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

Happy trails: I will be on hiatus for the next two weeks. I hope to be back in the saddle (sorry, that horsey letter to the Star got me feeling all Dale Evans-ish) by Monday, April 16.

Chag sameach and happy holidays to all my constant readers.

 

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:38 | link | comments (2)

A horse of the same old colour: An editorial in the Globe and Mail rightly assails “A flawed Arab plan,” but according to an editorial in the clueless Toronto Star, “Arab peace offer (is) worth second look.”

It is? It wasn’t even worth a first look when the Saudis concocted it back in 2002.

 

Here’s some of the peerless reasoning for which the Star is justly famous and which it uses to make its case:

...By accepting the Arab League principles as the basis on which to at least reopen talks, Olmert would give away nothing on the security side, where Israelis have legitimate and serious concerns. Israel wants to redraw the 1967 frontiers in places to improve its security, insists on safeguarding Israel's historical claims in Jerusalem and rejects a massive influx of Palestinian refugees that would threaten the Jewish character of the state.

The Arab offer rules out none of this. It calls on Israel to withdraw to the June 4, 1967 lines, but a withdrawal need not preclude a negotiated adjustment of those lines. It calls for a "just solution" to the issue of Palestinian refugees who fled various Arab-Israeli wars, without explicitly demanding a "right of return." And it calls for a Palestinian state with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital, something Israel has offered in the past.

For Israel, spurning the offer outright would mean more lost time before inevitable negotiations get underway and painful concessions are made. Why not sign on now, in principle, and with appropriate reservations, and work on the details? Why not work with Egypt and Jordan, which have diplomatic ties with Israel, to seek common ground?

Olmert could count on strong support from U.S. President George Bush, from the UN and from Europe for relaunching the peace process.

Both Israelis and Palestinians have suffered greatly during the 40 years since the end of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Neither side wants to continue this impasse for yet another generation. Which is why Olmert should give this Arab peace initiative a second look.

And here’s the letter I sent in response:

 

In exchange for an offer of “peace”, the Arab League wants Israel to withdraw to borders that would make it virtually indefensible and allow millions of Palestinians demanding their so-called “right of return” to come flooding into Israel in sufficient numbers so as to transform the world’s only Jewish state into yet another Arab one.

 

In other words, the Arabs are seeking to do through “peace” what, in going on six decades of Israel’s existence, they have been unable to do through warfare.

 

In ancient times, such an offer was known as a “gift horse.” And Israel would have to have be insane or suicidal to say “giddyup.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:21 | link | comments

"Peace," Islamic style: The Arab League summit didn’t succeed in putting forward a realistic peace offer—more like the same old formula whereby Israel would willingly collude in its own demise. However, it did succeed in showing that the only kind of “peace” the Arabs are interested in the one that pertains once Muslims are firmly in charge (as is only right, according to Islamic teachings). It also revealed the threadbare nature of the Saudi-American “alliance”—a marriage of expedience that the Saudis seem to be looking to annul. From TIME: 

The Arab League summit that concluded in Riyadh Thursday re-affirmed the body's peace offer to Israel, but it hardly suggested the sort of "bold outreach" to the Jewish State for which U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had been lobbying. Indeed, the summit appeared to reveal a yawning gap between the outlooks of the U.S. and its key Arab ally, summit-host Saudi Arabia.

 

Although on her latest Middle East shuttle she managed to persuade Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to agree on holding regular meetings, Rice's efforts to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace are looking more like crisis management than visionary deal-making. She had hesitated to spell out exactly what she meant by "bold outreach," but had urged the Arab leaders heading for Riyadh to not merely to endorse a formula for peace — the Arab League's Beirut initiative, first adopted in 2002, calls for full peace and normalization of relations if Israel withdraws from Arab lands occupied in 1967 — but also to provide a mechanism through which Arabs and Israelis could begin discussing the formula. "Regional states," she said, "should participate actively in diplomacy to advance the achievement of peace."

 

Rice seemed to be expressing the hope that Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, who she praised as the author of the 2002 Arab initiative, would authorize direct Saudi-Israeli talks. When asked by a reporter whether it was time for the Saudis to meet the Israelis face-to-face, Rice replied, "I would hope that every state will search very deep to see what it can do at this crucial time to finally end this conflict."…

 

Faint hope, Condi. Time to put down the Sharanksy and Lewis and pick up some Spencer and Ibn Warraq. All will be revealed therein.

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

Wrong turn: The French, as clueless as ever, are drawing the wrong lessons from their own benighted history. According to an article in the International Herald Tribune, they are viewing their struggle against incipient Muslim domination as being akin to Vichy France’s persecution of the Jews:

…[Nicolas] Sarkozy, who largely has avoided the suburbs during his campaign, has criticized immigrants and their offspring who resist the French model of integration, saying it is unacceptable to want to live here without respecting and loving the country or learning the language.

 

But when he announced his proposal on television this month, it was met with a firestorm of criticism. Royal called the plan "disgraceful," adding, "Foreign workers have never threatened French identity."

 

"Indecent," was the reaction of Azouz Begag, the minister for equal opportunities. "I'm not stupid, and neither are the French," he said. "It's a hook to go and look for the lost sheep of the National Front," Le Pen's party.

 

Simone Veil, a beloved former minister and a Holocaust survivor, found herself denouncing Sarkozy's idea shortly after she endorsed him for president. "I didn't at all like this very ambiguous formula," she told the magazine Marianne. She said that a ministry for immigration and "integration" would be a better idea.

 

But Sarkozy is convinced he is right. When asked about Veil's reaction, for example, he replied tartly, "Everyone has the right to his or her own opinion."

 

Sarkozy's proposal has revived bad memories of the Vichy era. The idea of a national identity ministry has been compared to the General Commissariat of Jewish Affairs, which was created with ministerial rank under Vichy in March 1941.

 

"Only Vichy developed administrative structures in their efficient way to defend a certain concept of 'national identity,' " the columnist Philippe Bernard wrote in Le Monde last week. He said that the commissariat, "even before being a tool in the service of the policy of extermination, responded to the objective of purification of the French nation."

 

Some politically conservative Jewish voters, who were planning to vote for Sarkozy because of his staunch support of Israel, say they now are considering shifting to Bayrou...

 

 If that’s the case, then more fool them. They, too, cannot comprehend that Vichy France was a willing puppet of the Nazis, and that Nicolas Sarkozy offers them the last, best hope to stave off the Islamic-fascist conquest of Europe. Without him, I’d say it’s game over for France and its Jews.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:59 | link | comments (1)

Dazed and confused: They held hands. They stopped and smelled the roses together. But now George Bush is all confused because his “good friend,” Kind Abdullah, is sending him some decidedly mixed signals. From VOA News:

The Bush administration Thursday expressed surprise, and said it was seeking clarification, over remarks by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah at the Arab League summit that the United States role in Iraq was an "illegal foreign occupation." U.S. officials meanwhile are welcoming the Arab League's relaunch of its 2002 peace initiative for Israel. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department.

Officials here are not depicting downplaying the remarks of the Saudi king as a problem in relations with Saudi Arabia, a key Middle East ally of the United States.

But they say they will contact the Saudi government over the comments, and are defending the legality of U.S. involvement in Iraq.

In a Senate Foreign Relations Committee appearance, Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, said the United States was "a little surprised" to see the remarks, and will ask for clarification.

At a news briefing, State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said there was no reason to believe that King Abdullah has been misquoted in the comments he made to the Arab League summit on Wednesday, and that the U.S. interest in an explanation is understandable.

"We certainly had not seen that particular phrase before coming out, talking about illegal occupation," he said. "I think it only stands to reason that we are interested in understanding better what exactly King Abdullah meant by that phrase."

"We are operating under [U.N.] Security Council resolutions in Iraq, as well as with the invitation of the Iraqi government," he added.

McCormack said the United States and Saudi Arabia have a shared interest in an Iraq that maintains its territorial integrity and stability, and that one indication of Saudi support for that was its participation in the recent Iraqi "neighbors conference" in Baghdad, in which Iran also took part.

He also stressed what he termed the excellent personal relationship between King Abdullah and President Bush and said that overall ties between the two countries are good and sound…

That is, as sound as relations between egregiously oily Wahabi supremacists and the foremost impediment to global Islamic primacy can be.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:38 | link | comments (1)

Only Huma: Hillary Clinton’s right hand man is a woman, one about whom even her close personal friends, like designer Oscar de la Renta, don’t know too many details. But according to Oscar, Huma Abedin, considered by many observers to be Hillary’s “secret weapon,” is Muslim and “very conservative”—and he doesn’t mean conservative in the Republican sense. He doesn’t know too much about her, though “because Huma is not such a talkative girl.” The story about Huma in the New York Observer fills in some of the till-now sketchy details:

The back story, as it were, begins 32 years ago in Kalamazoo, Mich., where Ms. Abedin, who declined to participate in this article, lived until the age of 2. Her family then relocated to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where she lived until returning to the States for college. She attended George Washington University. Her father, who died when she was 17, was an Islamic and Middle Eastern scholar of Indian decent. He founded his own institute devoted to Western-Eastern and interfaith understanding and reconciliation and published a journal focusing on Muslim minorities living in the diaspora. Her mother, a renowned professor in Saudi Arabia, is Pakistani.

I suggest that any pro-Israel Jews inclined to support Mrs. Clinton's presidential bid first insist that her closest, most influential advisor answer the following questions:

1. Where do you stand on the issue of Wahabism?
2. Where do you stand on the issue of Jewish sovereignty in Israel?

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:42 | link | comments (1)

European vacation: The Ceeb website has some helpful hints to help you stretch your dollars in Eurabia, should you decide to visit the Islamo-infidel continent in the the next few months.

My days of trekking through Europe are long since past, however, I have a few of my own suggestions to help those still eager to perambulate the continent’s picturesque highways and byways:

 

• Make sure to visit one of the many “no-go zones” in France, Belgium, Sweden and other Eurabian countries. Restaurants in these areas are a real bargoon, and you’ll be treated to some exotic local colour that you might otherwise miss if you stayed exclusively in the infidel cultural zones.

• For a roaring good time, drive your rental car into these neighbourhoods and watch as the local lads set it ablaze during one of their nightly car-b-cues. And don’t forget your marshmallows!

• Try to take in as many art museums as possible. In coming years many of the great works of Western civilization on display there may be removed because they are what many Eurabians like to call “un-Islamic.”

• If you don’t want to stir up local “youths,” you’re advised not to wear t-shirts with any of the following messages: “Honk if you love Jesus”; “Am Yisrael Chai!”; “Allah Snakbar”; “I heart Dick Cheney”; “Apes and Pigs Rule!”; “George ‘Wonderful’ Bush”;  and, last but not least, “There is a religious plot to control the world, only it’s no secret and it sure ain’t Jewish.”

• To help ensure you return home alive and in one piece, don’t wear any religious symbols that would tie you to the seminal monotheism; you know which one I mean.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:05 | link | comments (1)

Roll over, Lord Nelson: Melanie Phillips is less than impressed by her nation’s response to Iran’s piracy:

Admiral Lord Nelson must be revolving in his grave. While on patrol in the Shatt-al-Arab waterway between Iran and Iraq, 15 Royal Marines and sailors were seized by Iran on a trumped up charge that they had entered Iranian waters.

Six days on and there is no sign of their release. On the contrary, Iran has stepped up its aggression, threatening to charge the kidnapped marines with espionage and even denying them British consular access.

We have been here before. Three years ago, six Royal Marines and two sailors were abducted from the same waterway and held for three days before being released.

And this time, the crisis is potentially far more serious. There is every prospect that these hostages will be used as bargaining counters to force the release of five Iranian Revolutionary Guards who were captured in Iraq by American troops earlier this year.

Yet in its response to these events, Britain seems to be in some kind of dreamworld. There is no sense of urgency or crisis, no outpouring of anger. There seems to be virtually no grasp of what is at stake.

Some commentators have languidly observed that in another age this would have been regarded as an act of war. What on earth are they talking about? It is an act of war. There can hardly be a more blatant act of aggression than the kidnapping of another country’s military personnel.

What clearly does belong to another age is this country’s ability to understand the proper way to respond to an act of war. When his Marines were seized by the Iranians, the commander of HMS Cornwall, Commodore Nick Lambert, did nothing to stop them and later said it was probably all a misunderstanding. If Nelson had been such a diplomat in such circumstances, Trafalgar would surely have been lost.

Our Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said the Government had been ‘disturbed’ by the incident. The Prime Minister took three days to say that the seizure was ‘unjustified and wrong’ and mouthed platitudes about the welfare of the detainees. Yesterday he talked severely of ‘moving to a new phase’.

My goodness, the Iranian regime must be shivering in its shoes. With what contempt they must regard us — a country that stands impotently by while its people are kidnapped and then does no more than bleat that it is ‘disturbed’.

What on earth has happened to this country of ours, for so many centuries a byword for defending itself against attack, not least against piracy or acts of war on the high seas?..

Two words: self-loathing.

Two more words: civilizational angst.

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

Sorry seems to be the hardest word: Iran threatens that if Britain kicks up a “fuss,” it won’t be getting its sailors back any time soon. Here's the statement I imagine the mullahs would like the Brits to make, but one which, it they stick to their guns, they won't:

"We, the less powerful buddy of Great Satan, are extremely, unquestioningly, overwhelmingly contrite for having strayed into the waters of the glorious Islamic republic, a nation which, as everyone knows, is righteous, splendiferous and pure, and one which has every right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes and is not, repeat, not building nuclear weapons in order to annihilate Israel.

Our bad."

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:18 | link | comments

The Fatah Godfather: Reuters headline—Abbas warns of violence if "hand of peace" rejected.

Sounds like he's making the Jews an offer they can't refuse.

Ehud Olmert better check his bed tonight. There might be a horse's head in it.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:00 | link | comments

Local shmocal: Today’s Harpoon Siddiqui is so convoluted that I don’t have the patience to try to untangle it. Let’s just say it has something to do with oppressed Thai Muslims, and how their struggle is entirely local and has absolutely no connection to—what’s that expression Harpoon is apt to shun?—oh, yeah, the global jihad. However, even though the Thai Muslims are acting locally, that doesn’t mean they’re ignoring the larger, um, global issues. During his recent excursion to the area—grist for his recent similarly impenetrable pieces—Harpoon had the chance to interview a Muslim (Arab?) Thai academic who apprised him of some local global concerns.

…"There's no evidence of any external involvement in the bombings and killings," wrote the ICG in May 2005.

The assessment has since been echoed by others, most notably a fact-finding mission from the Organization of Islamic Conference, the 57-member group of Muslim nations.

A similar view is offered by Imtiyaz Yusuf, professor of philosophy at Assumption University in Bangkok, author of Understanding Conflict and Approaching Peace in Southern Thailand .

