Recently in Eurabia Category

Pakistan's #1 export takes root in Italy. "Mumbai attack suspects arrested by Italian police," from BBC News, November 21:

Italian police have arrested two Pakistanis suspected of providing logistical support for last year's attacks in Mumbai.

The father and son were detained in an early morning raid in the northern city of Brescia, police said.

They are accused of supplying cash from their money transfer agency to pay for an internet phone account used by people in contact with the attackers.

More than 170 people, nine of them gunmen, died in the November attacks.

Mohammad Yaqub Janjua, 60, and Aamer Yaqub Janjua, 31, are accused of aiding and abetting international terrorism as well as illegal financial activity.

They were identified after leads from India and the FBI, police said....

This idea was floated by the Sarkozy government in France some months ago, but I don't think anything came of it. In any case, it's nice work if you can get it. I expect that it will create a revolving-door growth industry, with unassimilable immigrants getting paid, going home, coming back, getting paid again, going home again, etc. Still, this is positive -- it is among the first official recognition that there is any problem at all with immigrants who won't assimilate.

"Denmark to pay immigrants £12,000 to go home if they 'can't or won't' assimilate," by Allan Hall for the Daily Mail, November 10 (thanks to all who sent this in):'

Denmark is boosting cash incentives to entice immigrants to return to their homelands if they 'can't or won't' assimilate into society.

The offer now on the table is close to £12,000 for every person who takes up the offer to leave.

Critics of the measure say it sends the wrong message to foreigners but the centre-right government in Copenhagen is forging ahead with the plan.

The financial carrot is ten times more than that previously offered under a scheme which as been law since 1997.

'We thought it was important to substantially increase this aid so that immigrants who want to return home because they are not able to adapt to Danish society have a strong financial basis to start a new life,' said foreign affairs spokesman Soeren Espersen of the far-right Danish People's Party....

The book that inspired this text was The Legend of the Middle Ages: Philosophical Explorations of Medieval Christianity, Judaism, and Islam by Rémi Brague, a French professor and specialist of medieval religious philosophy. He is also the author of the fine book Eccentric Culture: A Theory of Western Civilization, which I have written an extensive essay about previously. Thematically this text overlaps to some extent with my essay Why Christians Accepted Greek Natural Philosophy, but Muslims Did Not and my reviews of the books Science and Religion by Edward Grant and Defending the West by Ibn Warraq. It also overlaps with some of the material I have included in my book Defeating Eurabia. I will include page references to the various book quotes so that others can use them and will supplement with some quotes from two good onlineinterviews with Mr. Brague.

Medieval Muslims were reluctant to travel to infidel lands. According to Islamic jurists Muslims should not stay for too long in the lands of non-Muslims if they cannot live a proper Muslim life there. Muslims had little knowledge of or interest in any Western languages. Only Italian had some currency for commercial purposes, but mainly involving Jews and Eastern Christians, especially Greeks and Armenians. Few Muslims knew any non-Muslim languages well, the knowledge of which was considered unnecessary or even suspect.

Consequently, the translators of Greek and other non-Muslim scientific works to Arabic were never Muslims. They were Christians of the three dominant denominations plus a few Jews and Sabians. The language of culture for these Christians was Syriac (Syro-Aramaic or Eastern Aramaic) and their liturgical language was Greek. The translators already knew the languages they were to translate. We do have examples of translators who traveled to Greece to perfect their skills, but they were Christians for whom Greek was already at least a liturgical language. Here is Rémi Brague in The Legend of the Middle Ages, page 164:

"Neither were there any Muslims among the ninth-century translators. Almost all of them were Christians of various Eastern denominations: Jacobites, Melchites, and, above all, Nestorians (though I am not sure why the latter predominated). A few others were Sabians, a somewhat bizarre religious community with an intriguing history, whose elites were perhaps the last heirs of the pagan philosophers of the School of Athens. No Muslim learned Greek or, even less, Syriac. Cultivated Christians were often bilingual, even trilingual: they used Arabic for daily life, Syriac for liturgy, and Greek for cultural purposes. The translators that helped to pass along the Greek heritage to the Arabs were artisans who worked for private patrons, without institutional support. One often hears tell of the 'House of Wisdom' (bayt al-hikmah), a sort of research center subsidized by the caliphs that specialized in producing Arabic translations of Greek works. This is pure legend. The further back in time we go, the less the chroniclers connect the activity of translation with that 'house.' As an institution it was above all a propaganda office working for the Mu`tazilite doctrine supported by the caliphs."

