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

 

Abyssinia, ’06: This seems as good a way as any to ring out the soon-to-be defunct old year. It’s been reported that Michael Jackson attended James Brown’s funeral. In homage to the man who inspired so many of his dance moves (but not his sexual predilections—Brown preferred full-grown women to little boys), Jackson laid a kiss on Brown’s forehead.

 

And the funny thing is the corpse looked more lifelike than the kisser.

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

 

A tale of two presidents: Richard Baehr on the American Thinker site contrasts the legacies of two American presidents—Gerald Ford, an unassuming man who, in his post-presidential years, acquitted himself with modesty and grace, and Jimmy Carter, a self-important, self-righteous blowhard who continues to hog the world stage and refuses to disappear:

 

…But it is Carter's behavior after his defeat that stands in sharp contrast to Gerald Ford's post-presidential years. Certainly, charitable works are a useful endeavor for public figures after they leave office.  Both Ford and Carter have done this - Carter for many years building homes with Habitat for Humanity.

But in other ways Carter has acted as if the last 26 years were an extended second term in office. He has freelanced in foreign policy - lending his ex-presidential imprimatur to the likes of Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Kim Jong Il, and Yassar Arafat. He has been outspoken when he has disagreed with the policies of a sitting President (pretty much every Republican).

In the period leading up to the war with Iraq and in the immediate aftermath, he  was so vocal in his attacks on American policy and President Bush, that he was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize by the Scandinavian solons, who were only so eager to stick a finger in the eye of President Bush  by "knighting" Jimmy Carter. It was Carter who invited filmmaker Michael Moore to sit with him in the Presidential box at the 2004 Democratic convention, presumably for his achievement with Fahrenheit 911. Of course, Carter had campaigned for the Nobel prize for two decades, and this could be seen as a lifetime achievement award for his globetrotting effort to rehabilitate his reputation among the elites by so often standing up for those standing in opposition to his own country.

 

The invitation to Moore was Carter's thank you salute to the Nobel committee. Today, of course, there is much controversy about a new book by Jimmy Carter, Palestine: Peace not Apartheid. This screed, which Carter is defending on a national  book tour, and endlessly on C-SPAN and cable news and interview programs, is exactly the kind of one sided, error filled propaganda piece that any true  statesman  for peace would reject out of hand. But it does reflect Carter's long and intense dislike for Israel, and a nasty streak that probably relates to his wounded self image from suffering such a shattering election defeat to Ronald Reagan, a candidate considered unelectable until he came up against Carter and his record of four years of failure.

 

Gerald Ford was an accidental president. He was the only president not elected either to that office or as vice president. He was the first appointed vice president (after Spiro Agnew's resignation), and when he succeeded to the presidency , it was not the culmination of a lifetime of seeking that office.  Ford had been content to be a member the House of Representatives. He never tried to "upgrade" to the US Senate. Jimmy Carter, on the other hand, much like another recent Democratic Southern governor who made it to the presidency, had mapped out a strategy for that oval office run for years before he ran. The contrast between Ford and Carter is between modesty and vanity, service and ambition.

 

Finally, some public figures do not understand what it means to leave the stage gracefully. Gerald Ford did, and it is no wonder his reputation has grown since he left office, despite troubles on many fronts during his short two and a half year tenure. Ford was a transition president who had to deal with very difficult circumstances that he inherited from Richard Nixon: a deteriorating economy , a collapse in trust in government, and  the final phase of the long unhappy Vietnam war experience. By pardoning Richard Nixon soon after taking the oath, Ford eliminated what would have been a distracting national sideshow, enabling him and the government to get on with managing its real business. It was, of course, also an act of mercy for a fallen president, already disgraced. It is impossible to think of Jimmy Carter demonstrating such judgment or compassion.

 

Jimmy Carter has plenty of compassion—but only for Israel’s enemies.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:11 | link | comments

 

A New Year’s Eve wish: From me to you:

 

Have a frolicsome New Year’s,

If you care to risk it.

And here’s hoping the jihad

Bites the bisquit.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:58 | link | comments

 

Spoiled rotten: MTV has a dreadful reality show about Sweet Sixteen parties thrown by stupid, over-indulgent parents for their obnoxious, grasping, constitutionally ungrateful progeny (usually a daughter, but occasionally a son). For some inexplicable reason, my sister loves the show; I find it unwatchable.

 

It’s good to know, however, that American aren’t the only ones with daughters who’ve been spoiled rotten. Here, for example, is a deliciously bitchy story about Saddam Hussein’s daughter Raghad, who probably never had a Sweet Sixteen, but who is even more insufferable than any MTV sweet sixteener. From the Daily Mail:

 

She was relaxing in the Dazzle beauty salon awaiting a hot stone body scrub when she got the call.

 

It was obviously something important or her personal assistant would not have risked invoking her volcanic temper by passing her the mobile phone mid-treatment.

 

Indeed it was. On the end of the line was a lawyer telling her that Saddam Hussein had lost his appeal and would hang by the end of the week.

 

And the tall, slim woman who paled as she received this news was the tyrant's redoubtable eldest daughter Raghad.

 

There was much arm-waving, cursing and shrieking. But as a member of staff noted when she recounted the story to another customer, this kind of behaviour from Raghad is hardly unusual.

 

In the beauty salon, and elsewhere in the Jordanian capital Amman, the 39-year-old mother of five, who is nicknamed "Little Saddam' because her temperament so closely resembles that of her father, is much-feared.

And like her father during his brutal reign, she is used to getting her own way, although unlike him she has relied on nothing sharper than her tongue…

 

To the annoyance of Jordanians, Raghad enjoys a conspicuously extravagant lifestyle in Amman, largely funded, it is claimed, by her hosts.

 

Driven wherever she pleases by bodyguards, she has an almost comical appetite for designer clothes and accessories and shops with a gusto that would earn approval from the high-spending wives and girlfriends of England's footballers.

 

"She buys shoes by the sack load," said a woman close to Raghad's tight circle of friends.

 

"But the store owners are wary of her because she can be a difficult customer and nothing is ever good enough for her. There's a shop in Amman called Boutique de Francais that she goes to frequently where the staff are terrified of her."

 

Raghad is said to have a penchant for Gucci handbags and £400 Sergio Rossi boots and pays for them - or rather, her personal assistant pays for them - with a thick wad of crisp US dollars.

 

It is perhaps not surprising then that Raghad was pampering herself in a beauty salon rather than engaging in, say, a humanitarian act on behalf of her troubled people when she learned her father's fate last week.

 

If not out shopping she can often be found in Dazzle, or in the Iraqi-owned ladies' gym above it - Body Design - where she works out most mornings.

 

They are in Amman's upmarket district of Abdoun, an area populated predominantly by wealthy Iraqi exiles.

 

Raghad, an avid Hello! reader, also has her hair styled three times a week and is said to have received cosmetic surgery - nose, breasts, bags under the eyes - at the Amman Surgical Hospital…

 

Raghad's appeals on behalf of her father have surprised her family. "It is not the Arab way for a woman to speak out like this," one of Raghad's cousins told The Mail on Sunday.

 

"The family do not like it. And they do not like the way she wears his name like one of her designer labels."

 

Even at the international school her children attend in Amman she is known to drop Saddam's name while chatting with other mothers.

 

"I remember telling her that I was taking one of my kids out of the school and moving her to the British international school because she was struggling with English," said one mother.

 

"I asked how her children were getting on with English and she said they were doing great. Then she said something extraordinary: 'Can you really imagine the grandchildren of Saddam Hussein not being able to speak English?'

 

The mother added: "All the mothers avoid her like the plague although she tries very hard to be friends."

 

So what now for Little Saddam? With her father gone she will no longer have a legal team to manage and will find herself with time on her hands. How will she ever fill it?

 

We know how she’s going to fill it. The same way another spoiled Arab princess, Suha Arafat, does: by having lots of facials, quackish spa treatments and exfoliations, and wasting oodles of purloined lucre on revoltingly expensive designer gear

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:54 | link | comments

Martyr maker: Times reporter John Simpson is impressed by Saddam’s “fortitude” as he met his fate:

SADDAM HUSSEIN met his death on the scaffold in Baghdad yesterday with fortitude and calm. It was an extraordinary, melodramatic end to a life of confrontation and defiance — a final performance to launch himself as a martyr.

Having reported on Saddam for more than 25 years, I last saw him on the day he was sentenced to death. He had been expecting it, of course, and he played the scene with great toughness and spirit, condemning the American invasion and challenging the Iraqi government and the judges.

At the end, as he was taken out of the courtroom, he passed within a couple of feet of me. I could see a little smile of triumph on his lips. He must have known then that he had begun to create the legend of Saddam the martyr.

His last moments, face to face with death, were part of that same strategy. He knew Iraqis very well, and he knew what they liked in their leaders. The Saddam legend is only just beginning…

At first, after his surrender in the hole where he was hiding beside the Tigris in December 2003, even Sunni Iraqis had little but contempt for him. His statement, “I am Saddam Hus-sein, president of Iraq, and I wish to negotiate”, was mocked in Baghdad as a sign of his failure to come to terms with reality.

However, when he challenged the invasion’s legality during his trial, opinion among Sunnis began to swing. Soon they saw him as their champion and he used to address them from the dock, telling them not to despair.

As he stood on the trap door with the noose around his neck, waiting to plunge to his death, perhaps like all martyrs he was reflecting that immediate pain would be followed by an everlasting triumph. In political terms he may well turn out to be right.

Saddam is in no way a martyr, and it’s beyond sickening that Simpson would hitch a ride on the delusional bandwagon that is trying to turn him into one.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:33 | link | comments

 

EUnuchs against the death penalty: It surprises me not at all to learn that, almost to a man (and woman) tender-hearted European leaders disapprove of Saddam’s execution. From the Los Angeles Times:

 

ROME — The death penalty is anathema across Europe, and opposition to the execution of Saddam Hussein was nearly unanimous among its leaders Saturday. At the same time, however, many were torn between those strongly held beliefs and revulsion for the former Iraqi dictator's record of atrocities.

Some of the strongest criticism came from the Vatican. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that all human life must be respected from conception until its "natural end."

The execution "is tragic news … that risks feeding the spirit of revenge and sowing new violence," said Pope Benedict XVI's spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi.

"Even though this is a person guilty of grave crimes," Lombardi told Vatican Radio on Saturday morning, the execution "is a motive for sadness."

"The killing of a guilty party is not the way to build justice nor to reconcile society."

The Vatican's top official for justice issues, Cardinal Renato Martino, said that Hussein was responsible for thousands of deaths but that executing him amounted to punishing "one crime with another crime." Speaking before the hanging, he said, "The death penalty is not a natural death, and no one, not even the state, can kill."

Several European leaders, spanning the political spectrum, questioned whether justice was served by Hussein's execution and said it could bring further bloodshed.

"We've already seen in the first hours the consequences, with a predictable increase in tension and violence," Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said from his home in Bologna.

Spain's center-left government and right-wing opposition, which rarely agree, condemned the hanging of Hussein as well as the late dictator's litany of abuses.

"The death penalty is not justice, it is vengeance, and so it was in this case," Gustavo de Aristegui, a senior official with the opposition Popular Party, told the Spanish news agency EFE. "But nobody will miss Saddam Hussein."

In Britain, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett reiterated her nation's opposition to the death penalty but applauded the process of bringing the former Iraqi leader to trial.

"I welcome the fact that Saddam Hussein has been tried by an Iraqi court for at least some of the appalling crimes he committed against the Iraqi people. He has now been held to account," Beckett said.

"The British government does not support the use of the death penalty, in Iraq or anywhere else," she said. "We advocate an end to the death penalty worldwide, regardless of the individual or the crime. We have made our position very clear to the Iraqi authorities, but we respect their decision as that of a sovereign nation."

But Menzies Campbell, leader of the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, said: "Saddam's death does not vindicate in any way the ill-conceived and disastrous decision to invade Iraq. His execution does not make an illegal war legal any more than it will put an end to the violence and destruction.

"Britain's interests will best be served by the withdrawal of our forces sooner rather than later."

France, which was a strong opponent of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, said Hussein's judgment and sentence were a matter for the Iraqi people.

In a statement, the Foreign Ministry said: "France, which advocates like all its European partners the universal abolition of the death penalty, takes note of Saddam Hussein's execution. That decision belongs to the Iraqi people and to the Iraqi sovereign authorities. France calls on all Iraqis to look forward and to work for reconciliation and national unity. More than ever the aim must be a return to the full sovereignty and stability of Iraq."

European politicians who are friendly to Washington stressed — carefully — their unease with the Hussein execution.

"We respect the decision, but it is known that the German government is opposed to capital punishment," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

"But on a day like this my thoughts are mostly on the many innocent victims of Saddam Hussein," she said.

 

There is, however, one notable exception to this pity party: Poland.

Only in Poland, where a conservative government has remained an enthusiastic ally of the Bush administration, was there unequivocal support for the execution.

"Justice has been meted out to a criminal who murdered thousands of people in Iraq," President Lech Kaczynski's spokesman said, according to news agencies.

"This should serve as a warning to all those who would like to follow in Saddam Hussein's footsteps."

 

Along with having a conservative government, Poland is also a country that has experienced the brutalities of both Hitler and Stalin, and thus has less patience for the idea of extending the life of a mass-murdering totalitarian dictator.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:19 | link | comments

 

Family reunion: CNN reports that Saddam Hussein is to be buried in his hometown, Tikrit (one of the few places in Iraq that doesn’t seem to be prefaced by the phrase “the holy city of…”) in the same cemetery as his two repellent sons, Uday and Qusay.

 

R.I.H. (roil in Hell) the lot of you.

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

 

No banality, just pure, unmitigated evil: David Pryce-Jones reminisces about the trial and execution of another totalitarian brute: Adolf Eichmann. From NRO:

In 1962 I attended portions of the trial in Jerusalem of Adolf Eichmann. The experience was bewildering. There, behind bullet-proof glass, sat Eichmann, intently listening through headphones to the ghastly evidence, and adding to it with every interjection he made.  Apparently sane and self-possessed, he had no idea of the enormity of his crime, talking about it as though mass murder were a part of everyday life. The sight and sound of the man encased in bullet-proof glass misled Hannah Arendt into coining the phrase “The banality of evil.” This has a journalistic ring about it, but it has consistently irritated me. There was nothing banal about Eichmann and the solemnity of his trial was a milestone for humanity.

With Eichmann in front of me, I questioned the death penalty. To take a person’s life, even after due process and a fair trial, is a fearful deed, seeming to overpower taboo and the instinct to respect one’s fellow men.  A day came when his appeal was heard. I was in court. The judge was quoting this and that precedent in international law, and suddenly, without ceremony or pause, he rejected the appeal. Eichmann was escorted away. Everyone else gathered in the small square outside the court, all of us silent, a few in tears. After quite a short time, the news came through, again without ceremony, that he had been hanged. To my surprise, the sun immediately seemed brighter, the sky more blue, the earth cleaner, and I realized that I do not in fact question the death penalty for mass murder.

These responses resurfaced this morning with a surge of emotion at the news that Saddam Hussein has gone to the gallows as once Eichmann had. In the course of his trial, he too had condemned himself with every word he spoke, equally oblivious to the enormity of his crimes, as though mass murder answered to his job description. Anyone who holds that such men really are banal, and shouldn’t pay with their lives for the evil they do, must further explain how justice is to be done to the victims. 