In an interview here in Kuala Lumpur, he told me:

"The Americans seem keen to link the Thai rebellion to Al Qaeda. The Western media want to connect it to the Middle East. But the evidence is very weak. There is radicalization but it is not connected to Al Qaeda.

"The Thai Muslims did raise their voice against the Arab/Israeli dispute, and also about the Afghan and the Iraq wars. And Islam is indeed expressing itself after 30 years, with some vociferous voices."

But the rebellion is local, with links to fellow-Malay Muslims across the porous border to Malaysia.

"It is possible that some who may be involved in the rebellion do cross the border, and that some Malaysians fund the rebellion," says Yusuf. "The Thai government complains to Kuala Lumpur to do something."

That's like Baghdad and Washington blaming Iran and Syria for the mess of their own making in Iraq. Or, Kabul and Washington blaming Pakistan for the mess in Afghanistan.

So you mean even though they’re tucked away in a small corner of South Asia, Thai Muslims are consumed by thoughts of the Arab/Israeli dispute? Guess they’re not as parochial as they seem.

 

Harpoon concludes on an ominous note, warning of how a “local” jihad can suddenly merge with the larger jihad.

There's thus no end in sight to a local conflict which was posited as part of the "war on terrorism" and has indeed become a jihad with potential appeal to jihadists everywhere.

I know Harpoon is trying to scare us into backing off, but he’s actually succeeding in showing that the jihad is indeed global, and that it’s not going away any time soon.

 

Oops!

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:50 | link | comments

A fly in the unguent: Uh oh. It looks like the Arab League summit which was supposed to sign off on that Saudi-sponsored “peace plan” has hit a bit of choppy water. (The plan in a nutshell: commit suicide, Israel, and you can have “peace.") Now King Abdullah seems to be backing off, not only from the “peace plan,” but from his “ally,” George Bush. From the L.A. Times via the Seattle Nation & World:

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Bush administration attempts to revive Arab-Israeli peace talks and influence regional developments suffered a setback Wednesday as leaders at an Arab League summit, including the heads of state of several U.S. allies, condemned U.S. foreign policy.

Saudi King Abdullah II condemned the "illegitimate foreign occupation" of Iraq, and Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa lamented "the absence of honest mediation" in the Arab-Israeli conflict, a shot at U.S. officials perceived as too pro-Israeli.

"In our beloved Iraq, blood is shed among brothers under ... illegitimate foreign occupation and detestable sectarianism that raises the threat of a civil war," the king said.

Experts on the Saudi kingdom were divided over the significance of Abdullah's comment, with one cautioning against reading too much into it and another calling the statement extraordinary, since the Saudis have officially recognized the Iraqi government and accepted post-invasion U.N. resolutions regarding Iraq.

Once among the Bush administration's most trusted allies, Abdullah has bucked the White House in recent months, inviting U.S. foe Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to Riyadh and cajoling the United States' Palestinian ally, Mahmoud Abbas, into joining a coalition government with Hamas, which the State Department lists as a terrorist organization…

Actually, I think the King’s words speak volumes about where his true sympathies really lie—and, despite having strolled hand-in-hand through the garden with Dubya that time, for obvious reasons, they’re definitely not with the U.S.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:58 | link | comments (1)

Doctor in the house: Miriam Garfinkle is a vocal Toronto physician who is extremely upset about the deteriorating conditions in Gaza, a situation she blames almost entirely on, guess who?, Israel. Here’s how Dr. Garfinkle and another self-described “health care professional,” Reem Abdul Qadir, laid out the problem in a recent article:

…As Canadian health care professionals, we are deeply troubled by the situation and worried for the future of the people of Gaza and especially these children. What will the long-term effects be of this endless trauma? What can we, as Canadians and health care professionals, do about it?

Resilient health care providers on the ground, like Dr. Mona El-Farra and Dr. Eyad El Sarraj, have been struggling to provide adequate grassroots primary health and mental health care in Gaza for years against these mounting odds. We have worked with a group of Palestinians and Jews in Toronto to organize a fundraiser to support the health care operations in which these physicians are involved. We are also insisting that the Canadian government restore and indeed increase its funding to Gaza.

We also demand that Israel stop its continued methods of collective punishment of civilians in direct contravention of international law. Ultimately there can be no solution to this horrific situation until there is an end to the military occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, which continues and indeed escalates, despite the 2005 pull-out of Israeli settlements.

There is both a public health and mental health crisis unfolding in Gaza at a breakneck pace. As human beings, as Canadians, as Jews and Palestinians, we all have a moral obligation and vital stake in protecting these children and giving them access to a viable future. The alternative is unthinkable.

And here’s Garfinkle’s letter that appears in today’s Globe and Mail under the heading “Growing crisis”:

 

The sewage disaster in Gaza (Deluge of Sewage Kills Five in Gaza Village—March 28)is the result of a deteriorating public health system and growing humanitarian crisis to which many people have been trying to draw attention. I hope that now Canada will finally see the need to help.

 

In fact, Canada has been helping, sending millions of dollars intended for humanitarian relief. Dr. Garfinkle is labouring under the misimpression that the crumbling infrastructure is ours and Israel’s fault. But since the problem that led to the disaster was pointed out to Palestinian authorities years ago when they were flush with our shekels, it’s evident she should be pointing her admonishing finger in another direction.

 

No doubt Dr. Garfinkle’s heart is in the right place. However, that’s the problem. Her compassion has apparently affected her powers of reason, compelling her to collectively blame the Jews of Israel for a problem that is exclusively Arab in origin. Meanwhile she considers as “collective punishment” Israel’s decision not to fund a regime which remains committed to its destruction.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:40 | link | comments

Don’t want to live like a “refugee”: An (imaginary) alumnus of the ’48 "naqba" sings a familiar Elvis tune:

I ran away in ’48, man.

They told be I could come back.

But almost sixty years later

My “right of return’s” not on track.

 

They promised me I’d
Return to splendour

In Palestine.

The Jews’d be dead now.

The land’d be mine.

 

Still got the keys to my door, man.

I haul them out once a year.

You know that I’m keepin’ score, man,

And my intentions are clear.

 

They promised me I’d
Return to splendour

In Palestine.

The Jews should be dead now.

The land should be mine.

 

I banked upon the intifada

To scare the dhimmis away.

But even with all the sha-hids

The Jews decided to stay.

 

I promise that I’ll
Return to splendour

In Palestine.

The Jews’ll be dead soon.

The land’ll be mine.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:05 | link | comments

Revolting “youths”: “Youths” of unspecified background are up to their old antics in Paree. This time about 100 or so are reported to have gone bananas at the Gare du Nord. Apparently, they were upset because police were so brazen as to ask a passenger to “show his ticket.”

Quel horreur!

 

Reason enough for the “youths,” already plenty mad at French authorities, especially Nicolas Sarkozy, to flex their youthful muscles.

 

But the best part of this story is how AP has so thoroughly sanitized the saga that there is nary a mention of the provenance of these youths, nor of those who rioted back in ’05. Are they Buddhists? Wiccans? Seventh Day Adventists?

 

Your guess is as good as mine:

PARIS, France (AP) -- France's opposition Socialists accused conservative presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy of worsening tension between youths and police on Wednesday after clashes at a Paris train station overnight.

Local officials said the eight-hour long confrontation at the Gare du Nord was sparked when police arrested a 33-year old man who attacked staff who had asked him to show his ticket.

Youths at the station, which is a hub for trains to suburbs north of Paris, said police had manhandled the suspect and broken his hand. Hundreds of youths threw flower pots and bottles at police, shouting "Sarkozy hypocrite".

Police used tear-gas to disperse the youths. Thirteen people were arrested.

Sarkozy confirmed his status as a law-and-order hardliner in riots that hit the poor suburbs around Paris and other French cities in 2005, and the Socialists were quick to blame him for the climate of hostility between youths and police officers.

Delphine Batho, a Socialist official responsible for security, said Sarkozy was to blame for the difficulties police encountered when making arrests.

"On the one hand, there are hardcore offenders who want to control their territory. Secondly, there are the after-effects of the provocative habits and language of the interior minister, which has worsened the tensions," she told Le Parisien daily.

2005 riots

Sarkozy, who stepped down as interior minister on Monday to focus on his campaign, rejected the criticism.

"Shall we say it's the fault of police when someone starts a fight when they are asked for their ticket?" he said.

"I am not the interior minister. And I don't know what happened in detail. But the principal is that you cannot declare someone right who wants to pass without ticket and who beats a police officer," he told France Info radio.

The issues of security and immigration have taken center stage in past days as the April 22 first round in presidential elections approaches.

In an interview with Liberation daily which did not touch directly on the clashes, Socialist candidate Segolene Royal said Sarkozy had failed to resolve the crisis in Paris's poor suburban neighborhoods after the 2005 riots.

"There is a deep break in confidence between the youths of these neighborhoods and him," she said. "It's hard to incarnate the unity of the nation if some parts of the territory are inaccessible."

Youths angry about poverty and discrimination torched thousands of cars in November 2005 in the ethnically-diverse suburbs surrounding French cities, where unemployment often is 4 to 5 times the national average.

“Ethnically-diverse,” huh? More like “ethnically homogenous” in a largely bi-cultural country.

 

As for the pendantic Ms. Royale—she may well be the most verbally pretentious politician I have ever come across. “Incarnate the unity”? Who does she think she is—Michel Foucault?

 

And is it my imagination or is she blaming Nicolas Sarkozy for the existence of France’s no-go zones?

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:44 | link | comments

Iran über alles: An editorial in the Chicago Tribune connects the dots between UN sanctions on Iran and Iran, in response, commandeering a British vessel:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was scheduled for some lectern-pounding at the UN last weekend. But he canceled at the last minute, blaming the United States for a visa snafu. Too bad. After last year's bravura tour of New York, we were hoping for a new set of flimsy denials about Iran's nuclear ambitions, further evasions on its funding for terrorism and fresh explanations of its deplorable threats against Israel. But Ahmadinejad stayed home and avoided personally witnessing not only another UN defeat but also fielding a lot of questions about what could be turning into a new hostage crisis. If he had come to New York, reporters could have asked him why Iran seized 15 British sailors and marines last Friday, stoking tensions in a region that, frankly, doesn't need any more crises.
 
Were the British forces taken as bargaining chips, to be exchanged for five Iranians captured in January by American forces in Iraq, as a Saudi-owned London-based newspaper reported? Were they seized to distract attention from a unanimous UN Security Council vote over the weekend, ratcheting up the sanctions on Tehran for its nuclear program? Or could this simply be a ham-handed warning to America and its allies that Western forces are operating in Iran's neighborhood, and Tehran can make things uncomfortable at will?

Perhaps Ahmadinejad would have impressed some New Yorkers, as he did last year, with his jaunty demeanor. But Ahmadinejad desperately needs a public relations victory not in New York, but in Iran. Many Iranians seem increasingly apprehensive as their country is driven into further isolation, diplomatically and economically. Capturing British forces, holding them incommunicado and interrogating them as spies probably plays well in a country that seeks to portray itself as a victim of Western aggression. But this is needlessly -- and reprehensibly -- provocative.

And there's evidence that Iran's belligerence is wearing thin in other parts of the world. On Monday, the presidents of Russia and China issued a joint statement calling on Iran to fulfill the Security Council's resolutions. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Hu Jintao said that their countries were ready to "search for a comprehensive, long-term and mutually acceptable solution to the Iranian nuclear problem." They stressed that the dispute should be resolved peacefully. But the subtext of the message was unmistakable: Two of Iran's major allies and trading partners are growing increasingly impatient.

Iran has argued for years that uranium enrichment is its right under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. It has brandished the treaty as some sort of bill of rights to enrich uranium. That's nonsense, of course. But now that the world is calling Iran's bluff, what do the mullahs do? They promptly begin to back out of agreements that the country pledged to follow in the same treaty. Iran announced on Sunday that it was partially suspending cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

That would be a bigger threat if Iran were actually cooperating fully with the IAEA now. But it's not. Not even close. Just check the last, oh, half dozen reports from that agency on Iran. There's a long list of demands from the IAEA for information and documentation from Iran. Iran's response: Forget it.

Probably a good thing that Ahmadinejad skipped New York this time. His act, like his country's, is getting old.

Very old. I carbon date it to somewhere around 1939.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:44 | link | comments

Spitting images: Ornery Looney Tunes character Marvin the Martian and other-worldly American Idol contestant Sunjaya Malakar:

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:27 | link | comments (2)

Another “peace in out time” plan: The Arab League is about to rubber stamp the cockamamie Saudi scheme that would effectively put an end to the pesky Jewish state. They are calling it a “peace plan,” and the useful idiots in the mainstream media are are only too keen to play along with the fraud, the better to slam Israel should it dare reject such a "magnanimous" offer. (Memo to Olmert: beware of Arabs bearing peace gifts.) Here’s how two mainstreamers, Mark “Malarkey” MacKinnon and his wife, Caroline Wheeler, the Globe and Mail’s tag team of Israel-bashers, relate the "good news."

CAIRO, JERUSALEM — Arab leaders gather in the Saudi capital of Riyadh today, swearing they will never amend their five-year-old land-for-peace offer to Israel.

But while the communiqué that the Arab League will issue at the end of their two-day meeting is expected to be written in unyielding language, many believe that the 22-nation group is nonetheless getting ready to bargain quietly.

The 2002 Arab Peace Initiative was the brainchild of Saudi Arabia's then crown prince, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz. Now the monarch of his oil-rich country, King Abdullah is breaking ground by thrusting his normally reclusive kingdom into the diplomatic spotlight.

Analysts believe that under his leadership, today's Arab League summit may be the first one since 2002 to serve up something besides strong coffee and stale rhetoric.

The Arab League is unlikely to bend to Israel's main demand: that it give up, before direct negotiations even begin, on the idea of allowing Palestinian refugees to return to their pre-1948 land in what is now Israel. But it's known that King Abdullah wants to send a signal to the Israelis that the peace offer is a serious one.

"The kingdom is keen that this summit should come out with one Arab voice toward issues of destiny, and in particular the Palestinian issue," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told reporters. He said the Arab League needed to come up with solutions that are "compatible with what is dire and new."

What's dire and new in the eyes of the Sunni-ruled kingdoms of the Persian Gulf, as well as for U.S. allies such as Egypt and Jordan, is the rise of Iran.

Tehran's nuclear ambitions, as well as the sway it holds over the Shia Muslim communities across the region, have rebalanced the decades-old formula of Israel being the primary enemy of the Arab world.

The draft communiqué, according to the Reuters news agency, contains a call "to all Israelis to accept the initiative and seize the current opportunity to return to the direct and serious negotiating process at all levels."

Arab leaders can't go further than that, Dr. Gad said, because Arab public opinion is against making any concessions to Israel ahead of negotiations. The Palestinian government headed by Hamas, which has withheld comment on the Arab Peace Initiative, would also reject any changes to the text.

On the eve of the summit, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on Arab countries to reassure Israel of its acceptance in the region by opening the 2002 initiative for further discussion.

