revenge for Christians killing Muslims during the early stages of the sectarian conflict in Central Sulawesi.

Hasanuddin was given 20 years in prison for masterminding the attack and Lilik Purnomo and Irwanto Irano each got 14 years as accomplices.

Paul Estabrooks, of Open Doors USA told WND the sentences may appear light from a Western perspective. But he said in a culture dominated by Islam, it is a serious statement, and also will bring "some closure" for Christians in the region.

"The interesting thing is the timing," he said. "The last few Christmases have been pretty violent (in the region). … There is some concern this would inflame the sectarian violence of the area again."

Darfur: Blow the Trumpet on Human Rights Day (December 10)

NGOs Appeal again to High Commissioner for Human Rights to be a Watchman and blow the trumpet loud and clear at the UN Human Rights Day ceremony in Geneva.

Report by David G. Littman, Representative of the Association for World Education (AWE) and the World Union of Progressive Judaism (WUPJ) to the UN in Geneva:

This letter was delivered to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour at the Palais Wilson, Geneva, on Wednesday afternoon, December 5.

5 December 2007

Mme Louise Arbour
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Palais Wilson, Geneva

Your Excellency,

As we all prepare to celebrate Human Rights Day next Monday at the continuation of the 6th session of the Human Rights Council, we wish to express our deep anxiety for its very future. This was expressed on numerous occasions since 2004 – especially in our 23 May 2006 letter to you on Darfur, signed by 43 NGOs, which concluded with a viewpoint, now generally recognised by the international community: “We believe that the role of the new Human Rights Council will be, in part, tested by the way the Darfur conflict is faced.”

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted on 10 December 1948, one day after the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

In his historic address at the Palais des Nations on 7 April 2004, Secretary-General Kofi Annan declared: “We must never forget our collective failure to protect at least 800,000 defenceless men, women and children who perished in Rwanda ten years ago…we must all acknowledge our responsibility for not having done more to prevent or stop genocide.”

Yesterday evening, Arte TV devoted two hours to the great tragedy of Darfur, with two moving documentary films, followed by a debate. No one can ignore the Gathering Storm.

At this moment of great anxiety worldwide, we call on you to speak out firmly next week when you address all delegates on this solemn occasion. You are our watchman – clearly described in Ezekiel – who sees the sword approaching and must blow the trumpet loudly – so that all will hear that sound and react strongly to the warning of ongoing devastation.

Respectfully,
René V.L. Wadlow
David G. Littman
Roy W. Brown
NGO Representatives to the United Nations, Geneva (c/o Case Postale 205, 1196 Gland)

BBC 'took terrorist trainers paintballing'

Does the BBC actually want to see Britain subjugated and Islamized? By Adam Sherwin for the Times (thanks to Watling):

The BBC funded a paintballing trip for men later accused of Islamic terrorism and failed to pass on information about the 21/7 bombers to police, a court was told yesterday.

Mohammed Hamid, who is charged with overseeing a two-year radicalisation programme to prepare London-based Muslim youths for jihad, was described as a “cockney comic” by a BBC producer.

The BBC paid for Mr Hamid and fellow defendants Muhammad al-Figari and Mousa Brown to go on a paintballing trip at the Delta Force centre in Tonbridge, Kent, in February 2005. The men, accused of terrorism training, were filmed for a BBC programme called Don’t Panic, I’m Islamic, screened in June 2005.

The BBC paid Mr Hamid, an Islamic preacher who denies recruiting and grooming the men behind the failed July 2005 attack, a £300 fee to take part in the programme, Woolwich Crown Court was told.

It was alleged that Mr Hamid told a BBC reporter that he would use the corporation’s money to pay a fine imposed by magistrates for a public order offence.

Nasreen Suleaman, a researcher on the programme, told the court that Mr Hamid, 50, contacted her after the July 2005 attack and told her of his association with the bombers. But she said that she felt no obligation to contact the police with this information. Ms Suleaman said that she informed senior BBC managers but was not told to contact the police.

Basra jihadists threaten women: "Whoever disobeys will be punished. God is our witness that we have conveyed this message"

"Islam elevates women." (But the "elevator" only has a "down" button.) "Basra women fear militants behind wave of killings," from Reuters:

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Women in Iraq's southern city of Basra are living in fear. More than 40 have been killed and their bodies dumped in the streets in the past five months for behavior deemed un-Islamic, the city's police chief says.

A warning scrawled in red on a wall threatens any woman who wears makeup or appears in public without an Islamic headscarf with dire punishment.

"Whoever disobeys will be punished. God is our witness that we have conveyed this message," it says.

Women in the Shi'ite city are convinced hardline Islamic militants are behind the killings and say they fear going out without a headscarf.

"Some women were killed with their children," Basra police chief, Major-General Abdul-Jalil Khalaf, told Reuters. "One with a six-year-old child, another with an 11-year-old."

Khalaf, who was sent to Iraq's second-largest city in June with a mandate to get tough on criminals, said he did not know who the perpetrators were but vowed to catch them.

Rita Anwar, a 27-year-old Christian, said she was thinking of leaving Basra, or even Iraq, altogether.

"You would not believe that I also wear the headscarf sometimes. It is terrifying to read this graffiti in red threatening murder," she said.

[...]

Police in Basra showed Reuters pictures of women whose bodies were found with notes attached, accusing them of adultery and other "honor crimes."

One photo was of Hayat Jassem, 45, found dead with two gunshot wounds in the stomach. Another was of an unidentified woman in her 30s who was found dead and blindfolded.

"The relatives of those killed never report these crimes because they fear scandals or because they fear the threats of those killers," said Khalaf, sitting behind a desk against a backdrop of two large Iraqi flags.

[...]

Hareth al-Athari, an official from Sadr's political movement in Basra, said the movement opposed killing women for wearing un-Islamic attire.

"This is a hideous crime," said the bearded cleric, wearing a black turban and black robe. He said the role of his movement's members was to educate people through written statements or face-to-face talks.

However, several women interviewed by Reuters said Islamic militants -- they did not say who -- were intimidating them, forcing them to cover their hair and bodies.

"A party official who is also a university student came to me and said female students should not attend exams without wearing the headscarves," said one student, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals.

"He told me 'God willing there won't be any girl left in the university without wearing a headscarf'."

Read it all.

UK: Nurses ordered to drop everything and turn Muslims' beds toward Mecca five times daily

Quality health care. "Nurses Told To Turn Muslims' Beds To Mecca, by Paul Jeeves in the Daily Express (thanks to all who sent this in):

OVERWORKED nurses have been ordered to stop all medical work five times every day to move Muslim patients’ beds so they face towards Mecca.

The lengthy procedure, which also includes providing fresh bathing water, is creating turmoil among overstretched staff on bustling NHS wards.

But despite the havoc, Mid- Yorkshire NHS Trust says the rule must be instigated whenever possible to ensure Muslim patients have “a more comfortable stay in hospital”.

And a taxpayer-funded training programme for several hundred hospital staff has begun to ensure that all are familiar with the workings of the Muslim faith.

The scheme is initially being run at Dewsbury and District Hospital, West Yorkshire, but is set to be introduced at other hospitals in the new year.

It comes on the back of the introduction in some NHS hospitals last year of Burka-style gowns for Muslim patients who did not wish medical staff to see their face while operating or caring for them....

One experienced nurse working at Dewsbury said: “It would be easier to create Muslim-only wards with every bed facing Mecca than have to deal with this.

“Some people might think it is not that big a deal, but we have a huge Muslim population in Dewsbury and if we are having to turn dozens of beds to face Mecca five times a day, plus provide running water for them to wash before and after prayers, it is bound to impact on the essential medical service we are supposed to be providing.

“Although the beds are designed to be moved, the bays are not really suitable for having loads of beds moved around to face a different direction, and despite our best efforts it does cause disruption for non-Muslim patients.”

Who cares? They're just dhimmis.