 

I’m so glad that Pryce-Jones, like me, is appalled by the phrase “the banality of evil”—one of the most ridiculous and half-baked notions of the 20^th Century. I for one continue to be appalled by the damage wrought by Hannah Arendt, a German Jewish anti-Zionist whose wrong-headed assesments of Eichmann, the Jews, the Holocaust and Israel continue to inform and show up on the syllabuses (syllabi?) of Israel-bashing academics like Dr. Shiraz Dossa.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:58 | link | comments

 

Saddam’s last words: Q: What do you call people who are bereft at the execution of brutal Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein? A: Palestinians. From YNET News:

Palestinians on Saddam: We lost a leader

(VIDEO) Iraqi tyrant's last words, 'Palestine is Arab,' touch hearts of many Palestinians. 'I cried when I heard the news,' says Jenin resident. Bethlehem residents mourn Saddam, drinking coffee and reminiscing over Gulf War

Many in the Palestinian Authority on Saturday lamented the execution of Saddam Hussein, who received a special status among the Palestinians.

"Saddam was known for his ability to stick to his opinion and say 'no' to a world power," said Husni al-Ajal, 46, from a refugee camp near Ramallah.

The pictures of the "butcher from Baghdad" were hung in many places in the West Bank and Gaza. Some of the pictures featured both Saddam Hussein and former PA Chairman Yasser Arafat.

On Saturday morning, the citizens of Iraq and the entire world were notified that "the criminal Saddam was hanged to death." The Iraqi tyrant, who ruled Iraq between 1979 and 2003, died at around 5 a.m., at the presence of several witnesses from the Iraqi government and a Muslim cleric.

Saddam, on (sic) his part, did not forget the Palestinians also during his last moments. Just before the rope was wrapped around his neck, he shouted, "Allah is great. Long live the Iraqi nation. Palestine is Arab."…

Wrong, noose guy. The Palestinian part of Palestine is Arab. For the moment at least, the Jewish portion of the two abutting Semitic entities remains Israeli.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:28 | link | comments

 

Saddam swings: I have been listening with grim amusement this morning to Ceeb radio coverage about the execution of Saddam Hussein. While describing the details of Saddam’s final moments, reporter Phillip Lee Shannock has been sure to include a few local Iraqi nay-sayers who insist that Saddam didn’t get a fair shake at his trial, and that Iraqis cannot rejoice while the American occupiers are still firmly in place.

 

This kind of reportage is in keeping with the Ceeb’s bizarro world view; two days ago, I listened in astonishment as a newsreader related as accepted fact that it was a bad thing that the Islamists of Somalia had been pushed back by the Ethiopians and the Somali government.

 

As an antidote to the Ceeb’s witchy leftoid snake venom, I offer this piece by James S. Robbins on the NRO site:

 

…There is something grimly primordial about death by hanging. Surely it as ancient a method of execution as rope itself. The placement of the noose, the pause, a final appeal to God, the clatter of the trap door, the snap of the rope, the jerk. A cold and definitive end to a significant historical figure. And the formality ended there, as the witnesses broke into cheers and danced around the body. A native custom I suppose.

Saddam’s final spoken words, “God is great,” were a political statement. They were the last words of a man expecting to be remembered not as a criminal but as a sacrificial victim. This attitude is clear in Saddam’s final missive, released days earlier. He expressed no regrets, apologized for nothing. He counseled his followers against hate, but called for continued violence. He said he would be raised to stand with the martyrs if and when God wills it. But Saddam gave up his genuine chance to be a martyr, unlike his sons. He will not be a greater inspiration dead than alive. The concept of the martyr is overrated — none of history’s villains became more powerful or influential after death. In time it was if they had never existed, except for the evil that they have done, the lives they have destroyed, and the fading memory of just how deadening it was to live in constant fear.

The blandishments of the Baathist holdouts that Saddam’s execution will bring about attacks on the U.S. is hard to take seriously. Are they not already seeking to kill our troops on a daily basis? If they could attack our homeland, wouldn’t they have done it by now? Could they possibly be more violent? Likewise the prevalent non-opinion in the media that this event is not a turning point, that it does not change anything, is hard to take seriously. Saddam’s fate was more than just a loose end that was tied up. It was one of those rare occasions on which we are given the opportunity to witness an act of unqualified righteousness. It was justice made manifest. And it was about time.

 

To employ a Judeo-Christian expression (while I still can), amen to that.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:26 | link | comments

 

Slip sliding away: Sandro Contenta, the Toronto Star’s man on the scene in Europe, urges “secular” continentals to eschew the “Islamophobia” that’s making it so hard for Muslims to integrate into their and embrace the 15 million Muslims in their midst. In other words, to relax and accept that their future as an Islam-dominated continent is all but inevitable:

…The White House's disastrous Middle East policy, particularly its war on Iraq, provoked Muslim outrage worldwide and boosted support for extremist views. Yet even widespread detentions of Muslims in the U.S. after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks didn't cause a noteworthy spike in homegrown terrorism.

By contrast, bombers have hit London and Madrid, a Dutch filmmaker was butchered in the name of Allah on the streets of Amsterdam, a noticeable flow of European Muslims are taking up jihad in Iraq, and arrests of suspected plotters is practically a monthly event.

In Britain alone, 99 people await trial on terror-related charges and 1,600 others are actively engaged in promoting attacks at home and abroad, according to MI5 intelligence.

Immigration patterns made it easier for the U.S. to integrate its Muslim population, estimated at anywhere from three to seven million people. They were better educated and more affluent than Muslim migrants to Europe, and today tend to be better off financially than the average American family.

With few exceptions, European governments spent decades using Turkish and North African immigrant "guest workers" for cheap labour. Neglect, and a belief that they would one day return home, meant they got little help to integrate.

Last year, the Paris-based Montaigne Institute conducted an experiment: It responded to job ads with identical CVs and found that CVs with "traditional" French names got five times as many replies as those with Arab names.

Yet since 9/11, European politicians have defined the problem of integration not in terms of economic and social barriers but in terms of religion.

American Muslims also face a disturbing amount of "Islamophobia." But in a country where the dollar bill proclaims trust in God and Bible study groups are held in the White House, the notion religion might be a barrier to integration is inconceivable. Simply put, Muslims feel more at home in God-fearing America than in Godless Europe.

"If the message they hear from us is that the necessary condition for being European is to abandon their religion, then they will choose not to be European," writes Timothy Gordon Ash, professor of European Studies at Oxford University.

Muslims have much to do to help their integration. An attitude of victimization is setting in that risks seeing Muslims accept their marginal status, indeed wear it as a badge of honour. More effort is needed to develop a European brand of Islam, which fully incorporates values of democracy, tolerance and equality, and is preached by homegrown Imams.

Reform is all the harder, however, in an atmosphere where even Tony Blair, a devout Christian, is reluctant to publicly profess his faith. In the run-up to the Iraq war, when a journalist asked about rumours that he prayed with Bush, the British prime minister allowed his chief spin doctor to cut off the question with a blunt, "I'm sorry, we don't do God.  

The sooner Europe accepts that many of its Muslim citizens are legitimately "doing God," the better.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. The “European brand of Islam” that Sandro is touting is already in full flower—and it differs not a whit from the Sayed Qutb brand of Islam that’s all the rage in the rest of the ummah. Pretending that this is all a matter of a Western failure to integrate, and the U.S. does it so much better overlooks a few obvious points. First that, as Mark Steyn has written, one of the reasons why Muslims have become better integrated in the U.S. has less to do with America being less secular than Europe and more to do with the fact that the U.S. is (to use a word I generally try to avoid) multicultural (which, even so, doesn't prevent a lot of the faithful from wanting America to eventually become Islamic); the countries of Europe, on the other hand (including Britain) are bicultural, consisting of the nationals (Brits, Dutch, French, etc.) and the Muslim immigrants. That makes the minority population far more difficult to assimilate. Which leads me to my second point: A large proportion of this population sees itself as Muslim first and British, Dutch, French or whatever second. These folks are not only averse to integration, but, since the jihad’s in ascendance and demographics are in their favour, they’re far more inclined to make the majority population assimilate with them. And by the looks of it, they’re enjoying a great deal of success with this venture, since with each passing month European leaders, wracked by fear, moral relativism and leftoid self-loathing, make more accommodations and sink their nations even further into what will soon be--if it isn't already--an irreversible state of dhimmitude.

 

So when Sandro Contera says that the sooner Europe accepts that many of its Muslims are “doing God,” the better, he’s right. Because unless the continentals wake up to the jihad imperative embedded in the Koran that’s driving their conquest, they will become (to quote the title of the science fiction classic by Robert Heinlein) strangers in a strange land—a strange Muslim land.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:46 | link | comments

 

Back to the future: Pretend 2007 has already come and gone. That’s what James Lileks does in offering a “look back” at the year ahead. Here are a few highlights:

 

…Fidel Castro died and lay in state for 48 hours while Cubans filed past to pay their respects in the traditional manner. Experts estimated that 24,302 liters of spittle were expelled. Brother Raul declared a "National Day of Mourning and Mopping Up."

North Korea tested a nuclear bomb attached to a medium-range missile; it was headed towards a U.S. carrier group before it was destroyed. The United States subsequently tested several nuclear missiles on North Korean soil. The tests were successful.

Iraq remained a mixed bag. The Kurdish parts were peaceful and prosperous, and hence unreported upon. Evidence of Syrian and Iranian complicity in Iraqi violence continued to accumulate, forcing James Baker to suggest it may be necessary to invade Israel and give Syria the Golan Heights by force. The Bush doctrine, meanwhile, was quietly amended: You're Either With Us Or Against Us. Whatever: It's All Good.

Terror plots in London continued to be unearthed daily. The Labor government, seeking to defuse the more immediate threat of Islamophobia, forbade anti-terrorist squad members from wearing a cross during raids and required all policemen to remove their shoes before raiding mosques.

Vladimir Putin prepared for his eventual retirement in 2008 by forcing the Russian Parliament to create a position called "Czar," which he described as "purely ceremonial." Critics of his imperial ambitions and corrupt, gangster-style government were not reassured by the theft of Lenin's body, which turned up on eBay, was then stolen from the winning bidder and was finally discovered in a London alley. Poisoned…

 

Two can play at the prognostication game. Here are a few of my “backward” glances:

 

• Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became even more brazen in holding pre-genocide conferences, convening one called “Denying the Second Holocaust That’s About to Happen.” Prof. Shiraz Dossa, political science professor at St. Francis Xavier University, delivered a paper at the conference entitled “Joke’s over, Muslims rule: How Holocaust denial and the theories of Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein have prevailed over Zionist hegemony.” He received a standing ovation from those in attendance, including historian David Irving, filmmaker Mel Gibson and 16 members of Neturai Karta. (David Duke had planned to be there, but was forced to cancel at the last moment when a liposuction procedure to suck all the fat out of his head went horribly awry.)

 

• Union boss and erstwhile Toronto Sun columnist Patrick “Sid” Ryan became even more vehement in his desire to institute a boycott of Israel, and in his insistence that it had absolutely nothing to do with any personal animus he harboured toward Jews. “Some of my favourite union members are Jewish,” said Mr. Ryan in his own defence, “and they find the Palestinians even more loveable than I do.” Mr. Ryan continued to laud noted humanitarians like Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Order of Canada recipient, Toronto Star editorial page editor emeritus Haroon Siddiqui, who, like him are only concerned with seeing justice for Arabs in the Middle East.

 

• Toronto policed uncovered another terrorism plot in the Greater Toronto Area. Like a previous plot, it involved a huge quantity of ammonium nitrate and young men whom police describe as coming from “a broad strata of society.” Police declined to reveal the religion of the accused, fearing it would lead to a backlash, but it became difficult to prevent the information from leaking out when several of the arrested shouted “Allahu Akbar” during their court remand.

 

• Prime Minister Stephen Harper called a fall election and was defeated by the Liberals, led by Stephane Dion. Mr. Dion attributed his victory to the fact that global warming had overheated Canadians’ brain cells to the point where they were prepared to forget the kind of corruption and ineptitude that usually prevailed when the Liberals were in power. In a sidebar, Mr. Dion’s dog, Kyoto, gave birth to a litter of three puppies. They were named Pierre, Durban and H.B. (short for “honest broker”).

Happy New Year to all! And I hope we can gather a year from now to see which if any of my predictions have come true.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:34 | link | comments

 

Mideast cul de sac: A Washington Times editorial from a few days ago nails it. There’s no point in trying to reinflate the flaccid political fortunes of Mahmoud Abbas because he’s no more a “partner for peace” than his predecessor was:

 

…Every day that goes by under current conditions -- with Israeli forces no longer patrolling the Gaza/Egypt border and no Palestinian security force in place to stop the terrorist organizations from smuggling heavy weaponry into Gaza (or for that matter conducting large-scale military operations against the terrorists already operating there) -- is another day in which Islamofascist forces grow stronger and Israel's deterrent capability grows weaker. Unfortunately, these realities seem lost on policy-makers in Washington and Jerusalem, who doggedly insist that the solution to the current problem lies in strengthening the "moderate" Mr. Abbas so he can "fight" terrorism. Israeli sources say privately that in recent months, the State Department has leaned on Mr. Olmert (a politician in domestic free-fall) to agree to permit Mr. Abbas to expand Force-17, a Fatah militia. Mr. Olmert, for his part, has responded by embracing Mr. Abbas and becoming his number one Israeli cheerleader, something that is probably not a very good long-term strategy. In May, Mr. Abbas appointed Col. Mahmoud Damra, formerly a top aide to Yasser Arafat, to head Force-17 despite the fact that he was wanted by Mr. Olmert's government for running a West Bank terror cell that had killed and wounded scores of Israelis. He was arrested by Israel three months ago.

    The Bush administration is vigorously promoting U.S. Army Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton's efforts to expand Force-17 despite a disturbing history over the past decade in which Palestinians use their American security training to facilitate terrorist operations against Israel. In 1996, CIA Director George Tenet was authorized by President Clinton to begin training the Palestinians in anti-terror tactics. In 1998, Mr. Clinton browbeat the Israeli government into agreeing to expand the program. When the Palestinians went to war with Israel on September 29, 2000, it turned out that scores of the Palestinian trainees joined al Aqsa and other terror groups involved in suicide bombings and other attacks against the Jewish state. (In the coming weeks, we will provide more detail of how U.S.assistance has been used to train more competent Palestinian terrorists.)

 
    Anyone who believes Mr. Abbas will reform this situation is deluding themselves. As Miss Rice was praising Mr. Abbas in Jericho, the Israeli group Palestinian Media Watch issued a report showing how PA television (which is under Mr. Abbas' control) and the Fatah-controlled newspaper al-Hayat al-Jadida glorify suicide bombings and the use of children in warfare; support terrorist insurgents in Iraq and depict the United States as a menace to the Arab world. Mahmoud Abbas looks increasingly like Yasser Arafat in a business suit.

 

A commentary in that bastion of dhimmitude, the International Herald Tribune (link via Martin Kramer), comes to the same conclusion—that it’s useless to deal with Abbas—but, in a dizzyingly wrong-headed assessment, claims there’s only one way forward: deal with Hamas:

 

…The most fundamental miscalculation of all is the notion that there can be a peace process with a Palestinian government that excludes Hamas. Hamas is not an ephemeral phenomenon that can be extinguished by force of arms. It is as permanent a feature of the Palestinian political landscape as Fatah, which means that no enduring change in relations between Israelis and Palestinians — and certainly no end to violence, or beginning of a political process, let alone meaningful Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank — can occur over its opposition.