The Baghdad-centered Abbasid Dynasty, which replaced the Damascus-centered Umayyad Dynasty after AD 750, was closer to pre-Islamic Persian culture and influenced by the Sassanid Zoroastrian practice of translating works and creating libraries. Even Dimitri Gutas admits this in his pro-Islamic book Greek Thought, Arab Culture. There was still a large number of Zoroastrians, Christians and Jews and they held a disproportionate amount of expertise in the medical field. According to author Thomas T. Allsen, Middle Eastern medicine in Mongol ruled China was "almost always" in the hands of Nestorian Christians.

Eurabia Alert, and an update on this story. "Italy: Al-Qaeda allies 'may carry out attacks'," from AdnKronos International, November 7:

Rome, 6 Nov. (AKI) - Italy was susceptible to terror attacks by allies of the Al-Qaeda network, the interior minister Roberto Maroni said on Friday. Maroni warned there were terror cells that identified with Al-Qaeda and they had "authorisation" to carry out attacks in Italy.

"Al-Qaeda is not present in Italy, however we are investigating terror cells who identify with it and have somehow obtained authorisation from Al-Qaeda," said Maroni.

He was speaking during a media conference at Rome's foreign press club.

"We are very worried," he said, warning that terrorists could be training in Italy to carry out attacks inside the country.

"We think there could be terror cells in Italy that are being created, financed and trained to carry out attacks against us."

Maroni said after the attack last month by a Libyan citizen against an army barracks in the northern city of Milan that "the conditions have changed" and that the event marked a "turning-point" in regard to this type of activity in Italy.

Early in October, an Italian soldier was injured after a 35-year-old Libyan Mohammed Game allegedly exploded a bomb at the entrance of the 'Santa Barbara' barracks using rudimentary explosives reportedly made of solid nitrate.

Two other alleged accomplices, an Egyptian and a Libyan, were arrested after the attack.

While Game suffered severe injuries to his face and his hand was amputated, no others were injured.

According to Maroni, before the attack by the Libyan, Italian cells would collect funds and recruit people to carry out attacks abroad.

"Washington, DC, Oct. 16 -- At the Oct. 15 Fourth Annual Gala of the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP), the National Security Advisor, General James L. Jones, reiterated the Administration's commitment to establishing a Palestinian state and determination to move forward with peace talks.

"We are clear, unambiguous and consistent," said Gen. Jones, "The time has come to relaunch negotiations without preconditions to reach a final status agreement on two states." The National Security Advisor emphasized that, "President Obama's dedication to achieve these goals is unshaken, is committed, and we will be relentless in our pursuit of achieving these." He said that ending the conflict and the occupation is essential because what is at stake is "nothing less than the dignity and the security of all human beings." "We must move beyond talking about talks and get to the hard work of addressing the core issues that separate Israelis and Palestinians," Jones said...."

The National Security Adviser to Barack Obama, and the author of the amazing, nearly crazed, speech above, is General James L. Jones. Like Scott Gration, who joined the Obama campaign and was rewarded with the portfolio for the Sudan because as a young man he had lived in the Congo and Kenya, Jones is a kind of court general. His life in the military may not have prepared him well for the task at hand, but in the calculations of the Obama retinue, it is assumed he will help provide an aura of "toughness" - willingness to use force, that sort of thing - and of lack of hostility to the military that the Obama calculators think he needs.

But there are generals and there are generals. One disastrous military man who served as National Security Adviser -- Brent Scowcroft, a chocolate soldier -- comes swimmingly to mind. There is mettle more attractive than the medals on a uniform, and the most attractive mettle of all, verso and recto, is the mental mettle of those who know how to recognize what it is they need to find out about, what it is they need to know more about, in order to meet the demands and responsibilities and duties of their job.