"Such bold outreach can turn the Arab League's words into the basis of active diplomacy, and it can hasten the day when a state called Palestine will take its rightful place in the international community," she told a press conference in Jerusalem at the end of a regional tour that included stops in Israel, the West Bank, Jordan and Egypt.

The highlight of her efforts was to extract a promise from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas to meet once every two weeks for talks on daily life issues as well as to discuss what she called the "political horizon." She said, however, that she didn't expect such talks to bring about any breakthroughs in the near future.

University of Haifa historian Yair Hirschfeld said the idea of region-wide talks based on the Arab Initiative is innovative, but will face an uphill struggle because Israel has fundamental objections to some of its core principles.

The document calls for Israel to withdraw from all the land it obtained in the 1967 war, including key settlement blocks that Israel hopes to keep, and East Jerusalem, which Israel calls part of its indivisible capital.

Dr. Hirschfeld, who was also one of the architects of the Oslo accords, said the Saudi role may be key in calming conditions and bringing more radical groups onside ahead of any talks. King Abdullah recently negotiated a unity pact between Hamas and Mr. Abbas's Fatah faction that ended months of infighting.

Palestinian commentators, however, see a real opportunity for peace that could be wasted by an Israeli government that is too weak domestically to make tough compromises. Mr. Olmert's government has been dogged by scandals and public dissatisfaction with his handling of last summer's war against Lebanon's Hezbollah militia.

"We are lucky to see all the Arab world united around one peace initiative, which is simply what Israel has waited for since 1967," said Sufian Abu Zaida, a senior Fatah official and former Palestinian cabinet minister.

"The problem is, in my opinion, that the Israeli government, because of the stories everybody knows, they have no mind to deal seriously with the situation now."

Thanks for your opinion, Mr. Fatah factotum (by way of Globe reporters who don't even bother to try hiding their anti-Israel bias), but here’s the real sticking point: your fearless leader’s insistence that Arabs have an Allah-given “right” to help themselves to Jewish land.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:00 | link | comments (3)

The moral equivalence option: A choir in Victoria, B.C. is set to offer a unique interpretation of the biblical story of Samson. Instead of being a tale about an emasculated Jew who, in one last show of strength and rage, brings down a temple, it will become, get this, the story of a suicide bomber. From the National Post:

VICTORIA - In the Bible, Samson is a hero who used his superhuman strength to do God's will by pulling down pillars in a Philistine temple, killing thousands and himself in an act of vengeance.

But in what's sure to be a controversial interpretation of the story, a Victoria choir will next month present Samson as a suicide bomber.

Simon Capet, music director of the Victoria Philharmonic Choir, says he wanted to update Handel's Samson oratorio to be relevant to today's audiences by drawing comparisons to ongoing conflicts in the Middle East.

"We didn't want to just present the work as a simple morality tale," says Mr. Capet. "There is a social and political commentary here that's important."

While the music will not change, the setting of the oratorio will be 1946 Jerusalem. Mr. Capet says he chose the period to draw comparisons to the bombing of the British headquarters at the King David Hotel by the militant Zionist group Irgun in that year. Menachem Begin, who ordered the attack, would later become Israel's prime minister and win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Mr. Capet says presenting Samson as a terrorist is not meant to offend anyone or point the finger at one group, but to challenge our notions of what a terrorist is.

"Is there any difference between pulling down a pillar or blowing a bomb?" asks Mr. Capet.

"Samson killed thousands of people. To show him in the traditional mythological sense does a disservice," Mr. Capet says.

The choir would not be the first to drawing comparisons between Samson and terrorism.

"There's a large focus on this right now, with Israel being presented as the Samson figure," says Andrew Rippin, dean of humanities at the University of Victoria and a specialist in Islamic studies. American journalist Seymour Hersh coined the term "the Samson option" in his book about Israel's development of a nuclear arsenal.

Shadia Drury, a philosophy professor and Canada Research Chair for Social Justice, recently compared Samson to World Trade Center bomber Mohammed Atta in a talk at UVic. In her book, Terror and Civilization: Christianity, Politics and the Western Psyche, she argues that terrorism is a biblical problem.

"The concept of a collective guilt is a flawed morality," she says. "The idea that 'We're on the side of God and everyone else is evil' has and always will be disastrous."

Ms. Drury says she thinks the choir's modern interpretation of Samson -- scheduled to run April 5, 7 and 8--is heroic…

Hey, Ms. Drury, how about this for an heroic concept--Samson as a Nazi and the Philistines as European Jews? Or Samson as an Afrikaner and the Philistines as black South Africans? Or, better yet, Samson as an Arab janjaweed and the Philistines as non-Arab Darfurians?

The possibilities are endless.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:30 | link | comments (1)

Homage in Catalonia: Yesterday I posted a short piece from First Things about lame secular rituals in Catalonia. But even though Christianity seems to be in decline in these parts, another religion appears to be growing by leaps and bounds. From Islam Online:

MADRID — Faulting state statistics about the growing number of mosques, Muslims in the Spanish autonomous province of Catalonia said it is high time they established a grand mosque to meet the needs of the sizable minority instead of the dozens of prayer rooms and vaults that burst at the seams with worshippers.

"The government statistics are inaccurate because officials simply call vaults and underground prayer rooms mosques," Ali Al-Mukhtari told IslamOnline.net Tuesday, March 27.

He was referring to recent statistics released by the General Authority for Religious Affairs in Catalonia on the number of "mosques," churches and other places of worship in the posh Catalonia.

The statistics put at 169 the number of "mosques" in the province, saying that then mosques were established annually.

"They could not be called mosques," said Al-Mukhtari. "They are no more than 169 vaults and small prayer rooms in garages and basements."

Ahmed Zayen, a Spanish citizen of Moroccan origin, also questioned the state version.

"The government wants to leave the impression that mosques are on the rise and there is no need for Muslims to have a grand mosque," he said.

There are 800,00 Muslims in Catalonia, making up the bulk of the estimated 1.5 Muslims in Spain.

Islam is the second religion in the southern European country after Christianity.

Soon to be #1.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:19 | link | comments

“Peaceniks” head to Saudi summit: Excuse me while I puke. From Reuters:

RIYADH (Reuters) - Arab leaders arrived in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday ahead of a summit set to revive a five-year-old plan to end decades of Israeli-Arab conflict at the heart of the region's problems.

The two-day Arab summit, due to open on Wednesday, is expected to renew an offer to the Jewish state of normal ties with all Arab countries if it withdraws from all territories it occupied in the 1967 war, accepts the creation of a Palestinian state and agrees to a "just solution" for Palestinian refugees.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged Israel to seize on the Arab offer, describing it as a last chance for Israel to live in a "sea of peace" across the Arab and Islamic world.

"This initiative simply says to Israel 'leave the occupied territories and you will live in a sea of peace that begins in Nouakchott and ends in Indonesia'," Abbas said, referring to the Mauritanian capital in West Africa and the southeast Asian country that is the Muslim world's most populous.

"If this initiative is destroyed, I don't believe there will be another opportunity in the future like this."

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said on Monday the plan will have a strong chance of winning international support and of reviving Israeli-Arab peace talks if adopted unanimously by all Arab leaders at the March 28-29 summit...

This initiative simply says to Israel 'we think you're dumb enough and desperate enough to fall for our latest ploy. In reality, we have no intention of ever allowing an atoll of Jewish sovereignty to exist in a sea of Islam that begins in Nouakchott and ends in Indonesia.'

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:53 | link | comments (3)

Bush doesn’t “get it”: That’s the only possible conclusion one can come to after reading the following Reuters story:

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The United States plans to provide $59 million to strengthen Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's presidential guard and support his new national security adviser, a long-time foe of Hamas.

Another $20 million will help fund any future Palestinian elections, infrastructure improvements at the Karni commercial crossing between Gaza and Israel, and other non-security projects, according to U.S. government documents obtained by Reuters on Tuesday.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said the money for Abbas and security adviser Mohammad Dahlan was meant to fuel divisions among Palestinians and undercut the unity government formed by the ruling Hamas Islamists and Abbas's Fatah faction.

$59.36 million security program was scaled back from an initial $86.4 million after Abbas joined forces with Hamas in a bid to end factional warfare and ease a Western aid boycott.

It is unclear whether the revised package will win U.S. congressional backing…

If there is any sanity in congress, it won't receive support.

 

Memo to the President and the befogged folks at Foggy Bottom: Abbas is about as “moderate” as Josef Goebbels. You are backing the wrong horse, guys, and it’s going to backfire, big time.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:44 | link | comments

Extry, extry, read all about it/They’ve got a “new” plan and they’re gonna tout it: There’s a new quartet pushing peace at the old Palestine corral, and it’s as feckless and full of it as that other quartet. From the New York Sun:

There is a new American plan and great hope for peace among Arabs and Jews. I have read all about it and heard it on TV all day yesterday.

"We're at a critical juncture right now," David Makovsky, a Middle East expert with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy tells the New York Times. The Washington Post informs us that ‘‘the sense of urgency has built within the Bush administration as well" as Ms. Rice embarks on her fourth Middle East trip in four months. Several news reports quoted senior American officials speaking of a "new game plan" she carries.

There is more, too, in the shape of a quaint new ‘'Arab Quartet" — Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, described by TV news as "all important" in Middle East peace efforts. These powers are meeting in grand style at the Cataract Hotel, which every press outlet has reminded us was made famous in Agatha Christie's "Death on the Nile."

The platitudes of this new search are so many, so old, and so repetitive. Go back and check the late 1970s or the heyday of the Oslo accord fever of 1993, and you will encounter the same stuff: last chance, critical moment, now or never, the area is ready, etc.

Here is what is not new. The Arab Quartet is about as useless and toothless as the Arab League itself, none of whose members are prepared to recognize Israel's right to exist unconditionally. The Israelis are not about to pull out of the West Bank or the Golan Heights of Syria unconditionally, if at all.

Hamas and the other Islamic Palestinian Arab fanatics will continue to lob rockets into Israel. Hezbollah is preparing for the next round in Lebanon of fighting Israelis and Lebanese. The Palestinians will remain at each other throats in Gaza and the West Bank, regardless. Saudi Arabia is scared silly about Iran and the sectarian wars between Shiites and Sunnis on its borders, which is just about the only thing that matters in Riyadh. Egypt is steadily descending into a failed state where the succession to the post of 78-year-old dictator Hosni Mubarak promises to be messy. Jordan has virtually no role to play anywhere and no weight to speak of ever since it lost its West Bank to Israel. And the United Arab Emirates has never had any weight to begin with...

Same old bunkum repackaged by Arabs who are keen to see the demise of the Zionist entity.

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

Out of Gaza: Don’t look now but Egypt has left the building. From Middle East Newsline: 

TEL AVIV [MENL] -- Egypt's military has quietly abandoned the Gaza Strip.

 

Israeli sources said the 100-member Egyptian military advisory delegation that arrived in the Gaza Strip in mid-2006 has been recalled. They said two generals have remained, but spend most of their time in Israel to ensure their safety from Palestinian attacks.

 

"The Egyptians have lost influence with the Hamas government and found that they were under constant threat," an Israeli source said. "Under such conditions, it was better to pull out the advisers."

 

The sources said an Egyptian security delegation formally remains in Gaza Strip. They said the delegation, led by Maj. Gen. Burhan Hamad, was comprised of a handful of personnel attached to the Egyptian Representative Office in Gaza City.

 

How bad must things be when even the Egyptians decide to skulk back to Cairo?

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:22 | link | comments

Fear and intimidation in the air: A sensible editorial about the litigious, obnoxious imams (the ones who were thrown off a US Air flight last fall) in, of all places, USA Today:

…The lawsuit grew out of an incident last November when six Muslim clerics, returning from a religious conference in Minneapolis, were removed from a US Airways flight after passengers and crew raised alarms. The imams were questioned by authorities and released. The six say they are innocent victims of ethnic profiling for merely praying quietly in Arabic at the terminal.

Their lawsuit, filed earlier this month, accused the airline and Metropolitan Airports Commission of anti-Muslim bias. That was expected. What's unique and especially troubling, though, is the effort to identify an unknown number of passengers and airline employees who reported suspicions so they might also be included as defendants. For example, the imams want to know the names of an elderly couple who turned around "to watch" and then made cellphone calls, presumably to authorities, as the men prayed.

This legal tactic seems designed to intimidate passengers willing to do exactly what authorities have requested — say something about suspicious activity.

The imams' actions last November appeared to be either deliberately provocative or clueless as to how others might perceive them. Several passengers and crewmembers told authorities that the men loudly chanted "Allah" several times, cursed U.S. involvement in Iraq and switched their seat assignments. Three imams asked for seat belt extenders, which include a heavy metal buckle that could be used as a weapon, but left them on the floor.

Under the circumstances, the pilot made a reasonable judgment call to remove them from the plane. Some of the facts are in dispute: The imams deny making any anti-American remarks and say seats were changed to accommodate a blind cleric who might need assistance. They accuse the airline of slandering them.

US Airways can afford to defend itself and the crew in court. Passengers who notified authorities don't have those resources. Several lawyers have promised to represent such passengers for free. The American Islamic Forum for Democracy, a moderate Muslim group, will raise funds for their defense. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., has introduced a bill to shield from legal liability those who report suspicious behavior.

It shouldn't have to come to that, especially if a judge has the wisdom to throw out the complaints against the "John Doe" passengers before they're identified.

As for ethnic profiling — the reprehensible practice of discriminating solely based on ethnicity — this incident doesn't qualify. The imams were tossed off the plane because of suspicious behavior, which obviously can't be ignored. Suing passengers who merely report such behavior threatens everyone's ability to travel securely.

I think the editorial writer is giving them the benefit of the doubt by suggesting they were unaware of the effect their behaviour would have on others. I’m sure they knew exactly what they were doing, and deliberately set out to provoke the kind of action they did so they could launch a lawsuit—a lawsuit intended to intimidate people into keeping silent in the face of suspicious behaviour. Let’s hope that if and when this suit comes to court, the presiding judge exercises the same kind of wisdom as the US Air pilot did and throws the belligerent bums out.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:24 | link | comments

Discontent in Gaza: They’re “pure.” They’re “clean.” But, according to a new poll, Palestinians say Hamas doesn’t have a clue about how to run a government. From the Jerusalem Post:

More than two thirds of Palestinians feel Hamas has failed at running the government, according to a poll conducted in the Gaza Strip, Israel Radio reported on Monday.

Over half of those surveyed felt that Hamas gave up a significant part of the group's election platform by joining the new unity government with Fatah.

In addition, less than a quarter of those surveyed said they would vote for the party again if elections were held now.

The poll also showed that nearly one third of Palestinians would emigrate to areas outside of the PA territories if they could.

The survey was published by the An-Najah University in Nablus.

