...born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad

 

The guys can’t help it: As over-exuberant “youths” continue to set vehicles ablaze in France, and an Australian cleric explains that unveiled women are responsible for provoking rapes, and thousands of seethers take to the streets in Pakistan, burning American flags to protest the hit by Pakistani authorities on an alleged Al Qaeda madrassa, it strikes me that there’s one common denominator here. In two words: impulse control. Or, to be more specific, the lack thereof. The youths can’t help but give in to their impulse to torch cars. Muslim men, says the Aussie cleric, can’t help but give in to their overwhelming sexual appetites. The Pakistani seethers can’t help but go bananas and rampage through the street.

Supporters of a religious political party Jamat-e-Islami during a protest in Multan against the madrassa air strike (EPA)

 

Or can they? It seems to me that it’s not so much that they can’t control their impulses as it is that they chose not to control them. Most people as they mature and begin to think rationally and comprehend the world around them have the ability to put the brakes on their impulses. That’s why, for the most part, toddlers tend to have tantrums and adults can usually control the impulse to flip out (though, of course, not all adults, and not all the time).

 

Conversely, these males with the hair-trigger tempers can usually be brought to heel by their religious leaders, which suggests that someone else is in control of these impulses, and can turn them “on” or “off” as desired.

 

For the purposes of scaring the infidel and giving him/her the sense that events are slipping out of control (those fiery lads! the Arab street!), there’s nothing more effective than a good chaotic rampage (aside from an exploding martyr, of course).

 

As for a man’s inability to curb his animalistic lust in the presence of an uncovered woman, we have laws against that sort of thing, ones which, thankfully, aren’t nearly as chauvinistic, archaic and unfair as the ones the Aussie cleric seeks to impose on the larger society.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:32 | link | comments

 

Wearing the niqab is bad for your health: So says a letter in the Globe and Mail. (Sorry, no link):

 

In the controversy over Moslem woman and the veil, no one is addressing the possible health consequences for women wearing the niqab. Perhaps they missed Grade 11 biology.

 

In Saudi Arabia and in Afghanistan, women wearing excessive covering suffer from back problems and osteoporosis, a condition characterized by bone loss with resultant weakening of the skeleton and bones that fracture easily.

 

Human beings have an inherent need for sunlight. Many chemical reactions in the human body are mediated by sunlight. Tryptophan, an amino acid, is light sensitive and in daylight converts to “feel-good chemical serotonin, lack of which can cause depression and seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

 

Ultraviolet light is also necessary for the synthesis of the D vitamins that promote the proper metabolism of calcium and phospherus, the two major constituents of bone. Lack of vitamin D3 causes the aforementioned osteoporosis.

 

The eyes, which are exposed by niqab wearers, are the very things that should be shielded from ultraviolet light, which is a factor in the formation of cataracts and in macular degeneration.

 

So, ladies, wear you niqab if you wish, but protect your health by vitamin D supplements and by consuming food high in vitamin D…Otherwise, down the road, you will be making the manufacturers of walkers and wheelchairs very happy.

C.E. REYNOLDS, Toronto

 

On the plus side, women who wear the niqab are less prone to malignant melanoma and other skin cancers. Also, women in Saudi Arabia don’t need a male chaperone to drive a wheelchair.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:59 | link | comments

 

Shedding light on an unknown (and appalling) episode: Walter Reich, former director of the Holocaust Museum, has a letter in today’s Washington Post. In it he recounts how, post-Oslo, pre-Wye, the Clinton Administration shamelessly tried to use a visit by Yasser Arafat as a photo op in an effort to bamboozle American Jews:

In his Oct. 19 letter, "Arafat and the Holocaust Museum," Afif Safieh, head of the PLO Mission to the United States, claimed that "on an official visit to Washington in 1998, the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat expressed a strong desire to visit" the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, "but his request was rejected by the museum." I was the director of the museum at the time and feel obliged to correct Mr. Safieh's misstatement of those events.

Yasser Arafat didn't request a visit to the Holocaust Museum. Before he came to the United States, he was invited by White House and State Department officials -- who were also presidentially appointed members of the museum's board of trustees -- with the agreement of the board's presidentially appointed chairman but without my knowledge.

When I learned of the invitation, I objected that the museum shouldn't be used as a prop for a photo op. The invitation was, in my judgment, aimed at convincing American Jews, who mistrusted Arafat because of his support for terrorism during the years after the Oslo accords, that he genuinely felt the pain of the Jewish people and could be trusted to keep any word he would give in his upcoming negotiations with President Bill Clinton. I said that exploiting the memory of the Holocaust victims to sway public opinion in the service of achieving diplomatic objectives was unconscionable. I pointed out that Arafat had been invited to Yad Vashem, Israel's memorial to and museum about the Holocaust, but hadn't been interested in going there -- even though he was living in nearby Gaza.

The invitation to the Holocaust Museum was withdrawn. However, following pressures from the administration, Arafat was reinvited by the chairman of the museum's board -- again without my knowledge. But the day Arafat was scheduled to come, he canceled the visit. The Washington press corps, including the photographers, had decamped to the White House to cover the breaking Monica Lewinsky scandal. There would be no photo op.

Given this history, anyone saying that the planned Arafat visit was a product of his request and his "strong desire" to see the Holocaust Museum is trying to fool either himself or everyone else.

Nice guy, that Bill.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:10 | link | comments

 

Centre points: If you place yourself at the centre of the solar system, you’re a solipsist. It you place Jews at the centre of a cosmic conspiracy, you’re a “Jewcentric.” From JWR:

 

"Jewcentricity" is a word that sounds like it was coined by an embittered anti-Semite. But it's actually the inspiration of Adam Garfinkle, a Jew, writing in The American Interest magazine to call attention to a phenomenon that has roots in anti-Semitism and runs from the silly to the sublime: " . . . the idea, or the intimation, or the subconscious presumption . . . that Jews are somehow necessarily to be found at the very center of global-historical events."

 

"Jewcentricity" is most evident in the recycling of "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion," a fictitious text commissioned by the czar's secret police for a Russian audience at the end of the 19th century, describing a fanciful cabal of Jews who plan to take over the world. Some critics of the neoconservatives, some of whom are Jewish, cite the protocols, so called, in their accusations that Jews have hijacked American foreign policy. Others, critical of Israel, hyperventilate over the power of the "Israel lobby."

 

"The Protocols" have naturally become a best seller in several Muslim countries, including Turkey and Egypt, where they were turned into a television series. ("Semitic Sex in the City," however, it was not.) "The Protocols" were featured on the Iranian stands at last year's book fair in Frankfurt "to expose the real visage of this Satanic-enemy," along with an abridged edition of Henry Ford's literary thriller, "The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem" (which never made it to the screen). "The grip of the Jewish parasitic influence," asserts the preface of the new edition, "has been growing stronger and stronger ever since [Henry Ford's time]."

 

Serious examples of "Jewcentricity" are reflected in the media obsession with Sen. George Allen's Jewish mother, who was born in Tunisia and barely escaped the Holocaust, and before that, with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's Jewish roots in Czechoslovakia. The national newspapers and television networks spent considerably more time investigating the senator's "blood" parentage and its likely effect on his re-election campaign than the blood being spilled in Darfur. "Why?" asks Adam Garfinkle. "Because . . . Jews is news and there are no Jews in Darfur." That doesn't slow down the conspiracy theorists in other countries, with or without Jews, from obsessing over the myth of sinister Jewish power.

 

Germany's Jewcentricity is of a completely different order. No negative slur against Jews goes unanswered in the law courts or in the court of public opinion. This has hardly eliminated prejudice against Jews. In an anti-Semitic prank with echoes of the Third Reich, a high-school student in eastern Germany was forced by bullies not long ago to wear a sign around his neck in the school yard: "In this town I'm the biggest swine because of the Jewish friends of mine." The teacher reported it, the chief of police was firm in his outrage, and the state minister of the interior promised an investigation. Germany does not tolerate public exhibition of Nazi symbols.

 

But the strain of anti-Semitism that many thought would vanish after the horror of the Holocaust has again risen again in the Middle East and among European fellow travelers of the Islamists, whose rhetoric targets Israel in a way that Hitler would readily recognize. Israel is the euphemism for the demonized Jew. The Jews become, as Jonathan Rosen observed in The New York Times, "interchangeable emblems of cosmic evil."…

 

It is possible to be a solipsistic Jewcentric. But I’m pretty sure they have therapy for that.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:13 | link | comments

 

The Liberal record: Stephen Harper’s suggestion that most of those vying for the leadership of the Liberal party were “anti-Israel” resulted in howls of outraged from aggrieved members, including the contenders. Why, you’d have thought he’d up and called them something really awful, like “Islamophobic.” But as this piece by Calgary Sun columnist Paul Jackson recounts, Liberal animus toward Israel is deeply engrained and goes waaay back.

Jackson rightly skewers the governments of Jean Chetien and Paul Martin for their woeful track record re UN anti-Israel resolutions. The dynamic duo (who, go figure, despised each other) didn’t shoot down a single one. (The official count: 117 resolutions comprised of 78 ayes, 39 abstentions). Not until the Harper Conservatives came to power did Canada have the stones to break from the pack of international jackals and vote against some (though not all) of these suckers (the resolutions, not the jackals).

And then there’s the saintly Pierre Elliott Trudeau, still revered as the maestro of multiculturalism, the Ayatollah of human rights. According to a new biography about his formative years, Pierre wasn’t too fond of les maudit Juifs, a sentiment which followed him into public life:

…Let's look at the revered 'Great Helmsman' of the party, Pierre Trudeau.

He certainly didn't have much time for Jewish people.

In a just published book by Max and Monique Nemni, Young Trudeau: Son of Quebec, Father of Canada, 1919-1444 (McClelland and Stewart) it is revealed as a young man Trudeau was openly anti-Semitic, and admired Adolf Hitler and fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Here we should note the Nemnis are admirers of Trudeau, not detractors.

Yet, did Trudeau change his opinions later in life?

Hardly. As prime minister, when Jewish men, women and children were fighting against discrimination in the Soviet Union, trying to practise their religion unhindered and emigrate to Israel, rather than defend them he regarded them as "hooligans." One of those supposed "hooligans" was the admired Natan Scharansky, who spent years in labour camps and is now a cabinet minister in Israel…

Our Pierre may not have thought too highly of Jewish hooligans. But he definitely had a pronounced soft spot for certain Cuban and Palestinian ones.

But perhaps it's best to keep it on the q.t. for now. Otherwise, offended party members may feel compelled to write Stephen Harper another one of those “open letters.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:32 | link | comments

 

Nobody’s gonna rain on his parade: Moo says, “Back off, infidels. I’m going nuclear no matter what.”

 

Or words to that effect.

 

From the Jerusalem Post:

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday that United Nations Security Council sanctions over Iran's nuclear program would only serve to further "motivate" the Iranian nation.

"We have been under sanctions for the last 27 years and these things will therefore have no impact, but just lead to more motivation of the Iranian youth," Ahmadinejad said in a speech in Varamin, south of Tehran.

The president was referring to scheduled UN Security Council sanctions against the Islamic state for having violated resolution 1696 calling on Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment.

Reiterating that Iran would not retreat from the country's right to pursue nuclear technology, the ultraconservative president said: "The Iranian nation will stay united against any discrimination and give a very decisive reply to any actions trying to limit its rights."

Ahmadinejad accused the United States and Britain of having opposed Iran for over 50 years and said the two states wanted to exploit the country's oil, and "they want to deprive us of our own natural resources (uranium)."

"Wherever these two countries get involved, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon or Palestine, the situation gets worse," he added...

“Ultraconservative.” I like that. Completely inaccurate and Orwellian, but quite amusing nonetheless.

 

The JPost report doesn’t mention that after uttering these words, Moo immediately burst into one of his favourite Broadway show tunes. It’s from that Babs Streisand hit, Funny Girl:

 

Don’t tell me not to nuke,

Just sit and sizzle.

Life’s useless,

Just a lot of fog and drizzle.

Gotta bring a mushroom cloud

For Mahdi’s big parade.

 

Don’t tell me not to kill.

I simply got to.

If someone summons Mahd’

It’s me and not you.

Gotta bring a great ‘shroom cloud

For Mahdi’s big parade.

 

I’ll march my gang out

With little tubes.

And they’ll all hang out

And seethe about Great Satan.

How he’s

The one that they’re most hatin.’

 

But whether I’m a loon

Or simply evil

There’s gonna be a frikkin’ big upheaval

That’s gonna usher in the final days on Earth.

I gotta  fry ‘em.

I gotta die ‘em.

Chicken potpie ‘em, right, sir?

Ooo, life is pointless.

Death will anoint us.

Eternity awaits, sir.

 

Get ready for me, death,

‘Cause I’m a “comer.”

I simply gotta nuke,

How ‘bout next summer?

Gonna bring a mushroom cloud

For Mahdi’s big parade…

 

It goes on, but I think that’s about all any infidel can bear at one sitting.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:27 | link | comments

 

Girls seldom make passes at boys in madrassas: Especially this one, which is now extinct. From NDTV:

 

In a pre-dawn strike, Pakistani troops backed by helicopter gunships bombed an Islamic school, being used as a terrorist training camp, killing about 80 people in a northwestern tribal area bordering Afghanistan.

Initial estimates, based on intelligence and local sources, indicate that the missile attack on the seminary located north of Khar, the headquarters of Bajur tribal agency, killed up to 80 persons, army spokesperson Major General Shaukat Sultan said.

"There were casualties as between 70 to 80 people were present at the madrassa when the security forces conducted the operation," he said.

"The attack was launched after confirmed information was received that the inmates were involved in terrorist training," he said adding that the seminary was being observed for the past few days.

"Gunship helicopters were used and most of the targets eliminated," he said.

It is the second major attack on Bajur in less than a year.

Banned group

According to reports, among the dead was Liaquat Hussain who ran the madrassa and is believed to have been sheltering al-Qaida militants.

Locals said the madrassa was targeted as Hussain belonged to the banned group 'Tanzeem Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi' (TSNM).

Locals protested the shelling saying that the dead were mostly students back from the Eid festivities. (PTI)

 

I’m not sure of the theology here. Do these casualties qualify for martyrdom? If so, at least they can expect lots of posthumous attention from non-corporeal babes.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:51 | link | comments

 

A taste of “Obsession”: For those who haven’t yet had a chance to see the entire documentary, here’s a 12 minute clip from “Obsession”—the movie that dares to connect the dots of the global jihad.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:43 | link | comments

 

Lord of the Flies, French-style: The French are expressing relief that the torching of a Marseilles bus with a female passenger still inside hasn’t led to an unacceptable spike in the nightly violence. As long as the tally remains more or less stable at 200 torched vehicles per diem and doesn’t climb into the quadruple digits—at it did during last year’s intifada—the French public seem prepared to live with it.

 

And authorities are working to remedy the situation, what with their renewed emphasis on education and job-creation schemes designed to give the disaffected and marginalized a shot at gainful employment. From the Toronto Star:

 

…Residents of the housing projects, most from Arab or African backgrounds, face unemployment and school dropout rates far higher than the national average. But the government has done little to change things in the past year, community leaders say.

 

"Everyone wants to work and everyone wants to integrate," said Dhaou Meskine, imam of the mosque at Clichy-sous-Bois, a Paris suburb. "But if we don't reduce the number of young people dropping out of school, nothing will get done."

