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

Flaming “Asian” in terrorist attack: That miniscule fringe of jihadists is on the move again, trying to pull off the next big kaboom on British soil. So far they’ve had three major failures in the past 24 hours, the latest being a car that was driven into a terminal at the Glasgow airport. The car and its driver—whom the Beeb, ever-sensitive to certain, um, cultural sensitivities, describes as being a generic “Asian” (which would seem to cover a whole lot of territory, but which, as everyone knows, is p.c. lingo for “Muslim")—both caught fire, but, fortunately, the explosives in the vehicle failed to detonate.

One can only speculate on the how many more angry “Asians” are getting set to blow.

 

Speaking of things in flames, I’ve never had a “Flaming Mo”, a supposedly delectable libation concocted by Mo the barkeep on The Simpson’s, but I’ve been lucky enough to get my hands on the recipe for a “Flaming Asian.” Here it is:

 

1 ½ ounces sake

 

3 ounces lichee juice

 

¼ tsp. grated ginger

 

Squeeze of lemon

 

6 ounces liquid Semtex.

 

Directions: Gently—and I mean really gently—combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker. Add ice. Stir. Strain.

 

I’d go easy on the Semtex, though. I hear it’s a real gut-buster.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:51 | link | comments

Sheema shills for the shmatta: Sheema Khan, founder of CAIR-CAN, the Canadian branch of the Hamas-supporting Muslim American lobby group, has another of her delightful “let down your guard, little infidels, Islam is swell” comment pieces in the Globe and Mail (available in its entirety to subscribers). Today Sheema wants us to know that a hijab is just a head scarf, a small piece of cloth, and that even though the French appear to be all hot and bothered about it and won’t allow it in their public schools--and it now looks like the province of Quebec may follow suit—wearing the hijab is simply a matter of accepting and allowing for cultural differences in a multicultural society. In her defence of the hijab, she goes into great detail about “France’s peculiar brand of liberty” (as the headline describes the hijab ban), throwing in everything from “the French concept of laïcité” to “the legacy of French colonialism” to Jean-Jacques Rousseau: She would likely have also tossed in the kitchen sink, only she probably didn’t know how to say it in French.

Sheema is extremely concerned because Quebec, being of French heritage, seems prey to the same kind of misconceptions about the hijab that are prevelant in France:

…In France, Muslim women faced two waves of opposition against their choice of wearing the hijab: charges of extremism and the violation of the laïcité, culminating in the 2004 law that banned all conspicuous religious symbols in public schools. Now a third wave is under way as hijab opponents accuse Muslim women of violating the French definition of equality. Wanting a complete hijab ban, they warn of a return to a time when the church ruled women’s lives. They unfairly graft their particular Catholic experience onto all Muslims.

 

Given a similar discourse in Quebec, expect the third wave to hit la belle province, too.

 

I have to give Sheema credit. She has managed to turn the wearing of a hijab, the outward expression of a Muslim woman’s allegiance to a totalitarian Islam, into something that has to do with the Catholic Church. A brilliant bait and switch!

 

My letter to the Globe:

 

There is no doubt that France has made a lot of mistakes in its dealings with its Muslim immigrant communities, but the decision to ban female students from wearing head scarves in public schools is not one of the them. The French understand that the head scarf is not called for in classic Islamic doctrine. It is of much more recent currency, and only became popular in the wake of the Islamic revolution in Iran. As such, it is a political symbol more than anything else.

 

That France has decided to bar this symbol of political Islam—which symbolizes, as well, a woman’s reduced status under Islamic law—from state schools, is not “peculiar.” In fact, it betokens a refreshing commitment to the values of Western civilization that we here in Canada would be wise to emulate.

 

Actually, I know that since Canadians worship at the Church of Multiculturalism, there’s no way we’d ever go for a ban on the hijab. I’d settle for our getting a clue about what the hijab really means and the reason why so many more Muslim women are now wearing one.

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

Nelson’s column still stands—for now: The last time London endured heavy fire from ambitious fascists, it came from Nazi airplanes during the Blitz. This time around, the ambitious fascists are right there on the ground—and so is the fire. From Bloomberg.com:

June 29 (Bloomberg) -- British police found explosive material in a second car in London near Trafalgar Square, Peter Clarke, the U.K.'s chief anti-terrorism officer, said in a televised briefing.

That car was ``clearly linked'' to a car found earlier today outside the Tiger Tiger nightclub near Piccadilly Circus that was dismantled by police bomb experts, Clarke told reporters at Scotland Yard. The second car had been towed because it was illegally parked and was later found to contain the explosives, Clarke said.

The discovery of the second car is ``obviously troubling and reinforces the need for the public to be alert,'' Clarke said. ``We are doing everything possible to protect the public.''

NBC News, citing unidentified U.S. officials, reported that U.K. police are seeking three men in connection with the case who may be from Birmingham...

Birmingham, huh? Does this mean there’s going to be more of that nasty “Islamophobia” as police round up the usual suspects there?

 

Under the circumstances, it seemed appropriate to revise a schmaltzy ballad that helped see the Brits through the last Blitz:

 

That fateful day

That Brown took pow’r

There was jihad and rage in the air.

There were seethers plotting homegrown plots

And a bomb didn’t blow in Trafalgar Square.

 

I may be wrong,

I may be right,

But I’m perfectly willing to swear

That al Qaeda’s implicated here.

Though a bomb didn’t blow in Trafalgar Square.

 

The two bombs found today in London town

Were stuffed with nails, to make folks frown.

Oh, why they would try it’s not so hard to ‘splain,

And you can bet they’ll try again.

 

The streets of town

Were full of cops.

There was not a policeman to spare

As they searched the joint for jihadis.