I might be encouraged by the survey if not for the part about how joining up with Fatah has caused them to compromise their “election platform” Exactly which part of the platform are those surveyed upset about jettisoning? The plank where Hamas promises Allah to push the Jews into the sea?

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:53 | link | comments (1)

America’s mixed messages: Micah Halpern unpacks the confusing messages the Bush administration is emitting re Hamas. From FrontPage Magazine:

…Who can understand United States foreign policy when it is replete with mixed messages and convoluted communication?

Secretary of State Condi Rice just finished a set of meetings in the Middle East region with Palestinians and with Israelis. After her meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority and the person responsible for creating a unity government with Hamas, Rice held a press conference. At the press conference the secretary of state, the highest ranking American diplomat, admitted that the United States of America will work towards a two-state solution and, she added, the United States will "work on Israel." The secretary of state said that the US is trying to create an independent and separate track of negotiations for a Palestinian state despite the new unity government led by Hamas.

The message delivered by Secretary of State Rice is simple and clear. So why the confusion?

The United States has said, sworn, affirmed and pledged not to meet with Hamas or any Hamas affiliates. And then the United States turns around and meets with Abbas and others in the Hamas Unity Government. And then the United States promises to do the utmost to help out that government create their ultimate goal, an independent state.

There's more. Israel has said that the Israeli government will not meet with anyone who meets with Hamas. Israel is saying, in other words, that it is now impossible to make a distinction between the groups, impossible to split up Hamas and Fatah. Israel is saying that once Fatah joined Hamas, Fatah became like Hamas.

Surprisingly, United Nations Secretary General Ban in an awkward nod to Israel would not meet with Hamas. But he did meet with Fatah members of the Hamas government. Personally, that is just what I would expect from the United Nation's top man.

Now it gets even more complicated and confusing.

The entire Arab world plus every member nation of the United Nations and all of Israel knows that the United States is Israel's strongest supporter. So just why is Israel's big brother making these pledges to the Palestinians and to the rest of the Arab world? Why?

The United States is being inconsistent and when that happens, everyone suffers, everyone gets hurt. Israel gets hurt because the United States is publicly, diplomatically, openly showing that the two nations no longer stand shoulder to shoulder on the question of Hamas. The Palestinians get hurt because they cannot possibly decipher what the United States really expects from them and that plays directly into the hands of the extremists i.e. Hamas. The Arab world gets hurt because double messages are doubly hard to read and the Arab world cannot possibly figure why the United States could care about the Palestinians when the Arab world could not care less.

Even the United States gets hurt. The United States is now perceived as flip-floppy and wobbly by a world that admires straight forward decisions and decisive action.

The Secretary of State is not to be blamed. In this instance, she really is only the messenger. This unfortunate change in policy comes directly from the White House. And this White House is not the first to fall victim to Hamas. The Clinton White House fell under the same spell. The belief that if you accommodate Palestinian leaders they will tame the terrorist leaders who will in turn exchange their suicide bombs for negotiating tables is naive, Pollyanna-ish and mistaken…

Still trying to turn a sow’s ear of a terrorist (Arafat, Haniyah) into a silk purse of a statesman. A more fruitless quest is impossible to imagine. Tragically, it seems that five years after the 9/11 attack, the Bushies have still not come to terms with the psyche of the enemy and the religious ideology that drives them. And that may well translate into catastrophe for us all.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:29 | link | comments (2)

Gleeful fascists: Remember way back when when a gloating fascist delighted in yanking the world’s chain, and the world responded with ever-more feckless rounds of diplomacy, culminating in a worthless piece of paper declaring “peace in our time”?

It’s baa-ack! From AP via the Washington Post:

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran said Tuesday the 15 British sailors and marines it detained last week are healthy, have been treated in a humane manner and that the only female sailor among them had been given privacy.

"They are in completely good health. Rest assured that they have been treated with humanitarian and moral behavior," Mohammad Ali Hosseini, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, told The Associated Press.

Hosseini said the 26-year-old female sailor, Faye Turney, had complete privacy. "Definitely, all ethics have been observed," he said.

Hosseini would not say where the Britons were being kept and reiterated that their case is under investigation.

"The case should follow procedures," Hosseini said. "Media hyperbole will not help" speed resolution of the case.

Iran has said it is questioning the British sailors and marines to determine if their alleged entry into Iranian waters was "intentional or unintentional" before deciding what to do with them _ the first sign it could be seeking a way out of the standoff.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Tuesday he hopes diplomacy will win their release but is prepared to move to a "different phase" if not…

"A different phase," huh? How ominous. I'm sure the mullahs are quaking in their sheets.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:12 | link | comments

Don’t know much about history: A keen student of modern history, is our Rosie O’Dious. First, she insists that 9/11 was a put up job by Americans bent on defaming poor Arabs, a pretext for invading first Afghanistan and then Iraq. Next, she decries American authorities for failing to recognize the “humanity” of Khaled Sheikh Mohammad, the bestial Jihadi who sliced off Daniel Pearl’s head. And on Monday, she rounds out her idiot’s guide to history by comparing Iran’s seizure of 15 British sailors to what occurred in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964. “Google it,” advises a smug Rosie to her clueless audience on The View.

Good advice. In so doing, it should become immediately evident that, aside from taking place on water, the two incidents have absolutely nothing in common.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:12 | link | comments

Perfidious Leeds: The other week the University of Leeds cancelled a lecture by a German academic. Prof. Matthias Kuntzel was set to discuss the relationship between the Nazis and Islamic antisemitism, but his talk was cancelled because of concerns over “security.” In fact, as Melanie Phillips recounts, there were no security issues. The university, known to be a particularly unpleasant place to study these days if you’re a Jew but a swell campus for Muslims and non-Muslims who express vocal disdain for Israel, invented the security issue because it didn’t want to disturb their clueless students by exposing them to the truth.

Here’s what the Professor would have said, if only he’d been given the chance:

…He argues that the alliance between the Nazis and the Arabs of Palestine infected the wider Muslim world, not least through the influence of the Nazi wireless station Radio Zeesen which broadcast in Arabic, Persian and Turkish and inflamed the Muslim masses with Nazi blood libels laced with Arabic music and quotes from the Koran.

Subsequently, this Nazified Muslim antisemitism was given renewed life by both the Egyptian President Nasser and the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the intellectual inspiration for both Hamas and much of the current jihad against the west.

So what exactly is the ‘correct balance’ that this account fails to strike? Indeed, Küntzel makes the eminently balanced claim that this history shows there is nothing inevitable about Muslim antisemitism, which is merely Nazism in new garb.

The link he makes is no more than the demonstrable truth. But clearly, it is not possible to speak this truth at Leeds university. And the reason for this is surely that it draws a straight line between today’s Islamic world and Hitler’s Germany.

Indeed, Küntzel sees a seamless connection between Nazism and the jihad against the west. Hitler, he says, fantasised about the toppling of the skyscrapers of New York, the symbol of Jewish power. And the Hamburg trial of terrorists associated with 9/11 heard evidence that New York had been selected for the atrocity because it was a ‘Jewish city’.

For Islamists, however, such a connection threatens the image they have so assiduously cultivated for themselves as the victims of prejudice.

For their appeasers, it destroys the illusion that Islamist extremism arises from rational grievances such as the war in Iraq or ‘Islamophobia’. Worse still, those on the left who march shoulder to shoulder with radical Islamists are thus exposed as the allies of Nazism…

In other words, he would have held up a mirror and would have forced the useful idiots to look at the truth of their own hideous reflection. No wonder the university shut him down.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:43 | link | comments

Fraught with meaning: An Expatica headline informs us that at this very moment Saharan sand sweeps across Belgium. 

Highly symbolic, don’t you think?

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:19 | link | comments (1)

More common sense from First Things: This time about woefully misguided pundit Dinesh D’Souza, who thinks American conservatives should link arms with “moderate” Muslims to fight their common enemy—Western immorality:

“In order to defeat the Islamic radicals abroad,” writes Dinesh D’Souza, “we must defeat the enemy at home.” That is the argument of his new book, The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11. Mr. D’Souza is undoubtedly right that radical Jihadists exploit—among many other things they exploit—the pervasiveness of pornography, sexual licentiousness, and other depravities America exports through its commanding role in the global media. And there is in this country an intense and open-ended conflict, commonly called a culture war, between “the cultural left” and its opponents. But to suggest that those associated with the cultural left are “the enemy” in a way comparable to al-Qaeda and its allies are the enemy is over the top. The “responsibility for 9/11” rests solidly with the international network of Jihadists who have declared their determination to use any means necessary to defeat the U.S. and force the world’s submission to Islam. The idea that they or the millions of Muslims sympathetic to them will have a change of heart about American and the West if only we put our house in moral order is not persuasive. More troubling is the implication that America, if only the American left, is responsible for the war being waged by the Jihadists. Recall the late Jeanne Kirkpatrick’s speech at the 1984 Republican convention and the “blame-America-first crowd.” That crowd is large enough as it is. There’s no call for self-identified conservatives to join it.

 

Hear, hear. The argument that “it’s about us, not them” makes no sense whether it comes from the left or the right.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:34 | link | comments

Empty ceremony: One big drawback of secularism is that it makes for mighty shallow—not to mention vacuous, vapid, vacant and lame—rituals. From the April issue of periodical First Things: 

From the French Revolution’s Temple of Reason to the Soviet Union’s ritulalized rites of passage, the godless have contrived ersatz ceremonies in poignant tribute to the absence of God. In that tradition, the government of the Spanish region of Catalonia has produced a “Civil Ceremonial Manual.” Noting that the number of civil marriages has surpassed the number of Catholic marriages, the government explains that “the concept of God has been strongly questioned from all points of view.” The substitute baptismal rite includes suggested readings from sources such as Pablo Neruda and Charlie Chaplin, along with music by Cat Stevens, Louis Armstrong and the Beatles. Provision is also made for the participation of “godparents.” The rite for those who commit suicide of choose to be euthanized is called a “Farewell Ceremony” and includes “a loving and fraternal embrace.” At the burial, friends may talk about “his or her more human or even humorous side, which helps to relieve the tension.” Confronted by the awesomely ultimate reality of mortality and the meaning, if any, of life, the least we can do is to relieve the tension.

 

Then again, there are some religious rituals which are imbued with a little too much significance, if you know what I mean.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:25 | link | comments

Banking on jihad: Any doubts as to whether UN is in thrall to the bad guys should be laid to rest by this story. By Anne Bayefsky on the NRO site:

The United Nations’ nourishment of terrorism (a concept it has yet to define) reached a new low last Friday. On March 23, 2007, the United Nations General Assembly’s Sixth Committee — its lead legal body comprised of all 192 member states — recommended that observer status be granted to the Islamic Development Bank Group (IDB), an entity that has been directly involved in paying the families of Palestinian suicide bombers.

Back in August of 2001, Ahmad Muhammad Ali, president of the bank, was questioned by the publication Asharq Al-Awsat about payments to the Palestinian Authority for the sake of carrying out the intifada. Ali told the publication that “there was no delay in paying financial assistance to the families of Palestinian martyrs,” assuring it, “We have started paying them soon after receiving the money.”

An Arab Summit in Cairo in late October of 2000 created two funds, the Al-Quds Intifadah Fund and the Al-Aqsa Fund. According to Ali, the IDB is responsible “for the smooth functioning of the two funds.” The final communiqué of the summit made no attempt to conceal the purpose of the funds: “the Al-Quds Intifadah Fund will have a capital of 200 million dollars to be allocated for disbursement to the families of Palestinian martyrs fallen in the Intifadah.”

The creation of a fund dedicated to making suicide-bombing financially appealing was the brainchild of then Crown Prince, now King, Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. He announced the move at the Arab League Summit thus:

[W]e propose the establishment of a special trust under the name of ‘The Jerusalem Intifada Fund’ with a capital of 200 million US dollars. This amount will be allocated, to the families and the education of the children of the Palestinian martyrs who sacrificed their lives in the struggle.

(That “education” is one that will certainly include the glorification of the violent and racist goals of the children’s parents.)…

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:13 | link | comments (1)

Short lived: At the same time that Ontario ombudsman Robert Marin was detailing OLC malfeasance, a coroner in Florida was detailing the drugs that were found in the body of Anna Nicole Smith (nee Vickie Lynn Hogan—and didn’t she parlay those hogans into one exceptionally pathetic career?) Three kinds of anti-anxiety drugs. An anti-depressant. Methadone. Vicodan. An anti-biotic. Tamiflu. Diet drugs. Chloryl hydrate. And the one that, sorry, made me laugh out loud—some type of growth hormone she took for, and I’m not making this up, “longevity.” The growth hormone was part of an exotic cocktail that her creepy partner, Howard K. Stern, one of the many candidates for paternity of her infant daughter, used to inject on a regular basis into her butt.

“Longevity,” huh? How long was she expecting to live with all that other chazerei in her system? (Note: I promise you, this is the last time I will ever mention ANS.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:17 | link | comments (1)

Lottery fraud: There are those who call government revenues earned from government-sanctioned lotteries “a tax on the stupid.” After listening to Ontario ombudsmen Robert Marin blistering attack on the systemic culture of corruption at the Ontario Lottery Corporation—corruption which resulted in lottery retailers defrauding the system and rightful ticket winners of tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars—maybe it should be called “a tax on the all-too trusting.” From the National Post:

TORONTO – Ontario lottery customers are vulnerable to fraud by retailers, a fact the provincial body who runs the system has known and ignored for years, ombudsman Andre Marin said Monday.

“The OLG is fixated on profit rather than on public service,” he told reporters Monday. “It is too close to its retailers, who are not just its frontline sales force but some of its best customers. It has lost site of the fact that it is supposed to be a guardian of the public trust.”

Chief among his 23 recommendations is that the OLG relinquish its role as regulator of the industry, a role he believes profoundly conflicts with its position as owner of the system. Other suggested reforms include the prescreening of retailers and a zero tolerance policy for theft and fraud.

The report was prompted by the story of Bob Edmonds, a 78-year-old small town Ontario native who was swindled out of a $250,000 prize by a corner store owner who claimed the prize for herself.

The report prompted the surprise departure of the corporation’s Chief Executive, Duncan Brown, last week.

Mr. Marin’s report, titled “A Game of Trust,” states at least 247 retail owners or their employees have won major lottery prizes since 1999. The claimants took home between $250,000 and $12.5 million.

"It's morally reprehensible," said Mr. Marin. "There's a climate in place which is quite lax, not one that discourages this kind of behaviour."

In 2003 and 2004, the OLG identified five suspicious major wins by “insiders” yet only one of the claimants was denied a prize. Mr. Marin reports the former head’s response to concerns was, in one case, “sometimes you hold your nose.”

“Instead of investigating what went wrong, as a good public servant would, it (OLG) reacted like a business facing a public relations nightmare,” Mr. Marin said.