 

There is an alternative, and though it, too, is uncertain, it is far less risky or bloody, and hardly has been given a chance. Hamas wants to govern effectively — that is, without a crippling international siege and Israeli military operations. Although it is not willing to formally renounce violence, it is prepared to abide by a comprehensive cease- fire, and has proved its ability to implement it when Israel fully reciprocates.

 

Hamas is willing to deal directly with Israel on day-to- day matters, indirectly on more substantive ones. It will acquiesce in negotiations between Abbas and Olmert and abide by any agreement ratified by popular referendum.

Hamas will not, however, recognize Israel. That's unfortunate. But is it really worth plunging the region into greater chaos because Hamas will not confer upon Israel the legitimacy the Jewish state is granted by virtually every nation in the world?...

 

They’re kidding, right? How on earth is Israel supposed to negotiate a peace agreement with people who not only do not recognize the right of Jews to have a sovereign state, but whose charter calls for a genocide of the Jews? That’s not a petty detail that Israel, for the good of Palestinian solidarity, can pretend to ignore. It is the primary, the fundamental (and fundamentalist) impediment to a two state solution.

 

Me? I say a pox on both Palestinian houses—and phooey on the IHT’s Hamas lobbyists, too.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:03 | link | comments

 

Ceeb “comedy”: Here’s the website for the Ceeb’s new comedy series, Little Mosque on the Prairie, set to air early in the new year. The Ceeb bills the show as “Halalarious,” but persusing the site, it looks like it follows the Ceeb’s usual deadly earnest (and deadly unfunny) formulation re majorities and minorities, i.e. white folks, especially practicing Christians, are generally bad and ignorant; non-white folks are usually good and wise.

 

I’m reserving judgement until I see the shows, but from a clip showing a young Muslim man chatting on his cell phone as he lines up at an airport check-in, and the misunderstanding that ensues when he innocently mentions the words “jihad” and “hijacking” (oh, those silly infidels, always so quick to jump to conclusions), I have a feeling I’m going to find it less than amusing.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:16 | link | comments

 

Bottoms up: Yesterday Reuters reported that Foggy Bottom diva, Condoleezza Rice, wants to use a “back channel” to kick start the moribund Peace in Our Time process. That is, she plans to bypass Hamas, the regime in charge, and deal directly with Mahmoud Abbas, the man in charge of the regime’s rival, Fatah.

 

I’m not sure who came up with the phrase “back channel”—whether it was some Foggy Bottom functionary or Condi herself. But whoever did has a tin ear, because this unfortunate coinage makes it sound like Israel is about to be sodomized.

 

Two articles on the FrontPage magazine site shed light on the impending rape. This one, by Jamie Glazov, deals with the psycho-sexual dysfunction of jihadis and the role sodomy, misogyny and masculinity play in their society. The second, by P. David Hornik, is about the State Department’s demands that Israel bend over and receive its punishment, and how the emasculated Israelis led by Ehud Olmert are complying.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:58 | link | comments

 

In good (and bad) faith: A Muslim leader in the U.K. has rejected the findings of a recent poll sponsored by the Guardian. He says that, contrary to the poll results, religion—and by that he means all religion—is a force for good in society. From The Muslim News:

LONDON, UKIM: President UK Islamic Mission (UKIM) Maulana Shafiq-ur-Rehman has dispelled the impression that religion does more harm than good and it cause division and tension between the people.

Commenting on a recent poll conducted by The Guardian newspaper that painted the religion as cause of ills prevails in the society, he said it is only religion that bind the people in the bond of love and brotherhood and create a sense of self restrain from the acts that are harmful to others. He said historically the societies that have been built on religious beliefs were more peaceful and integrated compared to those of non religious.

He said Europe and America have a long tradition of separating church from state, but at the same time they are equally inclining to mix religion with the politics because of the power the religion has in shaping the society beneficial for human being. Throughout the history, great political and social movements – from abolition to women's suffrage to civil rights to today's struggles over abortion – have drawn upon religious institutions for moral authority, inspirational leadership and organizational muscle.

He said every religion including Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism advocate peace, harmony; justice and love. None of them teach hatred against each other and provoke for wars and destruction. He however, stressed for further interfaith harmony among the different religions to promote peace and tolerance in the society…

Here’s a link to a site that lists the passages in the Koran beseeching believers to wage jihad against infidels. Obviously, the peace, harmony, justice and love contained therein must be implicit, or occluded, or, um, absent since, down through the ages, these words have inspired the faithful to follow the Prophet’s example and use violence and terror to spread the one true faith.

Notice, too, the little tap dance the missionary does around the relationship between church and state, acknowledging Western tradition in dividing the two, but touting the positive social benefits of leaving them intertwined (which is what Islam does). Very clever.

I happen to agree with the maulana (a title of respect that means "master" in Arabic) that religion can be a force for social good. Then again, it can also be the source of disharmony, discord and intolerance, as is the case when the imperatives of one faith clash with the philosophy and modus operendi of the larger society.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:48 | link | comments

 

He’s got the whole haj in His hands: Muslim pilgrims know the risks they run in making haj, one of the sacred obligations of Islam, but say their safety is in God’s hands. From Reuters:

 

MECCA, Saudi Arabia, Dec 28 (Reuters) - Nazir Hussein's uncle and aunt were among 362 Muslim pilgrims who were killed in a stampede in Mecca in January.

But that has not stopped the Indian-born London Underground worker and his two sons from joining 2 million pilgrims who will begin the 5-day haj ritual in the birthplace of Islam on Friday.

"I have absolutely no fear, no concern whatsoever. It is part of our faith and that's why we are here," said Hussein, one of some 23,000 British nationals in Mecca for the annual haj.

"You have to put everything out of your mind because accidents do happen everywhere else in the world."

A duty for every able-bodied Muslim at least once in a lifetime, haj is one of the biggest displays of mass religious devotion in the world. With such large crowds, many of whom gripped by religious fervour, tragedies do happen.

In January, 362 pilgrims were crushed to death due to overcrowding at the Jamarat Bridge during the last haj season. The toll was the worst on the bridge for 16 years. It followed the death of 76 people in the collapse of a hotel in Mecca before the rites began.

Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef said improvements introduced this year would prevent overcrowding at the Jamarat Bridge, which will witness from Sunday the symbolic stoning of the devil, the most incident-prone of haj's rituals.

"We hope that this year's haj will not witness any incidents," Prince Nayef told reporters on Tuesday.

Saudi Arabia has allocated $1.1 billion to expand the Jamarat Bridge into a multi-storey structure. The first phase, completed in time for this week's haj, allows up to 250,000 pilgrims to move across the bridge each hour, a Pilgrimage Ministry official said.

Once the three remaining levels of the bridge are completed, the bridge will be able to accommodate over 4 million pilgrims.

IN THE HANDS OF GOD

Ibrahim Mustapha said he had noticed improvements since last year but that the pilgrims' fate was in God's hands.

"I'm not worried about potential incidents because, at the end of the day, it's all in the hands of God," said the 26-year-old Mauritanian, his second pilgrimage in two years…

 

Maybe so, but while God may be overseeing the big picture, the Saudis, as always, are in charge of the petty logistics. And, as always, should “tragedies” occur due to overcrowding and their own incompetence, they can always pin the blame on the Big Guy.

 

A good way to prevent pilgrims from suing the haj organizers, I’d say.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:22 | link | comments

 

Rachel, Rachel: The Toronto Star has two letters to the editor today condemning CanStage’s decision to nix a production of My Name is Rachel Corrie. Here’s the one posted on the Star’s site:

 

Cancelling play a shameful act

Theatre scraps play on Mideast `martyr'

Dec. 22.

The decision of Martin Bragg, artistic producer of CanStage, to cancel My Name is Rachel Corrie is shameful. Corrie was a brave woman, a supporter of peace and human rights who was killed in a non-violent protest while trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian doctor's house in Gaza by the Israeli army.

As a Jew proud of our tradition of social justice, I honour Corrie's memory. We do no service to Israel by trying to silence those who express criticism of its government's policies.

Stephen K. Levine, Professor Emeritus of Social and Political Thought, York University, Toronto

 

And, of course, I couldn’t resist sending the following letter:

 

Like Stephen Levine and David Copelin, I, too, am distressed by Martin Bragg’s decision to cancel a production of My Name is Rachel Corrie—but for an entirely different reason. I had been looking forward to participating in a protest on opening night during which placards would have been hoisted showing photos of Rachel Thaler, Rachel Charhi, Rachel Levi and several other Rachels.

 

No doubt those names aren’t as familiar to the theatre-going public as Rachel Corrie’s. That’s because these more obscure Rachels, victims of the kind of Palestinian terrorism that Rachel Corrie had gone to Israel to try to defend (she died while attempting to prevent Israelis from demolishing a house in which weapons were being smuggled in order to kill Israeli civilians), have yet to have a theatrical production mounted in their memory. If and when they do, I have no problem with Martin Bragg staging a double bill of My Name is Rachel Corrie along with We Are the Forgotten Victims of Suicide Bombers.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:16 | link | comments (1)

 

Channel surfers: What do you do when a Peace In Our Time process has been stymied by the genocidal terrorists running the show in the P.A.? Why, you try to bypass the guys in charge and find an entry point through the back door. From Reuters:

CAIRO (Reuters) - The U.S. secretary of state will visit the Middle East next month, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Wednesday, adding he would discuss with her the idea of a "back channel" for negotiations with Israel.

Condoleezza Rice last visited the region in late November and held talks with Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The U.S. administration has since welcomed Abbas's calls for early Palestinian polls and Rice said it also planned to ask Congress for funds to support his security forces.

Abbas, addressing a news conference after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo, said: "I discussed the upcoming steps with the president, especially that Dr. Rice is coming here on the 13th and 14th (of January)."

He said he had a plan to form a "back channel" of negotiations with the Israelis about final status issues and would float the idea again during Rice's visit.

"I think that when Rice is here it will be the time to talk about this issue seriously," he said. U.S. embassy officials were not immediately available to comment on Rice's visit.

Abbas and Egypt, a key regional mediator, have proposed moving into final status issues and bypass the U.S.-sponsored "road map" for the Middle East, which has failed to achieve progress because of violence and the West's refusal to work with the governing Hamas group.

He said the parallel channel would involve one or more members of the quartet of Middle East mediators -- the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations. "The back channel will not be public but will not be secret."… 

Taking a “back channel”—what a brilliant idea! But only if you don't mind seeing Israel getting shtupped in the arse.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:17 | link | comments

 

Power failure: We easily-gulled Westerners continue to fall for the “religion of peace” line, despite oodles of evidence to the contrary and the attendant cognitive dissonance it entails. However, for progressive-minded Westerners, political Islam does have one very tender Achilles heel: its dreadful treatment of women. As an example, when the government of Ontario was considering whether or not to give legal sanction for Islamic tribunals, it was women from Muslim countries who’d come to Canada to escape the rigidities of sharia law, as well a women of a certain age, many of whom had fought on the barricades during the feminist revolution of the early 1970s, who raised their voices in protest and convinced the province to back down. In an article  in The Australian, a scribe named Janet Albrechtsen tries to maintain the proper tone of political correctness while concurring with a UN report that women in the Arab world are extremely downtrodden, and that change is essential:

…A few weeks ago the latest UN Arab Human Development Report was released. It is the final report in a groundbreaking four-part series that calls for nothing short of an Arab renaissance. Groundbreaking because critical self-analysis is rare in the Arab world.

This final report, which focuses on the empowerment of women as one of the main deficits confronting the Arab world, reveals some progress for Arab women. Last year, Kuwait gave women the vote. Some Arab legislators have given equal pay the nod. Small, incremental steps. But, overall, liberation for Arab women is a long way off.

This is not about Western-style feminism, where empowerment in the 21st century is baring one's navel (and the rest), talking dirty and sliding up and down a pole, should that take your fancy.

Understandably, many in the Arab world have little time for Western feminism and are rather wary of Western agendas.

When the UN Arab Human Development Report talks about women's empowerment, it's about basic stuff: half the women in the Arab world are illiterate and in all but four Arab countries less than 80 per cent of girls go to secondary school (the exceptions are Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar and the Palestinian territories.) It's about lack of health care: the maternal mortality rate in Arab countries is about 270 per 100,000 live births, almost 20 times higher than in the US.

It's about lack of political engagement. Although more women in Arab countries now vote, women's participation is largely symbolic. Few women wield real power. In Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, women are still waiting for the right to vote.

It's about Arab women being economically marginalised, with work force participation the lowest in the world at 33 per cent. Where half the population is relegated to "girl jobs" such as nursing and teaching, unable to work without their husbands' consent, forbidden from associating with men in the workplace, it's clear that women are excluded from basic freedoms that we take for granted.

And it's about violence. The report reveals that the family "has been transformed from a place of safety and security to one where any type of violence against women may be practised". Pointing to World Health Organisation statistics, it tells us that 97 per cent of women in Egypt have been circumcised, even though the barbaric practice was outlawed in 1997.

Despite the grim news, we should be heartened by this report. Recognising the need for equality between women and men is a important step in the right direction. But no one should underestimate the size of the task. Empowering women is an incredibly subversive thing to do. It strikes at the heart of a culture that prefers to treat women poorly. Recall that the immediate trigger for the mujaheddin insurgents in Afghanistan rising up against the Soviet-backed communist government in the late 1970s was the introduction of education for women.

Minus the mujaheddin crazies, girl power, even at its most basic, is still not a neutral issue. It raises sensitive questions of religion and culture. Although the report's authors are keen to give Islam a break, claiming that religion is not to blame for the continuing degradation of women, there is no getting around the fact that a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam is not exactly girl-friendly…

“Not exactly girl-friendly”—Ms. Albrechtsen has just won the prize for understatement of the year.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:17 | link | comments

 

Losing out: This one’s for Patrick “Sid” Ryan and all the other Canadian leftoids lobbying for a boycott of Israeli products. From FrontPage Magazine:

 

OK. So I understand that you are ticked off at Israel, and in love with the Palestinians.

That's fine with me, as long as you have truly weighed up all the facts.

So, you want to boycott Israel?

I'll be sorry to miss you, but if you are doing it - do it properly.

Let me help you.

Make sure that you do not have tablets, drops, lotions, etc., made by Abic or Teva.

It may mean that you will suffer from colds and flu this winter but, hey, that's a small price for you to pay in your campaign against Israel, isn't it?

While we are on the subject of your Israeli boycott, and the medical contributions to the world made by Israeli doctors and scientists, how about telling your pals to boycott the following....

An Israeli company has developed a simple blood test that distinguishes between mild and more severe cases of Multiple Sclerosis.

So, if you know anyone suffering from MS, tell them to ignore the Israeli patent that may, more accurately, diagnose their symptoms.

An Israeli-made device helps restore the use of paralysed hands. This device electrically stimulates the hand muscles, providing hope to millions of stroke sufferers and victims of spinal injuries.

If you wish to remove this hope of a better quality of life to these people, go ahead and boycott Israel.

Young children with breathing problems will soon be sleeping more soundly, thanks to a new Israeli device called the Child Hood.

This innovation replaces the inhalation mask with an improved drug delivery system that provides relief for child and parent.

Please tell anxious mothers that they shouldn't use this device because of your passionate cause.

These are just a few examples of how people have benefitted medically from the Israeli know-how you wish to block…

See, Sid, if you decided to boycott Iran or Saudi Arabia instead, the only thing you’d be missing out on is the oil.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:43 | link | comments

 

Moo’s “Dear Ben” letter: In keeping with the rules of jihad as set out by the most perfect human being to have ever existed in the entire history of the world, Moo Ahmadinejad, a real by-the-book kinda guy, has sent a letter to the Pope.