And a bomb didn’t blow in Trafalgar Square.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:32 | link | comments

Oh, no, they’ve killed Farfour: Tragic news--Farfour Mouse, the “adorable” Hamas rodent, is no more. He has kicked the bucket. He has bought the farm. He has shuffled off this mortal coil and joined the bleeding vermin choir invisible. He is an ex-Mouse.

Farfour was “martyred” in the final episode of the jihadist kiddie show on which he starred, the victim of an Israeli “terrorist” who was trying to steal Palestinian land.

 

A more honest depiction, of course, would have had Farfour being flung off a rooftop by a member of Fatah, and, once his sorry carcass hit the ground, being mutilated by other frenzied Fatah-niks.

 

But that might be a bit too true-to-life for those sensitive Hamas moppets.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:32 | link | comments

“Funny” business: “Satire,” as American comic playwright George S. Kaufman once said, “is what closes on Saturday night.” I haven’t watched Ceeb satiric news show This Hour Has Twenty-Two Minutes in a dog’s age (literally—I think my previous dog, who’s been dead for four years, was alive the last time I saw it) but when, intrigued by the caption "Harper Youth," I clicked on this link on the Ceeb site, I couldn’t help but recall Kaufman’s quip—and note that it might have been best had this Ceeb satire closed on a Saturday (or another) night about six or seven years ago.

It’s not that I care if the Ceeb mocks the Prime Minister du jour; heck, if a satire show didn’t do that, it wouldn’t be doing its job. It’s just that, more than a year into Harper’s governance, the Ceeb is still harping on Harper’s supposed “scariness” (booga booga). Before Harper was elected, his scariness rested on what fear-mongering Lefties liked to call his “hidden agenda.” What was the agenda? Hard to say; it was hidden. The implication, though, was that it incorporated all sorts of “scary” right wing Conservative measures, like, say, stripping women of their rights and forcing them to retreat, barefoot and preggers, into the kitchen. (Oh, wait. I think I’m mixing it up with the Islamist agenda—about which the Ceeb evinces far less fear ‘cause that would be “Islamophobic.”) Anyway, now that Harper’s been around a while, and none of the scary stuff has materialized, this scariness now rests mostly on his reaffirmation of Canada’s mission in Afghanistan.

 

Oooo, scary!

 

The 22 Minutes snippet revolves around Conservative youth at a Conservative conference. And since they’re big “C” and little “c” conservative youth,  they’re dweeby, sexless, and decked out in matching uncool outfits—unlike that mega-cool Ceeb hipster-host  George Stomboulopoulous, who has visible piercings, and who only wears tight black shirts and jeans. And since they’re “conservative” youth, they’re actually little more than well-scrubbed fascists—Harper Youth; Hitler Youth: same diff, right? And since they’re “conservative” youth, they’re so lame and out of synch with the zeitgeist (to coin a phrase) that they’re like a throwback to one of those ungroovy four-part harmony groups from the late 50s/early 60s—the kind SCTV used to lampoon as the Five Neat Guys.

 

The four neat Harper Jungen in the clip croon several “amusing” songs, including one to the tune of  “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” that culminates in the witty observation: “Scarily, scarily, scarily, scarily/Life’s a Tory dream.”

 

Nuh uh. Scarily, scarily, scarily, scarily, life’s a taxpayer-funded “satire” that’s emblematic of the Ceeb’s general cluelessness, witlessness and idiocy.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:53 | link | comments

The two Abdullahs: There’s the Saudi Abdullah—he’s the absolute ruler of a Magic Kingdom which spends billions of shekels brainwashing Muslims in Wahabbism, a particularly noxious and backward-looking version of the one true faith. Then there’s the Jordanian Abdullah—he’s young, has a babe-alicious, un-burqa’d wife, and is supposedly a “moderate” and a good friend of the West. But, as is clear from this Arab News report, when you get right down to it, there’s far more that unites the two Abdullahs than divides them:

AMMAN…— Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, who arrived here yesterday on the last leg of his five-nation tour, urged Palestinian groups to stand united to protect their national interests. He warned that their continuing infighting would destroy all hope of setting up an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

 

The Saudi leader and his delegation received an unprecedented welcome from Jordan’s King Abdallah and other senior officials. Thousands of Jordanians, including tribal leaders in traditional dress, stood along roads to cheer the king and his entourage waving pictures of him and Saudi flags.

 

Amman had a festive look with colorful banners welcoming the Saudi ruler. King Abdullah enjoys wide popularity in Jordan because of his stand on Arab and Islamic issues.

Both kings later held a meeting and discussed major regional and international issues. Their talks covered the outcome of the four-party summit meeting in Sharm El-Sheikh and the efforts to achieve a just Middle East peace settlement, the situation in Iraq and Lebanon as well as ways to strengthen bilateral ties.

 

In an interview with Jordan’s Al-Rai Arabic daily, the Saudi king spoke about his brotherly relations with Jordan’s king. “Our relationship is based on mutual love and confidence. We always keep in touch and exchange views in order to serve the interests of both countries and the Ummah.” He also underscored the deep-rooted relations between the two neighbors...

 

Memo to gullible Westerners: Remember, as far as the Abdullahs are concerned, it’s all about the Ummah.

 

The Saudi Abdullah has a message for the Palestinians, whose “unity” he tried—and, ultimately, dismally failed—to broker:

 

King Abdullah blamed Israel and world powers for making the situation worse in Palestine. “The situation after the Makkah Accord was promising and positive but three months after the agreement was signed, the situation deteriorated. Israel’s stubbornness and the refusal by some world powers to help the Palestinians cement understanding between them led to this deterioration,” he explained.

 

The Saudi king called upon the Palestinian leaders to shoulder their responsibility toward their people. “The present situation (fighting between Fatah and Hamas) should not be allowed to continue as it will serve the usurpers of Palestinian territory and harm the just Palestinian cause. It will also destroy the hope of setting up an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.”