What has James Jones, this court general -- the one Obama enrolled in his pre-election entourage, along with Scott Gration, in order to protect Candidate Obama from possible political attacks or evident disaffection from almost all the other military men - said or done to show us that he has understand Islam, has grasped the doctrine of Jihad? And when we come specifically to the Lesser Jihad being waged against Israel, why does General Jones accept so unthinkingly the camouflage the Arabs have created for that Jihad - so clear in its ultimate goal, a goal shared by the Muslims of the Fast Jihadist of Hamas and the Slow Jihadists of Fatah, that is, the elimination of the Infidel nation-state of Israel?

Prof. Robert S. Wistrich is the director of The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the author of A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad (Random House, January 2010).

On November 9, 1938, a massive nation-wide anti-Jewish pogrom took place during peacetime across the entire territory of the Third Reich. The pretext for this orgy of violence against German Jews was the shooting in Paris two days earlier of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year-old Polish-Jewish refugee. The state-organized pogrom, instigated by Hitler and Joseph Goebbels, resulted in the burning or damaging of more than a thousand synagogues; the ransacking of about 7,500 businesses, the murder of at least 91 Jews, and the deportation of another 30,000 Jewish males to concentration camps in Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen. This murderous onslaught against German Jewry, cynically described by the Nazis as the "Night of Broken Glass" (Kristallnacht), was a major turning point on the road to the "Final Solution" of the so-called "Jewish Question." It signified that the Nazi regime had crossed a Rubicon and would no longer be deterred by Western public opinion in its "war against the Jews." The economic expropriation of German Jewry, its complete social ostracism and public humiliation swiftly followed. Jews were banned from public transport, from frequenting concerts, theaters, cinemas, commercial centers, beaches, or using public benches. Only a fortnight after "Crystal Night," the SS journal, Das Schwarze Korps, chillingly prophesied the final end of German Jewry through "fire and sword" and its imminent complete annihilation.

Today, shocking to relate, the specter of such apocalyptic anti-Semitism has returned to haunt Europe and other continents, while often assuming radically new forms. In the Middle East, it has taken on a particularly dangerous, toxic and potentially genocidal aura of hatred, closely linked to the "mission" of holy war or jihad against the West and the Jews.

Islamist anti-Semitism is thoroughly soaked in many of the most inflammatory themes that initially made possible the atrocities of "Crystal Night" and its horrific aftermath during the Holocaust. For example, the pervasive use of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion with its perennial theme of the "Jewish conspiracy for world domination;" or the medieval blood-libel imported to the Muslim world from Christian Europe; or the vile stereotypical image of the Jews as a treacherous, rapacious, and bloodthirsty people engaged in a ceaseless plotting to undermine the world of Islam. To these grotesque inventions one must add such more up-to-date libels like Holocaust denial which has become a state-sponsored project in Ahmadinejad's Iran and is increasingly pervasive in the Arab world.

Equally fashionable (and increasingly popular in Europe) is the slanderous identification of Israel with Nazism or the "ethnic cleansing" of the Palestinians. This modernized version of inverted anti-Semitism which sails under the mask of "anti-Zionism" and anti-Americanism, is today a global phenomenon, but it has special resonance in the Middle East as a result of the unresolved "Palestinian question."

The scale and extremism of the literature and commentary available in Arab or Muslim newspapers, journals, magazines, caricatures, on Islamist websites, on the Middle Eastern radio and TV news, in documentaries, films, and educational materials, is comparable only to that of Nazi Germany at its worst. Yet the Western world largely turns a blind eye to the likely genocidal consequences of such a culture of hatred, much as it did seventy years ago. My own extensive research into this phenomenon has, unfortunately, convinced me that the Holocaust did not truly succeed in neutralizing the scourge of anti-Semitism. In a sinister and sometimes devious manner, the widespread defamation and demonization of Israel has in effect revived fantasies of completing the murderous work of the Third Reich. This is especially palpable in the case of Iran. Hence, the anniversary of "Crystal Night" raises two fundamental moral questions for the future of human civilization. Are we at all capable of learning from history, and will the Jewish people once again have to stand alone in the face of concrete threats to annihilate it? On the answer to these questions much may depend.

The European Court of Human Rights strikes a blow against the continent's Christian heritage. It is likely that the court would not be this chary toward granting the use of Islamic symbols -- and certain that Islamic expression in Europe will continue to grow as Christianity continues to wane. "Italy school crucifixes 'barred,'" from the BBC, November 3 (thanks to all who sent this in):

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled against the use of crucifixes in classrooms in Italy.