Ontario’s lottery business took in almost $2.4-billion in 2006

And now, because of all the nose-holding, the OLG and the Ontario government are facing a public relations nightmare—and a funding calamity, since lottery earnings go towards hospitals, schools and other social infrastructure—as they endeavour to undo the harm and restore the public’s trust.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:48 | link | comments (4)

Striving to banish the beating: The International Herald Tribune has an article about Laleh Bakhtiar, the woman who has recently completed a new English translation of the uncreated word of God. But just because it was recited sura by sura to the Prophet doesn’t mean there isn’t any wiggle room. For example, Ms. Bakhtiar has figured out a way to reinterpret one of the perfect scripture’s more problematic passages, the one where men are advised not to spare the rod when their womenfolk get uppity:

…The hotly debated verse states that a rebellious woman should first be admonished, then abandoned in bed and ultimately "beaten" - the most common translation for the Arabic word "daraba" - unless her behavior improves.

"I decided it either has to have a different meaning, or I can't keep translating," said Bakhtiar, an Iranian-American who adopted her father's Islamic faith as an adult and had not dwelled on the verse before. "I couldn't believe that God would sanction harming another human being except in war."

Bakhtiar worked for five more years, with the translation, which is to be published in April. But while she found a way through the problem, few verses in the Koran have generated as much debate, particularly as more Muslim women study their faith as an academic field.

"This verse became an issue of debate and controversy because of the ethics of the modern age, the universal notions of human rights," said Khaled Abou El Fadl, an Egyptian-born law professor and Islamic scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The leader of the North American branch of a mystical Islamic order, Sheik Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, said he had been questioned about the verse in places around the world where women were struggling for greater rights, but most of all by Westerners.

Women want to be free "from some of the extreme ideology of some Muslims," Kabbani said, after delivering a sermon on the verse recently in Oakland, California.

In Germany last week, a judge citing the verse caused a public outcry after she rejected the request for a fast-track divorce by a Moroccan-German woman because her husband beat her. The judge, who was removed from the case, wrote that the Koran sanctioned physical abuse.

There are at least 20 English translations of the Koran.

Daraba has been translated as beat, hit, strike, scourge, chastise, flog, make an example of, spank, pet, tap and even seduce.

"Spank?" exclaimed Fadl, who has concluded that the verse refers to a rare public legal procedure that ended before the 10th century. "That is really kinky. That is the author fantasizing too much."

Bakhtiar, who is 68 and has a doctorate in educational psychology, set out to translate the Koran because she found the existing versions inaccessible by Westerners. Many Jewish and Christian names, for example, have been Arabized, so Moses and Jesus appear in the English version of the Koran as Musa and Issa.

When she reached the problematic verse, Bakhtiar spent the next three months on daraba. She does not speak Arabic, but she learned to read the holy texts in Arabic while studying and working as a translator in the Islamic Republic of Iran in the 1970s and '80s.

Her eureka moment came on roughly her 10th reading of Edward William Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon, a 3,064-page volume from the 19th century, she said. Among the six pages of definitions for daraba was "to go away."

"I said to myself, 'Oh, God, that is what the prophet meant,' " said Bakhtiar, speaking in the offices of Kazi Publications in Chicago, a mail-order house that is publishing her translation.

"When the prophet had difficulty with his wives, what did he do? He didn't beat anybody, so why would any Muslim do what the prophet did not?"…

Here’s my eureka moment: Ms. Bakhtiar is suffering from a severe case of denial as to what the prophet would and would not do. A strange thing to say about someone who just spent the past half decade translating the document which details the prophet’s exploits. And she’s dreaming in Technicolor if she thinks her translation of the word—one she cherry-picked out of six—six!—pages of synonyms—will remedy the problems faced by Muslim women because of Islamic doctrine.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:19 | link | comments (1)

Jude verboten: Saudi Arabia—you know, the custodian of the two mosques, the mystical, magical Kingdom that practices gender and infidel apartheid as well as a whackadoodle brand of Islam called Wahabism—is supposed to have cooked up an intriguing “peace” plan. And some receptive internationalists are supposed to be hastening to the Saudi capital to hear what the unctuous Sheiks have to say. Unfortunately, one of their party, an Israeli journalist, isn't going to be allowed into the country. The oily ones aren’t saying why she’s been denied entry, but you know and I know that they probably don’t want  her Zionist-Jew-Devil cooties to defile their pure and holy soil.

And we’re supposed to entertain a “peace plan” from these hateful bigots?

 

From the New York Times:

CAIRO, March 24 — Saudi Arabia has barred entry to a Washington-based Israeli journalist traveling with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on his current Middle East tour, the United Nations said today.

Mr. Ban is going to Riyadh on Tuesday for two days of the summit meeting of the League of Arab States.

Orly Azoulay, the Washington bureau chief of Yediot Aharonot, was unable to obtain a visa to Saudi Arabia despite assurances the Saudi mission in New York gave the United Nations last week, said Michéle Montas, Mr. Ban’s spokeswoman.

Ms. Montas said that both Lebanon and Saudi Arabia initially refused to grant Ms. Azoulay a visa, but that Lebanon had dropped its objections last week and given her the needed stamp.

Ms. Azoulay, 53, an Israeli-born dual citizen of France and Israel, sought the visa on her French passport. She said she had traveled during the past two years to Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon, Iraq and Pakistan and had gone to Saudi Arabia in 2000 with correspondents covering then-Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright.

When the Saudi consulate in New York returned the passports of the 11 news reporters and broadcasters to United Nations headquarters on Friday afternoon, only Ms. Azoulay’s bore no Saudi visa. Ms. Montas said this occurred despite repeated appeals to the Saudis during the week from Vijay Nambiar, Mr. Ban’s chief of staff.

Mr. Azoulay joined the trip in London on Thursday, and Ms. Montas said that the United Nations had been told that the visa might come through while the United Nations group proceeded to Cairo and Jordan.

In recent days, though, she said, the Saudi mission did not return calls from United Nations officials, and they have now concluded that Ms. Azoulay will be not be allowed to accompany the United Nations group to Riyadh…

If the UN had any stones—which, as we all know, it doesn’t—it would scotch the entire visit.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:48 | link | comments

What price peace?: The Muslim invasion of Europe that was stymied twice before—once by Charles Martel in 732 and once at the gates of Vienna in 1683—is more or less a fait accompli (prompting an apparently senile Bernard Lewis, grand poobah of Islam scholarship, to quip, “Third time lucky?”) But the foolish EUnuchs are crowing about their “50 years of peace.”

Big whoop. The “peace” they’re signed on to is the kind that pertains when the one true faith is in the driver’s seat. And it has come at the highest possible cost: their freedom.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:05 | link | comments (1)

Soros-cide: Forget the nukes. Israel will probably be destroyed long before they drop by a cadre of clueless, malevolent leftists.  By Caroline Glick in JWR:

…Since 2003, [George] Soros has donated more than $100 million to radical left wing groups and to the political campaigns of far-left anti-war Democratic candidates in the US. His money has made him one of the most influential forces in the Democratic Party.

 

After Hamas won the Palestinian election last January, Soros turned his guns against Israel. Last October he announced his intention to work with left wing American Jewish groups such as Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, American Friends of Peace Now, and the Israel Policy Forum to form an effectively anti-Israel lobbying group that will compete with the pro-Israel American-Israel Public Action Committee. Soros accuses AIPAC of making common cause with the war hawks and so harming US and Israeli national security.

 

This week Soros laid out his anti-Israel views in the New York Review of Books. In a longwinded screed entitled, "On Israel, American and AIPAC," Soros presents an incoherent hodge-podge of sloppy logic and contradictory statements.

 

On the one hand, he acknowledges that Israel's withdrawal from Gaza radicalized the Palestinians and brought Hamas to power. On the other hand, he insists that further Israeli withdrawals will cause the Palestinians to moderate. While he acknowledges that Hamas is a terror group, he insists that the US must recognize it and force Israel to recognize it and that AIPAC is responsible for neither recognizing Hamas as a legitimate political force in the region.

 

Soros claims to want peace for Israel. Yet he demands that the US and Israel embrace the Saudi plan which calls for Israel's effective destruction through a forced Israeli withdrawal from Judea, Jerusalem, Samaria and the Golan Heights and the demographic destruction of the Jewish state through unimpeded immigration of 4-5 million foreign-born Arabs.

 

In effect, Soros's arguments make clear that protestations aside, the advancement of human rights and peace cannot possibly be his true goals. Rather, what seems to interest him most is the erosion of the US-Israel alliance. A US abandonment of Israel is seen as a necessary component of an overall strategy for causing the US to cease its fight against the global jihad.

 

In her visit here in Jerusalem next week Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to pressure the Olmert-Livni-Peretz government to continue diplomatic contacts with the Hamas-Fatah terror government through PA Chairman and Fatah commander Mahmoud Abbas. In light of the administration's weakening stand on Hamas, it is clear that Soros's views have taken hold in ever-widening policy circles in Washington.

 

In advancing their anti-Israel views, Soros and his allies, (most recently, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof), invoke the work of radical leftist Israeli organizations like the Geneva Initiative, B'tselem and Peace Now. Like Soros, these organizations claim to act for the advancement of peace and human rights. And like Soros, these organizations effectively cooperate with pro-jihadist groups in eroding Israel's ability to defend its rights as a Jewish democracy…

 

Cultural Marxism in action, working hand-in-glove with jihadism to erode Western civilization. Sort of like a latter-day Stalin-Hitler pact that’s just as evil but suffused with a lot more self-righteousness.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:46 | link | comments

Arse wipes: As the Goredolotrous ecophobes become even more hysterical, they are resorting to all sorts of ridiculous tactics, convinced that in so doing they will somehow save the planet.

The New York Times describes the efforts of one such couple, dunderheads who hail from the chattering classes. They have decided that Earth’s survival hinges on their resolving to eschew toilet tissue for a year, among several other largely pointless pursuits:

…Welcome to Walden Pond, Fifth Avenue style. Isabella’s parents, Colin Beavan, 43, a writer of historical nonfiction, and Michelle Conlin, 39, a senior writer at Business Week, are four months into a yearlong lifestyle experiment they call No Impact. Its rules are evolving, as Mr. Beavan will tell you, but to date include eating only food (organically) grown within a 250-mile radius of Manhattan; (mostly) no shopping for anything except said food; producing no trash (except compost, see above); using no paper; and, most intriguingly, using no carbon-fueled transportation.

Mr. Beavan, who has written one book about the origins of forensic detective work and another about D-Day, said he was ready for a new subject, hoping to tread more lightly on the planet and maybe be an inspiration to others in the process.

Also, he needed a new book project and the No Impact year was the only one of four possibilities his agent thought would sell. This being 2007, Mr. Beavan is showcasing No Impact in a blog (noimpactman.com) laced with links and testimonials from New Environmentalist authorities like treehugger.com. His agent did indeed secure him a book deal, with Farrar, Straus & Giroux, and he and his family are being tailed by Laura Gabbert, a documentary filmmaker and Ms. Conlin’s best friend…

Oh, so you mean it’s not a completely selfless attempt to minimize his carbon footprint? It’s actually a brazen attempt to rake in some shekels so he can maintain the lifestyle to which he became accumstomed prior to starting this idiotic “experiment”?

 

In that case, I’m sure the Goracle would approve. (Although, if they aren't using toilet paper, I'm not so sure he'd want to hang out with them.)

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:28 | link | comments (2)

Mahditalky: With apologies to Lewis Carroll:

 

'Twas thrillig that the slimy Moo

Did jeer and gibber in the wake.

All shifty were the diplomoids

And the Ban Ki-moon doth quake.

 

“Beware the Mahdi talk, my son!

The barbs that bite, the claims that splash!

Beware the “Jew-Jew” squalk and shun

The furious balderdash!”

 

He took his glowgreat nuke in hand:

Long time the max’mum blow he sought—

So rested he by the unranie,

And pondered ‘fore he fought.

 

And, in huffish frame he stood.

The Mahdi talk spewed from his maw.

And rapturous, in an auragreen

He vented ‘bout his law.

 

One, two! Kill the Jew! And through and through

The glowgreat nuke went blister-black!

And once the ent’y had no ident’y

He’d come galumphing back.

 

“And has thou slain the Mahdi talk?”

“Of course not, he returneth nigh!

O frabjous war! Allahu Akbar!”

He chortled low and high.

 

‘Twas thrillig that the slimy Moo

Did jeer and gibber in the wake.

All shifty were the diplomoids

And the Ban Ki-moon doth quake.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:27 | link | comments

No Moo: The hairy Islamic Hitler says he won’t be coming to speak at the UN after all. He blames the U.S. for purposely failing to send him a visa on time. But a State Department spokesman says that’s simply not so, and that Moo’s decision to stay behind is entirely his own.

Who’s telling the truth?

 

Does it matter? The important thing is that Moo won't get his chance to hyperventilate for the world's cameras in front of a captive audience at the Security Council.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:38 | link | comments

The infamy of the UN: It was meant to be a beacon of hope, a champion of human rights, a force for good in a world where good was in desperately short supply. Instead, it has become corrupt, bloated, morally bankrupt, the catamite of dictators, and completely feckless save for its facilitation of Islamic-fascism and Jew-hatred; in that effort it has proven extremely effective.

Here’s the speech Hillel C. Neuer, executive director of the NGO United Nations Watch, delivered yesterday to the 4th plenary session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. From the National Post:

Six decades ago, in the aftermath of the Nazi horrors, the UN Commission on Human Rights was created. Today, we ask: What has become of that noble dream? In this session we see the answer. Faced with reports from around the world of torture and persecution, what has the council pronounced, and what has it decided? Nothing. Its response has been silence.

One might say, in Harry Truman's words, that this has become a Do-Nothing, Good-for-Nothing Council. But that would be inaccurate. This council has, after all, done something.

It has enacted one resolution after another condemning a single state: Israel. In eight pronouncements, Hamas and Hezbollah have been granted impunity. The entire rest of the world -- millions of victims, in 191 countries --is ignored.

The corrupt dictators who orchestrate this campaign will tell you that they seek to protect human rights --Palestinian rights. But do they truly care about Palestinian rights?

Let us consider the past few months. More than 130 Palestinians were killed by Palestinian forces. This is three times the combined total that were the pretext for calling special sessions in July and November. Yet the champions of Palestinian rights -- they say nothing. Little three-year-old Salam Balousha and his two brothers were murdered in their car by Hamas troops. Why has this council chosen silence? Because Israel could not be blamed. Because, in truth, the despots who run this Council couldn't care less about Palestinians, or about any human rights.

They seek to demonize Israeli democracy, to delegitimize the Jewish state, to scapegoat the Jewish people. They also seek to distort and pervert the very language and idea of human rights.

You ask: What has become of the founders' dream? With terrible lies and moral inversion, it is being turned into a nightmare.

And a nightmare, alas, from which we cannot awaken.