Fjordman: Why We Should Oppose an Independent Kosovo

The Euroessayist Fjordman explains why an independent Kosovo will help no one except the global jihadists.

Hans Rustad runs Document.no, the largest independent weblog in my country. A recent post there contained criticism of me, and I have already answered some of it. However, Mr. Rustad also claimed that I support a revisionist view of the Balkan wars of the 1990s which is "just as factually wrong, immoral and politically dangerous as David Irving's Holocaust revisionism." I consider that statement to be too awful to ignore, and decided to write a reply in English.

I have said repeatedly that I believe the Balkan wars were far more complex than we are led to believe by the political establishment, and I fear that we out of ideological blindness have come to support some pretty dangerous Muslim forces. I respect Mr. Rustad for exposing the bias against Israelis in the mainstream media, and I am sad to see that he accepts uncritically a similar bias against the Serbs. My point is that you cannot understand recent history in the Balkans without taking the previous seven centuries of Islamic oppression into account.

Sir Jadunath Sarkar, the pre-eminent historian of Mughal India, wrote this about dhimmitude, the humiliating apartheid system imposed upon non-Muslims under Islamic rule: "The conversion of the entire population to Islam and the extinction of every form of dissent is the ideal of the Muslim State. If any infidel is suffered to exist in the community, it is as a necessary evil, and for a transitional period only. (…) A non-Muslim therefore cannot be a citizen of the State; he is a member of a depressed class; his status is a modified form of slavery. He lives under a contract (dhimma) with the State. (…) In short, his continued existence in the State after the conquest of his country by the Muslims is conditional upon his person and property made subservient to the cause of Islam."

This "modified form of slavery" is now frequently referred to as the pinnacle of "tolerance." If the semi-slaves rebel against this system and desire equal rights and self-determination, Jihad resumes. This happened with the Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire, who were repressed with massacres, culminating in the genocide by Turkish and Kurdish Muslims against Armenians in the 20th century. This same pattern is now used against the state of Israel. Israelis are not only attacked because they are Jews, but because they do not meekly disarm and accept the status of servitude that they should have according to Islamic law. They are disobedient dhimmis, just as the Armenians were.

According to Dr. Andrew G. Bostom, editor of the excellent book The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims, even the Turcophilic 19th century writer Ubicini acknowledged the oppressive burden of dhimmitude in this moving depiction:

"The history of enslaved peoples is the same everywhere, or rather, they have no history. The years, the centuries pass without bringing any change to their situation. Generations come and go in silence. One might think they are afraid to awaken their masters, asleep alongside them. However, if you examine them closely you discover that this immobility is only superficial. A silent and constant agitation grips them. Life has entirely withdrawn into the heart. They resemble those rivers which have disappeared underground; if you put your ear to the earth, you can hear the muffled sound of their waters; then they re—emerge intact a few leagues away. Such is the state of the Christian populations of Turkey under Ottoman rule."

Bostom asks, "Why has the quite brutal Ottoman devshirme-janissary system, which, from the mid to late 14th, through early 18th centuries, enslaved and forcibly converted to Islam an estimated 500,000 to one million non-Muslim (primarily Balkan Christian) adolescent males, been characterized, reductio ad absurdum, as a benign form of social advancement, jealously pined for by 'ineligible' Ottoman Muslim families?"

Writer Vacalopoulos describes how Jihad-imposed dhimmitude under Ottoman rule provided critical motivation for the Greek Revolution:

"The Revolution of 1821 is no more than the last great phase of the resistance of the Greeks to Ottoman domination; it was a relentless, undeclared war, which had begun already in the first years of servitude. The brutality of an autocratic regime, which was characterized by economic spoliation, intellectual decay and cultural retrogression, was sure to provoke opposition. Restrictions of all kinds, unlawful taxation, forced labor, persecutions, violence, imprisonment, death, abductions of girls and boys and their confinement to Turkish harems, and various deeds of wantonness and lust, along with numerous less offensive excesses — all these were a constant challenge to the instinct of survival and they defied every sense of human decency. The Greeks bitterly resented all insults and humiliations, and their anguish and frustration pushed them into the arms of rebellion. There was no exaggeration in the statement made by one of the beys if Arta, when he sought to explain the ferocity of the struggle. He said: 'We have wronged the rayas [dhimmis] (i.e. our Christian subjects) and destroyed both their wealth and honor; they became desperate and took up arms. This is just the beginning and will finally lead to the destruction of our empire.'"

As scholar Reuben Levy noted: "At Constantinople [Istanbul], the sale of women slaves, both negresses and Circassians [likely for harem slavery and/or concubinage], continued to be openly practiced until...1908."

In 1809, after the battle on Cegar Hill, by order of Turkish pasha Hurshid the skulls of the killed Serbian soldiers were built in a tower on the way to Constantinople. 3 meters high, Skull Tower was built out of 952 skulls as a warning to the Serbs not to challenge their Muslim rulers.

Similar Jihad massacres were committed against the Greeks, the Bulgarians and other non-Muslims who slowly rebelled against the Ottoman Empire throughout the 19th century. Professor Vahakn Dadrian and others have clearly identified Jihad as a critical factor in the Armenian genocide in the early 20th century. As Efraim Karsh, author of the book Islamic Imperialism: A History points out, "The Ottomans embarked on an orgy of bloodletting in response to the nationalist aspirations of their European subjects. The Greek war of independence of the 1820's, the Danubian uprisings of 1848 and the attendant Crimean war, the Balkan explosion of the 1870's, the Greco-Ottoman war of 1897--all were painful reminders of the costs of resisting Islamic imperial rule."

In his book Onward Muslim Soldiers, Robert Spencer quotes a letter from Bosnia, written in 1860 by the acting British Consul in Sarajevo, James Zohrab: "The hatred of the Christians toward the Bosniak Mussulmans is intense. During a period of nearly 300 years they were subjected to much oppression and cruelty. For them no other law but the caprice of their masters existed....Oppression cannot now be carried on as openly as formerly, but it must not be supposed that, because the Government employés do not generally appear as the oppressors, the Christians are well treated and protected."

According to writer Ruth King, "during the bombing of Serbia on behalf of Moslem Albanians in 1999 Saudi Prince Khaled Bin Sultan, commander of the allied Saudi troops during the first Gulf War, called on the US to do the same against Israel on behalf of Palestinians. The fate of Jews and Serbs, which has intersected in the past, is doing so again. The jihadist effort to expunge Jews from Palestine mirrors the Moslem goal of incorporating Kosovo into a 'greater Moslem Albania' while expelling Christian Serbs. When Serbia became independent of Byzantine rule in the 12th century, its economic, cultural, social and religious institutions were among the most advanced in Europe. Serbia functioned as a bridge between Greco-Byzantine civilization and the developing Western Renaissance. The center of the Serbian Orthodox Church was in Kosovo where churches, monasteries and monastic communities were established. A form of census in 1330, the 'Decani Charter,' detailed the list of chartered villages and households, of which only two percent were Albanian. The Ottomans invaded Serbia in 1389 and consolidated their rule in 1459, propelling major parts of the Balkan peninsula and adjacent southeast Europe into a Koran-dictated Dark Ages."

Early in the twentieth century Serbian Christians were roughly two-thirds of the population of Kosovo. After WW2, Communist dictator Tito did not allow Serbs who fled from their homes to return and did not enforce border controls as thousands of Albanians moved into Kosovo.

As King says, "Initially, the media reported the situation in Kosovo fairly. For example, in July 1982 The New York Times noted: 'Serbs have been harassed by Albanians and have packed up and left the region. The Albanian nationalists have a two-point platform, first to establish what they call an ethnically clean Albanian republic and then to merge with Albania for a greater Albania. Some 57,000 Serbs have left Kosovo in the last decade.' Five years later, in 1987, the Times was still reporting the persecution of Serbs within Kosovo. 'Slavic Orthodox churches have been attacked, wells poisoned, crops burned, Slavic boys knifed. Young Albanians have been told to rape Serbian girls…. Officials in Belgrade view the ethnic Albanian challenge as imperiling the foundations of the multinational experiment called federal Yugoslavia….Ethnic Albanians already control almost every phase of life in the autonomous province of Kosovo, including the police, judiciary, civil service, schools, and factories.'"