 

There’s that Ummah fixation again.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:39 | link | comments

Film follies: In my considered opinion, few phrases are as vacuous—or as cringe-inducing—as “human rights.” Case in point: the 18^th annual Human Rights Watch film festival, run in conjuction with the Film Society of Lincoln Center. While some of the films on display here deal with “human rights” in the earlier sense of, say, late Cold War-era Russian dissidents, the vast majority fall under the rubric of “things that aren’t really about human rights, unless you happen to be a clueless, Israel-bashing Lefty.” By Bari Weiss in OpinionJournal:

…From an artistic perspective, the festival has been highly impressive. Riveting archival footage of the searing destruction wrought by the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ("White Light/Black Rain") and shocking confessionals from failed Palestinian bombers in Israeli prisons ("Hot House") make it clear why many of these films have won distinctions at prominent festivals like Toronto and Sundance.

 

But the point of this specific festival is not to satisfy the film buffs who frequent the Walter Reade Theater. It is to highlight "the world's most pressing human rights issues," and it is on this count that the festival falls short.

 

In choosing the two weeks' worth of films for the festival, director Bruni Burres views between 500 and 600 candidates. When I asked Ms. Burres how she and her committee decide what human-rights issues are most crucial to highlight, she told me, "We never rate any films or any issues as more important than another film or issue." Later in our conversation, she reiterated: "We never declare one human-rights issue more important than another."

 

Such a theoretical standard is troubling, and helps explain how certain documentaries made it into the festival. Take Marco Williams's film "Banished," for example. Narrated by Mr. Williams, "Banished" tells the story of three American communities--Forsyth County, Ga.; Pierce City, Mo.; and Harrison, Ark.--as they struggle with the knowledge that racial cleansings occurred there in the period right after the Civil War. Several descendants of the blacks who were banished form the moral center of the film, as they articulate their desire for retribution.

Though "Banished" illuminates an important political issue--what is white America's responsibility to African-Americans in terms of reparations?--it's hard to see how its subject matter constitutes an urgent human-rights concern.

 

The same goes for two features that focus on environmental issues. "Everything's Cool," a nominee for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, is about global warming, while "The Unforeseen" investigates the impact of real-estate development on the environment in Austin, Texas. While there is no doubt that abuse of the environment is a crucial issue, it's a stretch to claim that it represents a top human-rights priority.

Judging by the audience's reaction to the films, it seemed that many in attendance were also failing to make the sorts of difficult distinctions necessary in human-rights advocacy--namely, which wrongs are more wrong than others. During the Q-and-A period following "Banished," an audience member praised the film as a universal--rather than American--story, arguing that what's going on in Israel and Palestine is exactly the same as African-Americans pushing for the return of their land. The majority of those in the room applauded his analysis.

 

Following Sunday night's screening of "Cocalero," a sympathetic portrayal of Bolivia's new Socialist president, Evo Morales, the audience broke out into laughter as Mr. Morales and his supporters chanted "death to Yankees," but didn't flinch as Mr. Morales cozied up to Fidel Castro and stood proudly in front of flags emblazoned with the image of Che Guevara…

 

 Vlad Lenin’s “useful idiots”—in the flesh.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:22 | link | comments

Hilarious!: Islam Online has managed to dredge up a picture suggesting where "peace" envoy Tony Blair's true allegiance lies:

What, couldn't they find one of him eating some potato latkes and gefilte fish?

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

Pelosi hangs far-left: There appear to be some among the tin-foil hat brigade who are concerned about what they perceive to be a right-ward drift by Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi has been quick to reassure them that there has been no drift, and she remains firmly in their camp.

Phew. What a relief!

 

From TheHill.com:

 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is working hard to make sure that the fiery liberal wing of the Democratic Party remembers that she is one of them. She is also going out of her way to reassure opponents of the war that she is on their side.

Her efforts are taking place in speeches and interviews off Capitol Hill and away from the constraints and compromises inherent in running the House. Liberal lawmakers and activists accuse Pelosi of being too cautious.

Now, with Congress’s approval rating plummeting following its passage of an Iraq war-spending bill without a troop-withdrawal timeline, the Speaker is signaling that Democrats will be more forceful in challenging the president.

In recent speeches and interviews, Pelosi has acknowledged the left’s frustration with the war and asked it to work with congressional Democrats to help alter the political climate.

“Unless we make our own environment, we’ll be wedded to incrementalism,” Pelosi told a group of college students on Tuesday at a conference hosted by the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank…

 

And who wants to be wedded to incrementalism when you can be married to Islamism?

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

Deflating Blair: Just as Tony Blair is chomping at the bit, eager to get started on his new job as Middle East Peace in Our Time Envoy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel gives him a not-so-gentle tug on the reigns. Just so he knows who’s boss. From Forbes:

BERLIN (Thomson Financial) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said today that Tony Blair's mandate as the new Middle East envoy would be limited and that he would report to the international 'Quartet' and not the other way round.

 

Merkel, whose country is outgoing president of the European Union, which is part of the Quartet working to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict along with the United States, the United Nations and Russia, said the former British prime minister was uniquely suited to the job.

When asked about complaints by some Quartet members that Blair was pitched as envoy by Washington without their involvement, Merkel said the EU had given Blair its explicit support but had insisted on retaining the power with the other members to set its agenda.

 

'The whole Quartet -- including the European Union -- agreed to Tony Blair becoming the Quartet envoy,' she told reporters after talks in Berlin with new French Prime Minister Francois Fillon.

 

'Tony Blair is a man with great political experience and I believe that in working with the Quartet he can make a meaningful and important contribution if he brings that experience to bear in trying to solve the Middle East conflict.

 

'But the political burden here will remain on the shoulders of the Quartet.”…

 

So don’t get all pumped up about your own grandiosity, Tony, because Angela, for one, is quite willing to stick a pin in it.