 

Suburban schools filled with the most challenging students are in the hands of inexperienced teachers, while experienced ones teach affluent students in central Paris, said Samuel Thomas, vice-president of the SOS Racism group. The reverse should be the case, he said…

 

Yeah, those “experienced” teachers can make all the difference. Of course, that’s only possible if the “youths” do indeed want to gain a stake in French society instead of continuing to live free and unfettered in what amounts to sovereign no-go bits of Dar-al-Islam inside France.

 

The National Post’s Lorne Gunter throws some eau froid on French integration plans. He notes that the “youths,” who’ve been whipped into a frenzy by radical local imams, have demographics on their side, and authorities lack the will and the ability to contain the violence:

…In recent months, an average of 20 officers have been injured each day in what police themselves are calling an intifada. In early October, Michel Thoomis, the secretary general of the Action Police trade union, said police and rioters were "in a state of civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists."

Daily, police are stoned by groups of angry, balaclava-wearing Muslim youth standing behind barricades. "You no longer see two or three youths confronting police," explained Mr. Thoomis. "You see whole tower blocks emptying into the streets to set their 'comrades' free when they are arrested."

France is Europe's canary-down-the-mine on Muslim integration. At nearly 9%, Muslims are a greater portion of the French population than they are of the population of any other European state.

If France can't manage to incorporate Muslims into its societal mainstream, there is little chance any nation can.

Funny how that Toronto Star article didn’t mention anything about the youths being “Muslim,” or their being incited by “radical Islamists.” Guess it must have been an oversight.

Welcome to your future, Europe (and, perhaps down the road, Canada). It’s looking pretty grim.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:15 | link | comments

 

Rats!: Charlie Brown has “reverted” to Islam.

 

I guess this means Snoopy is “haram.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:31 | link | comments

 

Swiss cheesiness: Just when you’re feeling a bit down in the dumps, along comes Claudia Rosett to brighten up your day:

Remember how the UN earlier this year reformed its so-called Human Rights Commission? The UN replaced it with the re-labeled Human Rights Council, the promise being to put an end to such perversions as Libya three years ago chairing the meetings. Well, in some ways, Libya never left. From a Geneva-based monitoring group, UN Watch, comes a reminder of the Libya connections of the UN Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on the right to food — Swiss socialist, Jean Ziegler. While serving as a UN eminence on food, Ziegler has exalted terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, and urged boycotts of Israel (here is some background on his 2004 letter to Caterpillar, Inc.). But the punch-line is, Ziegler serves as vice-chairman of an outfit that hands out — get ready for this — the lucrative “Moammar Khaddafi Human Rights Prize.” According to UN Watch, this prize was set up by Libya’s dictator in 1989, “with Mr. Ziegler’s help,” and winners have included Louis Farrakhan, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. …Ummm, where were we before this tale of UN human-rights endeavors defaulted to the twilight zone? Oh yes, Ziegler is in New York this week to offer the UN General Assembly his expertise on who deserves free food.  

You mean to tell me there’s actually a “Moammar Khaddafi Human Rights Prize”? And that the Swiss guy involved with the UN Human Rights Council helped set it up?

That’s hysterical!

Maybe he can establish a “Kofi Annan Prize for Most Feckless UN Secretary-General.”  

First winner, no contest: Kofi Annan.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:38 | link | comments

 

Teens with torches: I love this AP story (on the Fox News site—what’s up with that, Republican tools?) about those restive “youths” over in France. In today’s report, the “youths” have become “teens,” some of whom burnt a bus in Marseilles with a woman passenger still inside, and you have to read a full nine paragraphs to discover just who they are and what’s gotten them so worked up.

 

Wait for it:

 

1. MARSEILLE, France  —  France's interior minister sent extra riot police to patrol the southern port city of Marseille on Sunday after a group of marauding teenagers torched a bus, seriously burning a young passenger.

2. French police have braced for a surge of violence this weekend, as Friday was the first anniversary of the start of riots in poor neighborhoods where many immigrants and their French-born children live.

3. In scattered violence Saturday, 46 people were taken into custody, most of them in the suburbs around Paris, and two police officers were slightly injured. The most serious violence was the bus attack in Marseille, which shocked France with its brutality.

4. Three or four young people burst onto the bus and tossed in a bottle of flammable liquid before fleeing, police said, citing witnesses' accounts. A fire started, seriously injuring a 26-year-old woman who suffered second- and third-degree burns on her arms, legs and face.

5. The woman was breathing Sunday with help from a respirator, the Marseille hospital system said. Doctors were deeply worried about lung damage from smoke. Three other people also were treated for smoke inhalation, police said. The bus was destroyed, and bus service was suspended in Marseille.

6. President Jacques Chirac telephoned the woman's family, ensuring them that France would "do everything to find the assailants and punish them with the greatest severity," his office said.

7. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin called a meeting for Monday on public transport safety, while Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy's office said he was sending two extra companies of riot police to Marseille.

8. Though youths have burned other buses during flare-up of violence, passengers have generally been able to escape before the vehicles went up in flames. Another bus was burned Saturday in the Paris suburb of Trappes, but its passengers fled unharmed, police said.

Bingo!

9. The three weeks of rioting last year were fueled by anger at France's failure to offer equal chances to many minorities — especially Arabs and blacks — and France's 5 million-strong Muslim population…

But have no fear. Les Gendarmes have matters well in hand:

For the anniversary, national police said about 4,000 extra police and riot officers were deployed across the country to cope with a possible resurgence of violence. Some 7,000 police are at the ready on an average night in France, and bands of youths typically set fire to 100 cars a night.

France used to be the country of haute cuisine. Today it’s the land of the Renault flambée.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:07 | link | comments

 

Scary Fox: An alarming article in the IDEAS section of the Sunday (Toronto) Star. Apparently, Fox News has the power to turn people into, quel horreur!, Republicans:

 

…This kind of opinionated exuberance surely makes for interesting television. But does it have other consequences?

 

The authors of a soon-to-be-published study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics suggest so. They claim, using empirical data, that Fox News's overt conservative-Republican bias actually influenced people to vote for the Republican Party in 2000, and to turn out in greater numbers to do so. They call it "The Fox News Effect."

 

"Fox didn't have an effect only for (electing President George W.) Bush, but in general in voting for Republicans," explains the study's co-author, Stefano DellaVigna, professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley. "So one can infer that people didn't just listen and say, `Oh, Bush sounds good from the coverage on Fox.' It seems that Fox changed their ideological beliefs."

 

The Fox effect is pervasive enough that one can't discount it as the U.S. nears the Nov. 7 mid-term elections. As well, the authors say, it has implications on both sides of the border when it comes to concentration of media ownership.

Previous studies have shown that Fox News is to the right of both most other media and of elected members of Congress.

 

A 2004 study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press also showed that, while more Democrats watched CNN, more Republicans watched Fox.

 

Fox's salty-tongued chief, Roger Ailes — a former Republican political operative — has always called CNN "boring" and scoffed at accusations of a conservative bias on his network.

 

He recently told the Associated Press that simply presenting different viewpoints made Fox stand out from all the left-leaning coverage.

 

Despite this — and despite the channel's slogan, "Fair and balanced" — viewers will often see anchors Sean Hannity or John Gibson literally screaming at guests who don't share their conservative views, or keying on stories that, unlike its other mainstream competitors, highlight the liberal-conservative and, especially, secular-religious divide.

 

It is this premise of conservative bias that the study, done for the non-profit, non-partisan National Bureau of Economic Research, begins with. Because the Fox News Channel was introduced to the U.S. in 1996 and adopted by cable companies on a town-by-town basis, the researchers had a perfect opportunity to compare the effect on voting in towns with access to Fox to those without, leading up to the disputed 2000 presidential election...

 

Luckily, the trend is largely offset by those who watch CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC and PBS, read the New York Times, the Washington Post and other mainstream papers and who listen to NPR.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:48 | link | comments

 

Iowahawk on the Meatman: The always-hilarious blogger iowahawk has thoughtfully posted a piece called “ASK THE AUSSIE IMAM.” Here’s an excerpt:

Islamic Advice from Imam Yahu al-Zirius
Spiritual Leader, Fostaz al-Vegimita Mosque
Lakembabongabinga, Sydney, NSW

Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali of Mullagangabanga, NSW asks:

Some of the cobbers at my local mosque spotted some sheilas who weren't wearing their hijabs, so they naturally had a go at raping them. For some reason the coppers loaded them off to gaol! I ask you: if you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat?

This is a very interesting question. With respect to cats, the Q’ran in Surah 12:45.1(c) states that, “the cat always lands on its paws.” However, Surah 3.14e-9 says that “pita bread always lands hummus-side down.”

Of course, the crafty infidel will see this as a contradiction: what if a believer were to glue a hummus-laden pita to the back of a cat, and hurl it from the local prayer tower? No matter how it hits the ground, the crafty infidel will say it invalidates Q'ranic infalibility! This is where the meat comes in. The key is to first put the uncovered meat between the cat and the pita, in a sort of cat-meat-pita sandwich. As it plummets from the tower, the cat will eat through the glue to get at the delicious uncovered meat, thereby freeing the pita to land hummus side down, and the meat-refreshed cat to land happily on its paws. In this way you may demonstrate to the crafty kuffar the eternal perfection of the sacred Word of Allah, as revealed through His Prophet (peace be unto him).  Also, if the crafty kuffar is an uncovered woman, don't forget to rape her…

I think I finally understand what the sheik was talking about.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:31 | link | comments

 

Kooks with nukes: The Sunday New York Times Magazine has a lengthy cover story about the “nuances” of Shias and Sunnis getting their hands on nuclear weapons.

 

If you don’t have the time to read the entire article—and, let’s face it, who does?—I can boil it down as follows: Islamists with nukes; bad idea.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:22 | link | comments

 

The “nuances” of the jihad: Rami Khoury, a Palestininan who edits Lebanon’s The Daily Star, occasionally offers his comments in pages of the Globe and Mail. Oddly enough, the Globe didn’t pick up this piece, in which Khoury lambastes American media for missing the “nuances” of Hamas and Hezbollah, groups which he says are about so much more than terrorism. (link via Martim Kramer):

One of the depressing aspects of reading, viewing and listening to the mass media in the United States on an extended trip, as I am doing these days, is to suffer the very superficial and often ideologically skewed coverage of important movements such as Hizbullah and Hamas. For various reasons, directly or indirectly related to American government support for Israel over Arab parties, such groups usually are referred to simply as terrorist groups.

It is possible - and desirable - that such accusations of terrorism be determined in a fair court of law one day, because any group or government that engages in terrorism needs to be held accountable for its actions. Yet such a process would only have validity and credibility if it also held accountable other groups or governments - including Israel, the United States, and some Arab regimes - for the accusations of war crimes and other atrocities that have been made against them in turn. This is unlikely to happen any time soon, because of the laws of imperial power and transnational hypocrisy that define our world, where the powerful write their own rules.

So, here in the United States one hears of Hizbullah and Hamas described in the public realm almost always only as terrorist groups. The problem with this one-dimensional focus on the anti-Israeli resistance and military aspects of these groups is that it ignores everything else they represent. The recent war between Hizbullah and Israel, in part a proxy battle between the United States and Iran, revealed that Hizbullah taps into sentiments and political forces across the Middle East that are very much wider and deeper than only its successful quest to drive Israel out of  Lebanon.

Whether one likes or dislikes Hizbullah, or admires or fears it, it seems abundantly clear now that its wide support throughout the Arab-Islamic Middle East and other parts of the world reflects its ability to tap into a very wide range of forces, sentiments and political movements. This is noteworthy for two reasons: Such forces and movements have never before come together as they did in the support that Hizbullah enjoyed in recent months, and collectively they represent a significant new posture of resistance and defiance of the United States and Israel that continues to reshape politics in the region…

I can see where Khouri is coming from. It’s so disheartening when infidels fail to see the “nuances” of  genocidal jihadist groups whose raison d’etre is the destruction of the sovereign dhimmi ape-pig state that has the temerity to exist in the heart of Dar al Islam.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:43 | link | comments

 

Where’s the Steyn?: I have a great idea for a new documentary. It’s all about someone who’s brave enough to speak up and tell the truth, even though such opinions are likely to engender howls of outrage from those who disagree and/or are in a state of permanent denial.

 

And, no, it’s not about a petite Dixie Chick with a big mouth and a belting voice. It’s about a writer who keeps sounding the alarm about the Jihadists—a sound that millions of people are still far too reluctant to hear.

 

One of these message-averse infidels is Heather Reisman, the woman who owns and rules the Canadian book chain monopoly, Chapters-Indigo. Although she and her husband, industrialist Gerald Schwartz, recently made a very public defection to Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party after years of being die-hard Liberals, Ms. Reisman, for reasons that have yet to be explained, seems to have blackballed Mark Steyn’s, new book America Alone from her bookstore shelves.

 

Maybe it’s an oversight. Or maybe she’s afraid of the “controversy.” Or maybe there isn’t room, what with all volumes of Chomsky, Franken and hundreds of other outraged leftists clogging the shelves.

 

Yeah, that must be it.

 

Here’s a post by a blogger from Western Canada detailing his correspondence with Chapters about the absence of Steyn’s book. (Steyn has a hilarious piece about the Chapters ban in the current issue of Macleans magazine, but it has yet to be posted online.)

 

I had hoped to reserve the book at my local library, but so far there’s nary a copy to be found in the entire Toronto Public Library system. (The catalogue does have a listing for America Alone, but it seems to be a book about those awful neo-cons and how they’re ruined a great nation—sort of like an anti-Steyn, without the yucks.)

 

Oh, well. Guess I’ll have to order it online.

 

Though not, of course, through Chapters-Indigo.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:10 | link | comments (1)

 

Cover up: Until now we’ve been told that the teacher in the U.K. who sued her school because she wanted to wear a niqab in the classroom out of personal choice. Turns out choice had nothing to do with it. From the Sunday Times Online:

 

THE Muslim teacher who insisted on wearing a veil in class has been following a fatwa issued personally to her by a Islamic cleric belonging to a hardline sect.

Aishah Azmi found herself in the middle of a national row about integration when she took her school to an employment tribunal after it suspended her for refusing to remove the veil in class.

Tony Blair joined the debate about the wearing of veils — opened by Jack Straw, the Commons leader — and supported the school’s actions.

Azmi, 24, has maintained that her decision to wear the veil was driven entirely by her personal beliefs, rather than the advice or instruction of a third party. But this weekend it emerged that she refused to take the veil off at school after receiving a fatwa, or religious ruling, from Mufti Yusuf Sacha, a Muslim cleric in West Yorkshire.

Her legal team revealed that the advice Sacha issued to Azmi ruled that it was obligatory for women to wear the niqab (face-veil) in the presence of men who were not their blood relatives.

Sacha is one of several hundred Islamic clerics in Britain with the status of mufti, entitling him to issue fatwas based on Islamic law. Although Muslims are expected to follow fatwas, they are not obliged to do so, particularly if they live in a non-Muslim state…

 

Ms. Azmi, who had been receiving her paycheque while on suspension, lost her case but was awarded £1,100 “on the grounds of victimization.”

 

Unfortunately, it’s the school and not the mufti that's obliged to pay up.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:48 | link | comments

 

Giddy up!: Is well known “moderate,” Mahmoud Abbas, about to stage a coup?