It was this situation that led to the rise of Serb nationalist leader Slobodan Milosevic. However, instead of reporting about the advancing Jihad to make some sense of the situation, Western media, according to Ruth King, "went into a frenzy of accusations against the Serbs, much as it has against Israel and with similar distortions. The media depicted the armed, violent and jihadist Moslem Albanians as 'unarmed civilians' despite the fact they called themselves an army and perpetrated assaults, bombings, murder of civilians and targeted assassinations of Albanians loyal to Serbia. President Clinton outrageously referred to a 'holocaust' perpetrated by Serbia and compared the Moslems of Kosovo to the Jews—this, even though the Serbs had behaved well toward the Jews during the real Holocaust and Clinton himself was pressing Israel's Jews to accept the 'peace partnership' of Arafat, a brutal terrorist far worse than Milosevic, admittedly a dictator and a Communist thug."

Moreover, "While the brutality of the Milosevic regime was indeed a complicating factor, he is long gone, but the KLA [Kosovo Liberation Army] continues its assault on Serbs, on their churches, priests, homes, even on civilians sitting in cafes, this under the nose of the U.S. and UN troops."

Bosnia's wartime president Alija Izetbegovic died in 2003, hailed as a moderate Muslim leader. Little was said in Western media about his 1970 Islamic Declaration, where he advocated "a struggle for creating a great Islamic federation from Morocco to Indonesia, from the tropical Africa to the Central Asia," and that "The Islamic movement should and must start taking over the power as soon as it is morally and numerically strong enough to not only overthrow the existing non-Islamic, but also to build up a new Islamic authority."

As Hugh Fitzgerald says, "One must keep in mind both the way in which some atrocities ascribed to Serbs were exaggerated, while the atrocities inflicted on them were minimized or ignored altogether. But what was most disturbing was that there was no context to anything: nothing about the centuries of Muslim rule. Had such a history been discussed early on, Western governments might have understood and attempted to assuage the deep fears evoked by the Bosnian Muslim leader, Izetbegovic, when he wrote that he intended to create a Muslim state in Bosnia and impose the Sharia not merely there, but everywhere that Muslims had once ruled in the Balkans. Had the Western world shown the slightest intelligent sympathy or understanding of what that set off in the imagination of many Serbs (and elsewhere, among the Christians in the Balkans and in Greece), there might never have been such a violent Serbian reaction, and someone like Milosevic might never have obtained power." Yet, "In all of Europe, only a few French journalists and the Austrian writer Peter Handke tried to explain Serbian fears and Serbian history."

Alija Izetbegovic received money from a Saudi businessman, Yassin al-Kadi, who has been designated as a financier of al-Qaeda terrorists. Evan F. Kohlmann, author of Al-Qaeda's Jihad in Europe: The Afghan-Bosnian Network, argues that the "key to understanding Al Qaida's European cells lies in the Bosnian war of the 1990s." In 1992, the government of Izetbegovic issued a passport to Osama bin Laden. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2001 that "for the past 10 years, the most senior leaders of al Qaeda have visited the Balkans: The Egyptian surgeon turned terrorist leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri has operated terrorist training camps, weapons of mass destruction factories and money-laundering and drug-trading networks throughout Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Bosnia."

Yosef Bodansky, director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Conventional Warfare in Washington, has stated that the Balkans was a "springboard for Islamic extremism" in Europe and that Iran was the main driving force behind it. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia supplied funding, weapons and men to the Bosnians during the war. Saudi Arabia has invested more than $1 billion in the Sarajevo region alone, for projects that include the construction of 158 mosques. Terrorist organization Al-Qaeda gained a strong foothold in the Balkans during the 1990s.

Martti Ahtisaari, former President of Finland and later Chief United Nations negotiator for Kosovo, caused anger when he stated that "Serbs are guilty as people," implying that they would have to pay for it, possibly by losing Kosovo. I disagree. It is one thing to criticize the brutality of the Milosevic regime. It is quite another thing to claim that "Serbs are guilty as a people." If anybody in the Balkans is guilty as a people, it is the Turks, not the Serbs.

Dimitar Angelov elucidates the impact of the Ottoman Jihad on the region:

"…the conquest of the Balkan Peninsula accomplished by the Turks over the course of about two centuries caused the incalculable ruin of material goods, countless massacres, the enslavement and exile of a great part of the population – in a word, a general and protracted decline of productivity, as was the case with Asia Minor after it was occupied by the same invaders. This decline in productivity is all the more striking when one recalls that in the mid-fourteenth century, as the Ottomans were gaining a foothold on the peninsula, the States that existed there – Byzantium, Bulgaria and Serbia – had already reached a rather high level of economic and cultural development….The campaigns of Mourad II (1421-1451) and especially those of his successor, Mahomet II (1451-1481) in Serbia, Bosnia, Albania and in the Byzantine princedom of the Peloponnesus, were of a particularly devastating character."

Author William Dorich states that "The Serbs lost 52% of their adult male population fighting in the First World War as American allies. Twenty-four years later the Serbs were the only people in the Balkans to declare war on Nazi Germany. Hitler bombed the 'open city' of Belgrade on Palm Sunday in 1942, killing 17,000 Serbs in one day. Surrender followed ten days later as the Nazis invaded. The Serbs lost another one-third of their population in the Holocaust again fighting as American allies, especially against their own Croat, Bosnian Muslim and Albanian Nazis."

Serge Trifkovic, author of the books The Sword of the Prophet and Defeating Jihad, documents how Yasser Arafat's uncle Mohammad Amin al-Husayni cooperated closely with Nazi Germany in recruiting Bosnian and Albanian Muslims for Waffen SS units. Serbs had to wear blue armbands, Jews yellow armbands. For Muslims, this was a Jihad against disobedient dhimmis, and thus a continuation of the genocide against Armenians a few years earlier, which was one of the inspirations for the Holocaust. More than a quarter of a million Serbs, Jews and Romani people (Gypsies) were killed by Muslim troops in Nazi service.

Trifkovic cites James Jatras as claiming that Washington's irrational Balkan policy is to a significant extent the product of the ignorant and misguided notion that the U.S. can curry favor in the Islamic world by sacrificing Kosovo's Christians to the violent Jihad-terror elements that dominate Kosovo's Albanian leadership: "Such an unfounded notion shows a breathtaking incomprehension of the worldwide jihadist threat. International opposition and the Bush Administration's failing domestic credibility put a weight on the policy, however, which can be dealt a fatal blow if enough Americans raise their voices against it."

Miroljub Jevtic, professor at the Belgrade University and author of a number of books on the topic of Islam and politics, believes the Western world is in favor of detaching Kosovo from Christian Serbia by fiat and making it into an independent (Muslim) state. The main argument of those supporting this scenario, notably in the United States, is to improve their image in the eyes of the Islamic world and "co-opt the influence of Islamic 'extremists.'"

However, Jevtic notes that "the fact that since the arrival of NATO to Kosovo over 150 Christian churches have been destroyed and some 400 mosques have been built, or are under construction, is for the Muslims a proof that if there is a faith which is supported by true God -- it is Islam! Because, why would the Christian God, why would Jesus, permit the destruction of churches, where He, Jesus, is glorified? Why would He, at the same time, permit the construction of mosques, where His existence as God is denied? Why would He permit it, moreover, in the presence of men who bear arms and who claim to be Christians?"

Miroljub Jevtic warns that the European Union support for Albanian Muslim demands could backfire badly: "Granting the independence to Kosovo will be taken as proof of Europe's own wish to cease to exist, as it not only allows the expansion of Islam but is actively promoting it by aiding those who are destroying churches, raping nuns, spitting on crosses and daubing with excrement holy images of Christ."