It said the practice violated the right of parents to educate their children as they saw fit, and ran counter to the child's right to freedom of religion.

The case was brought by an Italian mother, Soile Lautsi, who wants to give her children a secular education.

But the ruling has sparked anger in the largely Catholic country, with one politician calling the move "shameful"....

Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini said the crucifix was a "symbol of our tradition", and not a mark of Catholicism.

One government minister called the ruling "shameful", while another said that Europe was forgetting its Christian heritage....

Some conservatives have already complained about schools dropping nativity plays to avoid upsetting Muslim children.

Odd usage of "conservatives" there. Usually in mainstream media stories dealing with events outside the U.S., "conservatives" are sawing off their daughters' heads, or blowing something up.

Then they're going home and...waiting. "Report: Western jihadists being trained in Afghanistan, Pakistan," from DPA, November 3 (thanks to James):

Paris - More and more Europeans and Americans are travelling to Afghanistan and Pakistan to be trained to carry out jihad, or Islamic armed struggle, against the West, the online edition of the French daily Le Figaro reported Tuesday on a blog dedicated to the region.

Citing 'several Western intelligence services,' the report noted that at least 30 potential jihadists from Germany have traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan since the beginning of the year.

Last year, about 12 others returned to Germany from the area, provoking fears about the existence of dormant terrorist cells that could act eventually....

In "Tingbjerg: one neighborhood's nightmare" at Human Rights Service, October 26, Bruce Bawer gives a glimpse of the kind of thing that will be happening in the United States before too long, unless there is some drastic change in numerous policies:

Few people outside of Denmark have heard of Tingbjerg. It's a residential neighborhood in northwestern Copenhagen. About 6500 people live there, down from about 10,000 in the 1970s. Today the great majority of those residents are Muslims. As the neighborhood has become increasingly Muslim, it's also been increasingly plagued by gang violence, burglaries, car-burnings, vandalism, and other offenses. Over the years, the members of Tingbjerg's non-Muslim minority have come to feel increasingly vulnerable and ill at ease in their community. Many have moved out.

Among the latter is Ulrich Vogel. He is German and gay - and until recently he also happened to be the pastor at Tingbjerg Church. But now, after seventeen years in that position, he's fled - moved out of the church residence, gone underground, taken sick leave, and begun psychological treatment.

Why? Because in recent years Vogel has been the repeated target of crime and harassment by local Muslims. Vogel refused to discuss his situation with Uwe Max Jensen, who reported on the story for sappho.dk on October 6. But Jensen found police reports in local newspapers that describe acts of vandalism at the church on March 26 and August 5 of this year and a break-in at the church residence on August 16. The latter crime involved the destruction and robbery of much of Vogel's personal property, including his computer. And this is apparently only the tip of the iceberg: a member of the church congregation told Jensen that the residence has been broken into "countless" times.

In any case, Vogel has given up. And so, apparently, has the church council: instead of opening up a search for a substitute pastor who's willing to live in the church residence at Tingbjerg, they've decided to sell it.

For days, the rumor circulated that Vogel was tormented by the young Muslims because he's gay. Then, on October 17, Lea Holtze and Jannie Iwankow Søgaard of Kristeligt Dagblad reported that Vogel had broken his silence in order to deny that rumor. No, he insisted: he was tormented not because he's gay but because he's a pastor, and thus "a picture of an institution and a normality that is not welcomed by this group of young people." Vogel also noted, truthfully enough, that he was hardly the only person in the neighborhood who had been victimized by local youth.

"It's a whole neighborhood that's been taken hostage," Vogel said of Tingbjerg, complaining that "one is left to fend for oneself" there because "the police don't do enough." The problems, he said, can't be dismissed as ordinary teenage hijinks: "It feels like pure malice." The pastor recalled that last March, after local youths threw rocks at buses, resulting in a disruption of the public transport system, he spoke out in a local newspaper and on the TV news about the neighborhood's ordeal - an action which, he suggests, may help explain why he appears to have been singled out for repeated victimization....

Read it all.