 

Maybe. Maybe not.

 

All we know is that, according to this AP report in the JPost, the Silver Fox is fed up with sitting on the sidelines while Hamas continues to stonewall his efforts to hash out a faux peace deal with the Jews, and there’s talk that he may be getting set to take drastic action:

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said he will dissolve the Hamas-led government within two weeks if the Islamic group does not agree to form a governing coalition with his Fatah Party, Palestinian officials said.

Abbas told the European Union's top diplomat that he would replace the Cabinet with an apolitical panel of professionals, the officials said Friday.

  Is Mahmoud Abbas planning a coup?

The moderate Palestinian president has raised the idea before but promised not to force it on a reluctant Hamas. His new stand suggested a willingness to take a stronger line against Hamas in a bid to ease crippling Western sanctions designed to force the Islamic group to moderate its militantly anti-Israel ideology.

The message was relayed to visiting EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana by the Palestinian officials, who agreed to discuss the confidential information with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Solana, in the region trying to breathe new life into peace efforts, urged Palestinian leaders to move urgently to form a so-called national unity government and to ease the deepening plight of the Palestinian people.

After meeting with Abbas on Friday, Solana told reporters that the Palestinian leader "is determined to move the process of the government to be table ... for it to be accepted by the international community."…

It’s impossible to “breathe new life into” a dead, maggoty horse, especially one that expired long ago, the victim of the global jihad. But I guess the EU’s top diplomat is averse to seeing matters in that light and, like those who share his Weltanschauung, he prefers to view the Israel-Palestine situation as a stand-alone problem.

Good luck with that horsey, Xavier.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:42 | link | comments

 

Chick shtick: Drudge is reporting that NBC is refusing to run ads for the Dixie Chick doc, Shut up and Sing, because it casts President Bush in a negative light during the run up to an election. The film’s distributor is decrying this as yet another instance of how freedom of speech is at risk in America—which, not coincidentally, happens to be the subject of the movie he’s so keen to market. But when Natalie Maines, the Chick who opened her yap at a concert in London and averred to a receptive, anti-American crowd that, as a Texan, she was embarrassed by George W. Bush, she was exercising her right to express herself freely. And when her core audience was appalled by her statement, it was exercising its right to stop buying her records.

 

Now, of course, Maines is a hero with her own full-blown documentary (count on it being honoured come Oscar time)—and has found a whole new audience for her group’s music. The only way for her to become even more popular with this crowd would be to join the ISM and allow herself to be crushed by an Israeli bulldozer.

 

A poster on the official blog for the Chick flick is mostly in synch with my views on the matter (even though I’m Canadian, and with a few exceptions, among them the Dixie Chicks, am not especially fond of Country music):

Yes, I’m  a conservative who voted for W twice.  Yes, I believe that the ‘Chicks’ comments were out of line, just a little shy of the minimum threshold of treason: “Treason is defined as a citizen’s actions that seriously injure or harm a parent nation.”

However, I was willing to forgive.  Look, to me, Barbara Streisand makes some of the most romantic music around…yet, her political views repulse me.  But I can overlook that.  Besides, I’m not a part of her core fan base.

I am part of the core fan base of Country Music…and one with a very close connection to the military and to the Vietnam experience.  (I lost my dad in that war).

‘Traveling Soldier’ touched a chord with me and I was willing to go to the mat to help bridge this chasm.  But as the drumbeat continued from Natalie et al, it became increasingly difficult.

Let’s face it, free speech is not what’s at question here…it’s capitalism that is operating  as we’d hope.  If McDonald’s began putting horse meat into its burgers — much of it’s loyal customer base would stop buying.  Of (sic) Coca-Cola started putting toilet water into its hidden secret formula — it’s loyal customer base might stop buying.

The Dixie Chicks endangered the commercial value of its product — their music — by offending their loyal fan base, country music fans who are typically loyal condervative (sic) Americans, reluctant to subscribe to anything that demeans the United States or its leaders.

So their fans stopped buying records and concert tickets.

As they say, “that’s business.”

Sorry.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:30 | link | comments (2)

 

The Archbishop’s modest proposal: Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury sees no difference between the veil and other symbols of religious identification, like sidelocks or the crucifix. He says all are valuable—of equal value—in a society that is becoming increasingly secular. From the Times Online:

…We in the UK do not have anything like this history of top-down rule by regulation [as exists in China, where religion is banned]. Yet when people talk about whether we should “become a secular society”, I wonder if they realise that they are in effect echoing the idea that the basic and natural form of political organisation is a central authority that “franchises” associations, and grants or withholds their right to exist publicly and legally within the State. Up to now, we have in practice taken for granted that the State is not the source of morality and legitimacy but a system that brokers, mediates and attempts to co-ordinate the moral resources of those specific communities, the merely local and the credal or issue-focused, which actually make up the national unit. This is a “secular” system in the sense that it does not impose legal and civil disabilities on any one religious body; but it is not secular in the sense of giving some kind of privilege to a non-religious or anti-religious set of commitments or policies. Moving towards the latter would change our political culture more radically than we imagine.

So the ideal of a society where no visible public signs of religion would be seen — no crosses around necks, no sidelocks, turbans or veils — is a politically dangerous one. It assumes that what comes first in society is the central political “licensing authority”, which has all the resource it needs to create a workable public morality…

I’m a bit confused. Is the Archbishop (who, by the way, writes the most turgid prose this side of Noam Chomsky) seeking a “live and let live” rapprochement between Muslims and non-Muslims in Britain, or is he suggesting that “the state” give way to “a higher authority,” like, say, sharia law?

 

I have a sense it’s the latter, in which case he’s a big dhimmi, and shame on him.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:33 | link | comments (1)

 

Lenscrafters: And speaking of bias, here's a story from the Globe and Mail that interprets events—in this case, the resurgence of car-and-bus-b-cues among French “youths” from the ‘burbs—through the same skewed lens as the Beeb and the Ceeb. The reporter wants you to know, that a year after the first intifada, er, round of vehicle torchings, these unfortunate youths are still feeling “abandoned.”

 

Abandoned? Or empowered? La vie en rose or la vie en merde?

 

As always, it depends on which lens you’re looking through.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:02 | link | comments

 

Biased broadcasters: It should seem fairly evident to anyone with even minimal brain activity that the BBC has a pronounced left-leaning bias that colours its coverage. However, it seems to have taken an official report to wake the Brits up to the obvious.

 

From the Telegraph:

 

It's fair to say the message is finally getting through: the BBC has a problem with impartiality. The row over BBC bias has been rumbling on longer than war in Sudan and always seemed just as unresolvable. The format was always the same: take a bunch of Left-leaning, liberal-minded television executives and a bunch of Right-leaning politics wonks with obsessions about BBC reporting of the Middle East, the EU and the Tory party. Then they hit each other over the head with rolled up, heavily underlined copies of programme transcripts from Newsnight or Today.

 

And this is a battle that the BBC has become very adept at fighting. Every time the clamour of bias on some particularly hard news issue, such as Israel, Iraq, or Brussels, gets too loud, the corporation commissions some research that finds no bias, or – next best – evidence of bias on both sides.

 

But no matter how much BBC bosses swear blind there is no problem, the issue refuses to go away. Why? Because for many licence-payers, the BBC's skewed assumptions about what the world is about and how its inhabitants should think is the most annoying thing about it – more annoying than dumbing down, than the universal licence fee, than Jonathan Ross's £18 million pay packet. More annoying even than Natasha Kaplinsky. And particularly infuriating when the BBC denies it outright, as did Michael Grade, the BBC chairman, in an article published a few days before a governors' impartiality summit a month ago…

 

Similarly, the CBC’s skewed assumptions about the world are the most annoying thing about it. So when can we here in Canada expect an official report to call the Ceeb to account? (That’s rhetorical. I fully expect Hades to develop an ice cap before that happens.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:45 | link | comments

 

Never the twain shall meet: Australia’s leading cleric said he was sorry for causing offence by comparing uncovered women to slabs of meat and asserting that such women are responsible, should they happen to be raped. But even though he's been suspended from his duties, the Australian press isn’t buying the apology.

 

The Beeb has a round-up of Australian editorials on the subject. My favourite snippet is from The Daily Telegraph:

True to form, the sheikh offered some sort of half-baked apology, saying he had not meant to give offence, people should not misunderstand and his English is not so good. Pish! Here's the truth about the sheikh. He's a buffoon and he's pig-ignorant. Get that translated, sheikh. And just so you know, your apology is not accepted.

You can’t really blame the sheik. He was merely articulating Islamic law, albeit in a rather curious and somewhat cannibalistic fashion. The problem is that sharia laws about rape and a woman’s culpability are completely at odds with Western laws and ideas. The sheik actually did everyone a favour by highlighting the unbridgeable chasm between the two.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:01 | link | comments

 

Jihadists with nukes: As if the prospect of a hirsute Mahdi-summoner getting his hands on a nuke weren’t terrifying enough, here’s a FrontPage Magazine symposium about the very real possibility that the Sunni branch of the jihad may also have nuclear capability soon enough.

 

Looks like it’s going to be a race to the finish between Shias and Sunnis to see who gets to nuke the infidels first (before they aim their ammo at each other?)

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:35 | link | comments

 

Ouch!: Okay, so in Oz the leading Muslim cleric compared an unveiled woman to an unsavory cut of beef—something, literally, that the cat might drag in. Meanwhile, over in the Islamist dystopia a Grand Ayatollah is offering his educated insights into female psychology that make Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew seem enlightened by comparison. From AKI :

 

Tehran, 26 Oct. (AKI) - Iranian Grand Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi has issued a fatwa - a Muslim religious edict - saying it is legitimate for men to hit their disobedient wives. Shirazi, one of the leading clerics of the Shiite holy city of Qom, wrote on his website that "the Koran first of all advises a man to try and convince his wife to obey to him in a polite way and through advice, then by refusing to have sexual relations with her and, finally, if all this will have failed to make her reason, with physical punishment."

The punishment, the leading cleric said, "must be light and considered an exceptional event, like surgery in case of a serious illness."

Makarem Shirazi advised his readers against "physical punishment which leaves signs and wounds." Women, he axplained, "are masochistic and sometimes they have a crisis and need light physical punishment to get back to normal."…

Yeah, I think that’s what we married chicks like to refer to as “tough love.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:59 | link | comments

 

Eggs? Eyes? Eels? Egos?: What has four letters, begins with “e” and is slowly killing half of Europe?

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:31 | link | comments

 

Lonely hearts: I’ve tried to avoid the whole sordid mess re Sir Paul and the soon-to-be-former-Lady Heather Mills McCartney (or Macca and Mucca, as they are unaffectionately know in the British press). But you know me—I just can’t pass up an obvious song parody once it presents itself. So here’s my update of a Macca classic, which he wrote back in the day when he was a bright-eyed, energetic and youthful member of Sgt. Pepper’s band:

 

Now that he’s older

Losin’ his hair,

Sight and hearing, too.

Ugly, tawdry charges in the press each day.

He sincerely hopes they’ll go ‘way.

Married for love without a pre-nup.

Thought he knew the score.

He’s on the hook for oodles of cash

Now he’s sixty-four.

Getting older, too.

Not inclined to wed again.

If you were him, would you?

 

He was the “cute” one,

Yin to John’s yang.

Moptops ruled the globe.

Played the field until he found his lady fair.

Bliss with Linda, love in the air.

Thought he’d be lucky

Next time around

Kids said, “She’s a whore.

She will just bleed you

And she won’t feed you

When you’re sixty-four.”

 

Once they went to Newfoundland

And scampered on some floes of ice,

Saving baby seals.

Seemed to be so close.

Baby daughter on his knee.

Lived in misery.

Don’t send him a postcard,

Don’t drop him a line.

He’s fed up with the press

Hounding him and making him sound like a louse.

Threw fair Heather out of the house.

Stabbed and abused her,

Smoked too much weed,

And a whole lot more.

Much too much info

Celebrity sin fo’

Tabloids in the store.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:27 | link | comments

 

Where’s the beef?: According to an Australian Muslim cleric, it’s on full display every time a woman chooses not cover up in public, the only way to protect herself from the lascivious glances of lustful males.

 

The cleric, Sheik Taj Din Al Hilaly, has sparked an uproar in Oz by insisting that a un-veiled woman is like—how did the exuberant chauvinist with the cannibalistic tendencies put it?—“an uncovered piece of meat.”

 

Prime rib? Tenderloin? The sheik didn’t specify.

 

Here are some “highlights” of the cleric’s insightful remarks:

 

“Those atheists, people of the book (Christians and Jews), where will they end up? In Surfers Paradise? On the Gold Coast? Where will they end up? In hell and not part-time, for eternity. They are the worst in God’s creation.”

“When it comes to adultery, it’s 90 percent the woman’s responsibility. Why? Because a woman owns the weapon of seduction. It’s she who takes off her clothes, shortens them, flirts, puts on make-up and powder and takes to the streets, God protect us, dallying. It’s she who shortens, raises and lowers. Then, it’s a look, a smile, a conversation, a greeting, a talk, a date, a meeting, a crime, then Long Bay jail. Then you get a judge, who has no mercy, and he gives you 65 years.”

“But when it comes to this disaster, who started it? In his literature, writer al-Rafee says, if I came across a rape crime, I would discipline the man and order that the woman be jailed for life. Why would you do this, Rafee? He said because if she had not left the meat uncovered, the cat wouldn’t have snatched it.”

“If you get a kilo of meat, and you don’t put it in the fridge or in the pot or in the kitchen but you leave it on a plate in the backyard, and then you have a fight with the neighbour because his cats eat the meat, you’re crazy. Isn’t this true?”

“If you take uncovered meat and put it on the street, on the pavement, in a garden, in a park, or in the backyard, without a cover and the cats eat it, then whose fault will it be, the cats, or the uncovered meat’s? The uncovered meat is the disaster. If the meat was covered the cats wouldn’t roam around it. If the meat is inside the fridge, they won’t get it.”

“If the woman is in her boudoir, in her house and if she’s wearing the veil and if she shows modesty, disasters don’t happen.”

“Satan sees women as half his soldiers. You’re my messenger in necessity, Satan tells women you‘re my weapon to bring down any stubborn man. There are men that I fail with. But you’re the best of my weapons.”

“…The woman was behind Satan playing a role when she disobeyed God and went out all dolled up and unveiled and made of herself palatable food that rakes and perverts would race for. She was the reason behind this sin taking place.”

Yikes. If this guy wasn’t such a holy roller, the logical conclusion would be that he’s in serious need of some heavy-duty meds—and a very cold shower.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:53 | link | comments

 

Juvies in Paris: Oh, those French “youths.” They’re so “disaffected,” “marginalized” and whatever other empty sociological label you want to affix to them that they’ve up and incinerated their third Paris bus.

 

At least they let all the people get off first.

 

The three recent torchings--two buses were destroyed last night; one last Sunday--are how the lads have chosen to commemorate a milestone in their lives, the one year anniversary of last years’ torchings.

 

Ah, yes. They remember it well.

 

According to the report on the incident I just heard on Ceeb radio, the juvies say it’s all Nikolas Sarkozy’s fault because he’s really pissing them off by, uh, sucking oxygen into his lungs. Also, probably because he's not all compassionate and empathetic like those tender-hearted multiculturalists who labour for Canada’s public broadcaster and like to attribute the problems to anything and everything save the truth: that there's an underclass of free-wheeling, uncontollable scofflaws who exist within a separate Muslim domain on the periphery of a great Western city. And who stray into the centre of the city in order to wreak havoc.