In Kosovo, dozens of churches and monasteries have been destroyed following ethnic cleansing of Christian Serbs by the predominantly Muslim Albanians, all under the auspices of NATO soldiers, and Muslims are not ungrateful. Kosovo Albanians plan to honor their "savior," former US President Bill Clinton, by erecting a statue of him. At the same time, in 2007, four Albanians from Kosovo along with other Muslims were arrested for conspiring to attack Fort Dix, a military base in New Jersey, in order "to kill as many soldiers as possible."

The House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos (D-CA) called upon "jihadists of all color and hue" to see Kosovo as "yet another example that the United States leads the way for the creation of a predominantly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe." But a video of Osama bin Laden meeting with two 9/11 hijackers revealed that the mass murderers were motivated by a desire to avenge Muslims... in Bosnia, where the USA intervened on behalf of Muslims. Meanwhile, no Christian Serbs have staged any terror attacks against the United States or Western European countries in retaliation for the NATO bombings. So who are really the bad guys here?

In a commentary, "We bombed the wrong side?" former Canadian UNPROFOR Commander Lewis MacKenzie wrote, "The Kosovo-Albanians have played us like a Stradivarius. We have subsidized and indirectly supported their violent campaign for an ethnically pure and independent Kosovo. We have never blamed them for being the perpetrators of the violence in the early '90s and we continue to portray them as the designated victim today in spite of evidence to the contrary. When they achieve independence with the help of our tax dollars combined with those of bin Laden and al-Qaeda, just consider the message of encouragement this sends to other terrorist-supported independence movements around the world."

Western governments are pushing for independence for a group of Jihadist thugs who recently wanted to create the Osama bin Laden mosque in Kosovo. This name was eventually changed for public relations reasons since the Albanians knew they needed American political support. In June 2007 the visiting US President George W. Bush was hailed as a hero by a group of Albanians, who also apparently stole his watch. "Sooner rather than later you've got to say 'Enough's enough — Kosovo is independent,'" Bush told cheering Albanians. As German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung later commented, "Why should the Albanians settle for autonomy when George W. Bush had already promised them their own state?"

President Bush declared a "war on terror" after the Jihadist attacks on the United States in 2001. Six years later, all he has achieved is bleeding American tax payers financially and American soldiers literally while overseeing the eradication of non-Muslim communities in Iraq. Now his administration supports independence for terrorist-sponsoring Muslims in the Balkans and in the Palestinian territories. Unless he does something very substantial in 2008, George W. Bush risks being remembered as one of the worst presidents in American history.

I listened to a speech by Patrick Sookhdeo, a former Muslim who recently launched his latest book, Global Jihad: The Future in the Face of Militant Islam. Sookhdeo had done a lot of excellent – and frightening – research regarding the Islamization of Western Europe, especially Britain. He recalled having a conversation with a senior Western official regarding what would happen if Muslims in a region of, say, Britain or the Netherlands, should declare that they would no longer accept the laws of the central government and would form a breakaway Islamic Republic. This official then stated that they would probably just have to quietly accept that. When witnessing the Muslim riots in France, which more and more resemble a civil war, this question is no longer just hypothetical.

As writer Julia Gorin has warned, "An independent Kosovo will serve as a nod to secessionists worldwide," and "history will show what no one cares to understand: the current world war began officially in Yugoslavia."

Granting Jihadist Muslims independence in Kosovo after they have conducted ethnic cleansing of non-Muslims will establish an extremely dangerous precedent. Not only is it immoral to sacrifice the freedom or perhaps existence of smaller nations, be that the Serbs or the Israelis, in order to save your own skin. As the example of Czechoslovakia demonstrated during WW2, it is also counterproductive. Supporting independence for Muslim Albanians in Kosovo will not lead to stabilization of the Balkans; it will rather lead to the Balkanization of the West. The new thug state will serve as a launching pad for Jihad activities against non-Muslims, just like an independent Palestinian state would do in the Middle East.

In the case of Kosovo, the Russians are right and Western leaders, both in the European Union and the United States, are wrong. The Serbs have suffered enough. Give them a break!

In a conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims, other infidels should always support the non-Muslim side. That goes for Kosovo as much as it goes for Kashmir or southern Thailand. It's time to end the demonization of the Serb people and support their struggle against the global Jihad. We are all next in line.

Christian population in Palestinian-controlled areas could disappear in 15 years

"The systematic persecution of Christian Arabs living in Palestinian areas is being met with nearly total silence by the international community, human rights activists, the media and NGOs."

Islamic Tolerance Alert. "'Christian groups in PA to disappear'," by Etgar Lefkovits for the Jerusalem Post:

The ever-dwindling Christian communities living in Palestinian-run territories in the West Bank and Gaza are likely to dissipate completely within the next 15 years as a result of increasing Muslim persecution and maltreatment, an Israeli scholar said Monday.

"The systematic persecution of Christian Arabs living in Palestinian areas is being met with nearly total silence by the international community, human rights activists, the media and NGOs," said Justus Reid Weiner, an international human rights lawyer in an address at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, where he serves as a scholar in residence.

He cited Muslim harassment and persecution as the main cause of the "acute human rights crisis" facing Christian Arabs, and predicted that unless governments or institutions step in to remedy the situation - such as with job opportunities - there will be no more Christian communities living in the Palestinians territories within 15 years, with only a few Western Christians and top clergymen left in the area.

"Christian leaders are being forced to abandon their followers to the forces of radical Islam," Weiner said.

Facing a pernicious mixture of persecution and economic hardships as a result of years of Palestinian violence and Israeli counter-terrorism measures, tens of thousands of Christian Arabs have left the Palestinian territories for a better life in the West, in a continuing exodus which has led some Christian leaders to warn that the faith could be virtually extinct in its birthplace in a matter of decades.

The Palestinian Christian population has dipped to 1.5 percent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, down from at least 15% a half century ago, according to some estimates.

No one city in the Holy Land is more indicative of the great exodus of Christians than Bethlehem, which fell under full Palestinian control last decade as part of the Oslo Accords.

The town of 30,000 is now less than 20% Christian, after decades when Christians were the majority. Elsewhere in the Palestinian territories, only about 3,000 Christians, mostly Greek Orthodox, live in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, out of a strongly conservative Muslim population of 1.4 million.

"In a society where Arab Christians have no voice and no protection it is no surprise that they are leaving," he said.

[...]

Weiner argued there was a "180 degree difference" between the public statements coming out of the mainstream Christian leadership in the Holy Land - who "sing the PA's tune" and blame Israel for all the Christian Arabs' ills - and people's experience on the ground.

"The truth is beginning to come out," he said. "The question is what is being done with the truth."

"Sir, if you become an apostate, your punishment is death"

Often when I have pointed out that in Islamic law the penalty for apostasy is death, I am dismissed as an "Islamophobe." But there seem to be a few "Islamophobes" in the audience at Al-Risala TV. "Muslim Scholars Debate Apostates in Islam," from MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from a debate on apostates in Islam, which aired on Al-Risala TV on November 5, 2007.

Sheik Tareq Al-Sweidan: We have a question for the viewers at home, not in the studio, and they can respond with a text message. What is the best way to deal with apostates who converted from Islam? You have three possible responses. The first is through dialogue only. The second option is killing them, and the third option is to leave it up to the legal system. Enter your votes, send in your answers, and the results will appear on the screen. As for the young people with us in the studio, you can participate in a survey on which we will base our discussion with our guests. You've heard one opinion, and my question is very simple: Does a Muslim have the liberty to change his religion or not? Does a Muslim have the liberty to change his religion?

[...]

Al-Sweidan: If a person converted out of conviction, should he be declared an infidel?

Abir: First, he should be allowed to repent. We should explain his error to him, and if he is adamant on rejecting this and insists on his interpretation, he should be allowed to repent and have the opportunity to...