 

The Vatican hasn’t disclosed the contents, but I have a hunch it boils down to something along the lines of "revert or suffer the consequences." From Forbes.com:

Pope Benedict XVI received a letter Wednesday from Iran's hardline president about the recent U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions against Tehran for refusing to compromise on its nuclear program, Iran's state-run news agency reported.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's letter was delivered by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki after the pontiff's general audience at the Vatican's Paul VI hall, the Vatican said.

The Vatican did not release details of the content of Ahmadinejad's letter, but Iran's state-run IRNA news agency said the note focused on Saturday's Security Council vote approving sanctions against Iran in the standoff over its nuclear program.

The Vatican said Benedict stressed his apolitical role in his brief meeting with Mottaki.

The Pope "reaffirmed the role that the Holy See intends to carry out for world peace, not as a political authority but as a religious and moral one ... so that peoples' problems will always be solved in dialogue, mutual understanding and peace," the Vatican said in a statement…

Good luck with that one, your Eminence.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:09 | link | comments (2)

Humaniterrorism in action: Q: When is a genocidal terrorist organization not a genocidal terrorist organization. A: When easily-gulled Westerners note how it bribes, er, tends to the needs of its people. From Der Spiegel online:

The West classifies Hamas as a terrorist organization, but in the Gaza Strip, the Islamist organization is widely respected for helping families in need. International aid groups also praise Hamas for being free of corruption.

Etidal Sinati's life in poverty began one night in March 2003. Israeli helicopters were flying air attacks on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza City and Etidal's husband Mohammed and a group of other men from the neighborhood went out to assess the damage. But the Israelis weren't done; an attack helicopter returned and fired on the onlookers. Etidal's husband was killed, leaving her with seven children and no one to provide for them. Overnight, the Sinatis became a welfare case -- and loyal to Hamas. The radical Islamist group took the destitute family under its wing.

"My husband was not a Hamas supporter. In fact, he was for Fatah," says Sinati, now a widow. It is cold in her two-room hut; a mentally ill uncle sits in a corner occasionally laughing to himself and pulling his wool blanket over his head. "But without Hamas we wouldn't have survived, and even with their support it's been difficult."

The official pension for the wife of a "martyr" -- a Palestinian killed by the Israeli military -- is €100 every three months. For a large family living in Gaza, this is about enough for one good seafood meal, but is not enough to live on. "So Hamas adopted my children," says Etidal Sinati. The widow receives €15 a month in child support for each child, and all of her children attend a school run by Hamas free of charge. "I voted for the crescent in the January election," says the illiterate Etidal. The crescent moon is Hamas's symbol.

A party for the poor

At first glance Hamas, a party that looks after the poor with its money and charity, appears to be playing a well-known tune on the instrument of populism. On the other hand, every major international aid organization is singing the Islamist group's praises when it comes to the quality of its work. "In the International Crisis Group's 2003 report, the most important American NGOs gave perfect marks to Hamas's work; they couldn't have achieved a better result," says Helga Baumgarten, a lecturer at Birzeit University in Ramallah…

Oh, that Hamas. It’s just so…compassionate.

For me the most amusing part of this unintentionally amusing article is the name of the person who wrote it: Ulrike Putz.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:12 | link | comments

 

The NYT’s faux heroes and villains: A typically clueless New York Times editorial criticizing Israel for emitting “mixed messages”:

The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, took some encouraging steps over the weekend to ease the frustrations Palestinians face at West Bank and Gaza checkpoints. He hoped in that way to strengthen Mahmoud Abbas, the embattled moderate who presides over the Palestinian Authority. Unfortunately, Israel’s defense minister, Amir Peretz, has undercut these moves by approving the first new West Bank settlement in more than a decade.

Israel’s space for peace diplomacy is tightly constrained. It must reckon with a Hamas-led Palestinian cabinet that denies its right to exist and rejects the very notion of a negotiated peace. Yet those facts of Mideast life do not justify authorizing a new settlement. That self-defeating move adds nothing to Israel’s security and needlessly complicates the quest for an eventual negotiated peace.

We hope Mr. Olmert or Israel’s Parliament can reverse Mr. Peretz’s damaging decision, taken in defiance of the international road map for Middle East peace, which Israel’s governing coalition has pledged to support.

Meanwhile, Mr. Olmert’s positive gestures still deserve recognition, although the hoped-for benefits to Mr. Abbas may now be lost. More than two dozen military checkpoints in the West Bank will be removed and Israel will take steps to ease the passage of goods in and out of the Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip. These steps should reduce the day-to-day humiliation and economic suffering of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Palestinians.

In addition, Israel will turn over $100 million of the $500 million in Palestinian tax revenue it has withheld since Hamas came to power. This page supports freezing aid to the Hamas government. But tax revenue to which the Palestinians are legally entitled should never have been withheld.

Compared to the sweeping visions of the Oslo peace agreements, or Ariel Sharon’s bold Gaza withdrawal, Mr. Olmert’s gestures look modest. Yet in today’s unpromising circumstances, with Mr. Olmert damaged by the Lebanon war and Mr. Abbas so far unable to nudge Hamas toward moderation, they approach the limits of the possible. Unfortunately, it has become traditional in Israel to balance constructive gestures with sops to the politically potent settlers movement. The settlers’ agenda is not supported by a majority of Israelis. But no recent government has felt strong enough to resist their demands. Even when Mr. Sharon faced them down over Gaza, he compensated them with promises to expand existing West Bank settlements. Mr. Peretz has gone one regrettable step further by approving a wholly new settlement whose aim is to relocate settlers uprooted from Gaza last year.

Today, the idea of a comprehensive peace between Israelis and Palestinians seems a distant dream. Yet it represents the best long-term assurance of Israel’s survival as a secure Jewish democracy at peace with its Arab neighbors. Every new settlement planted on the West Bank creates a needless obstacle to the realization of that dream.

Don’t you love how the NYT employs the royal “we” as it pronounces on world events? An expression of the paper’s absurd grandiosity and self-regard, I’d say. As for the whole scary, wicked settlers scenario, the one so beloved of the kind of wishful thinkers who were convinced that Gaza disengagement, followed by West Bank disengagement, would result in “a secure Jewish democracy at peace with its Arab neighbors,” it’s a total crock. The settlers aren’t the ones obstructing “the dream” of peaceful cohabitation; the jihad, Islamic supremacism and a soon-to-be nuclear Iran are.

But it’s so much more comforting to lapse into the familiar and make the settlers the bad guys.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:02 | link | comments

 

Nuclear watchkitty, declawed: Want to know why the mullahs are laughing at us? Look no further than this AFP report about the U(seless)N(itwit)s’ most laughably (and dangerously) ineffectual agency, the IAEA:

VIENNA: The United Nations atomic agency's 35-nation board of governors may meet in January to discuss the UN's levying of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme, diplomats said.

The UN Security Council resolution which on Saturday imposed the sanctions also requested a report from International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei within 60 days on whether Iran has suspended uranium enrichment, which makes nuclear reactor fuel but also atom bomb material, and cooperated fully with an ongoing IAEA investigation.

"It is not completely clear that there will be a board meeting in January. But I believe that if there was, it would be procedural and short. The board as the governing body may need to instruct the (IAEA) secretariat to implement the resolution," a senior European diplomat said.

It’s not completely clear if there will be an IAEA board meeting next month. What is completely clear, though, is that the IAEA’s diplomatic fecklessness has helped facilitate the mullahs’ big kaboom.

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

 

Good sports: In light of what’s been happening between Ethiopia and Somalia—Somalian Islamists declaring holy war on Christian Ethiopia, and the Ethiopians fighting back and not taking any of their guff—this Nigerian news report about the Islamists re-opening a sports ministry seems deliciously gaga. From the Vanguard:

Following a reconstruction and renovation program the Somali Islamic courts have re-opened the former national sports ministry, the International Sports Press Association (AIPS) reports.

The Islamic courts High Commission for Sports Affairs which functions as the sports ministry under the Islamic law will work at the ministry compound as its base.
Built in 1972, the ministry consists of 20 rooms. Only six have been repaired by the Islamists High Commission for Sports Affairs.

Sheik Abdullahi Ahmed Ibraahim, a former sports fan of the LLPP Jenyo football club addressed the celebration gathering and said that Islamists “are not against sport, because sport makes people stronger and what the Somali Islamists want is that sport must be done in accordance with Islamic law.”

The Sheik said the prophet Mohamed of Islam had allowed some kinds of sport games including: swimming, wrestling, jumping, archery and many others, but all those are to be accomplished under the Islamic law.

First Vice-president of the Somali Olympic Committee Mr Aden hajji Yabarow “Wiish” praised the Islamic courts for dedicating to opening of the national sports ministry after 16 years of civil war in the country.

“This compound is where we used to work and I am to see it working again”, he said. “NOC Somalia was the national flag carrier and represented the nation at many of the worlds’ greatest gatherings and still we are taking the flag into the whole world and we hope the Islamic courts will respect the Somali NOC as an independent leader of the nation,” Yabarow said.

The Islamic courts high commissioner for sports affairs Sheik Abdulkadeer Hajji Hassan Gurey thanked the Somali NOC for what he called “the good co-operation with his office”.

Hilarious! Can’t wait to see the Islamic beach volley ball tournament. I hear those babes in burqas are really hot (in more ways than one).

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:26 | link | comments

 

Dire forecast: Worst-case scenario: Islamic lunatics eager to bring on the Apocalypse working to construct nuclear weapons. Worst-worst-case scenario: Islamic lunatics, working in hidden, unreachable locations, and completing construction of nuclear weapons. From FrontPage Magazine:

 

…Once the UN Security Council resolution was passed, Ahmadinejad’s top nuclear advisor, Ali Larijani, said the regime now planned to accelerate the installation of the production centrifuges.

 

“From Sunday morning [December 24] , we will begin activities at Natanz – the site of 3,000-centrifuge machines – and we will drive it with full speed. It will be our immediate response to the resolution,” Iran’s Kayhan paper quoted him as saying.

 

How is this possible? Well, for one thing, it is likely that Iran has been producing centrifuges in factories and workshops it has not declared to the IAEA. Worse, it may be operating a clandestine enrichment facility buried deep underground already, as many in Israel and U.S. intelligence have long believed.

 

The Israelis told me this summer this was their “worst-worst case” scenario. But a senior Israeli intelligence official I saw recently said the likelihood of that “worst-worst case” now appeared to be far greater than he or others had previously believed. “There can be no doubt they have a clandestine program,” he said.

 

And because it’s clandestine, we don’t know the size or shape of it, and therefore can’t make estimates of Iran’s nuclear timeline based on speculation and fear. But now the Israelis, the Americans and the British are beginning to understand – finally – that what they don’t know about Iran could be fatal.

 

After all, they are facing a president in Iran who has said that the Holocaust never really occurred under Hitler, but that he intended to carry it out himself, by accomplishing Ayatollah Khomeini’s goal of “wiping Israel off the map.”

 

On December 21 – just two days before the UN Security Council resolution – British Prime Minister Tony Blair gave the bleakest assessment of his entire tenure at 10 Downing Street of the threat posed to the West by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

 

Speaking in Dubai, he gave an unusually blunt speech that warned of a monumental struggle between Islamic moderates and Islamic extremists, and that labeled Iran as “the main obstacle” to hopes for peace…

 

Sorry, but given the situation, describing Iran as “the main obstacle” to hopes for peace seems exceptionally lame; kind of like Churchill (not to say that Blair is a Churchill) calling Nazi Germany the main obstacle to peace. Well, duh! Of course Iran’s an obstacle. A honking big obstacle. An Antarctica of an obstacle. But, to be even blunter than Blair, it’s not just an obstacle. It’s a confident totalitarian power that won’t be deterred from a global agenda that includes an Islamic version of the Thousand Year Reich and culminates in the destruction of the globe. Kind of hard to maneuver around that kind of “obstacle,” especially when it comes equipped with an arsenal of occluded nukes.

 

All I can say is fasten your seatbelts, folks. In coming months, we’re in for a lot of turbulence.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:04 | link | comments

 

Jimminy’s “Jewish problem”: Michael B. Oren, author of a superb history of the Six Day War, takes on Jimminy Dhimminy’s new book. Oren writes that Jimminy’s problem with Israel is religious in nature, and that, in asking Americans to rethink their support for Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, he is going against American tradition. From Opinion Journal:

 

Several prominent scholars have taken issue with Jimmy Carter's book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," cataloguing its historical inaccuracies and lamenting its lack of balance. The journalist Jeffrey Goldberg also critiqued the book's theological purpose, which, he asserted, was to "convince American Evangelicals to reconsider their support for Israel."

 

Mr. Carter indeed seems to have a religious problem with the Jewish state. His book bewails the fact that Israel is not the reincarnation of ancient Judea but a modern, largely temporal democracy. "I had long taught lessons from the Hebrew Scriptures," he recalls telling Prime Minister Golda Meir during his first tour through the country. "A common historical pattern was that Israel was punished whenever the leaders turned away from devout worship of God. I asked if she was concerned about the secular nature of the Labor government."

 

He complains about the fact that the kibbutz synagogue he enters is nearly empty on the Sabbath and that the Bibles presented to Israeli soldiers "was one of the few indications of a religious commitment that I observed during our visit." But he also reproves contemporary Israelis for allegedly mistreating the Samaritans--"the same complaint heard by Jesus almost two thousand years earlier"--and for pilfering water from the Jordan River, "where . . . Jesus had been baptized by John the Baptist."

Disturbed by secular Laborites, he is further unnerved by religiously minded Israelis who seek to fulfill the biblical injunction to settle the entire Land of Israel. There are "two Israels," Mr. Carter concludes, one which embodies the "the ancient culture of the Jewish people, defined by the Hebrew Scriptures," and the other in "the occupied Palestinian territories," which refuses to "respect the basic human rights of the citizens."

 

Whether in its secular and/or observant manifestations, Israel clearly discomfits Mr. Carter, a man who, even as president, considered himself in "full-time Christian service." Yet, in revealing his unease with the idea of Jewish statehood, Mr. Carter sets himself apart from many U.S. presidents before and after him, as well as from nearly 400 years of American Christian thought…

 

Carter reminds me of the preacher I met in Kentucky who had just been to the “Holy land” and who had enjoyed seeing all the ancient places where Jesus and the first Christians had tread so long ago, but who clearly was discomfited by Israel’s being a modern Jewish state full of real live modern Jews.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:32 | link | comments (1)

 

An “F” in History: Like Ehud Olmert, George Bush seems determined to follow the road map to Stupidville and try to pump up the deflated political fortunes of Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah with tons of cash. As if it’s the paucity of cash in Fatah’s treasury that’s the impediment to peace. In FrontPage Magazine, Eric Umansky explains why a policy that harkens back to a time when Israel and U.S. reanimated the moribund fortunes of another sidelined Fatah-head, Yasser Arafat, is just as crappy (and maybe ever crappier) today:

…Ironically, the strategy isn't likely to help Fatah or Abbas, whose problem isn't lack of money or guns but paucity of support. "Our image in the streets is very bad," one "senior Fatah official" told Time. "We are seen as self-interested and collaborators [with Israel], not fighters for Palestine." Meanwhile, the White House has long demurred from pushing Israel to do things that would have shored up Abbas, such as scaling back checkpoints, allowing an increased flow of goods, and generally making everyday life in the territories a little more livable.

Of course, propping up the security forces isn't just a solid bet to backfire on Fatah's interests but also on our own.