 

Time for Parisian authorities to call on the local imam to reign them in. He's the only one who seems to have any influence with the lads (even though they're all "secular").

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:28 | link | comments

 

Bibi speaks: Bill Maher’s fabulous, fabulous—did I mention it was fabulous?—interview with once and future Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

 

I’d say it almost redeems Bill for his fatuous post-9/11 statement about how it took “courage” for Mo Atta and crew to plow into the World Trade Centre. (hat tip: F.H.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:29 | link | comments

 

Blix nixes hick’s trix: Hans Blix, who had his fifteen minutes of fame (a far more generous allotment than he deserves) several years ago as the UN’s top weapons inspector, has re-emerged from well-deserved obscurity to express his displeasure with the way cowboy Bush is running the war in Iraq.

 

And the only reason I bother posting the link to Blix’s blast is because it afforded me the opportunity to use the above headline.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:39 | link | comments

 

Poetry in motion: An “enrichment cascade”—what else could sound so poetic (ahhh, a lovely cascade) and be so deadly?

 

From the Jerusalem Post:

 

…The Iranian Students News Agency quoted an anonymous official Wednesday as saying that Iran had started a second cascade of centrifuges two weeks ago and that "gas will be injected into the cascade during the current week."

 

"We will exploit the new product from the injection," ISNA quoted the official as saying, meaning that Iran would use the enriched uranium obtained by inserting gas into the centrifuges.

 

The report could not be immediately corroborated as Iranian officials were on holiday for the Islamic feast of Eid al-Fitr…

 

They’re just so devout, those genocidal Jihadists.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:29 | link | comments

 

True Brits: For those few souls out there who still think of the U.K. as a plucky, stiff upper lip Mrs. Miniver type, willing to endure any hardship in order to prevail over the fascist threat, along comes Melanie Phillips to disabuse you of this anachronistic notion. From JWR:

Everyone knows that Europe is a continent stuffed with craven, terror-appeasing fromages who loathe America. Britain, by contrast, led by the lion-hearted Tony Blair, is full of stalwarts who stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States in the defense of the West. Right?

Wrong. Fury at Prime Minister Blair for being President Bush's "poodle" has reached such a pitch that the most successful Labor prime minister in memory is being forced out of office because of his support for U.S. policy in Iraq and Israel. Labor's members of Parliament say his refusal to break with America by calling for an earlier cease-fire in Lebanon was the last straw. The disturbing fact is that Britain is consumed by a rampant anti-Americanism and an allied hostility toward Israel, which are driving public debate into irrationality, prejudice and appeasement.

BACKLASH TO THE U.S.
In a Populus poll last month in The Times of London, 62% said the government should change its policy by distancing itself from the United States, being more critical of Israel and declaring a timetable for withdrawing from Iraq. An August YouGov poll in The Spectator magazine revealed that while 53% wanted a tougher anti-terrorism policy, 45% wanted to be allied more closely with the European Union than with America. Only 14% supported closer U.S. ties.

As a result, the prospects for the alliance between Britain and the United States in the post-Blair era do not look promising. Despite being an instinctive Atlanticist, Gordon Brown, the most likely successor as Labor prime minister, is thought to be only a reluctant backer of the war in Iraq, according to a new autobiography by former Labor minister David Blunkett.

Meanwhile David Cameron, the new young leader of the opposition Conservative Party, made a speech last month distancing himself from U.S. foreign policy and blaming America for fanning the flames of anti-Americanism. The outcome might be that Britain increasingly snuggles up to the EU over foreign policy while an irritated America, bereft of its principal advocate in Europe, moves toward isolationism.

Much of Britain's anti-Americanism is driven by the usual suspects, such as far-left lawmaker George Galloway or newspapers such as the ultra-left Guardian. Galloway, for instance, said during an interview with GQ magazine earlier this year that the assassination of Blair by a suicide bomber would be "morally justified."

Left-wing discourse, now staple fare on the BBC and applauded even by conservatively minded audiences in panel discussions, proclaims that the United States is the fount of Third World oppression and the greatest threat to world peace.

But British animosity toward the U.K.'s most important and historic ally is wider and deeper. Partly it derives from simple snobbery, the long-standing British belief that Americans are vulgar upstarts who lack the gravitas that Britain has accrued from a thousand years of history.

Probe further, however, and you discover anguish at the progressive junking of that history. Schools, for example, no longer teach the history or values of the British nation on the grounds that national identity based on a majority culture is viewed as "racist." Instead, they promote multiculturalism, the doctrine that minority value must have equal status to those of the majority. Loss of confidence in Britain's role in the world has demoralized its governing class so badly that it has come to believe that the nation state is the principal source of all ills from prejudice to war, and that legitimacy resides instead in supranational institutions.

So no international action can be taken without sanctification by that holy of holies, the United Nations. As a result, the British regard Bush's "unilateral" foreign policy with undiluted horror. This is made worse by disdain for Bush himself, regarded as a tongue-tied cowboy who actually believes in G-d — to the post-religious British, the nearest thing to a certificate of lunacy...

Curious how they only get really exercised about the "lunacy" of Americans who believe in Jesus. So much for “Britains never, ever, ever shall be slaves.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:17 | link | comments

 

Whose line is it anyway?: Mark “Malarkey” MacKinnon, the Globe and Mail’s man on the scene in the Middle East, has a interview in today’s paper with Amr Moussa. Moussa’s an eminence grise of the Arab League, its “long-time” (MacKinnon’s word) secretary-general.

 

In reading the article it’s difficult to figure out exactly whose line MacKinnon is spouting—Moussa’s or his own. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the two may be virtually indistinguishable:

CAIRO — Canada's sharp pro-Israeli turn under Prime Minister Stephen Harper risks damaging the country's historic standing as a neutral arbiter in the Middle East peace process, the head of the Arab League said in an interview.

Amr Moussa, the Arab League's long-time secretary-general, said he has been disappointed with recent positions taken by Canada on various Middle East crises, including the government's decision to be the first to cut aid to the Palestinian Authority after the victory of the Islamic movement Hamas in an election earlier this year. He also criticized Mr. Harper's strong support of the Israeli decision to invade Lebanon this summer after the kidnapping of two soldiers.

The 70-year-old Mr. Moussa, who has held the top job at the Arab League since 2001, said he is planning to visit Canada next year to communicate his concerns to Mr. Harper and other top government officials. Canada is a "very important" country that could still play the role of honest broker in any effort to revive the Middle East peace process, he said during an interview in his office at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo.

"Any other role is doomed to failure, will produce absolutely nothing. I assume that the Canadian government is aware of that," he said. "If it fully supports the Israeli position, while Israel is occupying the territories and is building settlements and is defying international law, it will [be discredited].

During the war in Lebanon, he said, Canada and many other countries made "rushed" proclamations about Israel's right to defend itself after the Hezbollah militia captured two of its soldiers. He said those positions should be re-evaluated in light of the destruction wreaked during the month-long conflict.

According to the Lebanese government, 1,191 Lebanese were killed during the fighting, the large majority of them civilians. Israel was criticized by human-rights groups for targeting civilian infrastructure and for using weapons such as cluster bombs. (Hezbollah has also been accused of using the bombs, but has denied it.) Israel's government says 116 of its citizens, most of them soldiers, were killed in the war…

So if I have this straight—and I think I do—Canada should have waited until after the dust had settled, and when it had, supported the Arabs because more of them were killed—and they were mostly civilians—than Jews were killed, and the Jews who died were mostly soldiers.

Got it.

Also, Canada can and should sit out the jihad by casting Israel adrift and playing “honest broker” between Israel and the same jihadis who threaten the entire free world.

Kapiche.

It’s nice to know that, should Malarkey ever decide to cash in his chips at the Globe, he can always have a lucrative second career as a flak for the Arab League.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:34 | link | comments

 

Together again, for the very first time: Jesus and Mo and Mo.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:56 | link | comments

 

Honest terrorists: One good thing (the only good thing) about Hamasniks—they make no bones about wanting live side-by-side with the Jews in two separate states. Unlike, say, that “moderate” Abbas, who wants to drag the Jews through a whole peace rigamarole, only to arrive, somewhere farther down the road, at the same destination as Hamas.

 

Here’s an interview with the Hamas “foreign minister” in Der Spiegel. He’s a man who evinces the same charm, effervescence and joie de mort we’ve come to expect of those who favour the genocidal Jihadist agenda. (My comments, along the way, are in italics):

 

SPIEGEL: Do you really want to let the talks with President Abbas about a national unity government fail?

ZAHAR: We have accepted the paper on the establishment of a national unity government. It was Abbas' Fatah Party that first agreed to it and then changed its mind a few days later. We are ready to establish a provisional Palestinian state in the 1967 borders and to call for a ceasefire.

SPIEGEL: But you reject a two state solution?

ZAHAR: We will never recognize Israel. The Zionists have occupied our land like the Nazis did with France during the Second World War. Israel is a foreign element in the Middle East. Why don't the Jews establish their state in Europe? (We were there first, pal. Time to get over yourselves. Why don’t you go establish your state in Jordan, the Palestinian entity which was granted ¾ of “Palestine”; the Jews were allowed, grudgingly, half of the remaining quarter.

You’re right about the “foreign element” part, though. Israel is the only functioning democracy in the 'hood—very “foreign” to you sharia aficionados.  Also, having to live next door to the type of “foreigners” you dismiss as being lower down on the evolutionary ladder—I believe the pertinent phrase is “apes and pigs”—must be a bitch; having a soverign barnyard in the area  brings down the whole tone of the neighbourhood, n'est-ce pas?)

SPIEGEL: Your Deputy Prime Minister, Nasser al-Shaer, views that differently. He thinks that an indirect recognition of Israel, as the Saudi-Arabian initiative of 2002 suggests, is possible. (“Indirect recognition,” huh? How does that work exactly? And why on earth would anyone be willing to base peace negotiations on such a fatuous, fraudulent concept?)

ZAHAR: This is his personal opinion and not the position of the government.

SPIEGEL: Criticism even comes from the government spokesman. Ghazi Hamad questions the violent "resistance" against Israel. (It would be helpful if the interviewer called the violent “resistance” by its real name: the jihad.)

ZAHAR: In this point, the spokesman of the government does not represent the government.

SPIEGEL: Is there an internal struggle within Hamas?

ZAHAR: There are different opinions. But the big majority supports the resistance. The kidnapping of the Israeli soldier was the only way to release our brothers and sisters who are detained in Israel. (As Dr. Phil would say, “How’s that workin’ for ya?” So far, your brothers and sisters are still locked up safe and snug in the Jew hoosegow.)

SPIEGEL: Western mediators say Israel would have been ready for an exchange deal. But Iran is said to have paid Hamas $50 million in order to torpedo the deal.

ZAHAR: This is Zionist propaganda. Israeli Prime Minister Olmert is the one who is preventing a deal. I call on the family of the kidnapped soldier to pressure their government to do everything possible to release their son. (Translation: “Who needs Iran when we can get all the Russian arms we need smuggled in from Egypt via Sinai? On the other hand, if Moo wants to pony up some dough-re-me for our common cause—Jew-removal—who are we to spurn his generosity?”)

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:12 | link | comments

First Things first: Some food for thought from the November issue of  “First Things,” a journal devoted to religion, culture and public life:

• In Lariano, Italy, there was this meeting sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and the World Council of Churches. The subject was “Conversion—Assessing the Reality.” The report from the meeting underscores a number of important truths. Particularly welcome is the ringing affirmation of the right to religious freedom: “Freedom of religion is a fundamental, inviolable and non-negotiable right of every human being in every country in the world. Freedom of religion connotes the freedom, without any obstruction, to practice one’s own faith, freedom to propagate the teachings of one’s faith to people of one’s own and other faiths, and also the freedom to embrace another faith out of one’s own free choice.” This reflects the Vatican’s increasing insistence upon “reciprocity” in relation to Islam. While mosques multiply across the landscape of Europe, Christian Bibles and crosses are confiscated at the borders of many Muslim countries where worship and witness by the “infidels” is prohibited. But then the report from the consultation starts to go wobbly:

“We affirm that while everyone has a right to invite others to an understanding of their faith, it should not be exercised by violating other’s [sic] rights and religious sensibilities. At the same time, all should heal themselves from the obsession of converting others.”

Freedom of religion enjoins upon all of us the equally non-negotiable responsibility to respect faiths other than our own, and never to denigrate, vilify or misrepresent them for the purpose of affirming superiority of our faith.

What does it mean to violate the “religious sensibilities” of others? Danish cartoons of Muhammad result in riots and the death of dozens of people because, Muslims explain, their religious sensibilities are violated. Churches are torched, the pope is burned in effigy, and Christians are attacked and killed because Regensburg offended Muslim sensibilities. Of course, we must never misrepresent the religion of others, and in proposing the truth we should accent the positive, but the statement of what is true can tend to denigrate (Webster: “to deny the validity of”) and may even vilify (“to lower in estimation or importance”) the denial of what is true. Admittedly, it’s hard to find the right words for saying that we should try to be nice to people, but the report from Lariano is particularly inept in its attempt. More substantive and more troubling, however, is the statement that “all should heal themselves from the obsession of converting others.” An earnest desire to share the truth with others is a sickness? “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” declared St. Paul. Was he obsessed and in need of therapy? We all know the old saw about horses created by committees, but, even for a camel, the Lariano camel is embarrassingly odd.

• Born in Iran and now grateful to be an American, Cyrus Nowrasteh wrote the miniseries aired by ABC, The Road to 9/11. You will remember that prominent Democrats demanded that the program be canceled because it portrayed President Clinton and his administration in an uncomplimentary light. (It was none too kind to the Bush team either.) But here is another dimension of the brouhaha. Nowrasteh writes: “The hysteria engendered by the series found more than one target. In addition to the death threats and hate mail directed at me, and my grotesque portrayal as a maddened right-winger, there developed an impassioned search for incriminating evidence on everyone else connected to the film. And in director David Cunningham, the searchers found paydirt! His father had founded a Christian youth outreach mission. The whiff of the younger Mr. Cunningham’s possible connection to this enterprise was enough to set the hounds of suspicion baying. A religious mission! A New York Times reporter wrote, without irony or explanation, that an issue that raised questions about the director was his involvement in his father’s outreach work. In the era of McCarthyism, the merest hint of a connection to communism sufficed to inspire dark accusations, the certainty that the accused was part of a malign conspiracy. Today, apparently you can get something of that effect by charging a connection with a Christian mission.” Another sobering thought for the day.