 

Fifty-nine years ago, in a moment of weakness occasioned by guilt over the extermination of Europe's Jews, the UN signed off on the establishment of the Jewish state. It has been doing its damndest to try to tear it down ever since.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:50 | link | comments

Naked backbone: Some laudable anti-dhimmitude from the University of Western Ontario. It is refusing to grant a Muslim student a credit for an art course she took because she wouldn't participate in the portion of the course that included “life studies”—i.e. sketching a nude model. The student had offered to receive a “zero” for that portion, and had presented a letter from a Muslim chaplain explaining that looking at naked chicks you’re not wed to is “un-Islamic” (and odd argument to make since the student in question is female), but the university refused to budge. And that made the would-be artiste very, very upset. By Michael Valpy in the Globe and Mail:

She recalled becoming emotional and starting to cry as she pleaded with her professor and chair of the department to be allowed to take the course without drawing nudes.

In any event, she graduates this spring without nude drawing in her résumé. "I don't think it's such an essential part of the work," she said.

A report on discrimination against Muslim students made public this week by the Canadian Federation of Students calls it "one of the most egregious stories" of a university refusing to accommodate diversity.

“Accommodate diversity”—a phrase designed to appeal to tender-hearted multicultists who may not realize it’s actually a demand that one accommodate oneself to Islamic law. Thankfully, the university isn’t falling for it:

Kathleen Okruhlik, UWO's dean of arts and humanities, sees it differently, and takes issue with the accuracy of aspects of the student federation's report. In the past, she said, it has been conservative Christians asking for exemption from certain instruction. Now it is Muslims.

The issue touches on a heated controversy in Quebec under the heading of accommodement raisonnable, or reasonable accommodation, for religious minorities. Premier Jean Charest has created a public inquiry to examine how far the majority should go in a liberal pluralistic democracy to accommodate minorities.

Ms. Okruhlik said the university allows students to do substitute life drawing projects in introductory courses because it is recognized that, if they don't get through the introductory course, they will be barred from going further.

"But for advanced courses for drawing and painting, we decided we couldn't alter the curriculum for Muslim students or anybody else. It doesn't keep anybody out of visual arts. It will keep some people later on out of specific drawing and painting courses. In those courses, drawing from life models is absolutely critical. It's such an important part of the tradition to be able to represent the human body."

Ms. Okruhlik said she and her academic colleagues have dealt with Christian students who don't want to read Henry Miller (who wrote detailed accounts of sexual experiences) or literature that portrays homosexuality favourably.

"And we say to those students, 'No, we value diversity and plurality, but we also value academic freedom. So if you want to take this course, you have to read the assigned reading,' she said.

"It's hard for us to see how equal treatment means we can say to some students, 'No, I'm sorry you have to read that novel that portrays homosexuality in a favourable light -- but, no, you don't have to do that drawing.' "

Bravo, Ms. Okruhlik. But you’d better steel yourself for the fallout because I have a feeling CAIR-CAN and the Canadian Islamic Congress are going to have something vociferous to say about it.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:41 | link | comments (1)

What I learned in the Toronto Star: Always a wealth of misinformation, is the Atkinson-principled multicultist rag. And were I to esteem it as an authoritative source, as do far too many avid readers, I would have discovered, courtesy Mitch Potter, the Star’s Middle East correspondent, that Islamism isn’t so scary; it’s merely another political option, an alternative to the democracy that Arabs are rejecting because it’s so alien and American. Moreover, women in Arab counties, like Luna Rajab, a well-educated, professional from Syria, are rejecting the West and “Embracing their faith” (yes, that’s actually the headline when the lengthy article continues on an inside page—doesn’t it make you feel all warm inside?).

But let’s allow Ms. Rajab to explain her decision to don the hijab, a move that isn’t sitting too well with her non-Islamist mishpacha. When a friend of hers, a Syrian journalist, “snarls” (Mitch Potter’s verb) that, “Yes, in our family we educate our women…But when they grow up their job is to chop carrots,” Ms. Rajab responds unsnarlingly:

 

“These attitudes exist, but they have nothing to do with the real Islam. Here in the Arab world there is a tendency to blame outsiders for all our problems. But to take this attitude is to admit you are powerless to change things…

 

“Well, I want to be part of the change. If we study the era of the Prophet Muhammad we know women were strong participants in society. And then somewhere along the way we fell into decline, poverty, neglect and deterioration. Islamic values were scrambled and mixed up with tribal and traditional social habits. And out of this came men who want to lock away their women in the name of Islam.”

 

Oh, brother. Or should I say, oh, sister? Ms. Rajab wants to go on a fruitless quest to uncover something that does not exist, that has never existed: an Islam which accords women the same respect and value as men. What a foolish, deluded woman.

 

(Coincidentally, I wrote the Globe and Mail a letter on much the same subject this week, in response to a letter by a Muslim woman from Edmonton:

 

Yasmin Quraishi-Nizam contends that the problems confronting Muslim women in certain unspecified countries are entirely cultural and have nothing to do with Islamic doctrine. As evidence, she mentions that women’s property rights are enshrined in the Koran—rights which women in the West achieved many centuries later. However, there are also numerous passages in the Koran which are far less, shall we say, egalitarian. These passages hold that women are lesser creatures who must always heed their husbands; who must be sexually available to them on demand; who can be beaten if they demur or are recalcitrant about following other instructions; who are responsible should they be raped; and whose testimony in court is worth exactly half that of a man.

 

Ms. Quraishi-Nizam is correct when she says that the treatment of Muslim women tends to vary from country to country, but that is because some “cultures”—like the one in Saudi Arabia, for example—follow Islamic law more rigorously than others. And in those cultures, women are bound by inequitable strictures which have not advanced an iota since the Middle Ages.)

 

Along with Mitch Potter’s informative whitewash, the Star has thoughtfully included a sidebar about the movement that gave rise to modern "political Islam," the Muslim Brotherhood. You may have heard that the Brotherhood is a group of fanatical jihadists who want to turn restore the caliphate and turn back the clock to a (fictional) pristine era of Islamic perfection, but, Allah forefend, you won’t read stuff like that here. According to the Star, the Muslim Brotherhood is

 

the main source of inspiration for many Islamist organizations in Egypt and several other Arab countries, including Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, Sudan and Yemen. It was formed to link tradition with modernity, to promote social reform based on Islamic ethos, and to oppose political and social injustice and British imperialism.

 

Promote social reform? Oppose political and social injustice? Why, the Muslim Brotherhood sounds exactly like…the Star’s readers! A veritable Amnesty International, Islamic style.

 

If you told me they also want to save the whales and free Tibet, I might just send them a donation.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:06 | link | comments

Putrid boullaibaisse: In honour of their 50^th birthday tomorrow, the EUnuchs have crafted a lofty declaration—a state of their union, so to speak. Not surprisingly, this being an EU document and all, it is far more notable for what it excludes than for what it includes. From the International Herald Tribune:

BRUSSELS: The European Union's 50th birthday declaration — meant to unite the 489 million citizens of the EU behind the ideals of a unified Europe — is a three-page document that avoids mentioning the faltering constitution, has no reference to religion and does not affirm the bloc's further expansion, according to a draft copy obtained Friday.

The declaration was conceived by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany to help the 27-member Union overcome the drift that has plagued the bloc since the French and the Dutch rejected the proposed constitution two years ago. It will be the centerpiece at celebrations this weekend in Berlin that will also include a Muslim-Catholic hip-hop group from Denmark, a Beethoven performance and free beer and sausages on the streets.

But rather than unifying Europe, the document celebrating the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome appears to highlight its divisions.

Poland, a large Catholic country, pleaded unsuccessfully for the declaration to mention the Christian roots of Europe. Britain, which has retained its currency, the pound, lobbied for the document to downplay the euro. France and the Netherlands — whose voters rejected the constitution — insisted that it omit mention of the charter.

The result, some EU officials said, is a compromise document that is pithy and concise by EU standards but as unlikely to cause offense as it is to inspire. "We have ended up with a fish soup that has ingredients for almost everybody, but no taste," Daniel Cohn-Bendit, leader of the Greens in the European Parliament, said Friday. "People will shrug and say, 'So what?'"…

I think the eloquent M. Cohn-Bendit put it very well.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:31 | link | comments (1)

Madness: Utter madness.

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

A new spin: I have been saying for some time that Islam’s Achilles heel is its treatment of women. Now, some Muslim feminists are trying to give the Koran a, um, pedicure in an effort to bring in line with more modern thinking. From Reuters:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A new English-language interpretation of the Muslim Holy book the Koran challenges the use of words that feminists say have been used to justify the abuse of Islamic women.

The new version, translated by an Iranian-American, will be published in April and comes after Muslim feminists from around the world gathered in New York last November and vowed to create the first women's council to interpret the Koran and make the religion more friendly toward women.

In the new book, Dr. Laleh Bakhtiar, a former lecturer on Islam at the University of Chicago, challenges the translation of the Arab word "idrib," traditionally translated as "beat," which feminists say has been used to justify abuse.

Why choose to interpret the word as 'to beat' when it can also mean 'to go away'," she writes in the introduction to the new book.

The passage is generally translated: "And as for those women whose illwill you have reason to fear, admonish them; then leave them alone in bed; then beat them; and if thereupon they pay you heed, do not seek to harm them. Behold, God is indeed most high, great!"

Instead, Bakhtiar suggests "Husbands at that point should submit to God, let God handle it -- go away from them and let God work His Will instead of a human being inflicting pain and suffering on another human being in the Name of God."

Some Muslims said the new interpretation strayed from the original. Omar Abu-Namous, imam at the New York Islamic Cultural Center Mosque, questioned Bakhtiar's interpretation…

You don't say. Something tells me the by-the-book gang isn't going to stand for a bunch of uppity females messing with the uncreated word of God.

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

Iran ups the ante: Don’t look now, but Iran is becoming even more belligerent

It’s almost as if the mullahs want the infidels to attack them in order to rally support from their populace.

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

Go Jews!: While the chattering classes in the U.K. (including many self-despising Jews) continue to embrace the adorable Palestinians and distance themselves from a nation they see as a racist, apartheid state, English soccer louts visiting Israel give the Jewish joint an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

Here’s a YNet video of one such fan, a guy who looks like he’s enjoyed a brewski or two in his time.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:11 | link | comments (1)

My Hairy Despot: The hairy Islamic Hitler is still waiting for his U.S. visa so he can come to Jew York and give all us infidels a good dressing down. (First, though, he’ll invite us to submit, as is required according to the official terms of the holy war.)

If you listen carefully, you can hear a jubilant HIH (no Moo do-little, he) singing one of the showstoppers from My Fair Lady:

 

I’m gonna speak at the UN soon.

Yell ‘bout Great Satan and his crime.

So tell Condoleeza

That I need a visa

And get me to T. Bay on time.

 

I wanna be there in the morning.

Beard trimmed and lookin’ in my prime.

I’ll pull the stops out

But don’t call the cops out.

And get me to T. Bay in time.

 

If I am lying,

Well, so what’s new?

If there’s a problem

Blame in to “the Jew.”

 

‘Cuz I’m gonna be there in the mornin’

Rage and green aura will be primed.

Kick up a rumpus—like “how dare you stump us?”

So get me to T. Bay, get me to T. Bay

For Allah’s sake, get me to T. Bay on time!..

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

M.I.T. nitwits: If you’re one of those people who happens to believe that the Israel-Palestinian issue is the alpha and omega of the world’s problems, and that the holy city of Jerusalem (I threw in the “holy” since the media’s always appending it to places in Iran, Iraq and the Magic Kingdom) is that issue’s ground zero, you might be inclined to try to “solve” the "problem" of the Jewish “occupation” of the whole city. (You’d also be inclined to overlook the real problem, the inability of Arabs and Muslims to come to terms with Jewish sovereignty over Israel and Jerusalem, but that’s not nearly as sexy an issue to the problem-solvers.) Anyway, some geniuses over at M.I.T. are holding a contest which they think may just help pave the way to a “Just Jerusalem.” From Reuters via the Toronto Star:

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.–It could be billed as the world's best minds tackle one of the world's biggest problems: a global competition to redesign Jerusalem in a way that fosters peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology will take entries from across the globe for a "Just Jerusalem" contest starting on March 31, hoping its winning entries can help resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and spur regional peace.

It poses lofty questions that have bedevilled politicians for decades such as what Jerusalem, which is at the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, needs to do to become "just, peaceful, and sustainable" by 2050, and whether the city should be a capital of both Israel and Palestine or of one state.

The ideas should "reconcile long-standing and seemingly intractable conflicts," among other criteria, MIT said.

Winners of four categories on the rebuilding of Jerusalem – from updating its physical buildings and other infrastructure to overhauling its economy, civil infrastructure and "symbolic infrastructure" – and a fifth "floating" category will receive a fellowship at MIT worth $50,000 (U.S.) each.

"There is a kind of nested set of conflicts that start at a small locality like Jerusalem and work up through the nation-state level of the Israeli and Palestinian conflict," said Diane Davis, co-director of the project and associate dean of MIT's School of Architecture and Planning.

Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem from Jordan with the rest of the West Bank in 1967 and annexed it, declaring it part of what it calls its "united and eternal capital." The world does not recognize the annexation, while Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.

The nine-member jury includes a former deputy mayor of Jerusalem and a Palestinian scholar.

The contest is open to anyone and the deadline for submissions is Dec. 31.

A winner will be announced the following March.

Here’s my entry: Just lay off. Jerusalem is just fine as is, and continued Israeli control ensures that people of all three religions will have access to their holy sites.

 

And my suggestion for all the would-be problem-solvers out there: read Dore Gold’s new book, The Fight for Jerusalem. It will give you a much-needed reality check.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:27 | link | comments (1)

Al’s bad timing: F. Scott Fitzgerald famously opined that there were no second acts in American lives.

Of course, F. Scott never met Al Gore. By Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post:

If you're Al Gore, you gotta be wondering: Now they like me?

Gore supporters are convinced that their man got a raw deal from the media in 2000. There was all that focus on his sighing, his makeup, his earth-tones wardrobe, his supposed invented-the-Internet type exaggerations. Some Gore advisers concede that he ran a flawed campaign, but still believe that the press held their candidate to a different standard than George W. Bush.

What a difference seven years and two Oscars make.

When the ex-veep testified on the Hill yesterday, he was trailed by hordes of reporters. His arrival was heralded by a front-page New York Times story on how he is "a heartbreak loser turned Oscar boasting Nobel hopeful globe trotting pop culture eminence." He even has a new nickname: the Goracle.

Boy, coverage like that could have gotten him those last three electoral votes last time.

The reason the star of "An Inconvenient Truth" is now treated as a visionary is because he's been trumpeting the dangers of global warming for two decades. Bush 41 called him "Ozone Man" back in '92. But now far more people are concerned about the ozone layer and melting icecaps, and Gore's moment seems to have arrived. Reporters even surrounded him--and Tipper--in the hallway for an impromptu presser.