In the long run, the world would benefit from a Palestinian government that was truly representative of and responsive to its people. (Polls consistently show Palestinians support a two-state solution.) It's not an easy task, and Washington's options for helping are probably limited to providing incentives for good governance and disincentives for the lack of it. But one thing is clear: Buying off the security forces isn't the way to go.

If Palestinians are so consistent in their support for a two-state solution, why do they consistently choose leadership that’s committed to Israel’s demise? Actions speak louder than polls, I say.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:05 | link | comments (1)

 

On desecration and delusion: Another must-read by the great Caroline Glick in the Jerusalem Post:

You have to wonder what thoughts passed through the minds of Bethlehem's Christians as Palestinian Authority Chairman and Fatah commander Mahmoud Abbas appeared at the Church of the Nativity for Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.

On April 2, 2002, as IDF forces swept into Bethlehem to root out the terrorists who had taken control of the city, between 150 and 180 Fatah terrorists under Yasser Arafat's command shot their way into the Church of the Nativity. For the next 39 days they held the sacred site and some 150 clergymen hostage.

Three weeks into the siege, three Armenian monks escaped from the church through a side entrance and revealed what was happening inside. Friar Narkiss Koraskian told reporters: "They stole everything. They stole our prayer books and four crosses. They didn't leave anything."

When the siege ended, the released hostages told of frequent beatings of clergymen. The terrorists, they told The Washington Times, "ate like greedy monsters," gorging themselves on food and slurping down beer, wine and Johnny Walker scotch they stole from the rectory as their hostages went hungry.

CATHOLIC priests said that the terrorists used their bibles as toilet paper. Franciscan priest Nicholas Marques from Mexico reported: "Palestinians took candelabra, icons and anything that looked like gold." Thirteen of the ring-leaders of the siege were deported to Cyprus and then dispersed to European countries. Twenty-six were sent to Gaza.

Bethlehem's Christians could not hide their relief at the expulsions. They spoke of a "reign of terror," of rape, murder and extortion that the men had waged against them over the previous two years. Helen, a Christian woman, told The Washington Times, "Finally the Christians can breathe freely. We are so delighted that these criminals who have intimidated us for such a long time are going away."

On Saturday night, as part of his massive effort to "strengthen" Abbas, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agreed to convene a joint committee to discuss the return of these terrorists to the city.

Speaking of his good friend Mahmoud on Sunday afternoon to a Kadima audience in Ashkelon, Olmert allowed that "Abu Mazen [Abbas] is an adversary." But, he explained, he is an enemy Olmert can do business with.

IT IS TRUE that business sometimes can be done with enemies. But what business can Olmert do with Abbas? And how does any of this business advance Israel's national interests?..

Good question. Surely Olmert must realize that if the Palestinians have their way, they will treat the entire State of Israel with the same kind of delicacy and respect they accorded the besieged Church of the Nativity.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:38 | link | comments

 

'Shmuck' writes letter: A nasty piece of anti-Israel invective in the Globe and Mail’s letters to the editor (sorry, no link):

 

The Hamas debate

 

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is right to reject talks with Hamas (Harper Calls Hamas ‘Genocidal’—Dec. 21). First, those irrational Palestinians refused to give up their lands to create a homeland for European Jews fleeing European anti-Semitism. Then they stubbornly insisted on calling themselves a ‘people’ even former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir informed them that they were not. With preposterous temerity, Palestinian refugees who fled or were expelled still want to return home. Now these restless natives expect the world to recognize the government they democratically elected.

 

Such intolerable chutzpah knows no bounds.

JOHN DIRLIK, Pointe Claire, Que.

 

Good for John: save for explicitly denying the Shoah, he’s managed to hit all of the avowedly genocidal Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s talking points. Israelis as alien, European interlopers: check. Selective citation of history so as to ignore the following: Israel’s Jewish identity (which predates the appearance of Islam by many centuries); the centrality of Israel and Jerusalem to the Jewish people and the Jewish religion; the unceasing presence of Jews in Israel down through the ages; the provenance of the almost equivalent number of Jewish refugees who fled or were expelled from Arab/Muslim lands at the same time the Palestinians fled or were expelled, and who were settled without argument (and without UN intervention) in Israel. Check, check, check and check. Palestinians (an obdurate, stiff-necked, stubborn people, full of “chutzpah”) as the new Jews: mega-check.

 

Even though I am weary of making the same points over and over again, and even though I know there is no budging the John Dirliks of the world, immoveable in their world view and how Israel fits into it, I sent the Globe the following letter:

 

John Dirlik’s sarcastic letter about the Palestinians’ supposed “chutzpah” is a perfect example of the kind of identify theft that, unfortunately, now pervades the Israel-Palestine debate. In this carefully-crafted narrative, the Palestinians, forced to leave their homeland and wander in a diaspora when the Jewish state was declared in 1948, are perceived as the “new” Jews while the Jews, who are solely responsible for the “catastrophe” that led to the Palestinians’ dispersal, are styled as their oppressors. The tables have thus been turned and the Jews, with their sad history of persecution have, irony of ironies, themselves become the persecutors.

 

The problem with this formulation is that it overlooks the facts—the fact that the Palestinians have many opportunities to become a separate nation, and have for various reasons declined to do so; the fact that, while there are over 50 Arab and Muslim nations in the world, there is a single Jewish one, and that Israel still has the cheek, the “chutzpah,” to insist on its right to exist on a planet where the odds are so skewed against it.

 

Thus, when Mr. Dirlik mentions that millions of “restless” Palestinians have the “right to return” to Israel—by the way, another concept appropriated from the Jews who, throughout the centuries of their dispersal retained the hope, the “hatikvah” (fittingly, the title of Israel’s national anthem) of returning to their ancestral homeland—he’s adhering to a narrative that can end only one way: with the termination of Jewish sovereignty in Israel.

 

If that isn’t “chutzpah,” I don’t know what is.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:35 | link | comments

 

A counterproductive request: Question: why is the U.S. telling Ethiopia to lay off the bad guys?

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:12 | link | comments

 

France’s infamy: Here’s a review of a book I have just finished reading and can highly recommend: David Pryce-Jones’s Betrayal: France the Arabs and the Jews. The book documents how France's perceptions of itself as un puissance Muslime, and its insistence on seeing Jews as being outside the mainstream of French society, has had dire consequences for the Republic and its egalitarian ideals. From Literary Review (link via Martin Kramer):

 

As I write, it is exactly a year since the desolate banlieues of France erupted in an orgy of violence, on a scale which had not been seen for generations. At the time, these riots were blamed on social exclusion. Since then, it has become clear that the rioters are not just 'immigrants' or 'youths', but are first and foremost Muslims. When they set light to a car, their cry is often: 'Allahu akhbar!' ('Allah is great!')

 

The violence, moreover, is endemic and ubiquitous. In 2005, there were 110,000 incidents of urban violence, including 45,000 vehicles burnt out. This year, there has been an average of over 100 incidents a day. Since the riots supposedly subsided last January, some 3,000 police officers are reported to have been injured. France is quite deliberately being made ungovernable.

 

This 'French intifada' was merely the culmination of a process that has turned many suburbs into no-go areas for the police and increasingly for non-Muslims too. In particular, the Islamist rabble-rousers who are behind the insurgency have incited their followers to attack Jews, who are now outnumbered by Muslims in France by at least ten to one.

 

How has it come to this? In this devastating indictment, the cri de coeur of an Englishman who loves France but is exasperated by the French, the background to this breakdown of civil society gradually emerges. David Pryce-Jones has discovered the explanation in the archives of the French foreign ministry, known after its imposing headquarters, the Quai d'Orsay. The corps diplomatique who have run this institution like a private club - known to initiates simply as 'la carrière' - are responsible not only for the decline of French prestige abroad, but also for creating the conditions for the unfolding catastrophe at home…

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:07 | link | comments

 

The perils of Haj: Fires. Overcrowding. Getting trampled to death by a crowd that’s stoning the Devil. Not to mention the threat of an attack by al Qaeda. Just a few of the potential dangers awaiting the estimated 2 million+ pilgrims making Haj this year. From CNN:

 

Riyadh: As Haj pilgrimage begins in Saudi Arabia this week there are concerns that al-Qaida may target the holy sites. Saudi Arabia had earlier this month detained 136 foreign and Saudi militants, some posing as pilgrims, who were planning a series of suicide bombings and assassinations around the desert country of 24 million people.

Intelligence reports indicate al-Qaida's plans to set off a wave of suicide bombings and assassinations. The situation is tense given that more than 2 million Muslims from all over the world come to Mecca to perform Haj.

Adding to the concern is the threat of Shia-Sunni violence with sectarian killings that have brought neighbouring Iraq to the brink of civil war. There is also the standoff in Lebanon between a Sunni-led government and Shia protestors

Besides that stampedes due to overcrowding at the Mecca shrine remain a perennial concern. The authorities have deployed 50,000 security personnel for the duration of the Haj.

"We have been prepared to deal with the worst, may God forbid it, including things that can be deadlier than sectarian violence, stampedes or building collapses," said a senior police officer in Makkah.

Over 2 million Muslims begin the Haj in Saudi Arabia this week amid tight security and increased safety measures.

Iranian and other pilgrims have used the Haj for political protests in the past. "There is enough violence and bloodshed on the news about Muslims. Shame on those who provoke or get involved in more violence against fellow Muslims and spoil the Haj for themselves and others," said Iranian teacher Ahmed Nasifi, in Makkah for Haj…

Yeah, haven’t they heard it’s a religion of peace?

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:30 | link | comments

 

Short guy, short lists: Guess who was on the short list for World Mayor (an annual award acknowledging mayoral excellence) in 2005? I’ll give you a hint: he’s currently on the short list for World Leader Whose Political Agenda Most Closely Resembles Hitler’s.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:17 | link | comments

 

Speaking to Iranians: A story in the Boston Globe describes the schizophrenic mindset of the Iranian people (who, we keep being assured, just need a little more support before some day soon, any time now, maybe the day after tomorrow, how about next summer?, take matters into their own hands and muster the gumption to topple the mully-bullies): on the one hand, they detest the religious party-poopers who are in charge of their government; on the other hand, while they adore American culture, they aren’t too fond of America’s foreign policy:

 

TEHRAN -- At a time of worsening tension between Iran and the United States, many Iranians are asking whether the two estranged nations can still move past their old arguments and at least communicate civilly, if not reconcile.

 

Young Iranians are often quick to say they don't like their government's handling of the issues that divide the two countries, but many also say the US policy of isolating Iran has entrenched the conflict. From reformists to hard-liners, Iranians suggest that the United States needs to take the first step toward resuming a diplomatic dialogue -- by showing Iran some respect.

 

"If the United States just corrects its behavior against Iran, we can open the door," said Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Jalili, who has worked closely with the nation's top clerics. "We have a proverb: 'We don't expect any benefits, but just don't hurt us.' "

 

Formal contacts between the two countries all but stopped after the countries broke relations after the seizure of American diplomats at the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979, at the height of the Islamic Revolution that toppled the shah. Under US policy, American diplomats are not allowed to talk to Iranian officials. The governments grant few visas for each others' citizens -- and last month Iran began fingerprinting arriving American visitors, matching the US practice for Iranians.

 

But many Iranians go out of their way to tell visiting Americans that they think their government's "Death to America" antipathy to the United States is pointless rhetoric at best.

 

In a restaurant in Isfahan, a city whose blue-tiled mosques testify to its history as the former seat of Persian dynasties, two dozen miniature flags lined the shelf above an impressive dessert. The flags of Paraguay and several African countries were there, but the Stars and Stripes was nowhere to be seen.

 

Asked about it, the owner leapt from his chair.

 

"You are Americans? We apologize!" he exclaimed. "It's the politicians. That's just how it goes here. I am a fanatic of America -- I love those people! I was a manager in the Cheesecake Factory!"

 

The restaurateur, an Iranian in his 20s who didn't want his name printed, confided that the recipe for the fudge mint cake beneath his row of flags came home with him from Atlanta, where he worked for the restaurant chain for two years.

 

The mixed message matches Iranians' mixed feelings about the United States: They may like American people, movies, and music, but most don't like the US government or its policies in the Middle East. And they are anxious for Americans to draw the same distinction: Iranians, they insist, are not the same as the Iranian government.

 

Prospects for increased contact got a boost this month when the Iraq Study Group, the bipartisan American panel established to recommend solutions to the Iraq crisis, recommended that the US government talk directly to Iran, which as a Shi'ite Muslim country has affinity and influence with many of the majority Shi'ites in neighboring Iraq…

 

Oy vey. From the sounds of it, the Iranian people are as clueless about the true nature of those who rule over them as the Iran Study Group is (or was); they have absolutely no sense of Iran as being the mothership sustaining a whole gamut of terrorist/jihadist organizations in the region and around the world; they are blind to the fact that their leaders are the world’s bad guys, this era’s version of the Nazis and the Communists. As such, they pose an immense threat to the entire world, a threat that won’t, that can’t, be resolved by those who are oblivious to it. Which means that, for the sake of our own survival, perhaps it’s best not to rely on regular Iranians or the Iran Study Group to defend our interests against belligerent, remorseless, fanatical, Apocalpse-minded Shias who will soon be armed with nuclear weapons.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:57 | link | comments

 

Jews apart: Alan Dershowitz proposes a new category to describe those Jews—like Norman Finkelstein and Neturai Karta—who work against Jewish interests: Jews for Hezbollah.

 

I have another name for them: scum.

 

Of course, I’d put people like Jimmy Carter and Kofi Annan in that category, too.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:33 | link | comments

One jihad, indivisible: Ethiopia has been forced to take drastic action after the true believers in Somalia heeded Allah’s call and declared a holy war on Ethiopia. Lots of the “bruthus” have been killed, and Ethiopia, shades of Israel’s summer war with Hezbollah, has even scored a direct hit on Mogadishu Airport. Funny thing, though. So far there have been no international howls of outrage at Ethiopia’s “disproportionate response.” Go figure.

From the Jerusalem Post:

Ethiopian fighter jets bombed Mogadishu International Airport in the middle of Somalia's capital Monday, in the first direct attack on the headquarters of an Islamic movement attempting to wrest power from the internationally-recognized government.

There was no immediate information about casualties, but several buildings used by the Islamic forces were hit. Islamic officials were not immediately available for comment.

Ethiopia's prime minister announced Sunday night that his country was "forced to enter a war" with Somalia's Council of Islamic Courts after the group declared holy war on Ethiopia.

The Russian-made jets swept low over the capital at midmorning, dropping three bombs on Somalia's main airport, which just recently reopened after the Islamic takeover of Mogadishu.

Somali troops, backed by Ethiopian soldiers, captured a key border town early Monday and residents celebrated as government soldiers moved through the town and headed south in pursuit of fleeing Islamic militiamen, a Somali officer said.

Islamic fighters left the town of Belet Weyne, on the Somali-Ethiopian border along the Shabelle river, overnight after Ethiopian fighter jets bombed Islamic positions Sunday, residents said.

Col. Abdi Yusuf Ahmed, a Somali government army commander, told The Associated Press that his forces entered Belet Weyne early Monday without a shot fired. He held up his telephone and a reporter could hear street celebrations.

Ahmed said his troops would pursue the Islamic fighters south on one of Somalia's key roads.

Heavy artillery and mortar fire continued to echo through the main government town of Baidoa on Monday, said Mohammed Sheik Ali, a resident reached by telephone. Government and Ethiopian troops were attempting to push back Islamic forces just 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Baidoa.