• So what is the name of the enemy? A lot of candidates have been proposed and employed in the last five years: Islamic fundamentalism, Islamofascism, Islamic totalitarianism, Islamism, terrorism, or simply extremism. Islamism, as distinguished from Islam, is used by many scholars, but it is a subtlety that will elude most people. Fundamentalism is an American Christian phenomenon with a very specific history that has nothing to do with Islam. Terrorism is a means employed by the enemy, but it does not name the enemy. And extremism is a generalized pejorative naming nothing in particular. References to fascism and totalitarianism have a fine hawkish ring, and there are indeed some parallels between what we faced in Nazism and communism and what confronts us now, but the dissimilarities are much greater, beginning with the role of religion in the new challenge. So what is the name of the enemy? I suggest that the most accurate term is Jihadism. The definition is not difficult to understand: Jihadism is the religiously inspired ideology that it is the moral obligation of all Muslims to employ whatever means necessary in order to compel the world’s submission to Islam. Those who support that ideology are Jihadists, and that is exactly what they say they believe. They describe themselves as Jihadists, and there is no reason why we should impose upon them a name—fascist, fundamentalist, etc.—from our Western and distinctly non-Islamic history. It will be objected that in the Qur’an, jihad can also mean peaceful spiritual struggle. That is true, as it is true that those Muslims who believe jihad means peaceful spiritual struggle are not the enemy. “Jihadism.” Say it five times and it comes easily. It has the additional merit of being accurate. It is good to see that this terminology is gaining some traction in our public discussions.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:26 | link | comments

For better or worse?: These days, as the situation in Iraq grows ever more chaotic and the “told you sos” of the Bush nay-sayers and the belately wised-up pro-Bushies grows e’er louder, it’s refreshing to read this—a moment of clarity from the Times Online:

…The largest single mistake, in retrospect, rests elsewhere. The problem has not been the Bush Administration underestimating how much Iraqis might come to loathe the West for the “occupation” but a failure to grasp the extent to which, thanks to Saddam, Iraqis had come to fear and hate each other.

That inter-communal hatred is the present cause of Iraq’s troubles. American soldiers have died in tragic numbers this month not because of any so-called insurgency that wants to drive the US out of Iraq but because they have been attempting to prevent rival religious and sectarian militias from killing their enemies. The effort to hold together a central government in Baghdad (a drive, ironically, designed to reassure the defeated Sunnis) does not command sufficient consensus to sustain it.

What needs to be done now, as James Baker, a former US Secretary of State, appreciates, is to secure a decentralised settlement and convince the Shia majority to divide the oil revenues in a way that each camp will consider fair. In such a situation, as Kim Howells, the Foreign Office Minister, has outlined, US and British forces could be withdrawn steadily throughout 2007 without chaos.

I would not bet against Iraq’s future. That country retains extraordinary attributes. To declare it dead and buried a meagre three years after Saddam’s demise is, to me, premature folly.After all, would the recovery of Germany and Japan have been anticipated in 1948, three years after their surrender? Or the fate of Russia accurately assessed in 1994, during the chaos of the Yeltsin years, three years after the Soviet Union was disbanded? Or would anybody have expected that China would be where it is today in 1992, three years after the Tiananmen Square massacre?

The question that those of us in the pro-war camp have to confront is whether by, say, 2010 Iraq, the Middle East and the wider world will be demonstrably the better for Saddam’s overthrow than if he and his sadistic sons had been left in power. My answer to that question remains, unambiguously, in the affirmative...

Not that the world is so hunky-dory at present, what with Moo getting ready to blow and the Democrats about to take Congress. But I can’t help but agree that a world without Uday and Qusay (a much more gratifying proposition than, say, a world without Zionism), is a better place than a world where they were still around doing their dirty work.

And who’s to say that, had Sadaam been left in power, he wouldn’t  be embroiled in a race to acquire nuclear weapons with his foes over in Iran? Which could well have meant a pissing contest between Baghdad and Teheran, with the winner being the one who’s the first to drop a nuke on the Jews.

No one can possibly imagine that a nuclear Sadaam and a nuclear Moo would be in anyone’s interest (except, perhaps, for the occluded imam’s; he supposedly thrives on that kind of stuff.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:59 | link | comments

The perils of blogging: Aside from the occasional (or frequent) nasty comments, it can get you thrown out of Sudan.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:38 | link | comments

Why I despair for Israel: Why? Because its current leadership seems so adrift, clinging to the belief there’s still a road map that could possibly pave the way to peace; meanwhile, hoping the signals the U.S. and the "international community" send to North Korea will have an impact on the genocial Iranian who even now is awaiting the imminent arrival of his Messiah. From YNet News:

Defense Minister Amir Peretz warned Monday not to politicize the Iranian issue, hinting to the addition of Avigdor Lieberman to the government as a minister in charge of strategic planning.

During a conference in Tel Aviv Peretz said, "Politicizing the Iranian issue will hinder our treatment of the threat.”

 The defense minister added, “There is no intention of recapturing Gaza. I’m not going to send the IDF into an adventure just to satisfy public need. There is no intention of reentering the alleys of Gaza, or staying in them. I don’t think we should consider the possibility of a renewed occupation.”

 Peretz said, “We must make every effort to achieve peace, and I want to say to the Palestinian people: We are not at war with you; the terror groups are using you.”

 ‘Ahmadinejad not insane’

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, said during the conference that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a "time bomb.”

 "Time is working against us; the stalemate is not a political option, and so is the policy of the current government," she said. “There is the Road Map and a peace process, but the international community is coming to terms with the fact that the situation in the PA has not changed.”

 According to her, "there is a need to strengthen the moderates and strengthen (President Mahmoud) Abbas and his presidential status."

Turning his attention once again to the Iranian threat, Peretz said, “We cannot allow a situation whereby Israel is left to deal with Iran on its own. We must do everything so the international community reacts to the Iranian president’s harsh statements.”

 

“There are those who believe he (President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ) suffers from temporary insanity, but this is not the case. He is an extreme ideologist who means every word that comes out of his mouth,” he said.

 

“I hope that the international response to the North Korean threats will be a lot more substantial,” he said. “This is part of the message conveyed to Iran.”

I agree that Moo Jihad is more ideological than he is insane. However, there is nothing to be gained from purveying the fiction that Abbas is a “moderate” who represents the holy grail of peace. Nor should Israel count on the toothless “international community” to send a convincing message to North Korea or Iran.

And as far as “politicizing” the issue of Iran goes, Israelis of all stripes had better pull together, pronto, if they hope to prevail over the Shia Hitler. Because it should be clear to all that time is running out.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:33 | link | comments

 

The Beeb’s bias: The powers-that-be at the British public broadcaster have finally ‘fessed up to the obvious: the company is heavily biased in favour of the Palestinians and fraught with a flagrant political correctness (a function of the leftist lens through which events are perceived) that skews its coverage. From YNet News:

 

LONDON – The British Broadcasting Corporation has been struggling for several years against criticisms and claims of biased reporting concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and distorted coverage of the global fight against terror.

 

Following a diplomatic incident with Israel, the BBC appointed an editor known for his objective reporting, however, the true stance of the corporation’s editors remained the same.

 

An internal memo, recently discovered by the British media, revealed what the BBC has been trying to hide. Senior figures admitted in a recent 'impartiality' summit that the BBC was guilty of promoting Left-wing views and anti-Christian sentiment.

 Most executives admitted that the corporation’s representation of homosexuals and ethnic minorities was unbalanced and disproportionate, and that it leaned too strongly towards political correctness, the overt promotion of multiculturalism, anti-Americanism and discrimination against the countryside…

How long must we wait for the Beeb’s Canadian counterpart, the Ceeb, to own up to a similar one-sidedness?

Update: The irrepressible Melanie Phillips calls what the Beeb does “cultural Stalinism…paid for from the public purse.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:12 | link | comments

 

Style, not substance: Someone must have advised the charisma-challenged Michael Ignatieff to start imitating some Pierre Elliott Trudeau mannerisms—the shoulder shrug, the smirk—so as to put P.E.T-besotted Canadians in mind of their late hero (who, apparently, had oodles of charisma).

 

And the scary thing is it seems to be working. (Click on the poll.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:35 | link | comments

 

A direct line to the Divine: It’s official. Moo has Allah on speed dial.

 

From a recent metaphor-laden Moo speech, as translated by that invaluable service, MEMRI:

"On the nuclear issue, I have said to my friends on many occasions, 'Don't worry. They [i.e. the Westerners] are only making noise.' But my friends don't believe [me], and say, 'You are connected to some place!' I always say: 'Now the West is disarmed vis-à-vis Iran [on the nuclear issue], and does not know how to end this matter [with us].' But my friends say: 'You are uttering divine words! Then they will laugh at us!'

"Believe [me], legally speaking, and in the eyes of public opinion, we have absolutely succeeded. I say this out of knowledge. Someone asked me: 'So and so said that you have a connection.' I said: 'Yes, I have.' He asked me: 'Really, you have a connection? With whom?' I answered: 'I have a connection with God,' since God said that the infidels will have no way to harm the believers. Well, [but] only if we are believers, because God said: You [will be] the victors. But the same friends say that Ahmadinejad says strange things.

"If we are [really] believers, God will show us victory, and this miracle. Is it necessary today for a female camel to emerge from the heart of the mountain so that my friends will accept the miracle? [8] Wasn't the [Islamic] Revolution [enough of] a miracle? Wasn't the Imam [Ayatollah Khomeini] a miracle?... "

Yes, Moo, it is necessary today for a female camel to emerge from the heart of the mountain so that your friends will accept the miracle.

 

Barring that, they’ll take a mushroom cloud over Tel Aviv.

 

In recognition of Moo’s close personal connection to God, I’ve revised a song from Fiddler on the Roof just for him (Moo that is, not God):

 

Wonder of wonders,

Miracle of miracles.

Moo speaks to God

And God resonds.

Tells him, “You’ll see,

There’s gonna be a victory.

Soon the Jews will all be gone.”

 

Wonder of wonders,

Miracle of miracles.

God took a lean and callow lad.

Got him to rage and take a lead

On the stage.

Evil? Yes, and barking mad.

 

When the Prophet conquered half the Earth—

That was a miracle.

When Hitler killed with wicked mirth—

That was a miracle, too (to Moo).

 

But of all God’s miracles small and big

The one that makes Moo dance a jig

Is that soon, with the help of The Guy Up There,

Islam will rule everywhere...

 

Update: Stop the presses! Moo’s also in touch with the hidden imam. (link via Jihad Watch)

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:08 | link | comments

 

The execrable Condi: Don Feder calls her the high priestess of the Palestinian state, eager and willing to sacrifice Israel’s security (and thus, its existence) in the delusion that the world will somehow benefit if there's yet another terrorist Islamist entity kicking around.

 

High priestess? More like the hand-maiden of evil.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:46 | link | comments

 

Woman problems: As the veil debate heats up in Europe (yesterday on Italian TV an imam called an Italian politician an “infidel” for criticizing the veil; she is now under police protection) officials in the U.K. think they’ve figured out a way to cool things down. They’re going to earmark a certain number of spaces in religious schools for children who belong to a different faith, or no faith at all.

 

Yeah, that’ll work. From the Times Online:

The day after Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, gave a warning that the row over Muslim women wearing the veil could provoke riots, Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, will meet representatives from the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church, the Muslim Council of Britain, the Association of Muslim Schools, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Network of Sikh Organisations. Mr Johnson will explain why the Government is to give local authorities the power to require new faith schools to admit up to 25 per cent of pupils from different faiths or no faith, and review progress on the agreement by faith schools to teach awareness of other faiths. He has called the meeting because he sees education as the key to preventing social division.

Mr Johnson has already suggested the exchange of teachers between different religious schools.

Mr Phillips appealed for calm over the issue of Muslim women wearing the veil. He said that he was disconcerted that debate about the issue seemed “to have turned into something really quite ugly”.

He told Sunday AM on BBC One: “I, this morning, really would not want to be a British Muslim because what should have been a proper conversation between all kinds of British people seems to have turned into a trial of one particular community, and that cannot be right.”

Mr Phillips appealed for Aishah Azmi, the teaching assistant who lost her discrimination case over her right to wear a veil in class, to drop her appeal against the decision.

He said: “I think she would be doing the nation a favour, and I think we would all feel very warm to her, if she said, ‘OK, I understand the issue here and I’m going to take a solution which doesn’t involve more working through the courts’.”

Mr Phillips also wrote in The Sunday Times that divisions risked becoming “the trigger for the grim spiral that produced riots in the North of England five years ago. Only this time the conflict could be much worse.”…

 

Memo to Mr. Phillips: There’s no way Ms. Azmi is going to drop her appeal. Why should she want to do “a favour” for the infidel nation that’s requiring her to remove her religious head gear?

 

Also in the Times, a story about a more “private” symbol of female affiliation: the one involving a woman’s private parts. According to the report, an estimated 25,000 girls in the U.K. are at risk of having their sexuality attacked in the barbaric practice known as female genital mutilation. And the most repellent aspect of this rite—apart from the obvious physical and emotional anguish it inflicts on these young African Muslim girls—is that this it is a barbarity performed on women by women.

 

But, hey, maybe one of those teacher exchanges Mr. Phillips like so much can help put an end to this atavism.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:26 | link | comments

 

Trashing Israel: Got a few spare minutes (and a strong stomach)? You’ll need both to watch this, a “debate” held last month in NYC about the power of the Israel lobby in the U.S. Participants include well-known Zionist-bashers John Meershiemer, co-author with Steven Walt of the infamous academic paper outling the lobby’s malign and secretive influence, and Tony Judt, a historian who has called for Israel to be “dismantled.”

 

I’d say “enjoy” but that’s far from being the operative word.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:29 | link | comments

 

Temple denial: It drives them bonkers that we were there first. From Palestinian Media Watch:

 

During the month of Ramadan, Palestinian Authority television programs focus on religious themes. But even within these programs, PA TV inserts political, hate and violence messages directed at Israel. PA TV is run by the office of PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

One significant message that has been strongly emphasized by repeated broadcasting of the same programs is the denial of Israel’s right to exist. One program, which recently appeared on PA TV three times in the course of a single week, features Dr. Hassan Khader, founder of the Al Quds Encyclopedia, who argues that the Jews have no ancient historical connection to the Western Wall of the Temple. He teaches:

"The first connection of the Jews to this site began in the 16th Century... The Jewish connection to this site is a recent connection, not ancient… like the roots of the Islamic connection… Who would have believed that the Israelis would arrive 1400 years [after the beginning of Islam], conquer Jerusalem and would make this wall into their special place of worship, where they worship and pray?”

The true name of the Western Wall of the Temple, according to the PA academic, is really the Al Buraq Wall – named after Muhammad’s horse which was tied to the wall – according to an Islamic tradition that attempts to honor Jerusalem.

Finally, Khader praises all the violence and death the Palestinians have initiated to prevent Jews’ access to the Western Wall and Temple Mount, from the beginning of the 20th century until now, and indicates that it will continue if Jews insist on the right to the Western Wall.

The following are excepts from his interview:

Khader: “The issue of the Al-Buraq Wall [Western Wall – renamed by Muslims "Buraq Wall" after Muhammad's horse] is one of the wonders which we don’t know why it happened in this order [of historical events]. Who would have believed, back then, when Islam began in the time of the prophet, who would have believed that the Israelis would arrive 1400 years later, conquer Jerusalem and would make this wall into their special place of worship, where they worship and pray? It’s incredible! We did not invent this place, the Al-Buraq Wall. Know that this wall is the only one of the four walls of the Al-Aqsa Mosque - the Mosque has four sides - this wall is the only one that carries an Islamic name since the beginning of Islam. Allah, praise Him, gave Al-Aqsa its name, and the Al-Buraq Wall was named by the Prophet… The Al-Buraq Wall is the station, similar to a space station, where Al-Buraq [Muhammad’s horse] landed. This is the place where Al-Buraq landed and the prophet tied Al-Buraq [to the wall]…

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:49 | link | comments

 

Sex and the single Muslim: A piece about why, in certain parts of the Muslim world, it’s so tough to be young, horny and lookin’ for love. From Der Spiegel:

Sex is a taboo in conservative Islamic countries. Young, unmarried couples are forced to seek out secret erotic oases. Books and play that are devoted to the all too human topic of sex incur the wrath of conservative religious officials and are promptly banned.