Not everyone is going to agree with the 10-point plan that Gore presented yesterday to the House and Senate (he served in each chamber). Indeed, some of the Republicans were all over him. But the fact that his testimony drew some live TV coverage is a (forgive me) sea change in the way he, and the issue, are covered.

Of course--let's get real--it's the mere possibility that he might run for president again that is tantalizing the same media establishment that was long dismissive of Gore. In fact, many reporters seem to be rooting for Gore to jump in and ignoring his repeated denials that he has any such intention. But if he did take the leap, the honeymoon would end within nanoseconds.

Oh, I dunno. After all, he has been bumped up from has-been to Goracle, and the Goredolatry has made significant inroads into the national consciousness such that the honeymoon would likely last at least a month or two.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:46 | link | comments (3)

The wrongs of rights: Melanie Phillips dissects the tyrany of “human rights law” and the grievous harm it has wrought on British society:

…The ideas that rights in Britain depend on human rights law is grotesque. England, after all, is the cradle of Western liberty as a result of English common law, which held that everything was permitted unless it was prohibited. Now, only what is codified and court-approved can be allowed.

Not surprisingly, liberty in Britain is now in fact much diminished. The universities close down politically incorrect debate. Anyone who criticises a minority group risks vilification and the loss of promotion or job prospects.

Freedom of religious conscience, the defining value of a liberal society, has effectively been abolished. Catholic adoption agencies will be forced to close if they refuse to place children for adoption with gay couples. But then ‘human rights’ has come to be seen, in the words of one activist, as ‘a religion for a godless age’.

Human rights law has nothing to do with true liberalism. It is instead a judicial delivery system for cultural Marxism. In short, Britain’s human rights culture should more properly be known as a culture of human wrongs. Australia, be warned.

Canada, too.

I am now memorizing the sentence bolded above, the single-most profound insight I have read in some time.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:31 | link | comments (2)

Say cheese/fromage: Here’s a national snapshot of our attitudes toward the issue that “carbon-neutral” eco-deity Al “The Goracle” Gore likes to call “an inconvenient truth.” Not surprisingly, folks in Alberta are the least inclined to hop on the eco-bandwagon, while those in Quebec are likely to be first in line. From the Ceeb:

A new poll suggests most Canadians believe climate change is a reality, but people in various regions hold widely different attitudes — with Albertans expressing the most skepticism.

The survey conducted by Angus Reid Strategies released Thursday found that almost four in five Canadians — 77 per cent — are convinced global warming is real.

"This is the biggest study that has been done on Canadians and their opinions and attitudes towards global warming," Angus Reid poll researcher Ellie Sykes told CBC News Thursday.

"People are really getting on the band wagon. They're really looking for government and corporations to take a much larger step than they have so far."

In Alberta, 69 per cent of respondents said they believed in global warming, while in Quebec, the number soared to 83 per cent. 

Fifty-seven per cent of Quebecers polled said they are promoting better behaviour toward the environment, while only 36 per cent of Albertans said they are doing the same…

‘Nuff said, n’est-ce pas?

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:41 | link | comments

More on 300: Classicist Victor David Hanson weighs in on the movie 300, and sees some parallels between that ancient war and our current predicament. From Real Clear Politics: 

…Some reviewers think the film is gratuitously violent. But Thermopylae was no picnic. Almost all the Spartans and Thespians were killed, along with hundreds from other Greek contingents. Some of the film's most graphic killing - such as Persians being pushed over the cliff into the sea - derives from the text of Herodotus. And the filmmakers omitted the mutilation of King Leonidas, whose head Xerxes ordered impaled on a stake.

Finally, some have suggested that "300" is juvenile in its black-and-white depiction - and glorification - of free Greeks versus imperious Persians. The film has actually been banned in Iran as hurtful American propaganda, as the theocracy suddenly is reclaiming its "infidel" ancient past.

But that good/bad contrast comes not from the director or Frank Miller, but is based on accounts from the Greeks themselves, who saw their own society as antithetical to the monarchy of imperial Persia.

True, 2,500 years ago, almost every society in the ancient Mediterranean world had slaves. And all relegated women to a relatively inferior position. Sparta turned the entire region of Messenia into a dependent serf state.

But in the Greek polis alone, there were elected governments, ranging from the constitutional oligarchy at Sparta to much broader-based voting in states like Athens and Thespiae.

Most importantly, only in Greece was there a constant tradition of unfettered expression and self-criticism. Aristophanes, Sophocles and Plato questioned the subordinate position of women. Alcidamas lamented the notion of slavery.

Such openness was found nowhere else in the ancient Mediterranean world. That freedom of expression explains why we rightly consider the ancient Greeks as the founders of our present Western civilization - and, as millions of moviegoers seem to sense, far more like us than the enemy who ultimately failed to conquer them.

 

Back then, the Greeks had the will and the civilizational confidence to triumph. Do we?

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:29 | link | comments

Brits abashed: John Bolton has told a Beeb interviewer that Israel had a green light from the U.S. to go ahead and crush Hezbollah last summer, and the Brits appear to be shocked—shocked!—by the news. From the Jerusalem Post:

The United States resisted calls for an early cease-fire in last summer's Israel-Lebanon war in order to give Israel time to defeat Hizbullah, the former US ambassador to the United Nations said.

The demand for an immediate cease-fire, backed by much of the international community but ignored for weeks by the United States and Britain, had been "dangerous and misguided," John Bolton said in a British Broadcasting Corp. interview aired Thursday.

Bolton agreed with the assertion that the US had given Israel free reign in its fight against Lebanon's Hizbullah guerrillas.

"What was wrong with that?" Bolton said. "They had been attacked, they were responding. The fact was that Israel was subject to a military threat from Hizbullah on a continuous basis.

"Hizbullah had committed an act of aggression and Israel was reacting in its own self-defense. And if reacting in its own self defense meant the defeat of the enemy, that was perfectly legitimate, under international law and frankly under good politics."

Bolton, who stepped down from his UN post in December, said he was "damned proud of what we did."

Bolton was interviewed for a BBC radio documentary on the war to be broadcast in full next month.

The former ambassador, who has a reputation as a blunt-spoken hawk, is writing a book about his days at the UN titled "Surrender is Not an Option."

British Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells said Bolton's remarks came as a surprise.

"I certainly didn't get the sense that there was some sort of formal collusion between the Americans and the Israelis," he told the BBC…

Um, how is that “collusion”? Aren’t they both on the same side?

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:13 | link | comments (2)

The culture of complaint: Let’s see: the hairy Islamic Hitler has hosted conferences dedicated to the related propositions that the Holocaust was a gigantic hoax and that the world would be better off were there were no Israel. He also continues to blow a big, wet raspberry to the international community as he goes ahead with plans to make nukes with which he hopes to redraw the regional map sans the Jews. With all that, plus plans for global conquest and the imminent return of the occluded 12th imam, you’d think he wouldn’t have time to kick back and watch a gory Hollywood blockbuster. And you’d be correct. The reports he’s received about the movie 300 have been entirely second hand. Even so, he’s outraged because he’s heard it depicts ancient Persians as “savages.” And, heaven knows, that’s a smear on their modern-day counterparts, like him, who are suffused with religiosity and in no way resemble those bygone brutes. From the National Post:

TEHRAN - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, accused some major powers yesterday of waging psychological war on Iran, saying they had made a film designed to portray Iranians as savage.

He did not name the film, but his comments appeared to be directed at the Hollywood blockbuster 300 that depicts a 480 B.C. battle between Greeks and Persians.

The film has topped box office charts in the United States and Asia, grossing US$130-million since its March 9 release.

Many Iranians see 300 as part of a broader campaign to vilify the Islamic Republic, which is locked in a standoff with the West over its nuclear program. The West accuses Iran of trying to make nuclear weapons. Tehran denies the charge.

"Today they are trying to tamper with history by making a film and by making Iran's image look savage," the Iranian President said in a televised address to mark the start of the Iranian New Year. He said the campaign against Iran would not succeed.

Iranian officials, media and bloggers have criticized the way their ancestors were portrayed in the film, which was inspired by the tale of 300 Spartans under King Leonidas who held out at Thermopylae against a Persian invasion led by Xerxes.

"By psychological war, propaganda and misuse of the organizations they have themselves created, and for which they have written the rules, and over which they have a monopoly, they are trying to prevent our nation's development," he said.

Last week, Mr. Ahmadinejad's cultural advisor claimed the movie was part of a U.S.-led conspiracy aimed at vilifying Iran since the 1979 revolution that saw Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini replace Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the country's pro-Western Shah, as leader.

"American cultural officials thought they could get mental satisfaction by plundering Iran's historic past and insulting this civilization," Javad Shamqadri said.

"Following the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Hollywood and cultural authorities in the U.S. initiated studies to figure out how to attack Iranian culture. Certainly, the recent movie is a product of such studies."

Iranian MPs have urged Manouchehr Mottaki, the Foreign Minister, and Mohammad Hossein Saffar-Harandi, the Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister, to ask other Muslim countries not to show "this anti-Iranian Hollywood movie."…

Hitler had a cultural advisor, too. His name was Josef Goebbels.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:54 | link | comments

The radical middle: A group of moderate U.K. Muslims is in town to educate their local counterparts on effective ways of persuading idealistic, impressionable young’uns to resist the lure of violence and redirecting them to more socially acceptable causes—like fighting poverty and global warming instead of infidels. In other words, more Goracle, less jihad. From the National Post:

…Radical Middle Way is a grassroots movement that has Islamic scholars with credibility among young British Muslims travel the country preaching against violent interpretations of Islam.

"What's happening on the ground is that 'Muslim' is becoming a political identity, not a religious identity," Mr. Malik told the gathering of about 20 Canadian Muslim leaders.

Mr. Malik said moderate leaders must reinvigorate the faith among disenfranchised youth who have adopted a Muslim identity that is more about anger over Iraq, Afghanistan and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than it is about being a good Muslim.

He said the "writing was on the wall" long before the Sept.11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington that a small percentage of young British Muslims were isolated, angry and about to veer into violence.

Waqar Ahmed, an IT business owner and founding member of the anti-extremist Green Light Muslim Youth Forum, pointed to another difficulty he and other mainstream Muslim leaders face: Not all of them speak Arabic.

The majority of Britian's Muslims hail from the Indian subcontinent, he said, where Urdu and other languages dominate.

Radical imans who speak Arabic can earn instant legitimacy with confused teenagers primed to soak up whatever translation or interpretation of the Koran these Imams offer.

Yahya Fadlalla, an imam and cyber-terrorism consultant from Hamilton, echoed that sentiment earlier in the discussion.

"The word imam has its magic," he said.

He encouraged the group to keep an eye on "so-called imans" with little genuine scholarly training.

Such pretenders can exert a poisonous influence, he suggested.

Speakers from both sides of the Atlantic said Muslims can best reach out to non-Muslims by donating to charities, volunteering and supporting causes that are not considered traditionally Islamic, like the environmental and anti-poverty movements.

"I think we need to talk less about accommodation and more about contribution," said Waqqas Khan, a dentist and former student leader in Britain…

Sounds good to me.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:08 | link | comments

“Unity” in Gaza: The unity government officially came on stream Saturday and today is Thursday. So that means it had, what?, a good four or five days of co-operation before the factional killing started up again. Considering the brutality and thuggishness of those involved, that’s a pretty impressive start, wouldn’t you say? From Al That Jaz:

A Fatah fighter has been killed and seven people wounded in the first deadly clash between Fatah and Hamas since a unity government was formed.

 

Within hours, two Palestinians linked to Hamas were abducted in Gaza City, raising fears that violence could spread despite the coalition's stated aim of ending factional strife and closing ranks.

Fatah said that Hamas security forces fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the northern Gaza home of a senior commander of Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, killing one of the armed wing's members.

 

Seven people, including at least one bystander, were wounded, but the commander was unhurt.

 

Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas's armed wing, said on Wednesday that they had only responded to shooting from the al-Aqsa commander's house.

 

He said a Fatah fighter was preparing to fire a rocket-propelled grenade when it exploded in his hands, killing him and wounding the others.

 

But Abdel Hakim Awad, a Fatah spokesman, charged that the attack was planned and said there would be "grave consequences" if Hamas mounted any more such attacks.

 

It was the first deadly clash since Fatah and Hamas formed a unity cabinet on Saturday…

 

And no doubt it won’t be the last.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:45 | link | comments

Moderate Muslims at risk: To paraphrase Henry David Thoreau, the mass of Muslims lead lives of quiet submission. Except when a “moderate” in their midst dares to speak out and questions the inherent perfection of Islamic law. Then a quiet submissive may issue a death threat to the mouthy moderate. From the Toronto Star:

OTTAWA–Toronto police have launched a hate crime investigation into a phone call from a man who vowed to "slaughter" members of a local Muslim group unless they stop speaking publicly about Islam.

A message left Monday on the voice mail of the secretary general for the Muslim Canadian Congress warned that organization members must "cease from your campaign of smearing Islam" or "I will slaughter you."

The message mentioned congress founder Tarek Fatah and current president Farzana Hassan-Shahid by name. Both have openly criticized the politicization of Islam and alleged influence of Iran and Saudi Arabia in Canadian mosques.

It's not the first time they've been threatened. Hassan-Shahid said since publishing her book Islam, Women and the Challenges of Today, she has been heckled and had her home vandalized.

"But swearing by God that `I will do this and slaughter all of you,' that's pretty chilling," Hassan-Shahid said yesterday.

Canada's Secretary of State for Multiculturalism said he was deeply disturbed by the threat and had notified Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day about the case.

"Threats of violence against individuals for their political or religious views have no place in this country," Jason Kenney told reporters here yesterday.

"It's totally unacceptable and I would hope the whole community – both the Muslim communities and the broader community – would stand in solidarity with those who are being threatened."

Fatah is well-known for his opposition to Sharia law, having campaigned against a 2005 effort to introduce the religious arbitration courts into Ontario law. The Muslim congress has also lobbied for the right of women to lead prayers in mosques and against mandatory requirements to don the hijab.

Those who oppose his views accuse Fatah of monopolizing the media's attention and fostering Islamophobia.

He said a threat last August persuaded him to resign as communications director for the Muslim Canadian Congress, but he still writes newspaper editorials, hosts a current affairs show and is writing a book.

Fatah says both he and Hassan-Shahid will continue to speak out but are frustrated with the lack of public debate and the inability to air their views without the threat of violence.