"After his death, at least 50 youths took to the streets and started to break windows at the entrance of Gabelle, an outskirt of the city. The youths also burned garbage, tires, a motorcycle and five vehicles in a shipyard, said the police. When the Police and the fire-fighters arrived on the scène, protesters threw stones and Molotov cocktails against them. Then, the police retaliate by firing tear gas but it was unable to enter into Gabelle."

Think about that last sentence for a minute.

"France/Civil unrest: clashes erupted in Fréjus after a young man killed himself," from ESISC, October 26 (thanks to Bill):

Violent clashes erupted late on Sunday in the town of Fréjus (south of France) after Mohamed El Matari, a 21 years-old Moroccan national, living in the city killed himself while he was trying to steer clear of a roadblock. According to Simon Babri, the chief of staff of the Prefect, "initially, at 17h30, the young man turned back to avoid a roadblock at the entrance of Fréjus and he fled. He tried to bypass a second roadblock and by driving on the bottom side of the road it hit a tree".

After his death, at least 50 youths took to the streets and started to break windows at the entrance of Gabelle, an outskirt of the city. The youths also burned garbage, tires, a motorcycle and five vehicles in a shipyard, said the police. When the Police and the fire-fighters arrived on the scène, protesters threw stones and Molotov cocktails against them. Then, the police retaliate by firing tear gas but it was unable to enter into Gabelle.

No wounded have been reported during the incidents. According to a statement published by the prefecture of the Var region, "at midnight the police were able to take position inside the area and to restore calm." However, police stay in the area during the night to prevent any other incidents.

This would, of course, render us mute and hence defenseless in the face of the advancing jihad -- and that is just what it is designed to do. Free Speech Death Watch Alert: "Objections to Muslim and Homosexual Practices to be Unlawful in Europe - Media MIA," by Paul Belien for Hudson NY, October 26 (thanks to Magnus):

If all goes as planned, the 27 member states of the European Union will soon have a common hate crime legislation, which will turn disapproval for Islamic practices or homosexual lifestyles into crimes. Europe's Christian churches are trying to stop the plan of the European political establishment, but it is not clear if they will be successful.

Last April, the European Parliament approved the European Union's Equal Treatment Directive. A directive is the name given to an EU law. As directives overrule national legislation, they need the approval of the European Council of Ministers before coming into effect. Next month, the Council will decide on the directive, which places the 27 EU member states under a common anti-discrimination legislation. The directive's definition of discriminatory harassment is so broad that every objection to Muslim or homosexual practices will be considered unlawful.

On April 2, the European Parliament passed the "directive on implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation," 363 votes to 226. The directive applies to social protection and health care, social benefits, education and access to goods and services, including housing. American citizens and companies doing business in Europe are also required to adhere to it.

Originally intended to serve as an equal treatment directive for the disabled by prohibiting discrimination when accessing "goods and services, including housing," activist European politicians and governments had the directive's scope expanded to include discrimination on the basis of religion, age and sexual orientation.

Under the directive, harassment - defined as conduct "with the purpose or effect of violating the dignity of a person and of creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment" - is deemed a form of discrimination.

Harassment, as vaguely defined in the directive, allows an individual to accuse someone of discrimination merely for expressing something the individual allegedly perceives as creating an "offensive environment." The definition is so broad that anyone who feels intimidated or offended can easily bring legal action against those whom he feels are responsible. Moreover, the directive shifts the burden of proof onto the accused, who has to prove the negative, i.e. demonstrate that he or she did not create an environment which intimidated or offended the complainant. If the accused fails to do so, he or she can be sentenced to paying an unlimited amount of compensation for "harassment." [...]

The same phenomenon, a lack of interest on the part of European and also American public opinion, is apparent with regard to the semi-legal initiatives taken at the level of the United Nations. On October 2nd, the UN Human Rights Council approved a free speech resolution, co-sponsored by the US and Egypt, which criticizes "negative racial and religious stereotyping." American diplomats said the decision to co-sponsor the resolution was part of America's effort to "reach out to Muslim countries." The resolution passed unanimously, with the support of all Western nations. Though the resolution has no immediate effect in law, it provides Muslim extremists with moral ammunition the next time they feel that central tenets of Islam are being treated disrespectfully through the creation of what they perceive to be an 'offensive environment.'