Rabat, Morocco. Every evening Amal the octopus vendor looks on as sin returns to his beach. It arrives in the form of handholding couples who hide behind the tall, castle-like quay walls in the city's harbor district to steal a few clandestine kisses. Some perform balancing acts on slippery rocks and seaweed to secure a spot close to the Atlantic Ocean and cuddle in the dim evening light. The air tastes of salt and hashish. On some mornings, when Amal finds used condoms on the beach, he wishes that these depraved, shameless sinners -- who aren't even married, he says -- would roast in hell.

Cairo, Egypt. A hidden little dead-end street in Samalik, a posh residential neighborhood, with a view of the Nile. Those who live here can stand on their balconies at night and see things that no one is meant to see. The cars begin arriving well before sunset, some evenings bringing as many as a hundred amorous couples. Almost all the girls wear headscarves, but that doesn't prevent them from wearing skin-tight, short-sleeved tops. The boys are like boys everywhere, nonchalantly placing their arms around their girlfriends' shoulders and even more nonchalantly sliding their hands into their blouses.

The locals call this place "Shari al-Hubb," or "Street of Love." The gossips say that children have been conceived here and couples have been spotted engaging in oral sex.

Beirut, Lebanon. As techno music blares from the loudspeakers in the dim light, patrons shout their drink orders across the bar. Boys in tight jeans and unbuttoned, white shirts, their hair perfectly styled, jostle their way onto the dance floor. The men shake their hips, clap their hands and embrace -- but without touching all too obviously. After all, those who go too far could end up being thrown out of "Acid," Beirut's most popular gay disco. Officially, "Acid" is nothing more than a nightclub in an out-of-the-way industrial neighborhood…

Shocking. That these young people haven’t been dealt with more harshly, I mean.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:44 | link | comments

 

Spare the rod and spoil the wife: Lessons in connubial relations—if not exactly connubial bliss—from the most authoritative source around. And no, I’m not referring to the Washington Post:

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. When dealing with a "disobedient wife," a Muslim man has a number of options. First, he should remind her of "the importance of following the instructions of the husband in Islam." If that doesn't work, he can "leave the wife's bed." Finally, he may "beat" her, though it must be without "hurting, breaking a bone, leaving blue or black marks on the body and avoiding hitting the face, at any cost."

Such appalling recommendations, drawn from the book "Woman in the Shade of Islam" by Saudi scholar Abdul Rahman al-Sheha, are inspired by as authoritative a source as any Muslim could hope to find: a literal reading of the 34th verse of the fourth chapter of the Koran, An-Nisa , or Women. "[A]nd (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them," reads one widely accepted translation.

The notion of using physical punishment as a "disciplinary action," as Sheha suggests, especially for "controlling or mastering women" or others who "enjoy being beaten," is common throughout the Muslim world. Indeed, I first encountered Sheha's work at my Morgantown mosque, where a Muslim student group handed it out to male worshipers after Friday prayers one day a few years ago.

Verse 4:34 retains a strong following, even among many who say that women must be treated as equals under Islam. Indeed, Muslim scholars and leaders have long been doing what I call "the 4:34 dance" -- they reject outright violence against women but accept a level of aggression that fits contemporary definitions of domestic violence.

Western leaders, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, have recently focused on Muslim women's veils as an obstacle to integration in the West. But to me, it is 4:34 that poses the much deeper challenge of integration. How the Muslim world interprets this passage will reveal whether Islam can be compatible with life in the 21st century. As Hadayai Majeed, an African American Muslim who had opened a shelter in Atlanta to serve Muslim women, put it, "If it's okay for me to be a savage in my home, it's okay for me to be a savage in the world."…

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:32 | link | comments

 

Bad crescent moon rising: Don’t look now, but the seethers may be about to take to the streets—for a change. From the Sunday Times Online:

THE head of Britain’s race relations watchdog has warned there will be “fire” on the streets unless growing racial tensions can be resolved.

Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, says divisions created by the recent row about Muslim women wearing the veil risk becoming “the trigger for the grim spiral that produced riots in the north of England five years ago. Only this time the conflict could be much worse”.

In what will be seen as his swansong before he becomes head of the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights, Phillips says: “All the recent evidence shows that we are, as a society, becoming more socially polarised by race and faith . . . In many of our cities things cannot get any worse.”

His warning is made in an article in The Sunday Times today about the need for a “civilised” debate on race. He paints a picture of a society whose institutions appear to be helpless in the face of mounting racial conflict.

In a warning about what might happen in Britain if his call is ignored, Phillips refers to the writer who correctly predicted race riots in Los Angeles and other US cities: “In 1963, the great African-American writer James Baldwin quoted an old spiritual in a famous essay, correctly predicting the civil strife that was to come: God gave Noah the rainbow sign. Said no more water, but the fire next time.”

Phillips said Jack Straw, leader of the House of Commons, had been right to make public the fact that he had asked Muslim women to remove their veils during his constituency surgeries. He criticised Muslims who had attacked Straw: “The so-called Muslim leaders who initially attacked Straw were wrong. They were overly defensive and need to accept that in a diverse society we should be free to make polite requests of this kind.”

Phillips said the debate was becoming dangerously polarised: “On one side of the trenches we have those who want a fully fledged auto-da-fe against British Muslims, in which anything any Muslim does or says must be condemned as a signal of their wilful alienation and separation; on the other hand the defensiveness of some in the Muslim communities has hardened into a sensitivity that turns the most neutral of comments into yet another act of persecution.

“This is not what anyone intended, and it is the last thing Britain needs.”…

Since Trevor Phillips seems to think that this is a “racial” issue and not a religious one, I can see why he might want to quote James Baldwin. However, since the population on the boil is one that has already been accorded the full gamut of civil rights—and then some, because for years authorities turned a blind eye to the civic unrest being fomented in British mosques—and since this is clearly a religious/ideological issue and not a racial one, Phillips quoting Baldwin here is entirely inappropriate.

 

Update: It seems the U.K. isn’t the only place having veil problems.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:00 | link | comments

 

Meat L’Oaf: A few days ago a local radio station asked people to call in with their guilty musicial pleasures—those embarrassingly uncool songs they secretly love to belt out in the shower. Folks phoned in with some of the usual suspects. Manilow. Abba. Terry Jacks (“we had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun…”), Gilbert O’Sullivan (“…alone again, naturally”).

 

Odd how so many of these execrable songs date from the 1970s.

 

Anyway, my choice also dates from that decade. It’s Meatloaf’s angsty power ballad, “Two of Out Three Ain’t Bad.”

 

And because I have far too much time on my hands (not really), I’ve put some contemporary words to it. In my version, it’s not about a guy explaining to his lover why he can’t commit (“I want you; I need you; but there ain’t no way I’m ever gonna love you…”) and why that’s not so terrible (“…‘cuz two out of three ain’t bad”). It’s about a frustrated blogger looking at a genocidal loose cannon over in Iran and observing that all anyone—like the EU, recently the object of his latest dire warning—seems willing to do is gab, gab, gab until Armageddon gets fully underway.

 

Sing along, if you like:

 

Maybe you can talk for years

But that ain’t gettin’ you nowhere.

You promised everything you possibly could.

There’s nothin’ left to offer him.

 

And maybe you don’t hear his jeers.

But that’s because you ain’t lis’ning.

He can’t be clearer ‘bout his plans for the Jews—

Do the words “Final Solution” ring bells?

 

He poured it on and he poured it out.

He’s screamed and strutted like a peacock in heat

He’s hosted conf’rences ‘bout genocide.

And he’s been hot to kill so long

That he may well combust spontaneously.

 

And all I can do is keep on tellin’ you:

He hates you.

Reviles you.

And there ain’t no way he’s gettin’ any therapy.

Go knock on wood.

‘Cuz three out of three ain’t good.

 

He’ll never make ‘lectricity from nuclear power.

His threats grow more outrageous with each passing hour.

You know you’re looking to appease him and restore some calm,

But you’ll have no peace of mind

If Moo can get his hands on a nuclear bomb.

 

He’ll tell lies.

He’ll invite you to “revert” to Islam.

Like he’s s’posed to do.

You’ll never be able

To turn him aside

As long as he awaits that imam.

 

Well, there is only one man that he really wants

And he left so many years ago.

But when the end is nigh and all the Jews are finally gone,

He’s said he’s comin’ back, ooh-ooh Moo knows.

 

Well, he remembers how he left on a stormy night

Sometime in the 9^th Century.

Now Ahmadinejad, his summoner, is doin’ his bit

To hasten the great day of retur-hurn.

And he keeps on tellin’ you

He keeps on tellin’ you

HE KEEPS ON TELLIN’ YOU:

“I hate you.

Revile you.

And there ain’t no way I’m gettin’ any therapy.

Go knock on wood.

‘Cuz three out of three ain’t good.

Go knock on wood.

‘Cuz three out of three ain’t good.”

 

Maybe you can talk for years.

But that ain’t getting you nowhere.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:32 | link | comments

 

The socially-acceptable hatred: Julia Gorin writes that political correctness extends to every religious/ethnic group—save one. From JWR:

 

…Perceived as part of the power structure, Jews are subconsciously considered by the Left, the media establishment and the other minorities as a privileged minority, and therefore not as vulnerable or in need of protected-class status. This is what makes Jews in fact the most vulnerable minority of all.

 

Perhaps this is best illustrated by a point that writer Hillel Halkin made in a 2002 Commentary article titled "The Return of Anti-Semitism"—namely that hostility toward Jews has grown in direct proportion to the number of Jews killed. In contrast, sympathy for Middle Easterners-a minority in the more traditional, visible, color-coded sense—has increased in direct proportion to the number of people they've killed. It seems, the more people that Muslims kill, the less popular Jews become. This has managed to happen because Jews are the politically incorrect minority.

 

When other minorities—rightly or wrongly—accuse someone of being a racist, the conditioned, immediate reaction is guilt-if only for a moment—before rationality takes over. But when Jews—rightly or wrongly—accuse someone of being an anti-Semite, the immediate reaction is eye-rolling. And at least once, I've gotten a "Yeah, so?"-eliciting from me a momentary inclination to answer, "Oh, sorry-never mind. Nothing wrong with being anti-Semitic; why some of my best friends are anti-Semites!"

If one thinks about it, what other ethnic group is blamed for genocidal murders against it? What other ethnic group's back do the other minorities not have? Indeed, what other minority do the rest of the minorities help bash? And what other minority's enemies do the media help in fabricating crimes by the said minority? What other minority has placards devoted to it at pro-terrorist rallies in Boston and San Francisco, reading Death to the [fill in minority]? Finally, what other nation has been exterminated not because of some ethnic rivalry with another nation or by some conquering force, but because of an entire, diverse continent pitching in? Then, after no nation offered this ethnic group a safe harbor, such that it had to shed even more of its blood to secure one, the world decided it wanted a recall of that agreed-upon harbor…

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:38 | link | comments

 

Moo’s latest production: An editorial in the Globe and Mail notes the deafening silence that has accompanied Moo Jihad’s latest threat: to punish Europe—the entire continent, no less—for having the gumption (Moo hates gumption, ‘specially the infidel variety) to acknowledge that, yea, verily, Israel doth exist. (I’ve employed the colourful but archaic language in homage to Moo, a man who waxes so poetic, even when lobbing a genocidal ultimatum):

So this leader of a large Islamic country walks onto the world stage and -- stop us if you've heard this one -- accuses Europe of sowing hatred toward Muslims, apparently because Europe continues to recognizes Israel's existence. And he threatens all of Europe, all at once. "You are the neighbours of the nations in this region," he warned on Thursday. "We inform you that the nations are like an ocean that is welling up, and if a storm begins, the dimensions will not stay limited to Palestine, and you may get hurt. It is in your own interest to distance yourself from these criminals. . . . This is an ultimatum. Don't complain tomorrow."

And the funny thing is, this same leader so opposed to hatred—fellow named Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran—denies the Holocaust happened and once invited cartoonists to vilify the Jews. And he despises his neighbour, the Jewish state of Israel. Says it should be “wiped off the map.” Excoriating Israel is an obsession with him. (There’s even a booth at the rally he’s addressing that sells DVDs promoting suicide bombers.) Oh, and here’s the really funny part: His country is on the verge of developing nuclear weapons.

If only it were just a bad joke…

When the Pope made comments about Islam and violence, there was an uproar in the Islamic world. When a Danish newspaper ran cartoons featuring depictions of the prophet Muhammed, there was wide-spread violence in response. When the president of a leading Islamic country seeks to foment division in the world, there is silence. That silence is nearly as loud and as frightening as Mr. Ahmadinejad.

Indeed. However, it’s not so much that Moo’s keen to foment division as it is that he’s itching to produce “Holocaust, the Sequel” (all the while denying that the first production ever took place—like Coppola filming the The Godfather, Part II but pretending all that stuff with the severed horse's head and the Don’s unrefusable offers never happened). That’s the only way his occluded imam can finally unocclude (which, frankly, sounds a bit painful) and return to preside over a global Islamic Theme Park (only, one with no rides, no games, and a dress code that requires all women to perambulate in a black tarpaulin).

Fun times ahead, my friends.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:14 | link | comments

 

Judging Islam: The global jihad is a go, and each day brings new adherents to the cause. This “radical fringe” of extremists is inspired by core Islamic teachings embedded in the Koran—the uncreated, revealed word of Allah, and his final perfect revelation to Mohammed, the most perfect human being who has ever lived; they also take their cues from the ahaditha, the stories about Mo’s life and teachings that carry almost as much weight as the Koran. Some of these teachings are, shall we say, problematic for non-Muslims, specifically, the ones calling upon the faithful to slice and dice the infidels should they refuse the “invitation” to “revert” to the one true faith. The idea being that Islam is the last word in religion, and has the Divine thumbs-up to conquer the globe.

 

Please bear the above in mind when reading the below. It’s from an editorial (“leader”) in today’s Times Online, imploring non-Muslims to “look past the veil” and not judge Islam based on the actions of extremists:

…The Koran certainly does not demand that women wear a full veil. The relevant verse urges women to lower their gaze and “not display their beauty except what is apparent of it”. That phrase has been open to differing interpretation. But it also forms part of the theological dispute between mainstream Islam and some of the narrower and more puritanical sects, including the Deobandis, who originated in India. Ms Azmi comes from a Tablighi Jamaat background, a sect even more puritanical. Those insisting on the veil are a small minority of British Muslims — perhaps no more than 5 per cent. But they form part of the fierce political struggle going on for ideological supremacy and leadership among Muslims from different countries, ethnic groups and religious traditions.

In some areas, such as Keighley and Dewsbury, these disputes are fuelling extremism, especially among young Muslims. The issue has been under- reported: that is no longer the case. No community should be judged by its extremists, and the vast majority of Muslims are uneasy about radicalisation from within. And the vast majority of Muslim women are rightly uncomfortable with a very male interpretation of the sacred text.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of Muslims have remained disturbingly silent as the “radical fringe” conduct their all-too frequent rampages, and are disinclined to turn the radicals’ attention onto them, less they incur the same kind of wrath, or a death sentence meted out as per sharia lawto those deemed to be “apostates”

Kinda puts a crimp in one’s ability to look past the veil, don’t you think?