"It's the youth I'm trying to reach out to with respect to providing a different perspective on Islam and women's rights and progress in general and nobody seems very interested in even entertaining another viewpoint," Hassan-Shahid said yesterday…

"It does surprise me a bit because Canada is a very open society and has always tolerated dissent. I feel that the subculture among traditional Muslims within Canada seems to be extremely insular, seems to not want to integrate at all."…

Multiculturalism strikes again, enshrining “group rights” at the expense of the individual, and ensuring that those who loathe Canada and the infidel West can continue to enjoy the comforts of their government-sanctioned religious ghetto.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:15 | link | comments

Good thinking (sort of): In an encouraging display of sanity, the Bush administration says that it plans to drastically cut the jizya, er, security assistance package, it sends to the Palestinians. The move is an attempt to keep funds out of Hamas coffers. From the International Herald Tribune:

WASHINGTON: The Bush administration will reduce by nearly half a proposed $86 million security assistance package to the Palestinian government to ensure that none of the money ends up with forces loyal to the radical Hamas movement.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who will leave Friday for the Middle East, said Wednesday that she would soon send Congress a revised package that would fund only security elements loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, the moderate president of the Palestinian Authority.

She did not provide specifics, but a senior U.S. official said the cut would amount to about $36 million, leaving only $50 million of the original package. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about details of the plan, spoke on condition of anonymity.

"I have reformulated the plan," Rice told lawmakers. "It will request less money, precisely because some of the money I would have requested I could not fully account for."

Rice said the revisions would help to keep money away from Hamas, a member of the new Palestinian unity government established last weekend…

Really?  Or will it merely reduce the amount of money Hamas can potentially get its hands on?

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:37 | link | comments

Global warning: Mohammed Elmasry’s Canadian Islamic Congress insists that Iran should be allowed to enrich uranium for “civilian use.” So does Iran, only the “civilian use” to which the hairy Islamic Hitler (HIH) and the mullahs would most like to put it is the obliteration of Israeli civilians and their state, which the HIH has colourfully described as “a tumour” on Dar al Islam’s body politic. Today, Iran’s capo di tutti capi stepped forward to issue yet another in the series of the glorious Islamic Republic’s ongoing threats to the infidel, er, international community: cease and desist your sanctions forthwith, or we shall be forced to stop playing by the rules.

As if that’s what it’s been doing up till now. From the Ceeb:

Iran's top leader has warned that his country will pursue nuclear activities outside international regulations if the UN Security Council insists it stop uranium enrichment.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Wednesday that until now, all Iranian nuclear activities have been within the rules imposed by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Under the treaty, a country has the right to make its own nuclear fuel — as long as the process is closely monitored. Tehran insists that it is developing nuclear technology strictly for peaceful purposes, to generate energy.

The UN International Atomic Energy Agency, which is responsible for monitoring the non-proliferation treaty, has complained that Tehran has restricted its inspectors, raising concerns that Iran might not be forthright about its intentions and may be trying to create nuclear weapons.

However, on Wednesday, Khamenei — who tops President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to wield ultimate say over Iranian policy — warned that if the United Nations takes "illegal actions" such as sanctions, "we too can take illegal actions and will do so."

Khamenei did not elaborate what actions Iran might take…

Let me take a stab at it. He’s planning to illegally enrich uranium in order to illuminate Teheran office towers, right?

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:13 | link | comments (1)

The eyes have it: There’s a report that scientists have figured out a way to reduce the spread of malaria. They have developed a technique to make the eyes of non-malaria carrying mosquitoes glow in the dark, which apparently gives them a advantage in the wild over the disease-carrying ones.

Now if they could only figure out how to apply this technique to "moderate" Muslims and jihadis, our security problems would be over.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:56 | link | comments

A barbaric new tactic: “Insurgents” in Iraq are now using children as decoys and murdering them in the process. From Al That Jaz:

Bombers have begun using children to help carry out their attacks in Baghdad, a US general has said.

 

Adults driving a car towards a Baghdad checkpoint were allowed through after two children were seen on the backseat, major general Michael Barbero said in Washington late on Tuesday.

 

 

The adults then parked next to a market in the Adamiya area of Baghdad, abandoned the vehicle and detonated it with the children still inside, he said.

 

Barbero said: "Children in the back seat, lower suspicion, we let it move through.

  

"They park the vehicle, the adults run out and detonate it with the children in the back ... the brutality and ruthless nature of this enemy hasn't changed."…

 

Maybe not, but you can always count on these pathetic excuses for human beings to ratchet up the barbarity by coming up with a new and previously unthinkable practice. I have to say, though, that this kind of willful murder of innocents may well mark a new low--or is it a high?--in inhumanity.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:44 | link | comments (1)

Zundel’s loony lawyer: Everyone’s favourite National Socialism aficonado, Ernst Zundel, is currently cooling his heels in a German jail cell, and if wants to get out any time soon, I suggest he find himself a new attorney. From AP via the Globe and Mail:

BERLIN — German prosecutors on Tuesday charged a lawyer for far-right activist Ernst Zundel with incitement, accusing her of denying the Holocaust and ending one of her legal filings with the words “Heil Hitler.”

The lawyer, Sylvia Stolz, represented Mr. Zundel in his first trial, which collapsed after Ms. Stolz was banned from the proceedings on the grounds that she was trying to sabotage the trial.

Mr. Zundel's second trial at the Mannheim state court ended last month with his conviction for incitement for denying the Holocaust. He was sentenced to the maximum five years in prison.

Mannheim prosecutors said Ms. Stolz herself has now been charged with incitement, attempting to thwart a prosecution and using symbols of a banned organization.

Lawyer of German right wing extremist Ernst Zuendel, Sylvia Stolz, is seen in court in this February file photo. German prosecutors charged her with incitement Tuesday, accusing her of denying the Holocaust and ending one of her legal filings with 'Heil Hitler.' (AP)

During Mr. Zundel's trial, she repeatedly disputed the Nazis' mass murder of Jews, called for hatred of the Jewish population, and ended a legal document with the words “Heil Hitler,” they said in a statement.

The document was freely accessible on the Internet, they said.

The prosecutors also accused Ms. Stolz of trying to “force an end to the proceedings” with constant interventions and “provocations” that disturbed the conduct of the trial.

The presiding judge halted Mr. Zundel's trial last March to ask for Ms. Stolz's removal after she denounced the court as a “tool of foreign domination” and described the Jews as an “enemy people” in earlier sessions.

In April, she was carried out of the courtroom, shouting, “Resistance! The German people are rising up,” after defying an order for her removal.

Prosecutors also seek to ban Ms. Stolz from working as a lawyer.

Sheesh. Sounds like the excitable Ms. Stolz needs to get a grip. But that might difficult to do since it’s clear that Judenhass—the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease of hatreds—seems to have already severely corroded her brain.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:23 | link | comments

Immature ingrates: Here’s a milestone I won’t be celebrating—the 50^th birthday of the EU. As Rosemary Righter writes in the Times, just because the EUnuchs have reached their half centenary, it doesn’t mean they have grown up. For instance, they seem to be under the impression that their current peaceful condition and economic success is something they achieved entirely on their own, without any help from America, a nation it continues to mock and despise:

The European Union, which turns 50 this Sunday, is America’s pampered godchild. You won’t find people saying that at the birthday fling that Angela Merkel is throwing in Berlin.

Praise will instead be lavished on the two European luminaries, Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet, whose vision of reconciliation through pooled endeavours created the European Steel and Coal Community and led, in 1957, to the Treaty of Rome. The European Economic Community was unquestionably “made in Europe”. But it would have been a sickly infant had it not been for America’s unflinching strategic and financial support for European recovery, and for the idea of European unity.

The extraordinary Marshall Plan, whose 60th anniversary this year is likely to get somewhat less attention than the EU’s half-centenary, rained American taxpayer’s money on the stricken continent — always with the proviso that the Europeans must themselves first agree where the funds were to be allocated.

Coupled with America’s “open door” to trade, Marshall aid speeded up postwar recovery, laid the foundations for decades of bounding growth in Germany, France and even Italy, and helped to give the EEC the early aura of success that made admission to the club a prize to be fought for. The EU’s chroniclers, historians and hagiographers alike, claim that its greatest achievement is to have made war between France and Germany impossible, and by extension, war in Europe. Yet it was Nato, another instance of American statesmanship, that guarded the gates of Europe’s zone of peace against the Soviet threat. If the European Venus had not had Mars at her side in those years of now mostly forgotten danger, Europeans would be nothing like as rich today; nor would they, perhaps, be so smugly self-righteous about their streak of pacifism.

“Forgiveness to the injured does belong,” wrote Dryden, “but they ne’er pardon, who have done the wrong.” The child was no sooner on its feet than it started to resent its godparent’s attentions, its teenage years were studded with rebellion and by the time it came of age as the European Union, it was itching to tell the US where to get off. It was with the words “L’heure de l’Europe a sonné” that Jacques Poos, then the Foreign Minister of Luxembourg, informed Washington on behalf of the EU that Europe could handle the flaring wars in the Balkans alone.

Disaster ensued. Thousands were butchered before the muscle of Nato and US diplomacy was brought to bear. But politically, the die was cast. The EU is committed to a common defence policy, has got itself a military planning staff and is ready for anything — except the spending required to make a stand-alone capability militarily credible.

More than that, it is now dogma that, with a population of nearly 500 million, the enlarged EU is more than a match for America. The flavour of this week’s birthday celebrations, to judge by some of the supercilious rubbish already written, is to dwell on the EU’s superiority as a social, even moral, model for the world, compared with the raw brashness of American power. To a great extent, the EU defines itself by what it is not: it is not America…

No, it most definitely is not America--and that, quel ironie!, will be its downfall. What it is is a Potemkin village full of beautiful sights with little of substance behind it. As such, it will fall soon enough to those whose determination, borne of religious conviction, is far stronger than the spoiled, foolish, arrogant, self-loathing EUnuchs who have allowed Islam to gain a foothold on their continent. And this time, there’s no way the Yanks can come “over there” to rescue them.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:55 | link | comments

 A spanner in the nuclear works?: I never thought I’d say this but here goes: Yeah, Russia. From FT.com:

Russia is hardening its stance on Iran’s nuclear programme and has warned it might be increasingly difficult to complete the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power station unless Iran suspends uranium enrichment.

Igor Ivanov, secretary of Russia’s National Security Council, last week met Ali Hosseini Tash, deputy secretary of Iran’s Security Council, to discuss Russian complaints that Iran had fallen behind in payments for work on the plant and delays in equipment deliveries.

Dmitry Peskov, the deputy Kremlin spokesman, denied a report in The New York Times that Mr Ivanov had issued an “ultimatum” at the meeting that Russia would withhold fuel unless Iran suspended enrichment.

“No ultimatum was issued and such wording was never used,” Mr Peskov said. “The position of Russia is known. We keep saying to our Iranian partners that they have to comply with international law. They have to obey the resolution of the [UN] Security Council [to suspend enrichment] and they have to clarify the concerns of International Atomic Energy Agency experts with respect to their enrichment ­programme.”

The Security Council has repeatedly demanded that Tehran cease uranium enrichment, which can produce both nuclear fuel and weapons-grade material. It is debating a second wave of sanctions to punish Iran for its non-compliance.

Mr Peskov said Mr Ivanov warned that Iran’s failure to comply already meant some third-country suppliers could not fulfil agreements to deliver equipment for Bushehr. Atomstroiexport, constructor of the plant, has said cooling equipment is among parts being delayed.

There was no point, Mr Peskov added, in Russia delivering fuel unless the station was otherwise functional. “The unwillingness or in­ability of Iran to meet the demands of the international community already led to a certain sanctions regime and these sanctions already are jeopardising the completion of the contract,” he said. “Continued refusal, and a further UN resolution, will only bring additional obstacles.”

Russia warned last week that Bushehr – omitted from UN resolutions on Iran after Russian lobbying – would be delayed as Tehran had fallen behind on payments of $25m a month .

Unfortunately, with Russia it all comes down to rubles, and its position is apt to change if the mullahs are more forthcoming with them. But maybe the U.S. can get in there first with a more generous incentive, if you know what I mean.

Update: I knew it sounded too good to be true. Russia is denying the report.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:40 | link | comments

The Muslim (re)conquest: Al-Andalus lives! From Islam Online:

MADRID – From north to south, the Arabic language and letters are booming in Spain and proliferating in newspapers, road signs and travel agencies thanks largely to the growing number of Arab and Muslim immigrants in the southwestern European country.

 

“My colleagues used to make fun of me for learning Arabic, but not any more,” 27-year-old Pedro Smarten from  Barcelona told IslamOnline.net Sunday, March 18. Smarten said one can easily find Arabic road signs along with Spanish nationwide.

 

“Arabi letters are everywhere. Arabic is no longer a dead language,” added Smarten, who learnt Arabic in a Madric university.

Highways from northern to southern cities are beset by signs showing directions in Spanish and Arabic, guiding Arabic speakers to rest-houses, restaurants and tour operators.

The Arabic road signs can be heavily found in southern cities like M?laga, home to a sizable minority of North African origin.

In bus stops in Barcelona, the second largest city in Spain, big sign boards in Arabic are set up alongside Spanish, Catalonian and English.

The thriving halal shops in the city, which are attracting now non-Muslims as well, have played a key role in the Arabic boom.

Arabic has also become music to the Spanish ears in the past few years with many Spaniards are growing familiar with the language.

Newcomers of Arab or Muslim origin do not feel abandoned or lonely when they arrive in Spain as they used in the past.

The mass circulation 20 Minutos newspaper hardly hits newsstands without one or two articles in Arabic.

The Vanguardia newspaper of Barcelona published earlier this month a one-page advertisement on its back page about a lecture on Islam…

Time to bid Espana a heartfelt hasta la vista as it descends into its long Islamic twilight.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:17 | link | comments (1)

Obnoxious Norway: No sooner had the “unity” government been officially declared than Norway raced to be the first European nation to acknowledge it and to promise to restart its share of the jizya. Unwilling to waste even a nano-second, an Norwegian official has sped to the scene and is even now meeting with the unity thugs. Israel, fortunately, has managed to muster some gumption and, according to the Jerusalem Post, is refusing a confab with the sardine man.

On the JPost site, an “insightful” poster named Mark, who hails from my home and native land, had this to say about the situation (I have left Mark’s inventive spelling intact):

Hamas was elected by the people for the people... Unfortunatly for Israel thier still are countries that understand democracy.(Norway) Norway should be priased for being Brave. To stand up and support, the oppressed peoples of Palistine. I am sure history will see Norway in positve light, not bowing down to popular pressure, but having compassion for the poor souls of Palistine and being strong enough to show that support...

Maybe you’re on to something there, Mark. If things go according to plan and the effort to eradicate Israel and replace it with “the poor souls of Palistine” is successful, Norway will be hailed as having been on the cutting edge of the project. On the other hand, if somehow Israel and the West end up prevailing—which, at the moment, is up in the air—Norway will be remembered as a traitor to Western interests. A national Quisling, so to speak.

 

In “honour” of Mark, the “compassionate” Norwegians and the first day of spring—which is frikkin’ cold here in Hogtown—I’ve rejigged a song from Rogers and Hammerstein's tropical musical, in the hopes it will warm me up:

 

Some unenchanted morning

You will see a Quisling

You will see a Quisling

Talking to terrorists.

And somehow you know

You know even then

That he’ll betray you