Sunday marked the first time Ethiopia has acknowledged that its troops are fighting in Somalia, though witnesses had been reporting their presence for weeks. Ethiopia supports Somalia's U.N.-backed government, which has been losing ground to the Islamists since June.

"Our defense force has been forced to enter a war to defend against the attacks from extremists and anti-Ethiopian forces and to protect the sovereignty of the land," Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said in a television address Sunday night. "Our intention is to win this war as soon as possible."

Ethiopia, a largely Christian nation that fears the emergence of a neighboring Islamic state, dropped bombs on several towns held by the Council of Islamic Courts and its soldiers used artillery and tanks elsewhere. No reliable casualty reports were immediately available.

Experts fear the conflict in Somalia could engulf the already volatile Horn of Africa. A recent U.N. report said 10 countries have been illegally supplying arms and equipment to both sides of the conflict and using Somalia as a proxy battlefield. Residents living along Somalia's coast have seen hundreds of foreign Islamic radicals entering the country to answer calls by religious leaders to fight a holy war against Ethiopia.

The Islamic group's strict and often severe interpretation of Islam raises memories of Afghanistan's Taliban regime, which was ousted by a US-led campaign for harboring Osama bin Laden. The US government says four al-Qaida leaders, believed to be behind the 1998 bombing of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, have become leaders in Somalia's Islamic militia...

Meanwhile, deigning to connect the dots that connect the jihad against Ethiopia with the jihad against Israel, Canada’s Foreign Minister, Peter McKay, is racing to the region in an attempt to flog a dead and decomposed camel:

Canada's foreign minister said he will head to the Middle East in the New Year to try to revive peace talks in the region.

"I would love to, in some fashion, be able to facilitate a coming together and a discussion," Peter MacKay told CTV in a report broadcast Sunday. MacKay said he was not trying to "set unreal expectations - but I think we have to constantly try."

His announcement comes at a time when a roughly month-old ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians is holding, albeit tenuously, as Gaza militants have fired more than 50 homemade rockets into Israel since the agreement was reached.

Earlier this month, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in calling for an immediate return to the stalled roadmap to peace, warned that tensions in the Middle East were "near the breaking point" and said the Israelis and Palestinians were equally responsible for fueling the conflict.

MacKay said he also hopes to restart talks on settling the refugee status of hundreds of Palestinians in nearby Arab countries, many of whom fled Iraq as violence there escalated following the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003.

"We hope to, in some way, be able to reconstitute that discussion and perhaps find a niche where Canada can make a contribution" to the refugee problem, said MacKay…

How’s this for a “niche,” Pete: Fight the jihad and try to take in the big picture so you can see that there’s no “road map” to peace anywhere—and certainly not in the Middle East—while the holy warriors are still alive and seething.

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

 

Two more for the holidays: I’m all for “peace on Earth, goodwill toward men.” With some notable exceptions, of course:

 

(To the tune of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”)

 

Jimmy the old Jew-hater

Had a real obnoxious line.

And if he had his druthers,

Mid-East would be Judenrein.

All of the leftoid blowhards

Thought that Jim’s ideas were great.

Said his disdain for Israel

Had nothing to do with Jew hate.

Then one bright November day

Dershy came to say,

“Jimmy makes me want to cry

When he spews that great ‘Big Lie.’”

Then how the dhimmis wised-up

As they shouted out with glee,

“Jimmy the old Jew-hater

Go down in ignominy.”

 

 

(Mahmoud Abbas sings to the tune of “Santa, Baby”)

Ehud, baby, slip some shekels into my hands,

It’s grand, to finally have some moolah to spare.

Ehud, baby, so Peace in Our Time can be a go.

 

Ehud, baby, some prisoners locked up,

If you please,

Release. Just let them out.

Ehud baby, so Peace in Our Time can be a go.

 

Think of all the strife and fuss

Think of all the agita caused by Hamas.

Next year, a con’frence I’ll permit,

Unless Moo scores a bull’s eye hit.

 

Ehud, baby, I wanna shot

And, really, that’s not a lot.

Ehud, baby, so Peace in Our Time can be a go.

 

Ehud, cutie, there’s one thing I really do need,

The deed,

To all of greater Pa-al-estine.

Ehud, cutie, so “right of return” can be a go.

 

Ehud, baby, fill my pockets up with the gelt,

It’s spelt,

V-I-C-T-O-R-Y for me,

You’ll see.

Then Peace in Our Time will be go.

 

Think that I’m a “moderate?”

Think that I’m not ridden with Haniyah’s hate?

Then you’re as blind as blind can be.

And you don’t know your enemy.

 

Ehud, baby, forgot to mention on little thing,

I sting.

You’re gonna feel it real soon.

Ehud, baby, now Peace in Our Time will be a go.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:39 | link | comments

 

Pumped up bully: How Moo sees himself. What he’s really like.

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

 

Moo's response: As expected, the mullahs ain’t exactly quaking in their bed sheets at the prospect of UN sanctions. In fact, it sounds like their front man, the hairy Islamic Hitler, who up till now has been promising a March surprise for the Zionist entity, may have moved up the Apocalypse by a month. From AP:

Iran vowed Sunday to push forward efforts to enrich uranium and to change its relations with the international nuclear watchdog after the U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions designed to stop the country's disputed atomic program.

Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the Security Council would regret voting in favor of the sanctions, saying he was sorry the West lost its chance to make amends with Iran. ``I am sorry for you who lost the opportunity for friendship with the nation of Iran. You yourself know that you cannot damage the nation of Iran an iota,'' the state-run news agency, IRNA, quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

Ahmadinejad also said the United Nations must accept Iran's nuclear program and warned that sanctions would not harm his country. ``You have to accept that Iran has the technology of producing nuclear fuel. And it will celebrate it in coming anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution in February,'' Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying…

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:16 | link | comments

 

Christmas wishes for the EU and you: A seasonal greeting, in verse:

 

Fröhliche Weihnachten,

Felix Navidad.
And here’s hoping the New Year

Brings far less jihad.

(But don’t count on it.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:44 | link | comments

 

Good will hunting: My late Bubby, who as a young girl evaded a marauding hoard of frenzied locals taking part in the second pogrom in her hometown, Kishinev, (because a first pogrom, two years earlier in 1903, just hadn’t done it for them), used to have a number of tried and true sayings that she’d trot out, depending on the occasion. When something was inevitable but undesired, for example, she’d say, “Goodbye shirt, meet me on the clothesline.” I have no idea what that meant. I think it was probably the punch line to some long-forgotten Vaudeville-era joke. For that matter, I don’t know who was bidding the shirt farewell and for what reason. The provenance and meaning of another of her sayings was equally cryptic: “One meat ball, you get no potato.” A line from some Depression-era song, I believe, although even with the Internet, I’ve never been able to track it down.

 

Along with her cryptic snippets, she had some other more recognizable favourites. One of them was, “Where there’s a will, there’s way.” A cliché, yes, but it expressed her sincere belief that, if a desire was strong enough, one could always find a way to fulfill it.

 

Take Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (please!, to borrow that old Henny Youngmanism). He undoubtedly has the will to wipe the Jews off the map (and thus make the Kishinev pogromers look like pikers when it comes to Judenhass) because he believes he has been chosen by Allah to summon the Messiah. This Messiah, the Mahdi, is a man of such innate delicacy that he refuses to who refuses to budge from his hiding spot, where he’s been hidden since his demise in the 9^th Century, until all the Jews have been vacuumed from the planet; a bit of ethnic cleansing that, back in the 1940s, was known as the Final Solution.

 

So Ahmaninejad’s will is a given. And soon enough, with the world issuing toothless, feckless warnings and not doing much of anything else to thwart him, he will have the way, an arsenal full of nuclear weapons. And since Israel is what Ron Rosenbaum has called “a one bomb state,” meaning that, given Israel’s size, one judiciously-aimed Shia nuke will be enough to do the job, it looks like the Mahdi may be back in time for the Londonistan Olympics, if not sooner.

 

The question remains: since no one seems to be coming to the Jews’ rescue, and since the new U.S. Defense Secretary, Robert Gates has already told Israel it is on its own, do the Jews have the will to rescue themselves? That’s the question posed by Lela Gilbert in a piece in the Jerusalem Post. Here are a few of her thoughts on the subject as she sat enjoying a glass of red wine at one of her favourite Jerusalem restaurants:

…AS I looked around the restaurant I wondered about a couple of things. We all seemed relaxed and at ease, secure enough to enjoy an evening out without much thought of danger. Could we be living in a fool's paradise, refusing to recognize a menace far more horrifying than a suicide bomber? How seriously should we take all this apocalyptic rhetoric about hidden imams, nuclear bombs and eliminating the "Zionist entity"? Are we, as Victor Davis Hanson and other experts have written, actually living in a 21st-century version of 1939? Above all else, if the threat is real, can it be eradicated?

The answer seems, at least in theory, to be yes. Anyone who reads commentaries or blogs or listens to television pundits knows that there is no shortage of ideas being tossed around. Some strategists' brainstorms sound a lot more practical than others, some more politically correct, some more perilous. I don't know what is possible in terms of real-world diplomatic, political, military, technological or economic actions. What I do know is that, if history is any indicator, for Israel nothing is entirely impossible.

With all that in mind, I really don't think the question is whether there is a way. It seems to me that the question is whether there is a will. Is there enough Israeli fortitude, enough determination, enough hutzpa available right here, right now, to summon all the brains and brawn of this nation and put them to good use in stopping the Iranian madman and his mullahs in their tracks?

O Jerusalem, I hope so! Because as you have proved time and time again, if you possess the will, you will most certainly find the way.

To quote another of my Bubby’s favourite words, “halevai”—if only.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:19 | link | comments

 

Incroyable!: In a goodwill gesture, Ehud Olmert has agreed to release oodles of boodle to the P.A.

 

My question: is he senile, insane, suicidal, or all of the above?

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:41 | link | comments (2)

 

A true Mel fan: Three years in an Austrian hoosegow hasn’t improved Holocaust-denier David Irving’s attitude toward Jews. If anything, he's even more obnoxious than he was before he was thrown in the slammer. From the Jerusalem Post:

British writer David Irving wasted no time Friday offending Jews and black people at a news conference, a day after his return from Austria where he was imprisoned for denying the Holocaust.

At a news conference in London, Irving endorsed actor Mel Gibson's drunken comments earlier this year that Jews were responsible for all modern wars.

He also referred to his success as an author in the 1970s by talking about how be used cash to buy a Rolls-Royce - the color of which he described by using a racial slur against blacks.

Irving, 68, was sentenced to three years in prison for his views on the Holocaust. Vienna's highest court on Wednesday granted Irving's appeal to convert two-thirds of his sentence into probation. Authorities deported him to Britain and banned him indefinitely from Austria.

Asked Friday if he was anti-Semitic, Irving said: "No, I like to think I am not."

But then he said: "In many respects Mel Gibson was right."

"They (Jews) should ask themselves the question, 'Why have they been so hated for 3,000 years that there has been pogrom after pogrom in country after country?' and it's the one question they seem to be very shy of," Irving said.

Irving told reporters that he had done research on the Holocaust that other historians had not, but acknowledged he had been mistaken on the subject in the past.

"My books will be the ones that survive into the next century," he said.

He said sales from his book on World War II German Gen. Erwin Rommel enabled him to walk into a car showroom with a paper bag stuffed with cash to buy a "(racial slur) brown" Rolls-Royce.

Actually, Dave, I've looked into that matter of 3,000 years of Jew-hatred. As far as I can tell, it has a lot to with the Jews having had the audacity and the misfortune to be the first monotheists, and the difficulty that successive monotheisms have had in coming to terms with that unalterable fact.

As for your "(racial slur) brown" Rolls, well, aren't you just as cute as the Dickens? Tell me, do you also own one of those lampshades made out of the epidermis of dead Jew? I hear they're all the rage among (racial slur) brown Rolls owners. Sad, though, that you got out of the slammer too late to hobnob with David Duke, Dr. Shiraz Dossa and other like-minded thugs and losers at Moo’s Denialpalooza. But, hey, maybe Dr. D. can put in a good word for you if and when there’s an opening for a prof at StFX.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:19 | link | comments

 

Among the non-believers: According to a new poll, most Brits say they have no religious affiliation. At the same time, the vast majority see religion as the source of a great deal of societal tension, and say that generally speaking, religion is more a force for bad than for good.

 

Um, would that be all religion? Do they, for example, see Buddhist and Bahais as being implicated in social disharmony?

 

Hard to say, since it appears those surveyed weren’t asked that kind of politically-charged question. From the Guardian:

 

More people in Britain think religion causes harm than believe it does good, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published today. It shows that an overwhelming majority see religion as a cause of division and tension - greatly outnumbering the smaller majority who also believe that it can be a force for good.

 

The poll also reveals that non-believers outnumber believers in Britain by almost two to one. It paints a picture of a sceptical nation with massive doubts about the effect religion has on society: 82% of those questioned say they see religion as a cause of division and tension between people. Only 16% disagree. The findings are at odds with attempts by some religious leaders to define the country as one made up of many faith communities.

Most people have no personal faith, the poll shows, with only 33% of those questioned describing themselves as "a religious person". A clear majority, 63%, say that they are not religious - including more than half of those who describe themselves as Christian.

 

Older people and women are the most likely to believe in a god, with 37% of women saying they are religious, compared with 29% of men.

 

The findings come at the end of a year in which multiculturalism and the role of different faiths in society has been at the heart of a divisive political debate.

But a spokesman for the Church of England denied yesterday that mainstream religion was the source of tension. He also insisted that the "impression of secularism in this country is overrated".

 

"You also have to bear in mind how society has changed. It is more difficult to go to church now than it was. Communities are displaced, people work longer hours - it's harder to fit it in. It doesn't alter the fact that the Church of England will get 1 million people in church every Sunday, which is larger than any other gathering in the country."

 

The Right Rev Bishop Dunn, Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle, added: "The perception that faith is a cause of division can often be because faith is misused for other uses and other agendas."

 

The poll suggests, however, that in modern Britain religious observance has become a habit reserved for special occasions. Only 13% of those questioned claimed to visit a place of worship at least once a week, with 43% saying they never attended religious services.

 

Non-Christians are the most regular attenders - 29% say they attend a religious service at least weekly. Yet Christmas remains a religious festival for many people, with 54% of Christians questioned saying they intended to go to a religious service over the holiday period...

 

Hmm. I wonder to which faith the majority of these faithful unspecified non-Christian attendees belong.

 

I agree with the Right Rev, though. Faith often is misused for other uses. (Okay, so maybe the Right Rev isn’t the most articulate chap.) Like the misuse where misusers attempt to eviscerate themselves and as many infidels as possible because they’ve been taught it’s a foolproof path to martyrdom and Heavenly nookie.

 

A definite misuse, if you ask me.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:31 | link | comments

 

Another choice: Israel is stuck between a rock—the jihadist regime of Hamas—and a hard place—the “secular” Fatah, an organization that is no less implacable in its desire to extirpate the Jewish presence in Israel. Not much of a choice, really, although Israel is willing to go with Abbas simply because he is perceived as being the lesser of two evils (the devil they know?).

 

As Caroline Glick writes, there is a third way forward. From JWR:

 

…In the interest of "strengthening" Abbas, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert refuses to take any actions to defend southern Israel from Kassam rocket attacks. Olmert cannot imagine a "peace" policy that doesn't involve Israeli land transfers to terrorists and so is incapable of conceiving of a policy other than the current failed one of embracing the fantasy of Abbas as the key to utopia.