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:56 | link | comments

 

Liberals whinge: If you’re a supporter of Israel, it must be tough to reconcile your continuing allegiance to a political party that, well, let’s be charitable and say that it prefers to take a more even-handed approach to issues involving Israel and the genocidal Islamists who want to wipe it off the map. Thus, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper had the temerity to point out the obvious last week—that most of the Liberal leadership contenders were “anti-Israel”—he obviously touched a sore point with  these folks, because lots of them (including leadership hopeful Bob Rae, who quickly argued that he couldn’t possibly be “anti-Israel” because some of his best family members were, um, Jewish) flipped out.

 

Some of these Liberal Israel-supporters are still in high dugeon, and they have hit back with a quarter page “Open letter to Stephen Harper” in the Globe and Mail. This is what it says:

 

Your recent comments deliberately painting the Liberal Party as anti-Israel were untrue and disgraceful.

 

This is not a partisan issue. As Canada’s Prime Minister it was self-serving and offensive for you to attempt to make it one. You have failed the fundamental test of political leadership: to bridge rather than exploit divisions. This is nothing more than shameless politicking, and Canadians deserve better.

 

We the undersigned members of the Liberal Party, proudly support the State of Israel and take offence to your comments. We urge you to make a public apology.

 

Underneath are about 150 names, more than a few of them Jewish, and a disclaimer that their opinions “reflect the sentiment of many members of the Liberal Party of Canada" and that, given more time, they could have probably collected more names.

 

Well, big whoop. The truth, as they say, hurts like hell, especially when it comes from the mouth of the man the Liberals like to paint as the Canadian George Bush. And a few more names ain’t gonna make it hurt any less.

 

But let’s take a look at what these self-described Israel supporters have said, to see if their statements are valid:

 

1. Harper’s comments “were untrue and disgraceful”: False. Harper’s statement was verifiably true. The leadership candidates, to a man, were trying to straddle the fence between Israel and the Islamic Nazis, in the hopes of playing “honest broker” in any negotiations. They had thus invented a role for themselves and the country that doesn’t now and will likely never exist, and had taken a position that would have made Canada look weak and placatory in the face of the global jihad.

2. “This is not a partisan issue”: True. This is not a partisan issue. This is an issue involving freedom and democracy everywhere. In that sense, this is a humanitarian issue. Were the Liberals, the NDP, and the Greens willing to take the same kind of unequivocal stand, I would applaud them just as loudly as I do the Conservatives. But I’m not going to hold my breath and wait for these parties to “get it.”

3. “As Canada’s Prime Minister, it was self-serving and offensive for you to attempt to make it one”: False. It was not “self-serving” to make this comment. In fact, it will probably cost him come election time because far more Canadians believe in the “honest-brokerage” nonsense than believe the Prime Minister should stand unequivocally for Israel. By definition it can’t be “self-serving” if it doesn’t serve one’s interests. If they can’t handle the truth—that there is a definite difference between how Conservatives and Liberals see this issue—and find it “offensive,” then maybe it’s time for them to switch parties.

4. “You have failed the fundamental test of leadership…”: False. Harper continues to exemplify what it is to be a true leader: that is, to lead and not to follow; to be willing to take a principled stance, even if it costs you at the ballot box, and even if makes a lot of people really mad. A good leader is necessarily divisive, because he (or she) has to make some hard choices—like, for example, affirming that “When it comes to dealing with a war between Israel and a terrorist organization, this country and this government cannot and will not be neutral.” A “divisive” statement if I’ve ever heard one, and all I can say is, thank God for that.

5. “Canadians deserve better”: False. Harper is as good as it gets, and is certainly a quantum leap beyond anything the Liberals have on offer.

As to whether Canadians “deserve” him—we’ll have to wait for the next election to see if that’s so (since people generally elect the leaders they deserve).

 

6.  “…make a public apology.” Sorry, kids. Ain’t gonna happen. Time to suck it up and move on.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:19 | link | comments

 

Moo’s biggest fan: In his latest Nazi-esque pronouncement, Holocaust-denier Moo Jihad—Adolf Hitler with a beard—has proclaimed yet again that Israel is a "counterfeit and illegitimate regime that cannot survive.”

 

A sentiment that will no doubt find favour with the like-minded Greg Felton, a writer on matters Mideastern who writes a twice-weekly column for the Canadian Arab News.

 

Here’s how the garrulous Greg rushed to Moo’s defence in a piece he wrote last December:

 

Over the past two months or so, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the newly elected president of Iran, has made his mark on the world stage…to overwhelmingly bad reviews.

Observations like: Israel should be wiped off the map; Israel should be moved to Europe; Europe supported the founding of Israel because of Holocaust guilt; and the Holocaust is a myth have been vehemently condemned.

Here’s Prime Minister Paul Martin’s diatribe:

“These statements are irresponsible, contrary to Canadian values…To cast doubt on the Holocaust and to suggest that Israel be ‘moved’ to Europe, the United States or Canada is completely unacceptable to the Canadian people.”

This is the same Paul Martin, by the way, who last month asserted: “Israel’s values are Canada’s values.” Good Gawd! What better proof is there that Canada’s Foreign Ministry is under Zionist occupation!

Anyway, while world leaders like Martin sputter away and pro-Israel typists like the Globe and Mail’s Mark MacKinnon do their best to stigmatize Ahmadinejad as a threat to world peace, let’s subject his “outrageous” statements to historical scrutiny:

1. “Israel should be wiped off the map.”

First of all, we should ask: “Should Israel be on the map in the first place?” Loyal readers of this space know the answer, but for the rest of you, here’s the Reader’s Digest version.

First, the Nov. 29, 1947, “Partition Plan” (UN General Assembly Resolution 181) was never ratified by the Security Council, and thus any division of Palestine into Jewish and non-Jewish areas was never legal. Moreover, a UNGA Resolution is only binding if all parties to it agree to be bound by its terms, which in this case did not happen.

Second, the General Assembly had no right under the UN Charter to take land from one people (Arabs) and give it to another people (European Jews).

Three, David ben Gurion declared Israeli statehood on May 15, 1948, even though the term of UNGA Res. 181 had not expired. Therefore, the creation of Israel was a land grab contrary to the UN and international law.

Four, Israel was admitted to the UN on May 11, 1949, only after it agreed to sign UNGA Res. 273, by which it recognized the right of all Palestinians to return to their homes and receive compensation.

Israel is a criminal entity that has never had a moral, legal or political right to exist. Score one for Ahmadinejad.

2. “Israel should be moved to Europe.”
The point is that since Europeans caused the Holocaust, Palestinians should not be made to suffer. He’s got a point. In fact, ben Gurion said much the same thing to Nahum Goldmann, future head of the World Jewish Congress:

“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”

Why indeed? Since the EuroJews who created “Israel” came mostly from Slavic countries, it does seem logical to move the “Jewish State” to Ukraine, Poland, Russia or Byelorus.

That’s two for the plucky president!...

 

There’s more, but I’d advise you to down a couple of Dramanine before proceeding any further.

 

What can you say about someone who thinks that a) the Globe and Mail’s Mark “Malarkey” MacKinnon is a “pro-Israel typist” (the typist part I'll buy; the pro-Israel part is cracked) and b) that Moo Jihad is “plucky”?

 

That he’s seriously, even dangerously, deluded?

 

That he’s an egregious Jew-hater?

 

That he wouldn’t know real pluck if it snuck up from behind and bit him on the heiny?  

 

All of the above, I’d say.

 

I so look forward to reading Greg’s thumbs-up for Moo’s latest genocidal squawk (said scaramouche, with bitter sarcasm).

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:33 | link | comments (5)

 

Harper stands resolute: Stephen Harper spoke at a B’nai Brith gala dinner last night and once again affirmed his government’s solid support for Israel.

 

Here’s some of what he said:

 

• “Those who attacked Israel and those who sponsor such attacks don’t seek merely to gain some leverage, to alter some boundary or to right some wrong. They seek what they and those like them have always sought—the destruction of the Jewish people.”

• “Those who seek to destroy the Jews will, for the same reason, ultimately seek to destroy us all.”

• “We are fighting terrorists in Afghanistan. We have arrested alleged terrorists here in Toronto. Therefore, it is very straightforward. When it comes to dealing with a war between Israel and a terrorist organization, this country and this government cannot and will not be neutral.”

He also said this:

 

• “I must tell you that we must also seek a fair and just future for the Palestinian people. Our government believes in a two-state solution –in a secure democratic and prosperous Israel living beside a viable democratic and peaceful Palestine.”

This marks the first time the Prime Minister has come out in support of the “two-state solution” and both the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star see this as evidence that Harper is beginning to bow to political realities and “moderate” his previously inflexible stance.

 

But is it?

 

Oh, sure, Harper tossed them the bone of the “two-state solution”; that’s the least of what he could have given them. Because, reality being reality (and biting big time, one might add), at present, with Islamism in ascendance and the global jihad well along, the “two-state solution” is about as likely as, well, as likely as Muslims deciding to jettison all those problematic post-hejira passages in the Koran and hewing to the nicey-nicey messages of Mohammed’s Meccan period—the ones that were specifically abrogated, one by one, after he decamped to Medina.

 

In other words, not bloody likely.

 

I have no great regard for the intellectual and political acuity of my fellow Canadians, and I predict that, even with this sop to the “let’s mediate” crowd who comprise the bulk of the population, Harper is likely to be a one-termer.

 

I do, however, have immense regard for Stephen Harper, a man of principle and clarity of vision, who is unwilling to compromise his principles, even if it doesn’t sit well with most Canadians, and even if it ultimately results in his defeat.

 

In this, he is the polar opposite of Michael Ignatieff, a man who is willing to compromise his beliefs and whore himself to those who can get him elected.

 

It will be a tragic day—for Israel, and for all those who cherish freedom and who know that it can only be preserved through a show of strength, not weakness—when Harper falls and the Liberal retake the reigns of power.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:33 | link | comments

 

Harpoon’s veiled accusations: I had hoped that the recent shake-up at the Toronto Star would have shaken Harpoon Siddiqui from his twice-weekly bully pulpit. No such luck. There he still sits, as sleek and smug as ever, berating us “arrogant"—his word—infidels, er, non-Muslims, for daring to pass judgement on anything having to do with any aspect of the one true faith.

 

Today he hauls out the heavy guns—quotes from the Koran—to prove that there’s nothing inherently troubling about women, ahem, “choosing” to perambulate in cumbersome black pup tents. Muslim women, he says, have a multipicity of other head covering options and besides, Islam isn’t the only religion which calls for women to dress, what’s that word?, oh, yes—“modestly”:

 

As in most discussions on Muslim religious and cultural practices, the arguments often turn to what the Islamic position might be on any given issue. This presumes that there is one definitive religious ruling for every issue. Obviously, there isn't.

 

The point is illustrated by the controversy over the niqab, the all-enveloping women's garment that covers the face as well.

 

Muslims have been arguing about it, and even about the hijab, the head scarf, for more than 1,400 years — i.e., for as long as there has been Islam. They may continue unto eternity, as is their right.

 

The Qur'an does not instruct women to cover their faces. In fact, during the pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca, they are required to uncover their faces.

 

The scripture only urges modesty, for both men and women:

 

Say to the believing men that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts ...

And say to the believing women that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts and do not display their ornaments except what appears thereof, and let them wear their head-covering over their bosoms. 24:30-31.

 

Scholars are divided over what's meant by "ornaments," or "adornments," the other word used in translations. Is that a reference to a woman's natural beauty or to her jewellery or other fashion accoutrements? And what's the meaning of "what appears thereof"?

Nobody is sure. No one can ever be, as with all divine texts.

 

There's also a debate over another pertinent Qur'anic verse:

 

O Prophet! Say to your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers that they let down upon them their over-garments; this will be more proper, that they may be known, and thus will not be molested. 33:59.

 

One interpretation — mostly by men, of course — has been that women must cover themselves head to toe.

 

But even under such a reading, the results have varied from culture to culture — the Taliban's all-enveloping burqa to the chador wrapped like a shawl over the body and the head, leaving the face exposed, as in Iran or parts of Pakistan.

 

Other relevant verses:

 

O wives of the Prophet! You are not like any other women ...

Stay in your houses and do not display your finery like in the time of ignorance (the pre-Islamic period). 33:32-33

.

O you who believe! Do not enter the houses of the Prophet unless permission is given to you ... And when you ask of them (his wives) any goods, ask of them from behind a curtain; this is purer for your hearts and their hearts. 33:53.

 

The edicts are clearly addressed to the household of Muhammad, during whose lifetime many women outside his family did not wear the veil. Yet some theologians have held that the rule applies to all women, the argument being that emulating the Prophet's family can only be good.  

 

Gender separation is sometimes cultural, depending on the region, where the practice may not be confined to Muslims...

 

But the practice of swathing women in all-encompassing black sheets so as to expunge their personality and identify and to deny their very humanity, is confined to Muslims.

 

At least they allow for eye slits (or mesh) so these women won’t bump into things and stray into traffic.

 

My letter to the Star recalls a disturbing personal encounter with the niqab:

 

A few summers ago, I was traveling by bus to a doctor’s appointment in Scarborough. It was a blazingly hot day--I believe the Humidex was hovering somewhere in the high 40s—in a summer of blazingly hot days. Sitting across from me on the bus, which was not air-conditioned, sat a woman wearing a heavy black niqab and holding a small infant. The woman did not have a stroller or any other kind of baby carrier.

 

Several stops before mine, the woman get off the bus, with her baby in her arms, and made her way slowly and somewhat unsteadily down the side of the street. I was extremely disturbed, to say the least, not only because, in wearing a garment that was so clearly unsuited to the weather conditions, the woman was putting herself at serious risk of heat stroke, but because she was also risking the life of her baby.

 

Haroon Siddiqui can quote all the religious text he wants to bolster his case that the veil is a beautiful, meaningful clothing option, and that those who criticize it are arrogant bigots. All I know is that there was nothing beautiful or spiritual about a mother endangering two lives by wearing a garment like that in an August heat wave in Toronto.

 

If that make me a bigot, so be it.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:35 | link | comments (3)

 

Good news/bad news: The good news is Hellzbollocks is telling the eminently suggestible Arabs under its sway that the UNFIL “occupation” is as bad as an Israeli one; that’s good news in the sense that at least they’re spreading the hatred around a bit and not focussing it all on the Jews.

 

The bad news is: ditto. From the Boston Globe (link via Martin Kramer):

 

The 6,000 international peacekeepers deployed in southern Lebanon are supposed to provide a buffer between Israel and Hezbollah fighters and help Lebanese villagers recover from the deadly war this summer.

 

Instead, the United Nations forces are increasingly the object of popular suspicion and anger, fueled by the alarmist proclamations of some Hezbollah leaders -- raising serious obstacles for a mission that depends heavily on Hezbollah's cooperation.

 

Israeli forces have all but completed their withdrawal from southern Lebanon after the monthlong war against Hezbollah fighters ended with a cease-fire on Aug. 14. Units from the beefed-up force of UN peacekeepers from 11 nations now crisscross the hilly terrain each day.