 

Update: An interview with historian Bat Ye-or (link via Atlas Shrugs) outlines the real obstacles to "peace"--the EU's collusion with the Arabs, and the Muslim desire to dhimmify the non-Muslim world:

 

André Darmon - Is not the juridical conflict between shari'a law and European laws a slow-ticking bomb?

Bat Ye'or - It is true that we use the same words: justice, peace... But in shari'a, the law of Muslims, peace means submission, above all. Therefore Arab countries will not be able to envisage peace until Israel is subjugated. The concept of women's rights, of simply Human Rights, is different. There is a real antagonism between the two cultures for which I see no solution. Everything in the non-Muslim world is founded on separation of powers and democracy while in shari'a it is first and foremost the primacy of religious law. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a drop in the bucket in the aims of the of the organization of the Islamic Conference that seeks universal Islamization and the establishment of a planetary caliphate. The subversion of the universities, of the media, of the churches, the politics of compromise, of concessions will eventually result in the United States following the lead of Europe in the submission to Islam.

 

Update: "Eventually"? How about "right now"?

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:32 | link | comments

Spy story: I hate to use an old cliché, but truth really is stranger than fiction. As proof I would offer the following story, which reads like something out of John Le Carré (who, at one time, in another life, I used to read and enjoy). From The Australian:

AN Egyptian billionaire businessman identified as the Mossad agent who tipped Israel off on the eve of the 1973 Yom Kippur War about the coming attack was found dead yesterday outside his home in London in suspicious circumstances.

Police said Ashraf Marwan, the son-in-law of the late Egyptian president Gamel Abdel Nasser, had fallen from the fourth-floor balcony of his home overlooking St James's Park.

Police were treating his death as suspicious. Friends of Dr Marwan said he had feared assassination after being named four years ago as an Israeli agent during the Yom Kippur war.

Dr Marwan's link to the Mossad was publicly revealed four years ago by Israeli researchers and confirmed this month in a Tel Aviv judicial proceeding in which the head of Israeli military intelligence in 1973, now retired Major General Eli Zeira, was found to have leaked Dr Marwan's identity to journalists and others.

His death will send shockwaves across the Middle East and among some of Britain's wealthiest people. His associates included arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, chairman of Leeds football club Ken Bates, and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

If found to be murder, his death will carry echoes of last year's assassination of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent.

Dr Marwan's access to wealth and power stemmed from his marriage to the favourite daughter of Nasser, who made him a roving ambassador.

Dr Marwan began dabbling on his own in arms deals. In 1969, he entered the Israeli embassy in London and offered his services as an agent.

Despite deep initial scepticism about his motives and fears that he was a double agent, the Mossad soon found him to be supplying priceless political and military information from the heart of the Egyptian establishment, some of which could be confirmed from other sources.

Although he demanded and received large payments, Israeli officials believed his motivation lay more in the psychological realm than greed.

Two days before the October 1973 Yom Kippur War, Dr Marwan, in Cairo, telephoned his Mossad handler in London and let drop a code word for imminent war. He asked to meet with the then Mossad head, Zvi Zamir.

Mr Zamir flew to London and met Dr Marwan late the next night, Yom Kippur eve.

Dr Marwan revealed that the Egyptian and Syrian armies would attack the next day.

The warning, passed on by Mr Zamir, reached Israel in the pre-dawn hours.

This would prove sufficient for the first reservist tank units to reach the Golan Heights just as Syrian divisions were breaking through the thin defences.

In desperate battles, the Israelis stopped the Syrian army and then pushed it back.

Dr Marwan subsequently became a high-flying businessman based in London and engaged in often mysterious international dealings.

Despite the allegations in recent years about his Mossad connection, he continued to visit Egypt, where he was a prominent figure in society and business…

But not prominent enough, it seems, to forever forestall an encounter with a vengeful assassin.

 

Something for Sir Salman Rushdie, another "traitor" with a price on his head, to keep in mind.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:14 | link | comments

Harpooning Blair: You may not believe it, but Harpoon Siddiqui and I actually agree about something. We both think that tapping Tony Blair to be the new Middle East envoy is a bad idea. But that’s where our apparently freakish meeting of minds ends. I disagree with Blair’s appointment because I think he's the latest in a long line of hubristic, clueless Westerners—Bill Clinton and, as it now turns out, George W. Bush being two others—who believe that the knots can be untied through concerted use of diplomacy, persuasion and, if necessary, some strong-armed coercion. Harpoon scorns the appointment because, although Blair is someone who “understands the centrality of the Israel-Palestinian dispute to the upheaval in the Middle East,” he is hauling around “too much baggage.” The cumbersome steamer trunk in question: his alliance with Bush and his war in Iraq, and their shared "responsibility for the death of between 66,000 and 600,000 Iraqis (depending on the source).”

Wow, that’s quite a wide divergence there, Harpoon. Which sources are you depending on: the al Qaedist ones or the Khomeinist ones? In any case, aren't those the same sources responsible for most of the bloodshed, what with their virgin-seeking martyrdom operations and their demolishing of ancient mosques?

 

Harpoon is also critical of the appointment because of Blair’s “track-record of backing George W. Bush’s solid support of Israel.” Funny, I wasn’t aware of that track record. From my observation, Blair, in fact, has a blind spot when it comes to Israel—hence his insistence on its centrality—and is a big fan of “moderate” Arabs, like Jordan’s King Abdullah and his smokin’ wife, with whom he, Cherie and the kids like to spend their vacations.

 

But wait. According to Harpoon, there is even more reason “to be sceptical about the Blair mission":

He is to mobilize donors, promote economic development and help build Palestinian institutions.