Al-Sweidan: And afterwards, he should be pronounced an infidel?

Abir: I believe he should be.

Al-Sweidan: Thank you, Abir. Let's move to Fatima. What's your opinion?

Fatima: In my opinion, he should be declared an infidel. Why is there a problem with declaring people to be infidels?

Al-Sweidan: I'm not saying there is, I'm just asking a question.

Fatima: He should be declared an infidel. The Koran divided people into Muslims, infidels, and the People of the Book. So there is a group of people who should be declared infidels.

[...]

Gamal 'Allam: With regard to matters of faith, the Sunni scholars have agreed that some acts lead to the excommunication of a person. If a person commits any of these acts, he is considered an infidel. The first case is denying something that is irrefutably part of Islam.

[...]

Gamal 'Allam: Another case is when a person forbids something that is irrefutably permitted. If Allah permitted something, and along comes somebody and forbids it...

Al-Sweidan: For example, some Muslim countries forbid polygamy.

Gamal 'Allam: Someone who forbids polygamy is an infidel, who should be excommunicated, because he is defying Allah in his right to forbid and permit.

[...]

Gamal 'Allam: Whoever rules according to a law other than the law sent down by Allah, and who does so out of full awareness and conviction...

[...]

Gamal 'Allam: If he believes that his law is equal to the law of Allah, he is comparing Allah to human beings, and thus, he is an infidel. If he believes his law to be better than the law of Allah, then he prefers the creature over its Creator, and thus, he is an infidel.

Gamal 'Allam: Anybody who calls people to worship him...

Al-Sweidan: Obviously, like Pharaoh.

Gamal 'Allam: Yes, anyone who called upon people...or who claimed he was the son of God, or that he...

Al-Sweidan: This is obvious.

[...]

Gamal 'Allam: One is considered an infidel if one curses Allah, His messenger, or the Koran, or who mocks the Prophet's family.

[...]

Gamal 'Allam: Whoever mocks Muslim men or women because of their religion...I don't mean a person who has a dispute with someone, and says to him: You mock me as a Muslim, you are an infidel. I mean a person who mocks or curses a Muslim because he prays...

Al-Sweidan: In other words, he mocks the religion.

Gamal 'Allam: He mocks one of the religious rites. For example, a person who mocks a woman for wearing the veil...

[...]

Gamal Al-Bana: Whoever says: "There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah" is a Muslim. End of discussion. It is not our place to delve into the details of his belief. In addition, heresy and faith are, first of all, up to Allah, and secondly, they are personal issues.

[...]

Al-Sweidan: Before the break, I asked our audience for their views on this important issue. Does a Muslim have the liberty or the right to change his religion? The results are as follows: 24% said: "Yes, he has the right to change his religion." 76% of the people said: "No." Let's hear some opinions and then I will return to out guests.

[...]

Audience member: Sir, if you become an apostate, your punishment is death. There is a great problem that most of us, 70% of us, are Muslims because they were born to Muslim fathers and mothers. Before a person converts to Islam, he has the liberty to choose, but remember that if you want to convert from Islam, you will be punished by death. So you have the liberty to choose, but on the condition...

Al-Sweidan: That's not liberty.

Audience member: It has conditions...

Al-Sweidan: What you are saying is: You have the right to become an apostate, but I will kill you.

Audience member: That's right. I won't tell him not to.

Al-Sweidan: What can be worse than being killed?

Audience member: That's why he will not become an apostate.

Good thinking.

FBI and Police to share stage with 9/11 skeptics and jihad supporters at "Texas Dawah Convention"

In "FBI/Police to Share Stage with 9/11 Skeptics & Terror Supporters at Radical Islamic Conference" over at The Jawa Report, Dr. Rusty Shackleford has the details:

Muslims meet up for the annual Texas Dawah Convention, what could possibly go wrong? You may remember that two years ago Yahya Ibrahim, who was to be a featured speaker, was denied entry into the U.S. by Customs agents.

The event is being billed as "focusing on the family", but the speakers include known associates of convicted terrorists, terror supporters, and 9/11 skeptics. In addition to the various seminars, some of them given by supporters of the most conservative brand of Sunni Islam, the event will also have a variety of carnival rides--and a petting zoo!

What's interesting about this year's meetup of Islamists in the U.S. is that an FBI agent will be a featured speaker. Ironically, Special Agent Randall Clark appears to be on the cyber crimes task force. Given that Islamists are experts at using the internet to propagandize and recruit new blood for jihad, you'd hope he was there in a monitoring capacity.

Don't count on it. Instead I suspect he's there in a PR capacity or to discuss his real expertise, which is in online child pornography cases. I'd suggest that Muslim children are far more at risk of watching online beheading videos or clips of U.S. soldiers being hit by IEDs than kiddie porn.

Also on the stage will be Officer Muzaffar Siddiqi, who leads the Houston P.D.'s Muslim outreach and diversity training program.

Who else is speaking at what is billed as the "largest Islamic convention in the southwest"?

Musa Maguire. The name may not sound familiar, but maybe you know his cousin "Sulayman". Doesn't ring a bell? Well maybe you'll recognize his given name John Walker Lindh. Musa Abdun Nur Maguire is best known for his defense of his cousin's treason fighting for the Taliban. He calls Lindh a "authentic American hero".

Read it all.

Norway: Jihadist Roams Freely

Yes, of course it's the notorious Mullah Krekar. Despite years of attempts to expel him, he still thumbs his nose at the Norwegian authorities, and continues to preach jihad.

Marked Manner has details.

Genocide in Darfur continues after “Teddy Bear Blasphemy” ends

NGOs ‘Appeal’ to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to:
– demand the immediate release of British teacher Gillian Gibbons (a request that was soon granted);
– call attention to Human Rights Day (December 10) and ongoing Darfur genocide.

A report by David G. Littman, Representative of the Association for World Education (AWE) and the World Union of Progressive Judaism (WUPJ) to the UN in Geneva:

This letter was faxed to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour just before midnight on Sunday, 2 December, and then circulated widely at the UN in Geneva. Since then Gillian Gibbons has been “pardoned”, but the grim genocide in Darfur continues – while attention was focused on a farcical act of dhimmitude. If the Council on Human Rights does not seriously address Darfur and the Special Rapporteur’s mandate on Sudan during the Human Rights Day week, then one might well proclaim: “Something is rotten in the state of…” -- the Human Rights Council.

3 December 2007

Your Excellency,

We are writing to draw your urgent attention to two issues concerning Sudan:

a) the continuing genocide in Darfur and the obstruction of the Government of Sudan at attempts to deploy a UN-African Union peacekeeping force;

b) the trial and sentence imposed on 54 year old British school-teacher, Mrs. Gillian Gibbons, for allegedly insulting Islam and Muslims.

In your lecture at Trinity College Dublin only ten days ago, you referred to “an emerging doctrine known as responsibility to protect” – the central theme of the 2006 high level mission to Darfur, authorized by the Human Rights Council – and you proposed “to focus on the content of this norm”. You also offered to “examine the legal heart of the responsibility to protect concept and questions of when and how the norm is engaged. In your analysis of the situation, you laid stress on the following point:

Rooted in human rights and international humanitarian law, the norm squarely embraces the victims' point of view and interests, rather than questionable State-centred motivations. It does so by configuring a permanent duty to protect individuals against abusive behaviour. Such duty is a function of sovereignty and should be fulfilled primarily by the State concerned.

The ongoing genocide in Darfur is a good example for testing this valid “norm”. As a joint UN-African Union peace-keeping force of 26’000 is waiting to move, the UN Secretary-General stated last week that he is "mobilizing all possible means" to get the Government of Sudan to agree on key issues so they can start deploying in Darfur next month, but there was no mention of any “doctrine to protect” – merely that he was “disappointed with all that is happening now." Yet Sudan’s President Omer Hassan al-Bashir has consistently resisted any UN peacekeepers to replace the overwhelmed 7,000-strong African Union force now in Darfur where over 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been displaced since 2003.