 

But in Beirut mosques, clerics preach that the UN troops are being used as a ``tool of Israel and the United States" to de-fang Hezbollah's ``resistance." Hezbollah supporters openly express their distrust of the UN force. They liken the peacekeeping troops to the Israeli occupation force that held southern Lebanon from 1982 to 2000.

 

``The next war won't be with Israel. It'll be against the United Nations," said a man who identified himself as a Hezbollah fighter and gave only his first name, Abdullah.

 

A burly man in a tight T-shirt, Abdullah stood with another Hezbollah member on the edge of the village of Chemaa and surveyed a camp under construction by Italian peacekeepers from a marine unit called the Lagunari.

 

``I see them as occupiers," the second fighter, Hassan, said.

 

The angry sentiment is stoked in part by conspiracy theories that the UN peacekeeping force, with its armored personnel carriers and warships patrolling the coast, is actually the vanguard of a renewed assault, this time by international troops, on Hezbollah…

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:29 | link | comments (2)

 

Amalek lives!: One of the reasons the EU is such an inhospitable place for Jews these days is likely due to the different lessons that Jews (at least, the observant ones) and EUnuchs derive from history. The Jews are a people, who, from time immemorial, have had a keen awareness of the existence of radical evil; how could they not, when so much of it has been directed specifically at them? To the EUnuchs, on the other hand, any awareness of evil must take a back seat to the overwhelming desire to keep a lid on the situation at all costs, lest it erupt into the kind of  horrific full-scale conflagrations that swept the Continent in two World Wars.

 

A French-born Rabbi ponders this dichotomy and what it means for the Jews of Europe—as well as Europe itself. From the Jerusalem Post:

I, a French-born rabbi, have been sitting in a small synagogue in Brussels, celebrating the High Holy Days. Almost 200 years ago to the day, Napoleon convened an assembly of Jewish leaders to help him open the door of citizenship to French Jews. It was the Enlightenment. The Jews of France prepared to receive equal rights and become full partners in the affairs of state. They could call Europe home.

Now I wonder if it was all an illusion. I and other Jews have begun moving toward the sad and frankly terrifying realization that ultimately we may have no home in Europe. It is not that I no longer identify as a European, or that somehow my sense of loyalty to the place of my birth has weakened. No, it is not me who has changed, but Europe. A conflict has emerged between this new Europe and my Jewishness, and I do not know how to resolve it.

MUCH HAS been said and written about the reemergence of anti-Semitism in Europe, but all the discussion hasn't made the phenomenon any more comprehensible to me. I suppose that after the Holocaust, no amount of anti-Semitic madness should surprise us. Yet, I am surprised - and frightened.

I am frightened not just by the anti-Semitism but by the collective European response of indifference and appeasement. Today, Europe worships compromise. It is "fanatical" in its non-violence. It is a Europe that, in the face of Islamist fanaticism, is ready to stay silent.

This is the heart of the matter. By refusing to truly battle the Islamist ideology, by refusing to firmly and consistently oppose the dangers of Iranian nuclear proliferation, by refusing to support Israel in its battle against the menace of Hizbullah, Europe is saying everything is "negotiable."

MY FAITH forces me to reflect on the eventuality of having to confront radical evil. It teaches that everything is not negotiable; not everything can be compromised.

When I read in Deuteronomy that it is my religious duty to "erase the memory of Amalek from beneath the heavens," I frankly find myself frightened by the violence of the passage. How can we accept a religious commandment that necessitates us, under certain circumstances, to annihilate the Other?

This dilemma is not only mine. There's a story about an Orthodox Jew who went to Martin Buber, the great German-Jewish philosopher of the 20th century, to tell him of his profound dilemma: "How is it," he said to Buber, "that when King Saul showed mercy in his struggle against Agog, the king of the Amalekites, he was chastised by the Prophet Samuel for showing himself capable of compassion and being ready to compromise?"

Buber remained silent for a few moments before answering. "I think that Samuel was mistaken about God's intentions."

BUT RABBI Emil Fackenheim, one of the great post-Shoah thinkers, strongly criticizes Buber's reply and tells us: "Through this answer, Buber disposes of the problem of absolute evil, because if Amalek is not its incarnation, then absolute evil does not exist. Here, we are therefore better served by tradition: Amalek continues to be recognized for what he is, but [also] as a symbol.

"On the level of Jewish values, to distinguish between Amalek and evil in general is always a difficult task. To an extreme extent, one risks seeing a replica of Amalek in every enemy, while in fact the rabbis recommend trying to make a friend of every enemy.

"However, our era has shown that the opposite danger is greater: that which consists in believing or dreaming that Amalek does not exist."…

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:10 | link | comments (1)

Tiny tyrant: Following the appearances of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his compadre, Hugo Chavez, at the UN last month, US UN Ambassador John Bolton dismissed their "cartoonish" antics. That got me to thinking. Which cartoon characters do these "populists" most resemble?

I decided that Moo's a definite Wile E. Coyote. And Hu? He's certainly no Speedy Gonzales--too beefy and splenetic to be the gentle Chihuahua. No, he's more like the Tasmanian Devil, freaking out with great frequncy, and spinning round and round for no good reason at all.

As for the third 'toonish leader who's drawing our attention at the moment, I've decided he's a dead ringer for this guy:

If you don't recognize this character--and, unless, like me you have an eight-year-old son, there's no reason why you should--his name is Plankton, and he's SpongeBob SquarePants's nemesis.

Plankton (full name, Sheldon J. Plankton) is a small, angry, ambitious blowhard--dressed in grey, you'll note--who causes all sorts of problems in Bikini Bottom, where for years he's been trying to put the Crab Shack out of business with his rival, but failed, fastfood joint, The Chum Bucket.

See any parallels with Dear Leader?

Persusing Plankton's Wikipedia entry--yes, he does merit his own page--I noticed some other eery similiarities:

- Plankton is said to be "1% evil, 99% hot gas," a ratio, which, reversed, might well describe Kim.

- "Plankton is a science wiz, and even knows how to induce thermonuclear fusion." Kim is also into nuclear physics, though he's more of a fission guy.

- "His main catch phrases include "I WIN! I WIN!"..."I wish to rule you," "Hehhehhehhaa!!" and others."

- "Sometimes Plankton is depressed because of his continual failure...He is also depressed because his short stature tends to make him ignored or squished."

Unless, that is, he can throw Bikini Bottom into a tizzy by setting off a nuclear device, and threatening to explode another.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:09 | link | comments

 

Shoe singer: Wonder what’s been happening with Richard Reid, the British jihadi with the explosive sneakers? He’s settled nicely into his new life as an American inmate, and has been passing the time praying to Allah and putting new words to old Beatles’ songs.

 

Here’s one of them, his take on Paul McCartney's tribute to the Beach Boys, “Back in the U.S.S.R”:

 

Flyin' to Miami

AA Flight six three.

Man, I had a dreadful flight.

Nikes packed with semtex

Purchased just for me.

Couldn’t get them to ignite.

I’m here in the U.S. of A.

And I ain’t goin’ away-hay.

Here in the U.S. of A.

 

Wasn’t s’posed to be like this.

I shoulda blown.

Passengers they kept me down.

Reverted just for martyrdom,

‘Cause Mo’s the man.

Wanted to spread his renown.

I’m here in the U.S. of A.

And I ain’t goin’ away-hay.

Here in the U.S.

Here in the U.S.

Here in the U.S. of A.

 

Well, those virgins up in Paradise

Can treat a man real fine.

They know all kinds of sexy tricks,

They're always on my mah-mah-mah-mah

Mah-mah-mah-mah-mah-mah-mind.

 

Show me to my jail cell

Give me a Koran.

 Let me pray five times a day.

Three square meals, a jumpsuit,

My own private digs—

Who says the jihad doesn’t pay?

I’m here in the U.S. of A.

And I ain’t goin’ away-hay.

Here in the U.S.

Here in the U.S.

Here in the U.S. of A.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:04 | link | comments

 

Loons online: While googling “Jonathan Cook,” writer of the India Outlook piece, I came across this intriguing, Quebec-based site.

 

In case you wanted to know what’s on the minds on cutting-edge, tinfoil-hatted Canadians, here’s a piece that posits the idea that nefarious Conservative “Quisling,” Stephen Harper, is planning to turn over the keys to the Great White North to George W. Satan. And, ohmigod, Jack Layton is in on it! 

 

Sit back and enjoy the lunacy:

What would you think if it was announced that Canada was to cease as an independent country as early as 2007? Would it matter to you? Would you want to know who was responsible? What would you do?

Well, during the last week there have been announcements from at least two sources that Canada will soon cease to exist as a sovereign country.

The first notice I received was in the form of an Aug. 18 email from Connie Fogal, leader of the Canadian Action Party. The email includes a bulletin from the Fraser Institute entitled, "The Case for the Amero: The Institutions of a North American Monetary Union." A statement near the end of the bulletin reads, "On the day the North American Monetary Union is created--perhaps on January 1, 2010--Canada, the United States, and Mexico will replace their national currencies with the Amero. On that day, all American dollar notes and coins will be exchanged at the rate of one US dollar for one Amero."

Then much worst news came. On August 30 I received, indirectly from an email correspondent, an article from 'Vivelecanada.ca' entitled, "Timeline of the Progress Towards a North American Union". At the end of the timeline it projected that the North American Union would be created in 2007, three years before the projection of the Fraser Institute!

You might ask how we got into a situation where our country would be dismantled without our consent. Well, from World Net Daily we read that "the White House has established working groups, under the North American Free Trade Agreement office in the Department of Commerce, to implement the Security and Prosperity Partnership (also called the North American Union) signed by President Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox and then Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Texas, March 23, 2005". This was done without authorization of the U.S. Congress or any level of government in all three countries as far as I am able to ascertain.

Where is all this heading?

We are heading into a One World neo-fascistic government and a One World economy where sovereign countries are being systematically destroyed. It's >called the New World Order and it's been in the works for decades. At the moment, George W. Bush is the figurehead leader in front of a neo-conservative (fascist) ruling elite which is the driving force behind the NOW agenda. It is an agenda by and for the ruling elites. The middle class, the only collective power that has the strength to fight back against this agenda, if they could ever unite in purpose, is being systematically destroyed. If the trend continues, the vast majority of workers will be driven down to the lowest level.

Don't look to Prime Minister Stephen Harper to "Stand up for Canada" as the they indicated during the last federal election campaign; and fight against the take-over of Canada via a U.S. imperial "North American Union and to save our sovereignty. He is solidly behind President George W. Bush. It is even said that NDP leader, Jack Layton, has formed an alliance with Stephen Harper - see Jacques Lemieux's article in The Canadian in which he makes his case and concludes, "A working alliance between Mr. Harper and Mr. Layton is the only thing that can explain why Mr. Layton has chosen not to apparently rally Canadians against the clearly reactionary agenda of Mr. Harper."...

Get a grip there, fella. I agree that we’re heading into a One World fascist government--but not the kind you're worried about. Here, I’ll give you a hint: “I submit.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:06 | link | comments (2)

 

Opposing views: Two views of the collision course on which Israel and Iran seem to be set. In the first, from periodical Outlook India, Israel—you know, that tiny entity that Moo Jihad, host of the ever-popular World Without Zionism conference, has promised to wipe off the map—is seen as the needlessly belligerent party:

The Middle East, and possibly the world, stands on the brink of a terrible conflagration as Israel and the United States prepare to deal with Iran's alleged ambition to acquire nuclear weapons. Israel, it becomes clearer by the day, wants to use its air force to deliver a knock-out blow against Tehran. It is not known whether it will use conventional weapons or a nuclear warhead in such a strike.

At this potentially cataclysmic moment in global politics, it is good to see that one of the world's leading broadcasters, the BBC, decided this week that it should air a documentary entitled "Will Israel bomb Iran?". It is the question on everyone's lips and doubtless, with the imprimatur of the BBC, the programme will sell around the world.

The good news ends there, however. Because the programme addresses none of the important issues raised by Israel's increasingly belligerent posture towards Tehran.

It does not explain that, without a United Nations resolution, a military strike on Iran to destroy its nuclear research programme would be a gross violation of international law.

It does not clarify that Israel's own large nuclear arsenal was secretly developed and is entirely unmonitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency, or that it is perceived as a threat by its neighbours and may be fuelling a Middle East arms race.

Nor does the programme detail the consequences of an Israeli strike on instability and violence across the Middle East, including in Iraq, where British and American troops are stationed as an occupying force.

And there is no consideration of how in the longer term unilateral action by Israel, with implicit sanction by the international community, is certain to provoke a steep rise in global jihad against the West.

Instead the programme dedicates 40 minutes to footage of Top Gun heroics by the Israeli air force, and the recollections of pilots who carried out a similar, "daring" attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor in the early 1980s; menacing long shots of Iran's nuclear research facilities; and interviews with three former Israeli prime ministers, a former Israeli military chief of staff, various officials in Israeli military intelligence and a professor who designs Israel's military arsenal.

All of them speak with one voice: Israel, they claim, is about to be "wiped out" by Iranian nuclear weapons and must defend itself "whatever the consequences".

They are given plenty of airtime to repeat unchallenged well-worn propaganda Israel has been peddling through its own media, and which has been credulously amplified by the international media: that Iran is led by a fanatical anti-Semite who, like Adolf Hitler, believes he can commit genocide against the Jewish people, this time through a nuclear holocaust.

Other Israeli misinformation, none of it believed by serious analysts, is also uncritically spread by the film-makers: that Hizbullah in Lebanon is a puppet of Iran, waiting to aid its master in Israel's destruction; that Iran is only months away from creating nuclear weapons, a "point of no return", as the programme warns; and that a "fragile" Israel is under constant threat of annihilation from all its Arab neighbours.

But the programme's unequivocal main theme—echoing precisely Israel's own agenda—is that Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is hellbent on destroying Israel. The film-makers treat seriously, bordering on reverentially, preposterous comments from Israel's leaders about this threat…

Yeah, everyone knows he’s pulling our leg about all that genocide and Mahdi stuff.

 

As a corrective, here’s one from The American Thinker site:

Mahmood Ahmadinejad is an extremely shrewd customer, who is perfectly capable of provoking an attack by Israel and/or the United States in ways that play to his strengths and their weaknesses. There is reason to think he may be doing exactly that.

In the Hezb’allah War, Israel pulled its punches. It’s perfectly conceivable that Ahmadinejad pulled his also, by not making use of his full missile capacity located in Lebanon. Hezb’allah’s rockets are Tehran’s counterpunch against an Israeli attack on its home territory. That counterpunch might be a great deal more powerful than Israel now believes, based on its limited experience in the Hezbo War. All Tehran had to do was forbid Hezb’allah from firing its most formidable rockets, or smuggle in more powerful ones after the Hezbo War.

Tehran is constantly parading fake “new” weapons, like Hitler’s “ultimate weapons” that he kept on threatening at the end of WWII.  Given another five years, Hitler would have had usable jet planes, missiles, and early nukes. So it wasn’t all bluff. But Tehran’s  parading of obviously fake weapons may be designed to give the impression that it is all bluff.

Threatening nukes is partly a provocative display, as is Holocaust denial. Ahmadinejad may not really believe his provocative speeches and actions on this score. It may be psychological warfare, designed to trigger an Israeli attack to forestall his nukes. Once he is attacked, he can pretend injured innocence and retaliate in force, with the cooperation of Syria and his proxies in Iraq and Lebanon, and perhaps elsewhere in the world. This guy is one nasty customer...

To say the least.