But given the Quartet's decision to isolate Hamas and help Fatah, he can only help half those institutions. The initial Russian reservation about him was based precisely on this "divide and conquer policy," as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov put it. "A divided Palestine is a problem for Israel and the region."

Many supporters of Israel, including myself, share this judgment.

Come again? I’ve been reading Harpoon’s perorations twice-weekly for a long time, and never once have I seen any evidence that he counts himself among Israel’s supporters. On the contrary. Time and again he has expressed support for those who are actively working for Israel’s demise—and who happen to be the same people actively (or passively) seeking the demise of our entire civilization.

 

As such, I’d hold off on hitting him up for a donation to the JNF just yet:

Blair's far greater problem is that he mischaracterizes the Arab-Israeli dispute, along with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and other conflicts afflicting the Muslim world, as mere manifestations of an ideological battle between Islamic "reactionaries" and "moderates."

As real as that battle is, proffering it as the only, or even the main, explanation for the crisis of our age is to divorce it from the reality of wars, brutal or botched occupations, mass killings and endless humanitarian disasters, and to wash our hands of the West's major culpability in the mess.

In adopting this Bushian logic, Blair has been disingenuous or dishonest. The former is understandable for a politician with a lot of Arab and Muslim blood on his hands, but the latter is inexcusable for one who is promising them peace.

Blair has been disingenuous? Now that's the Harpoon I know and loathe: bumptious, belligerent, determined to pretend that there’s no jihad, no jihadism, and blind to the ocean of infidel blood that has been spilled down through the ages—and that continues to be spilled today.

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

Unfinished story: The big Middle East story today—Tony Blair’s appointment as “peace” envoy—is so big that you may not have noticed a much bigger story: how fighting continues to rage at  a “refugee” camp in Lebanon. This despite the insistence of Lebanon’s government last week that the army now had the pesky terrorist well in hand.

Another reason you may not have noticed this big story is that, ever since that premature announcement of victory, the story has fallen off the MSM’s radar. From the Daily Star:

BEIRUT: The Lebanese Army resumed bombardment of Nahr al-Bared refugee camp Wednesday evening with shelling targeting Safouri, Safri and the Souk al-Bared neighborhoods in the older part of the camp, as well as the camp's seaward side. The army, which has dug in with sand-bag barricades around the older part of the camp, continued to respond with artillery fire to sniper fire from Fatah al-Islam militants and attempted infiltration by the militants, but on the whole Wednesday saw fewer and less intense clashes than previous days, according to a military source.

"When we get intelligence that militants are using a certain building as a snipers' nest, we shell it; when we get information that a building is booby-trapped, we send the tanks in to blow it up," the army source told The Daily Star.

An army statement Wednesday urged Palestinians inside the camp to take a "courageous and responsible stance" and confront the terrorists to convince them to end "their futile and purposeless fight." The statement said the remnants of Fatah al-Islam were confiscating humanitarian aid from camp residents and launching attacks from inside residents' homes.

The army postponed the burial of 16 dead Fatah al-Islam militants Wednesday after requests from several foreign embassies for time to verify the nationalities of the deceased fighters.

Fatah's commander in Lebanon, Sultan Abu al-Aynayn, said Wednesday that barely 70 fighters remained of the "Abssi gang" inside the camp.

Reports on the number of dead militants have ranged from 60 to 300, while 84 soldiers have been killed and over 150 wounded in the conflict...

Massacre! Outrage! Pass a resolution! Just a few of the things you would now be hearing if Israeli and not Lebanese soldiers were involved in this anti-terrorist action (which, if Israelis were taking part, would be said to involve “militants,” “radicals,” or “extremists”).

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:51 | link | comments

Tony, retitled: Claudia Rosett, a women blessed with clarity of vision and a saucy tongue, says Tony Blair’s new role as Mideast “peace” envoy has been mislabled:

...“Peace” — ? We are talking about the region that has been saturated for years in “peace talks” “land for peace” “seeds of peace” the “roadmap to peace” and especially the mother of all peace labels, the “peace process.” Hamas and Hezbollah snatch Israeli soldiers and attack Israeli civilians, Syria and Iran infiltrate weapons and terrorists into Iraq, the Saudis continue to funnel millions into their global network of kill-the-infidel madrassas. And in the midst of this we are invited to ponder along with the UN’s IAEA whether terrorist-spawning Iran — where terror trainees routinely chant “Death to America! Death to Israel!” — simply wants nuclear energy for “peaceful uses.”

 

As Joshua Muravchik wrote in Monday’s Wall Street Journal: “A large portion of modern wars erupted because aggressive tyrannies believed that their democratic opponents were soft and weak.”

 

Do we want peace? You bet. But it won’t come by way of sending another “peace” envoy whose title alone implies that we will do nothing but jaw-jaw in response to acts of war. Tony Blair carries one credential that may not earn him much in the West these days, but might still command respect amid the wars of the Middle East: He backed the war that toppled Saddam Hussein. That caused consternation enough among the despots of the Islamic world to make room in the immediate aftermath for Qaddafi to surrender his nuclear program, for the Lebanese to try to kick out their Syrian overlords, and for Iran to keep its mitts briefly off Iraq — before all concerned concluded that the U.S. and Britain had no more stomach for leading coalitions to overthrow Middle Eastern dictators and drag them out of spider-holes, and the “war process,” to which we responded with the “peace process,” kicked back into gear.

 

Labels may not be remotely enough to change the equation in the Middle East, but language does have its uses — and it is high time we scrapped the peace cliches that imply there is no cost to waging war against the free world. If Tony Blair is to be dispatched to tread the diplomatic routes of the region, let’s arm him (whether he likes it or not) with a title that might at least suggest there are limits to the threats and attacks that we will tolerate. Call him Tony Blair, “War Envoy” to the Middle East.