At such a crucial moment for Darfur, it is ironic that a British primary school teacher has been imprisoned under Sudan’s strict blasphemy laws for showing "contempt and disrespect against the believers". She was accused of insulting Islam's holiest prophet and arrested for permitting her pupils to decide, by ballot, the name for a teddy bear – and they chose to call it ‘Mohammed’.

Gillian Gibbons’ innocent action sparked protests in Sudan, violent demonstrations and calls for her death, forcing the school’s closure. It is clear from reliable reports, however, that she had absolutely no intention of insulting either Islam or Muslims. The “norm” embraces the victim’s viewpoint.

Nearly 14 years ago, on 18 February 1994, the ambassador of Sudan at the Commission on Human Rights requested (E/CN.4/1994/122) the immediate withdrawal from a report by the UN Special Rapporteur on Sudan, Gaspar Biro, of any reference to inconsistencies between the international human rights conventions and the provisions of Sudan’s Criminal Law. The ambassador alleged that this report (E/CN.4/1994/48) “contained abusive, inconsiderate, blasphemous and offensive remarks about the Islamic faith.” Death threats against Dr. Biro appeared in a government newspaper, Horizon (AFP, 14 February 1994). A further Sudanese circular (“Attack on Islam”) was circulated to all delegates; it claimed that parts of the report “represent a vicious attack on the religion of Islam and contain a call for the abolition of its Islamic Penal Legislation.” Nevertheless, the Commission adopted resolution 1994/79, firmly calling on the Government of Sudan “to comply with applicable international human rights instruments and to bring its national legislation into accordance with the instruments to which Sudan was a party.” Subsequently, this call to Sudan was repeated by Commission resolutions adopted for five consecutive years – in 1995/77, 1996/73; 1997/59, 1998/69 and 1999/15. In 1996, Sudan felt obliged to allow the Special Rapporteur’s return – but in 2007 the case of Gillian Gibbons shows that nothing has changed in Sudan’s Criminal Law.

We learn from the website of the High Commissioner for Human Rights that:
On 10 December, Human Rights Day, the Secretary-General will launch a year-long campaign in which all parts of the United Nations family will take part in the lead up to the 60th birthday of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The theme of the campaign, Dignity and justice for all of us, reinforces the vision of the Declaration as a commitment to universal dignity and justice.

Aware that you will be visiting Brazil from 3-5 December, we are nevertheless making this ‘Appeal’ jointly on behalf of our four NGOs – and their more than seven million members worldwide – requesting you to:

a) Demand of Sudan’s Government the immediate release of Mrs. Gillian Gibbons and her repatriation to the United Kingdom;

b) Request the Human Rights Council to address this and the worsening situation in Darfur at the outset of the 2nd part of its 6th Session (10-14 December), and under item 3, covering: Review, rationalization and improvement of mandates: Special Rapporteur on Sudan.

Respectfully,
René V.L. Wadlow
David G. Littman
Roy W. Brown
NGO Representatives to the United Nations, Geneva (c/o Case Postale 205, 1196 Gland)

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights intervenes over the airing on Lebanese TV of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louis Arbour reacts strongly to the use of “demonstrably false material” on Lebanese TV, following an ‘Appeal’ by four NGOs.

Report by David G. Littman, Representative of the Association for World Education (AWE) and the World Union of Progressive Judaism (WUPJ) to the UN in Geneva:

Our November 2 ‘Urgent Appeal’ (AWE, AWC, IHEU, WUPJ) requesting the UNHCHR Louise Arbour to condemn the criminal culture of hate on Lebanese TV Channel NBN, affiliated to Lebanese Parliament Speaker, was answered by the High Commissioner.

I am writing to you with reference to your letter of 2 November 2007 bringing to my attention the airing of a programme on the Lebanese TV Channel NBN presenting as fact “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”.

I have written since to the Director of the Lebanese National Broadcasting Network raising my very serious concerns about the demonstrably false material in a way that could inflame feelings or incite hatred and violence, urging him to exercise leadership to provide factual and responsible programming.

I would like to thank you for bringing the matter to my attention.

Yours sincerely,
Louise Arbour,
High Commissioner for Human Rights

Our December 1 response to the High Commissioner reads as follows:

Your Excellency,

I am writing to you – and this letter is sent also on behalf of my colleagues, Mr. René Wadlow and Mr. Roy Brown, and for the AWE, AWC, IHEU, WUPJ – to acknowledge and thank you for your welcome letter of 12 November, received after a fortnight’s absence.

We appreciate your immediate reaction to our appeal on the continuous use of the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion and – as you so pertinently expressed it – “demonstrably false material in a way that could inflame feelings or incite hatred and violence.”

It is to be hoped that the Lebanese National Broadcasting Network will take note of your very serious concern. We would appreciate being informed should your appeal receive a positive response that will be implemented, thus diminishing this ongoing culture of hate. The same would apply to other media in the Middle East which regularly propagate similar forgeries.

The amount of racist and religious hatred that is being taught at schools and aired on TV and by the media in Middle East countries is surpassing that of the 1930s in Europe. To verify this, the OHCHR need only consult the translated documentation to be found on the websites of MEMRI, PMW, CMIP and others. We have referred to this material in our oral and written statements for the Commission and the Sub-Commission, and the Human Rights Council – and several of these texts were made available to UN Special Rapporteurs and your Office.

On the eve of the 59th Human Rights Day celebrations on 10 December at the United Nations, we hope that your initiative may inspire others to act in a manner that will change hearts and minds, thus preparing us all for a future of peace and reconciliation in the Middle East.

Respectfully,
David G. Littman

On 2 November we delivered to the Palais Wilson in Geneva an ‘Urgent Appeal’ by the Association for World Education, the Association of World Citizens, the International Humanist and Ethical Union and the World Union for Progressive Judaism– for the High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion Asma Jahangir, and Special Rapporteur on Racism Doudou Diène. It was faxed to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and mailed to the 173 State Members, inter-governmental organizations & delegates to the UN in Geneva – and circulated to the media at the Palais des Nations.

These 4 NGOs – with over seven million members – are of the opinion that it would be highly damaging for the reputation of the United Nations if there is no condemnation of such a criminal propagation of “Judeophobia/ Antisemitism” – especially in view of constant charges and condemnations of “Islamophobia” by the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the UN Special Rapporteur on Racism, Doudou Diène. Human Rights Day will be celebrated on December 10, 2007. Silence on this screening of an infamous forgery on a TV Channel affiliated to the Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, who visited Geneva just before this reiterated propagation of a culture of hate, would speak volumes.

This ‘Urgent Appeal’ to the UN Secretary-General and the UN High Commissioner to Condemn this Lebanese propagation of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion follows:

November 2, 2007
Your Excellencies,

We wish to express our deep dismay at the growing culture of hate toward Jews and Judaism in the Arab world, and elsewhere.

On 22 October 2007, the Lebanese TV Channel NBN – closely associated with the Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, Nabih Beri – aired a report which presented as fact the century-old forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, that was infamously used by Hitler and by others since – especially on Arab TV channels. The following is a concluding quote from the programme:

“In The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the end justifies the means, and when the forces of society are in a state of disarray, the power of the Jews is stronger than that of anyone else.”

– “I have a final question about what is written in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion:
‘The Jews are entitled to treat the other peoples as animals, to corrupt them, to tear countries apart, to destroy the other nationalities, and to spread promiscuity and chaos.' Some believe that the spreading of drugs is one of their means of taking control of non-Jewish peoples.”

– “I believe this is true, we must consider our responsibility – what we should do to overcome this plague, which is killing our society?”