 

Israel of course has options other than surrendering to either Hamas or Fatah. It could defeat them. A policy aimed at victory would be based first of all on a recognition that today there is no power structure in the PA, including the PA militias, that is not a terrorist organization. It would similarly recognize that there is no such thing as a good terrorist organization. Consequently, a strategy for winning would recognize that Israel must launch a concerted campaign aimed at defeating and dismantling the PA as a whole.

 

A policy for victory would also start from a recognition that the common thread joining all the Palestinian terror factions together is jihad. In light of the ideological nature of their common war against Israel, a campaign based on military might alone cannot bring about any long-term sociological or political change in Palestinian society. Unless the ideology of jihad is defeated, a new crop of jihadists will rise up to replace the current one.

 

Since jihadist ideology is what makes the Palestinian war against the Jews intractable and vests it with its central importance to the global jihad, the defeat of this ideology in the marketplace of ideas will go a long way towards defeating the global jihad as a whole. And the ideology of jihad is far from indestructible.

 

With its call for genocide of Jews and subjugation of all other non-Muslims, and with its demand that Muslims live under a literal interpretation of Shariah law which enslaves women and abolishes the very notion of human freedom — jihad is an inhuman ideology. It is inherently unattractive to people who sanctify life rather than death. So central to a strategy for beating the Palestinian jihad would be an Israeli ideological assault on jihad.

 

The unattractiveness of the notion of jihad is most apparent to the jihadists themselves. This is why they spend billions of dollars on a never-ending stream of propaganda aimed at brainwashing as many people as possible. The aim of the jihadist mosques, television and radio stations and internet sites is twofold. First they work to indoctrinate and mobilize supporters. Second they serve to demonize anyone who fights them — be that George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Salman Rushdie, or Israel.

 

The Olmert government's inability to recognize the actual state of Palestinian society and act accordingly has two major sources. First, the government is incompetent. As with the Palestinians so with Iran, Syria, and Hizbullah, the Olmert government is simply incapable of conceptualizing policies capable of defending Israel.

 

Yet, aside from the specific incompetence of the Olmert government, in its inability to contend with the ideological nature of the war being waged against Israel, the Israeli government is little different from Western governments from Washington to Brussels. Six years after the Palestinians launched their jihad, and five years after the jihadist attacks on the US, the governments of the free world remain deeply hesitant about engaging in a true ideological struggle with jihad...

 

Victory: what a concept. Too bad the Olmert government is too short-sighted and too inept to even conceive of such a thing. And too bad Western leadership as a whole has failed to confront the reality of the jihad.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:01 | link | comments

 

Williams wails: Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and one of the least perceptive religious leaders on the planet, blames the West for spurring on the jihadists and imperilling Christians in the Middle East. From the Times Online:

 

Christians in the Middle East are being put at unprecedented risk by the Government’s “shortsighted” and “ignorant” policy in Iraq, The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, says today.

In an extraordinary attack, Dr Williams accuses Tony Blair and the US of endangering the lives and futures of many thousands of Christians in the Middle East, who are regarded by their countrymen as supporters of the “crusading West.”

He has been backed by bishops across the Church of England, who say that Christians in the Middle East are now paying the price for the “chaos” in Iraq after the British Government failed to heed their warnings about the consequences of military action.

Dr Williams, writing in today’s Times, says that one prediction that was systematically ignored was that Western military action would put the whole of the Middle East’s Christian population at risk.

Writing from Bethlehem, where the number of Christians has plummeted to a quarter of what they were, he condemns the Government for failing to put in place a strategy to help Christians.

“The results are now painfully adding to what was already a difficult situation for Christian communities across the region,” he says. “The first Christian believers were Middle Easterners. It’s a very sobering thought that we might live to see the last native Christian believers in the region.” In some Middle Eastern countries where Muslim-Christian relations have always been good, he says that extremist attacks on Christians are becoming “notably more frequent.”

Dr Williams, who is visiting Israel with Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Archbishop of Westminster, Bishop Nathan Hovhannisian, the Armenian Primate of Britain and David Coffey, the head of the Baptist World Alliance, returns to Britain today with a call for all British churches to take action to raise the profile of Christians in the Middle East. Dr Williams said yesterday that the Israeli-built wall around Bethlehem symbolised what was “deeply wrong in the human heart”...

No, Dr. Williams. It symbolizes what is deeply wrong with the Arab mindset, i.e., its inability to fathom and accept the concept of Jewish sovereignty in Israel.

 

Come to think of it, the Anglican Church has had a bit of a problem with that one, too.

 

Meanwhile, back on the scepter’d isle, the Times reports that British police are on the lookout for a gang called the "English brothers" (even though they're not all English). The "bruthas" are said to have return from a stint at a jihadist training camp and eager to unleash some holiday havoc on unsuspecting infidels:

 

Police are trying to trace a gang of British Muslims who are thought to have returned to plot terror attacks in Britain after being trained abroad for more than a year by al-Qaeda, Nine Britons, all said to be in their twenties, were among a group of 12 Western recruits groomed by al-Qaeda at a secret camp near the Afghan border to set up new terror cells in London and other Western capitals.

Police do not know the real identities of this gang, who are known as the “English brothers” because of their shared language. As well as nine Britons, they include two Norwegians and an Australian who were smuggled into the Waziristan tribal region in Pakistan in October 2005.

They are believed to have been under the command of an al-Qaeda veteran suspected of training some of the Britons accused of the alleged plot to blow up passenger planes flying to the US from Heathrow airport in the summer…

Dr. Williams has a point. If only there were no Westerners in Iraq (and there was no Israel, and the kafirs stood by silently and impassively and allowed the jihad to roll right over them and get on with the business of Islamizing the planet) none of this global upheaval would be happening.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:21 | link | comments

 

Dossa strikes back: Dr. Shiraz Dossa, the Canadian political science professor who delivered a load of anti-Israel twaddle at the hairy Islamic Hitler’s Denialpalooza, has come out swinging at his critics. The combative non-Holocaust-denier (he says he was only there to advance the cause of “academic freedom”) wants all his critics to knock it off, already.

 

I know where he’s coming from. After all, it’s not like he attended the Wannsee Conference or something.

 

From the Toronto Star:

The Canadian professor who addressed a recent Holocaust-denial conference in Tehran denounced his university yesterday for failing to respect academic freedom.

Shiraz Dossa, of St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S., sent an email message to colleagues saying that, "as a political theorist," he found the Tehran trip relevant to his work.

"The conference was unfortunately tainted by the presence of a small number of Holocaust deniers," he wrote in a two-paragraph notice, "but I feel it is a mistake to boycott any academic conference because of the presence of participants whose views one finds repugnant.

"It is more appropriate to participate and confront and challenge repugnant views directly."

The message represents Dossa's first public statement since attending a forum last week that drew 67 delegates from 30 countries to Tehran, including such notorious anti-Semites as David Duke, American former head of the Ku Klux Klan.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called the Holocaust a "myth" and advocated that Israel be "wiped out," told delegates: "Thanks to people's wishes and God's will, the trend for the existence of the Zionist regime is downwards and this is what God has promised and what all nations want."

Dossa's statement came shortly after he met with academic vice-president Mary McGillivray and dean of arts Steve Baldner. It was the second such meeting at which the professor was asked to explain himself.

"I would like to express my disappointment in my university for its failure to defend my academic freedom," Dossa wrote in his message. "The hallmark of a truly great university is that it will protect its academic staff from attempts to silence them or to suppress their work."

Dossa was the only Canadian to attend the Tehran gathering.

Why he did so and what he said in his conference speech remain central to the controversy, but all that is known is the title of his paper: "Liberalism, Holocaust and War Against Muslims."

"I have no direct knowledge of what he said or the paper that was presented," university president Sean Riley said yesterday in a phone interview.

Asked if he had asked to see it, Riley said: "It's his property. Essentially, it is his decision who he shares it with and how widely it is disseminated."...

It sounds like President Riley, exasperated by all the unwanted attention, wants everyone to knock it off, too.

 

Here’s the letter I sent the Star:

 

Since Dr. Shiraz Dossa is a long time professor of political science, one would assume he would have a keen sense of the political currents of our times. Apparently, that’s not the case. Dr. Dossa willingly agreed to participate in a conference that was called not to advance the cause of academic inquiry, but to advance the agenda of a brutal totalitarian who has vowed to excise what he calls “the tumour” of Israel from the body politic of the Middle East—and who will soon have the nuclear means to do so.  

 

The irony of all this—a Holocaust denial conference being used specifically to help lay the groundwork for a second Holocaust—seems to be lost on the professor. And no wonder. He’s far too busy touting his “academic freedom,” which he seems to believe—wrongly, I would say—is his absolute right.

 

Dr. Dossa says it would have been “a mistake” to boycott the conference just because those who attended held repugnant views. I agree. He should have declined to take part because the entire conference and its raison d’etre were repugnant. That he is pleased to have participated in this charade of academic inquiry, this mockery of academic freedom, is more than repugnant: It is shameful.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:05 | link | comments

 

Ironic juxtaposition: Read this story. Then read this story. (It works just as well in reverse order.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:15 | link | comments

 

Radical steps to curb radicalism: That tiny minority of extremists seems to be mushrooming as radical Islam spreads its tentacles around the globe. Victor Davis Hanson accounts for its growing appeal, and offers these suggestions for how we can help stop it. From FrontPage Magazine:

Bluntly identify radical Islam as fascistic - without worrying whether some Muslims take offense when we will talk honestly about the extremists in their midst.

At the same time, keep encouraging consensual governments in the Middle East and beyond that could offer people security and prosperity, while distancing ourselves from illegitimate dictators, especially in Syria and Iran, that promote terrorists.

Establish that no more autocracies in the Middle East and Asia will be allowed to get the bomb.

Seek energy independence that would collapse the world price of oil, curbing petrodollar subsidies for terrorists and our own appeasement of their benefactors.

Appreciate the history and traditions of a unique Western civilization to remind the world that we have nothing to apologize for but rather much good to offer to others.

Finally, keep confident in a war in which our will and morale are every bit as important as our overwhelming military strength. The jihadists claim that we are weak spiritually, but our past global ideological enemies - Nazism, fascism, militarism and communism - all failed. And so will they.

Worthy ideas all. But do we have the wit and the gumption to act on them? And to do so before it’s too late?

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:40 | link | comments

 

Sorry, no Corrie story in T.O.: I had so looked forward to participating in a protest next fall, with everyone carrying placards showing a Jewish Rachel who’d been blown away by a jihadi “martyr.” But it looks like there’s no need for that now: My Name is Rachel Corrie is not coming to town. Plans to bring it here were shelved because, for once, cooler heads prevailed, and it was decided that in the context of Israel facing nuclear annihilation, perhaps now was not the best time to mount a production that was likely to cause so much upset to the Jewish community. From the Toronto Star (whose drama critic, Richard Ouzounian, had practically swooned with delight at the prospect of the “Anne Frank of the intifada,” as leftoids and other Israel-bashers have come to think of her, treading the boards at CanStage):

 

Theatre scraps play on Mideast 'martyr'

CanStage boss insists artistic merit, not political pressure, behind decision

December 22, 2006

Martin Knelman
arts columnist

Opting to avoid the dangerous liaisons of Middle East politics, the Canadian Stage Company has called off plans to bring the play My Name Is Rachel Corrie to Toronto, the Star has learned.

Martin Bragg, artistic producer of Canstage, said in a phone interview yesterday that he has changed his mind and decided not to make the controversial play the centrepiece of the theatre's 2007/2008 subscription series as he was publicly suggesting only a month ago.

Corrie was the 23-year-old American activist from Olympia, Wash., who was killed in March, 2003, by an Israeli bulldozer moving through a Palestinian area. To some she was an idealist who became a martyr; others regard her as the victim of an accident or a dupe of Hamas terrorists.

And just as there is more than one version of just who Rachel Corrie was and why she died, there also appears to be more than one version of why her story will not be coming soon to a stage near you.

Bragg's version: When he read the script (based on Corrie's journals) he had an emotional reaction and was "absolutely reduced to tears" as he told the Star's Richard Ouzounian five weeks ago. But later when he went to see it on stage at the Minetta Lane Theatre in New York's Greenwich Village (where it recently closed) it fell flat. The theatre was half-empty, and there was no standing ovation at the end. "The truth is it just didn't seem as powerful on stage as it did on the page – and the audience wasn't buying it."

The alternate version being told among CanStage insiders: Members of Bragg's board were alarmed by negative response from influential supporters of the theatre, especially in Toronto's Jewish community, who were canvassed for their opinion. Many were dismayed and openly critical when confronted with the prospect of the city's flagship not-for-profit theatre producing a play that could be construed as anti-Semitic propaganda, especially during a frightening period when Israel's existence is threatened by Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas.

"I was asked what I thought, and I told them I would react very badly to a play that was offensive to Jews," says veteran cultural activist Bluma Appel, whose name is affixed to the theatre where CanStage presents its mainstage productions. "I would react just as badly to a play that was offensive to blacks or Muslims or white Christians," Appel said from her winter home in Florida.

A complicating factor: CanStage posted a loss of almost $700,000 this year and has seen its audience dwindle. This is no time to alienate subscribers and risk controversy.

Developer Jack Rose, a member of the CanStage board who, like Appel, has not read or seen the play, says: "I had one phone conversation about this. There was a question whether it would be a mistake to proceed with it, and my view was it would provoke a negative reaction in the Jewish community."

If that's why CanStage backed away from the material, it wouldn't be the first time it happened in the short, troubled life of this play. After having its premiere at London's famously left-wing Royal Court Theatre, My Name Is Rachel Corrie was supposed to be produced by the New York Theatre Workshop. But a few weeks before performances were to begin last March, artistic director James Nicola announced an indefinite postponement.

"We had a very edgy situation," he later told The Guardian. "We found that our plan to present a work of art would be seen as us taking a stand in a political conflict that we didn't want to take."

Months later New York rights to the play were acquired by producers Dena Hammerstein and Pam Pariseau, whose off-Broadway production opened in October.

After one extension, it closed ahead of schedule Dec. 17.

The Seattle Repertory Theatre is scheduled to open its production in March.

Bragg plans to announce next season's playbill in mid-February. "I pick the plays," he says. "No one on our board has ever told me what we can and can't do."

Bragg may proclaim that the decision was his and his alone, but you just know which reputedly diabolical and powerful group is going to catch heat in certain overheated quarters for convincing him to axe the show.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:22 | link | comments (2)

 

You can say that again: I found this story irresistible, because the names sound like something out of Harry Potter by way of Gogol by way of Tales from the Arabian Nights, and because it involves a country, Turkmenistan, that Monsters & Critics describes as "a Stalinist Disneyland."

 

Stay with me for a moment. It seems that Suparmurat Niyazov, supreme leader of, yes, Turkmenistan, and, as such, popularly known by the Turkmens as the “Turkmenbashi,” has died suddenly in Turkmenistan's capital city of Ashkabat at the age of 66. Niyazov, the Turkmenbashi, has been succeed by Turkmentistan’s Deputy Premier, a chap named Gurbanguly—hold on tight for the next part—Berdimukhammedov, who may or may not become Turkmenistan’s new Turkmenbashi, depending on whether or not the locals decide they’re okay with Berdimukhammedov, and whether he musters the wherewithal to clamp down on the kind of dissension that some say could lead to a civil war. And that’s no laughing matter, since Turkmenistan, like many Arab/Muslim countries (and unlike the lone Jewish one), is awash in unrenewable fuel resources, Turkmenistan having the third largest gas reserves on the planet. (You’d think that, since we are “the chosen people,” God could have at least directed us to a portion of the Middle East that had some oil.)