 

War Envoy—much better.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:20 | link | comments

Poe and the Palestinians: Now there are two things I would never have put together. Not until I read this piece by Barry Rubin in JWR, that is:

During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year... I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher...With the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit...

Thus, Edgar Alan Poe began his remarkable 1839 short story, "The Fall of the House of Usher." Similar feelings beset me in contemplating the fall of the house of Yasser, the collapse of the PLO, of Fatah, and of Palestinian nationalism as a movement.

I won't go into that history of disaster in detail, but suffice it to say that what is happening now fits completely into that pattern.

Put your finger into the wine and flick one drop onto the plate for each item: 1948 war; 1967 war; failed West Bank guerrilla war; September 1970 in Jordan; terrorism; Lebanese civil war; intransigence; internal anarchy; the murder of the first moderates; corruption; incitement to terrorism and intransigence; throwing away the opportunity at Camp David; throwing away the opportunity of 1988 dialogue with the United States; the 1990s' peace process; and the second intifada. Forgive me for leaving out even more such examples.

Is there a pattern? Yes:

• By seeking everything, get nothing. Having as one's goal the destruction of Israel and total victory, rather than a compromise solution, the movement sank ever deeper into the mire.

• Glorifying violence and terrorism brought death and destruction on the movement and its followers.

• Embracing extremism, incitement, and demonization of Israel brought Hamas as its logical outcome.

 

AND NOW ask yourselves one simple question: Do you really believe that the Hamas coup is going to scare Fatah straight? Are these leaders and ideologues really going to learn their lesson? Well, this seems to be the main assumption of political leaders and the media in democratic countries. After all, to paraphrase Samuel Johnson, facing the hangman greatly concentrates the mind.

 

But wait a minute! The PLO, Fatah, and their hierarchies have made a whole career about facing the hangman and tweaking his nose while giggling madly. If they had learned from, say, September 1970 in Jordan or other disasters it would have been sufficient for them to get on the right path.

Remember the Oslo process and why was it going to work? Because, we were told, the PLO and Fatah were so weak and so buffeted by catastrophe as to finally understand they must change their ways or be destroyed. Here we go again! Don't get me wrong. I do believe Fatah is preferable to Hamas — though the gap is far narrower than all too many people seem to think.

 

But even if your want to believe that Mahmoud Abbas is some peace-loving good guy, he is weak, incompetent, has no following and no intention of really confronting the culture of terrorism and extremism his own group created and maintains. He will also never give up the demand that all Palestinians should be able to live in pre-1967 Israel which is a deeply personal belief of his.

 

So Mr. Poe, how many more times do you think Abbas should be given a chance to acquit himself in a statesman-like fashion instead of like a Holocaust-denying thug? “Quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore.’”

 

The bird has spoken.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:52 | link | comments

Talking out of both sides of his mouth, as per usual: No one ever claimed that Fatah-affiliated terrorist outfit, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, was “disarming.” Revolting, loathsome and disgusting—yes; dismarming—definitely not.

Oh, except for that faux-moderate, Mahmoud Abbas, who has just made the claim. In making it, he thus gets to have his cake (Western confidence in his leadership abilities) and eat it, too (retain his movement’s affiliation to its terror militia, and ensure to continues to be outfitted in the appropriate military gear). From YNet News:

Members of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' declared military wing, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, today denied claims by Abbas he asked the terror group to turn in their weapons, stating Abbas' officials instead have encouraged the Brigades to continue their "resistance" activities.

 

Abbas pledged during a summit with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday he would immediately dismantle all militias in the West Bank not connected to security forces of his Fatah party. Abbas deputies have been telling the international media the Al Aqsa Brigades agreed to turn in their weapons in exchange for guarantees that Israel not try to arrest or kill them.

"No one from Abbas' office ever asked us to disarm," Nasser Abu Aziz, the deputy commander of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the northern West Bank, told WND. "We will never disarm until all issues are settled, including a complete Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Jerusalem and the right of return for all Palestinian refugees."

'Message meant for Israelis'

Abu Yousuf, a leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Ramallah, told WND Abbas' claims the Brigades will disarm "are more of a message meant for the Israelis, the Americans and the international community. No one (from Abbas' office) addressed a single member of the Brigades and asked us to turn in our weapons."

Zacharias Zubeidi, leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, told WND the decree from Abbas' office for armed groups to be dismantled "has nothing to do with the Brigades. It's meant for Hamas. Abbas recognizes the Brigades as a legitimate source of resistance."…

Abbas has mastered a technique perfected by his scruffier predecessor: say what you think the West wants to hear, but say what you really mean your followers, so the West won’t twig to your true intentions (or can at least pretend not to know what they are).

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:21 | link | comments

The pathetic spectacle of American diplomacy: While the Quartet wastes valuable time, attention and money trying to reanimate a dead camel, i.e., the concept of Palestinian statehood, Iran draws e’er nearer to the moment of “bombs away.” Former U.N. ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, one of the rare voices of sanity these days, says there’s a very good reason for that. Under the pernicious influence of Foggy Bottom, George W. Bush’s brain and spine have been turned to mush. At the moment, says Bolton, Condi Rice runs the foreign policy show—and she’s about to run it and Israel into the ground. From the Jerusalem Post:

Sanctions and diplomacy have failed and it may be too late for internal opposition to oust the Islamist regime, leaving only military intervention to stop Iran's drive to nuclear weapons, the US's former ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

Worse still, according to Ambassador Bolton, the Bush administration does not recognize the urgency of the hour and that the options are now limited to only the possibility of regime change from within or a last-resort military intervention, and it is still clinging to the dangerous and misguided belief that sanctions can be effective.

As a consequence, Bolton said he was "very worried" about the well-being of Israel. If he were in Israel's predicament, he said, "I'd be pushing the US very hard. I am pushing the US [administration] very hard, from the outside, in Washington."