Four years ago the new Alexandria Library was opened with the collaboration of UNESCO. The first exhibition in its manuscript museum purported to display the sacred texts of the three monotheistic religions. It included an Arabic translation of The Protocol of the Elders of Zion, exhibited alongside the Hebrew Bible in the section on Judaism. The Museum Director, Dr Yusef Ziedan, explained that: “…it is only natural to place the book [The Protocols] in the framework of an exhibit of Torah [scrolls]”…“it has become one of the sacred [tenets] of the Jews, next to their first constitution.” A protest from UNESCO’s Director–General Koichiro Matsuur led to its withdrawal from the Library a few days before the 55th UN Human Rights Day.

We are calling on you in your capacities as UN Secretary-General and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to speak out against this criminal use of fake documents and the promotion of hatred before the 59th Human Rights Day, and to react swiftly whenever any Member State of the United Nations, or national group such as Hamas, promotes hatred of the Jews, by using The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the 1840 “Damascus Affair” Blood Libel, or other forgeries.

Respectfully,

René V.L. Wadlow
David G. Littman
Roy W. Brown
NGO Representatives to the United Nations, Geneva (c/o Case Postale 205, 1196 Gland)

cc. Ms Asma Jahangir, UNSR on Freedom of Religion & Belief ; Mr Doudou Diène, UNSR on Racism

Besotted multiculturalist anthropologists defend female genital mutilation

In the New Duranty Times -- where else? To resist this barbarity, you see, would be ethnocentric.

"A New Debate on Female Circumcision," by John Tierney in the New York Times (thanks to LGF).

Should African women be allowed to engage in the practice sometimes called female circumcision? Are critics of this practice, who call it female genital mutilation, justified in trying to outlaw it, or are they guilty of ignorance and cultural imperialism?

[...]

Dr. Ahmadu, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Chicago, was raised in America and then went back to Sierra Leone as an adult to undergo the procedure along with fellow members of the Kono ethnic group. She has argued that the critics of the procedure exaggerate the medical dangers, misunderstand the effect on sexual pleasure, and mistakenly view the removal of parts of the clitoris as a practice that oppresses women. She has lamented that her Westernized “feminist sisters insist on denying us this critical aspect of becoming a woman in accordance with our unique and powerful cultural heritage.” In another essay, she writes:

It is difficult for me — considering the number of ceremonies I have observed, including my own — to accept that what appears to be expressions of joy and ecstatic celebrations of womanhood in actuality disguise hidden experiences of coercion and subjugation. Indeed, I offer that the bulk of Kono women who uphold these rituals do so because they want to — they relish the supernatural powers of their ritual leaders over against men in society, and they embrace the legitimacy of female authority and particularly the authority of their mothers and grandmothers.

You can read more about this in Dr. Ahmadu’s essays or in this critique of the global campaign against female genital mutilation, written by another participant in Saturday’s discussion, Richard Shweder of the University of Chicago.

Dr. Shweder says that many Westerners trying to impose a “zero tolerance” policy don’t realize that these initiation rites are generally controlled not by men but by women who believe it is a cosmetic procedure with aesthetic benefits. He criticizes Americans and Europeans for outlawing it at the same they endorse their own forms of genital modification, like the circumcision of boys or the cosmetic surgery for women called “vaginal rejuvenation.” After surveying studies of female circumcision and comparing the data with the rhetoric about its harmfulness, Dr. Shweder concludes that “‘First World’ feminist issues and political correctness and activism have triumphed over the critical assessment of evidence.”

If I were asked to make a decision about my own daughter, I wouldn’t choose circumcision for her. But what about the question raised by these anthropologists: Should outsiders be telling African women what initiation practices are acceptable?

Heavens, no! That would bring back the bad old days of the Raj, of the white man's burden, of Sir Charles James Napier and worse, now, wouldn't it? Or...would it be a simple gesture of defense for these poor women?

Pakistan: Islamic jihadists loot Christian farmer's rice crops

"Christians are born to clean manure, therefore go and clean the cesspits and you (Christian) are not supposed to do cultivation."

"Muslim Militants Loot Christian Farmer's Rice Crops," by Jawad Mazhar for BosNewsLife (thanks to Twostellas):

MANDI BHAUDIN, PAKISTAN (BosNewsLife)-- A Christian rice farmer in Pakistan was without income Sunday, December 2, after armed Muslim militants robbed him of his 7.5 acre of rice crops, the victim and investigators said.

Robby Simon said he had been robbed off "ripened rice crops worth" nearly $7,000, a huge amount in the impoverished region around his village of Tara Tibbi in District Mandi Bhaudin of Pakistan’s Punjab province.

He said the attack happened November 14 "in broad daylight", but police has so far refused to arrest any of the suspects. Police officials were not immediately available for comments, however security forces have been criticized by several advocacy groups of not doing enough to prevent attacks against Pakistan’s Christian minority.

Pakistani advocacy group Rays of Development (ROD) and relatives of Simon told BosNewsLife that militants carrying AK-47 rifles and other weapons forcibly entered in to the farm house of Simon and tied up his workers, identified as Nazir Masih and Muhammad Saleem, with ropes.

WAVING FIRE ARMS

A witness, Yousaf Masih, said the assailants reaped up the crop within 3.5 hours during the day light. "They finished harvesting and took away the looted rice crop with them, waving fire arms and saying: 'Christians are born to clean manure, therefore go and clean the cesspits and you (Christian) are not supposed to do cultivation'," he said, his voice trembling.

He added that the Muslim robbers "also blatantly challenged us to do whatever we (Christians) can do against them."

Grudge sparked teddy bear crisis

This is not the first case we have seen of Sharia law's institutionalized inequality and draconian punishments being employed to settle a score. Indeed, unjust laws, by their very nature, often lend themselves to the designs of opportunists. This is all the more the case when one party is afforded special status under the law, as Sharia renders Islam untouchable by criticism or insults, and places Muslims over non-Muslims, and "good" Muslims over "bad" ones. And once again, in Gillian Gibbons' case, that inequity helped turn a fairly common personal spat into a matter of life and death. From CNN:

KHARTOUM, Sudan (CNN) -- In an effort to shut down Khartoum's Unity High School, a disgruntled former employee alerted Sudanese officials that a British teacher had allowed her class to name a teddy bear "Mohammed," a British source and Sudanese presidential palace source told Time magazine's Sam Dealey.

Gillian Gibbons, 54, was convicted last week of insulting religion and sentenced to 15 days in jail and deportation. Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir pardoned her from her prison sentence on Monday and she later left on a flight for England.

The two sources said Sarah Khawad was fired as the school's secretary in November after an employment spat and threatened to shut down the school.

The sources said Khawad did not appear to have a vendetta against Gibbons, but hoped that by bringing the teddy bear incident to the education minister's attention, he would close down the school for anti-Islamic teachings.

[...]

The sources said they have confirmed the account with Gibbons.

Defense attorneys confirmed that it was Khawad who launched the initial complaint against Gibbons, not a parent as originally thought. Khawad also testified at Gibbons' trial.

Before approaching Sudan's education minister, the two sources said Khawad tried to enlist two parents, who were also teachers at the school, to join in her protest against the teddy bear's name, but they declined.

Gibbons had been working at the school -- popular with wealthy Sudanese and expatriates -- since August, after leaving her position as deputy head teacher at a primary school in Liverpool this summer, said the head of Unity High School, Robert Boulos.

"All Dutch museums are free to choose what they exhibit and what not" -- except when they aren't

And guess when that is. "Hague museum pulls offensive Muslim art," from AAP (thanks to Twostellas):

The city museum of The Hague has decided not to include in an exhibition a work of art that may offend Muslims, it was reported on Monday.

The picture, made by Iranian artist Sooreh Hera, is entitled Adam and Ewald and shows two gay men wearing masks of the Muslim prophet Mohammed and his son-in-law Ali.

It is part of a photoseries the Gemeentemuseum has included in the 7up exhibition due to open on December 15.