 

Despite that somewhat disquieting fact, the story does have one more amusing bit (at least, I found it amusing, remembering Neil Simon’s play The Sunshine Boys and the part where one of the “boys” explained that words starting with the letter “k” are intrisically funny): Niyazov the late Turkmenbashi was born in Kipchak.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:51 | link | comments (2)

 

In defence of “academic freedom”: Dr. Shiraz Dossa, the St. Francis Xavier University political science professor who delivered a paper amidst less than august company at Ahmadinejad’s Denialpalooza, is back at home, and according to this entry in the Western Standard’s blog, he’s keeping “a low profile.” So low a profile, in fact, that Anna Maria Temonti, host of Ceeb radio’s The Current, couldn't wrangle an interview with him and had to settle for one with one of his colleagues at StFX, Phil Milner. Milner wrote an opinion piece for the Halifax Chronicle Herald in which he affirmed Dossa’s inalienable right to “academic freedom” (I searched the C-H site, but couldn’t find a link to the piece)—a right which the Ceeb, being the Ceeb, is on side with, even if it entails the “freedom” to be an utter putz and help further the genocidal agenda of a hairy Islamic Hitler.

 

Initially as I listened to Milner make his case for this so-called “academic freedom” I couldn’t help but be confused. Milner says he’s extremely upset that Dossa’s attendance has resulted in such a ruckus, and that so many people, including the university president and even the Catholic Archbishop of Antigonish (the Bish of ‘Gonish?), have come down so hard on him. Then again, he’s also none too pleased that faculty at StFX have circulated a petition (and half of them have signed it) supporting Dossa’s (and everyone else’s) right to academic freedom but—and here’s where it gets confusing—he himself declined to sign the petition. Why? Well, obviously, not because he doesn’t believe in academic freedom, because that was the subject of his comment piece in the Herald Chronicle, and the reason the Ceeb asked him to gab with Anna Maria. However, he was displeased with the way the petition was worded. He says that its assumption that academic freedom accords everyone the absolute right to say absolutely anything they want any time they want to say it is, well, “absolutely wrong.” He then spent the rest of the interview telling Anna Maria that Dr. Dossa did have an absolute right to attend the conference because—BINGO!—those, like Dr. Dossa, who are critical of what Milner calls “Israeli aggression” and how it’s abetted by—DOUBLE BINGO!—its partner in agression, the U.S., should be able to voice their criticism whenever and wherever they want to—even if it's at a Hitlerian Holocaust denial conference (or, as Anna Maria described it, employing weasly Ceebspeak, a conference that “was seen as a Holocaust denial conference"—as if there were some debate at to its true nature).

 

Okay, so maybe I’m still a little confused.

 

What made the interview so interesting was the fact that, even though he was defending Dossa, Milner clearly couldn’t abide the man. Even though they have both taught at the same university for a long time—Dossa for 18 years, Milner for 20—Milner says they are not friends, and their entire relationship consists of nodding to each other on elevators and in hallways. In other words, no relationship at all. This lack of rapport seems to be not a matter of conflicting political outlooks, but of conflicting styles, Dossa being what Milner describes as a “vigorous” person fond of “hot button issues,” Milner being someone with a quieter, more retiring demeanour--the J. Alfred Prufrock of StFX (and thus, not someone who’d likely elicit an invite to something as flashy as Denialpalooza).

 

So, what have we learned here? Well, I give the last word to some of Dr. Dossa’s more perceptive students. They have exercised their own academic freedom by skewering him on the website Rate My Professor (as quoted in the Western Standard):

By attending that holocaust conference he is dignifying it and the opinions of others who presented along with him. It does not matter if he says he doesn’t deny the holocaust, what matters is his silence in debating against the nazi’s presenting before him. He automatically lends credit to them. Get this nazi creep out of my school.

-

The anti-semetic undertones of the conference were obvious to him even before he packed his bags and left carrying the Holocaust paper he presented. Like many, he’s morally detached from the horror of the Holocaust and complains in his paper that Jews have gotten political gain from it. Iran didn’t invite Dossa and the Nazi’s for nothing. Go figure

-

The University should take strict action on Dr. Dossa for attending the conferance and not informing the universuty of the content of the conferance. I do not like him as a teacher!!! All we do is watch the daily show and listen to him trash talk George Bush. His style of teaching is****!!! HE IS NOT A GOOD PROFESSOR AT ALL . Dont take the class

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This guy is an anti-American anti-semitic misogynist. Unless you’re a left wing moonbat like him, you’re doomed in his class. St. FX is starting to become just like a lot of other Canadian schools - intolerant of any view other than the CBC-approved left.

Some of the spelling is, shall we say, inventive, but you must admit that in the context of Milner’s interview with Anna Maria, that last comment hits the nail on the head with a particularly satisfying and accurate thwhack.

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

 

Truth teller: Such is our political climate, one in which euphemism, hedging and prevarication prevail, that when a Canadian Prime Minister states the obvious, it merits a banner headline in Canada’s newspaper of record. Stephen Harper told CTV news that Hamas, the Jihadist terrorist organization whose charter calls for Israel’s obliteration, “genocidal”—and it’s as if he had the temerity to mention that the Emperor was buck nekkid, or that there was stinky, flatulent elephant standing right there in the parlour, and everyone but the Prime Minister was pretending it didn’t exist. From the Globe and Mail:

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Canada will not talk with the "genocidal" Islamic groups Hamas and Hezbollah even though he acknowledged that dialogue is the way to peace in the Middle East.

"We will not solve the Palestinian-Israeli problem, as difficult as that is, through organizations that advocate violence and advocate wiping Israel off the face of the Earth," Mr. Harper said yesterday in a wide-ranging year-end interview with CTV to be aired Saturday.

"It's unfortunate because with Hamas, and with Hezbollah in Lebanon, it has made it very difficult to have dialogue -- and dialogue is ultimately necessary to have peace in the long term -- but we are not going to sit down with people whose objectives are ultimately genocidal."

Many Canadians expressed discomfort with the strong pro-Israeli stand Mr. Harper took soon after his election and again this summer during Israel's bombardment of Lebanon. Previous Liberal governments have tried to walk a more neutral line, saying that permits Canada to be an honest broker in finding a resolution to the conflict.

But the Prime Minister said he doesn't believe Canada has ever played that role.

"My own assessment of Canada's role in the Middle East in the past decade or so is we have been completely absent," he said. "I don't see any evidence we were playing any role."

Mr. Harper said he has made it clear to allies in the region that Canada is prepared to talk to the various sides of the issue. He said his government wants to find ways of dealing with the Palestinian Authority through President Mahmoud Abbas, who belongs to the secular Fatah party.

"But I think all of the civilized world is agreed -- and it's not just Canada -- we can't deal with organizations whose principle and only objective is terrorism and the eradication of the other side."

Under the Conservatives, Canada was the first country, ahead of even the United States, to withdraw financial aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian government. As other countries questioned and in some cases condemned Israel's bombing of Lebanon this summer, Mr. Harper initially described the bombardment as a "measured response."…

It seems Gloria Galloway (any relation to George, loathsome head of the Respect Party, a character and organization that would not be out of place in one of Evelyn Waugh’s more antic satires?), the Globe scribe who wrote the story is of the opinion that perhaps it wasn’t a “measured response”—a measured response, in leftoid/UN/Muslim parlance (where euphemism, hedging and lies generally DO prevail), being one in which Israel agrees to not defend itself effectively. I may be going out on a limb here, but Gloria’s probably one of those reporters who does not “get it.” About Hamas and the global jihad, I mean. Prime Minister Harper, on the other hand, “gets it” about Hamas, but clings to the widely-held myth that Abbas offers the only way out of the abyss. He does not. He merely offers a more roundabout, meandering path to Israel’s destruction, since Fatah is Hamas without the religious trappings. And it's the absence of overt jihadism that makes it so palatable to the Peace in Our Time types.

So, yes, I suppose it’s a breakthrough when a Western leader eschews the usual mealy-mouthed blather about democratic mandates always being a good thing, even when they empower a regime of genocidal terrorists, and I certainly appreciate Harper's willingness to be so forthright. But I’m waiting for a Western leader who is willing to take that next step, who will boldly go where no leader has gone before and recognize the truth about Abbas and Fatah. Now that would be big news.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:49 | link | comments

 

Sick and obscene: I’ve had far too much of Neturai Karta, the evil Jewish group that, while claiming to be the purest of the pure, does nothing but assist the enemies of the Jewish people. But I missed this story in the Sunday Times about the stupefyingly idiotic things one of Nuturai Krackpots had to say upon his return from Moo’s conference and, well, I just had to share. Rabbi Ahron Cohen, of Manchester, doesn’t deny that the Holocaust happened. However, he does believe something equally deranged: that those who were murdered deserved to die:

 

A BRITISH rabbi who angered fellow Jews by speaking at a “Holocaust denial” conference in Iran now says millions did die in gas chambers but may have deserved it.

Ahron Cohen, an Orthodox Jew from Greater Manchester and a leading member of the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta movement, sparked new controversy on his return from Tehran by suggesting that God would have saved the victims of the Nazis if they had deserved to live.

Cohen, whose house in Salford was pelted with 1,000 eggs last year because of his extremist views, told The Sunday Times: “There is no question that there was a Holocaust and gas chambers. There are too many eyewitnesses.

“However, our approach is that when one suffers, the one who perpetrates the suffering is obviously guilty but he will never succeed if the victim did not deserve it in one way or another.

“We have to look within to improve and try to better ourselves and remove those characteristics or actions that may have been the cause of the success of the Holocaust.”

Cohen’s trip to Tehran — along with four American rabbis from the same sect — was paid for by the Iranian foreign ministry, which organised the conference entitled The Holocaust: A Global Vision. They were warmly greeted by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, and had two meetings with him.

Cohen ended his speech to the conference with a prayer “that the underlying cause of strife and bloodshed in the Middle East, namely the state known as Israel, be totally and peacefully dissolved”.

The rabbi claimed “learned gentlemen from both sides of the fence” were at the latest conference. They included David Duke, former “imperial wizard” of the Ku Klux Klan.

Cohen said on his return: “President Ahmadinejad is not a man of war. He is a man of peace. I have received criticism for meeting him and attending the conference, but Jewish people are adopting an attitude of criticism from an emotional point of view, not a logical or sensible one.

“We know there was a Holocaust. We lived through it. I had relatives who died in it . . . But in no way must the Holocaust be used to further the aims of the Zionist concept.”

Rabbi Yehuda Brodie, registrar of the Jewish Ecclesiastical Court for Greater Manchester, said: “Rabbi Cohen has for a long time been ostracised by the vast majority of Jews for associating with and thus giving support and legitimacy to the enemies of Israel and the Jewish nation.

“He represents an insignificant minority. His involvement is a stab in the heart of the Jewish community and of all decent law-abiding people.”

If he doesn’t deny the Holocaust, what was he doing at a Holocaust-denial conference?

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:43 | link | comments

 

Bad timing: One of the world’s most famous (though less hirsute) Holocaust deniers, historian David Irving, is free today after spending three years in an Austrian jail for a crime that will get you wined and dined in Iran.

 

And isn’t Dave just plum out of luck to have missed Ahmadinejad’s Denialpalooza by just over a week?

 

Get he’ll just have to wait for the next one to come around.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:26 | link | comments

 

Insights from a long-time LGF poster: For several years now, I’ve been reading posts by EE on the Little Green Footballs site. I don’t know who EE is, but I am always impressed by EE's breadth of knowlege, how articulate s/he is and the high quality of the analysis on offer.

 

On a thread yesterday about how a Muslim leader in the U.K. has compared Britain to Nazi Germany because of the way it is treating Muslims, EE wrote a number of extremely insightful posts. I hope s/he won’t mind if I quote them:

Here’s one:

As best I can tell, mainstream Islam has two poses:
(1) Islam must conquer the world (at least that is the stance of radical Islam, and at least that is the classic pose of Islam especially during the first century of Islam, and is inherent in the concept of jihad); and
(2) Muslims are the perpetual and gravely injured victims of non-Muslims.

Regarding the victimology, there is material in my newspaper referring to a finding of a European group that there is mistrust of Muslims, and that this constitutes "Islamophobia". This mistrust of Muslims is apparently being regarded as a grave sin. I think that for some perspective on this, one should put, side by side, the grievances that non-Muslims have concerning Muslims, versus the grievances that Muslims have concerning non-Muslims.

Problems caused by Muslims, against non-Muslims, in Europe and elsewhere: terrorist murder and massacre; (in Europe) a large amount of rape of non-Muslim women (disproportionate in every sense to the size of the Muslim population).

Problems caused by non-Muslims, against Muslims, in Europe and elsewhere: being suspicious of Muslims.

First of all, the seriousness of the grievances are orders of magnitude apart.
Rape and murder and massacre are vastly more serious crimes than being the victim of suspicion.

Secondly, the general suspicion may be deserved, because of the rape and murder and massacre. That is, one causes the other. If Muslims would not be so active in rape and murder and massacre of non-Muslims, then there would be less suspicion.

On the other hand, if there were less suspicion, then it would be possible to have a lot more rape and murder and massacre.

"Islamophobia" is trivial compared to deadly Kafirophobia. "Islamophobia" is a gimmick for turning the perpetrating society -- the society producing the rapists and the murderers and the massacring jihadists -- into appearing as the victimized society.

And another one:

 

“Mr Bari drew compared the Government’s treatment of Muslims with the Nazis’ persecution of Jews.”

This is part of the identity theft that is going on in the Muslim world.

According to Mr. Bari, regarding Muslims with suspicion, because of the global jihad that is being carried out, is exactly the same as constructing death camps, which is what was done to carry out genocide against the Jews; and after that to carry out genocide against the Gypsies; and also to murder gay men, and to murder people with mental retardation, and to murder all those protecting or sheltering the targeted; and to murder political opponents of the Nazis. To Mr. Bari, the genocide against the Jews (the targets of the identity theft that is going on in the Muslim world) is the same as the regarding of Muslims with suspicion.

Another part of the identity theft is the claiming of the patriarchs and prophets of the Jews as being Muslims. Abraham is converted, post-humously, into being a Muslim. Even the legendary Adam, is converted to being a Muslim. Moses is converted to being a Muslim.

The identity theft also involves taking the Promised Land of scripture, promised to the Jews according to Jewish scripture, and claiming that as a Muslim trust (according to the Hamas covenant). The Jewish homeland doesn't exist, according to them, it's a Muslim trust.

The identity theft also involves robbing the Jews of their history. According to Yasser Arafat, the Jews never lived in the Land of Israel, they never had the first and second temples in Jerusalem. And according to Ahmadinejad, the Holocaust against the Jews never happened.

But the main players in the identity theft are the Persian mullahs, who are seeking a nuclear weapons capability, in order to pursue nuclear jihad. And they have made it very plain to their followers in the Muslim world, that their first act of nuclear jihad will be to wipe Israel, the Jewish homeland, off the face of the world, and eliminate the Jews living there. They want to carry out a genocide against the Jews, and also to eliminate the Jewish state, and thereby seek to make the Jews a thing only of the past without a present and without any future. So that they can better steal the identity of the Jews.

And, finally, this one:

 

As far as I can tell, the Islamists' war against the Jews has 5 pillars.
(1) Religious bigotry. For example, the Hamas covenant quotes their scripture as saying that in the end of days Allah will wa