Bolton, interviewed by telephone from Washington, was speaking a day after the International Atomic Energy Agency announced it would send a team to Teheran, at Iran's request, to work jointly on a plan ostensibly meant to clear up suspicions about the nuclear program. Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani had met on Sunday with IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei, and a day earlier with top EU foreign policy envoy Javier Solana.

Bolton, however, was witheringly critical of the ongoing diplomatic contacts with Teheran, which he said were merely playing into the hands of the regime.

"The current approach of the Europeans and the Americans is not just doomed to failure, but dangerous," he said. "Dealing with [the Iranians] just gives them what they want, which is more time...

"We have fiddled away four years, in which Europe tried to persuade Iran to give up voluntarily," he complained. "Iran in those four years mastered uranium conversion from solid to gas and now enrichment to weapons grade... We lost four years to feckless European diplomacy and our options are very limited."

Bolton said flatly that "diplomacy and sanctions have failed... [So] we have to look at: 1, overthrowing the regime and getting in a new one that won't pursue nuclear weapons; 2, a last-resort use of force."

However, he added a caution as to the viability of the first of those remaining options: While "the regime is more susceptible to overthrow from within than people think," he said, such a process "may take more time than we have."

Overall, said Bolton, it was clear that Iran had surmounted "all the technical problems of uranium enrichment," and it "may well be that we have passed the point of Iran mastering the nuclear fuel cycle." If so, it was now merely a matter of time before Iran reached a bomb-making capability - "a matter of resources and available equipment," he said - and it was solely up to Iran to set the pace.

To his dismay, however, the Bush administration was still clinging to the empty notion that the sanctions route could work, "even though [the UN's sanction] Resolutions 1737 and 1747 were full of loopholes. The US is still seeking another sanctions resolution and Solana is still pursuing diplomacy," he said bitterly.

Bolton lamented that the Bush administration today was "not the same" as a presumably more robust incarnation three years ago, because of what he said was now the State Department's overwhelming dominance of foreign policy. "The State Department has adopted the European view [on how to deal with Iran] and other voices have been sidelined," he said. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "is overwhelmingly predominant on foreign policy."…

But, hey, let’s pay Tony Blair a whole whack-load of moolah to get those Peace in Our Time talks back on the rails, because once there’s an independent Palestine, everything else will fall into place, right?

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:58 | link | comments

Smile guy: You can add the ruler of the Magic Kingdom to the list of Islamists trying to spruce up their image in the West. From Arab News:

WARSAW, 27 June 2007 — Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah yesterday received the Order of the Smile during a ceremony at Belweder Palace. The children of the world selected him for the award in appreciation for his role in the separation of the Polish conjoined twins Olga and Daria Kolacz at a Riyadh hospital in 2005.

“We in Saudi Arabia were happy to host the Polish twins. When I visited them in hospital, I saw their beautiful smiles that strengthened my perception that our basic responsibility is to build a future of peace and security where our children can live happily without fears,” Abdullah said while addressing a banquet hosted in his honor by Polish President Lech Kaczynski.

“This is the goal for which I pray day and night and may God help us to realize it with other nations of the world,” the king said.

In his speech, Kaczynski supported the king’s views saying: “Peace is the most valuable thing in the world.” He said Saudi Arabia and Poland wanted peace to prevail all over the world including the Middle East.

Kaczynski thanked Abdullah for instructing a 50-member medical team at King Abdul Aziz Medical City in Riyadh to separate the Polish twins. The Saudi king paid the expenses for the complicated 15-hour surgery on the 17-month-old Kolacz twins in January 2005 when he was crown prince.

“The children chose King Abdullah because he showed through this act that the problems of children are close to his heart. He saved the life of Polish twin sisters, as well as other children around the world,” said Marek Michalak, founder of the Child Friendship Center, who presented the Order of the Smile award to the king.

Abdullah also received the twins and their mother, who thanked the king for giving her and the twins the best care during their stay in the Kingdom.

Abdullah is the first Saudi king to visit the predominantly Roman Catholic country. He arrived here on Monday and held talks with President Kaczynski and his twin brother Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski on major regional and international issues and ways of boosting bilateral ties.

The visit also witnessed the signing of five agreements to promote cooperation in the areas of security, education, health, science and technology and sports.

Kaczynski conferred on the king the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest honor, and Abdullah reciprocated by awarding the president the King Abdul Aziz Medallion. King Abdullah also decorated the Polish prime minister with the King Abdul Aziz Sash of the First Order…

I think that’s what you call “log-rolling.”

Two other comments: It’s hilarious that there’s a President Kaczynski and a Prime Minister Kaczynski—and that they’re twins. Do they ever punk the country by switching places—and then switching back?

Also, the wacky Wahabbist seems to have gotten a lot of mileage out of a story that happened two years ago. You would think that “the children of the world” would have seen fit to award him their smile prize before now.

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

Loads of loonies: Last night on Larry King Live, the two living Beatles and the widows of the two late Beatles came together to promote the Las Vegas Cirque de Soleil show Love. The show, which opened a year ago, is built around some famous Beatles songs. (I saw the show not long after it opened last summer. My verdict: loved the music, but I still find the whole Cirque de Soleil spectacle kind of creepy and grotesque—like a Fellini movie come to life. At least I had the sense not to watch it after consuming mind-altering mushrooms—not that I’ve ever consumed mind-altering mushrooms—which is what the characters played by Seth Rogan and Paul Rudd do in the film Knocked Up. Talk about nightmarish.)

Anyway, the sight of Sir Paul McCartney sitting there on a couch playing the mandolin inspired me to revise one of the songs in the show:

 

Ah, look at all the loony people.

Ah, look at all the loony people.

 

Ismail Haniyeh

Picks up his rage

From a book that is centuries old.

Such a big scold.