The Gemeentemuseum's director Wim van Krimpen told reporters the museum is interested in purchasing Hera's complete series, which he called "high quality works of art".

However, he added he will not exhibit Adam and Ewald in the next few years because "certain people in our society might perceive it as offensive".

Hera responded she was "disappointed" and added "apparently a Muslim minority decides what will be on display in the museum".

Liberal-rightist Freedom Party (PVV) leader Geert Wilders, condemned the museum's decision, adding it was "based on fear".

Obviously.

Wilders has requested a reaction on the matter from Education and Culture minister Ronald Plasterk.

Meanwhile Siebe Weide, director of the Museum Association, told reporters "all Dutch museums are free to choose what they exhibit and what not".

Turkish Court: Marital Rape Not A Crime; Turkish Columnist: Decision Turns Women Into Sex Slaves

Turkey takes another step toward becoming a Sharia state in which women are essentially commodities. Let them into the EU! From the MEMRI Blog (thanks to Pamela):

In response to a ruling by Turkey's Supreme Court of Appeals that marital rape is not a crime, İsmet Berkan wrote in his column in Radikal that because of the ruling, if a woman "resists and is killed by her husband in the end, his penalty even could be reduced due to 'grievous provocation!' We learned [about] this during the ‘Stop Violence Against Women’ week..."

He continued, "Unfortunately, the court's decision has the effect of turning women into sex slaves in marriages... Forcing someone into sexual intercourse is called 'rape.' In Turkey, which is making efforts to end violence against women, the Court of Appeals decision must have been a really bad coincidence..."

Source: Turkish Daily News, Turkey, November 30, 2007

"Allah's Apostle said, "If a husband calls his wife to his bed (i.e. to have sexual relation) and she refuses and causes him to sleep in anger, the angels will curse her till morning." -- Bukhari, 4.54.460

Addled multiculturalist, having learned nothing, renames Mohammed the Mole

After Mohammed the Teddy Bear took a dive. It doesn't seem to have occurred to him that maybe, just maybe, the ordeal of Gillian Gibbons shows that the whole multiculturalist pipe dream is up in smoke.

"Mohammed the mole digs author into a risky hole," by Chris Gourlay for the Times (thanks to JE):

A BRITISH children’s author who named a mole Mohammed to promote multiculturalism has renamed it Morgan for fear of offending Muslims.

Kes Gray, a former advertising executive, first decided on his gesture of cross-cultural solidarity after meeting Muslims in Egypt.

The character, Mohammed the Mole, appeared in Who’s Poorly Too, an illustrated children’s book, which also included Dipak Dalmatian and Pedro Penguin, in an effort to be “inclusive”.

This weekend Gray said he had decided to postpone a reprint and rename the character Morgan the Mole even though there had been no complaints.

“I had no idea at all of the sensitivities of the name Mohammed until seeing this case in Sudan,” said Gray. “As soon as I saw the news I thought, oh gosh, I’ve got a mole called Mohammed � this is not good.

“I feel incredibly sorry for that teacher,” added Gray. “Luckily for me, I’m in a position where I can avoid this.”

At least for now.

The book has sold 40,000 copies in Britain and abroad since 1999.

Gray said he tried “hard to embrace other cultures and I had no idea it would backfire like this. I was in Egypt this year and everyone was called Mohammed. I just thought it was a popular name”.

ADDENDUM: Now that Mohammed Mole has apparently left Islam, should he be killed as an apostate?

"When you read that article, it sounds to some people [like] there’s an attack from the 'Muslim' world against the 'non-Muslim' world"

You dhimmis aren't supposed to notice. "Canadian Islamic Congress launches human rights complaints against Maclean's," by Kate Lunau for Maclean's (thanks to all who sent this in):

The Canadian Islamic Congress—Canada's largest non-profit Islamic body—has launched two human rights complaints against Maclean's and its editor-in-chief, Kenneth Whyte. The complaints' subject is "The Future Belongs to Islam," an excerpt from Mark Steyn's book "America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It," which appeared in the magazine's Oct. 23, 2006, issue.

Complaints were submitted to Human Rights Commissions in B.C. and Ontario on the grounds that "the article subjects Canadian Muslims to hatred and contempt," according to a CIC press release. In the release, the CIC labels Steyn's article as "flagrantly Islamophobic."

Faisal Joseph is the CIC's legal counsel on the matter. "In Canada, we have 750,000 law-abiding Muslims," he says. "When you read that article, it sounds to some people [like] there’s an attack from the 'Muslim' world against the 'non-Muslim' world. We take real issue with that type of characterization and the implications of it."

So do I.

Iran: "Considering the start of the cold season and its special way of dressing, police will start early next week a drive against women who wear improper dress."

Grab your coat, grab your hat, your chador, and your running shoes, and then leave your worries on the doorstep (maybe). It's not just summertime that presents the possibility of running afoul of the Iranian police. "Tight trousers targeted in Iran clothing crackdown," from Reuters:

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian police will crack down on women in Tehran flouting Islamic dress codes with winter fashions deemed immodest, such as tight trousers tucked into long boots, an officer was quoted as saying on Saturday.

"Considering the start of the cold season and its special way of dressing, police will start early next week a drive against women who wear improper dress," Tehran police chief Ahmad Reza Radan was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.

"Tight trousers tucked inside long boots while wearing short overcoats are against Islamic codes," the police chief said.

"Wearing a hat or cap instead of scarves is also against Islamic dress codes."

Police officials were not immediately available for comment. The Iranian week begins on Saturday.

Police regularly clamp down on skimpier clothing and looser headscarves in the summer. Usually this is for just a few weeks but this year the campaign has run into the autumn.

There has not recently been a move against winter fashion.

Enforcement of Islamic dress codes that require women to cover their hair and disguise the shape of their body with loose overcoats has become progressively sterner since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005.

Women found dressing inappropriately may be warned or, particularly for repeat offenders, can be taken to a police station and fined. Police this year have also cracked down on men sporting what are considered "Western" spiked haircuts.

In October, a newspaper said 122,000 people, mostly women, had been warned about their clothing and nearly 7,000 of those had to attend classes on respecting the rules.

Young women, particularly in wealthier urban areas, often challenge limitations by wearing tight clothing and colorful headscarves that barely cover their hair. The codes are less commonly challenged in poor suburbs and rural regions.

Iran has rejected criticism by rights groups of such crackdowns and said its efforts were aimed at "fighting morally corrupt people".

Turkey: Spurious case against converts from Islam to Christianity prolonged

"Insulting Turkishness" Update. Let them into the EU!

"Turkey: Spurious Case Against Converts Prolonged," from Compass Direct:

SILIVRI, Turkey, November 30 (Compass Direct News) – Bowing to demands of prosecution lawyers, yesterday the judge presiding over a contrived case against two Turkish converts to Christianity for “insulting Turkishness” ordered 12 more witnesses to testify.

During a 50-minute hearing yesterday in Silivri, 45 miles west of Istanbul, Judge Metin Tamirci summoned two alleged eyewitnesses, five gendarme soldiers, two policemen and three local residents to appear at the next hearing before the Silivri Criminal Court, set for March 13.

Ultranationalist lawyer Kemal Kerincsiz claimed on behalf of his three young plaintiffs that the potential witnesses on his September 4 petition to the court had “information and eyewitness details” pertinent to the accusations against defendants Hakan Tastan and Turan Topal.

The three Silivri residents summoned are listed on the defendants’ computers as people who had requested Christian literature and a visit from a local Bible correspondence course with which Tastan and Topal worked.

The prosecution had previously requested several of these individuals as potential witnesses, but their admission into the case had been denied by the previous judge. Judge Neset Eren withdrew from the case in September after Kerincsiz accused him of improper bias in his handling of the litigation.

“A year has passed, and the court has already heard all the testimonies on both sides of this case,” defense lawyer Haydar Polat told Compass yesterday. “But it is clear from today’s hearing that the court plans to continue this unfounded case for at least another year or more.”