Sits there in Gaza,

Complaining that save for Iran it seems nobody cares.

Nobody dares.

 

All the loony people—where do they are come from?

All the loony people—where do they all belong?

 

Jimminy Carter

Shills for Hamas because he has a hate-on for Jews.

What can he lose?

Writes a bestseller—

Peace not Apartheid.

It’s such an enormous success.

Full of b.s.

 

All the loony people—where do they are come from?

All the loony people—where do they all belong?

 

Moo Moo Gadhaffy

Looks like a waxwork escaped from a Madame Tussaud’s.

See where he goes.

Watch as he's ranting,

Blaming a doc in a dock

At a kangaroo court.

Does is for sport.

 

All the loony people—where do they are come from?

All the loony people—where do they all belong?

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:47 | link | comments

Same old brutality: A recent symposium on FrontPage Magazine informed us that Al Qaeda may be trying a new tack. Instead of all the blood, guts and beheadings, the jihadists have apparently decided to take a kinder, gentler approach to jihad. Oh, they’re every bit as ardent, but they’ve decided that the bloodshed may be turning some people off. A translated article on the MEMRI site, though, seems to indicate that, for at least some leading jihadists, the gentler approach holds little appeal. Sheik Hussein bin Mahmoud, a senior Al Qaeda operative, thinks the faithful need to get back to basics. In his words,

'May Allah Send Someone Who Will Kill Them Even More [Savagely]… Tear Their Hearts Out… Cut Their Heads Off, Tear Them Limb From Limb, and Shed Their Blood in Rivers'

 

So much for toning it down.

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:58 | link | comments

Irrational rationing: We keep hearing how the Iranian populace is so thoroughly fed up with the inept theocrats who run the joint that any minute now the people may rise up and topple them. Or maybe not. The religious zanies are still firmly in charge, and the people seem to lack the wherewithal to get rid of them.

And yet, all that may be about to change. Iranians, who live in a country awash in oil, are being subjected to onerous gas rationing—and they’re pretty steamed about the whole thing. From Reuters:

 

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Angry Iranian motorists queued for gasoline on Wednesday hours after the world's fourth largest oil exporter imposed fuel rationing, sparking chaotic scenes and the torching of two pump stations in the capital.

Drivers raced to fill up their tanks late on Tuesday after the Oil Ministry announced the delayed scheme would finally go ahead at midnight after months of confusion and conflicting statements, forming lines that stretched hundreds of meters.

One fuel station in Pounak, a poorer area of the capital, was set alight while another in eastern Tehran was partially burnt, two of its pumps completely destroyed by fire, witnesses said.

"Last night there were a lot of fights, people were furious due to the sudden decision," said a 55-year-old pump attendant, who asked for his name not to be used.

Those who missed the midnight deadline still faced long lines early on Wednesday in a country where many see abundant and cheap fuel as a right, even after government in May hiked the liter price by 25 percent to 1,000 rials (11 U.S. cents).

Despite its huge energy reserves, Iran lacks refining capacity and must import about 40 percent of its gasoline, a sensitive issue when world powers have threatened new U.N. sanctions in a row with Tehran over its nuclear program.

"It is still crowded this morning because many people left last night without fuel," the attendant in northern Tehran said. As he spoke, scuffles broke out among some waiting car owners.

Iranian news agencies reported long queues for gasoline also in other cities in OPEC's number two oil producer.

Some lawmakers were urgently drafting a bill to stop rationing, the official IRNA news agency said, without saying how many they were…

Will the gas crunch provide sufficient motivation to persuade Iranians to rise up and turf out the mullahs? Stay tuned.

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:33 | link | comments

Tony baloney: It looks like Tony Blair, who ends his run as British Prime Minister today, won’t be out of work for long. The Quartet of nations dedicated to the proposition of Peace in Our Time at Any Cost has earmarked him for the "crucial" post of Middle East envoy. As Reuters reports, Tony will be charged with a near-impossible task:

[The] United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations -- would ask Blair to work with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on building up institutions needed for a future state.

Washington's goal is to relaunch statehood talks with Abbas in the occupied West Bank despite Hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip. Israel has resisted U.S. pressure to negotiate so-called final status issues: the fate of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees and borders.

Yes, let’s sink vast more quantities of shekels into the Palestinian money pit. Heaven knows, the world hasn’t squandered nearly enough cash on what has become a permanent work-in-progress.

 

And by all means, let’s employ some of that Quartet Viagra to try to reinflate the flaccid fortunes of Moo Abbas. He’s clean, well-groomed, and, most important, he’s willing to play along with the charade.

 

As for those so-called final status issues—there is only one solution that makes any sense: Jerusalem remains under Israeli control as the official capital of the Jewish state; Palestinian “refugees” finally stop being seen as “refugees” and become citizens of the nations where they currently reside; and the borders remain as is.

 

There. Problem solved.

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:17 | link | comments

Poetry in motion: Hot Air has a video of a Ted Kennedy election ad that it has titled “The Love Song of Edward M. Kennedy.” In “homage” to both the Senate fossil and my favourite antisemitic poet, I have reworked portions of a poem that I once committed to memory, and could probably still recite in toto with very little prompting:

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like me, Ted Kennedy, three sheets to the winds

And passed out under the table.

Let us toddle down the same old well-travelled streets

The Democrats’ retreats,

From despots who want America to go to hell.

And know how to scream, and rant, and yell.

Streets that aging baby boomers recall with pathetic nostalgia

For times gone by.

Oh, do not ask, “Why are they still so blind now.”

Instead, realize what has messed up their minds now.

 

In the room Nancy Pelosi comes and goes.

Wearing a hijab and striking a pose…

 

No, I am not my brothers,

Nor was ever meant to be.

Am an attendant son,

One who will have to do

Because the others aren’t around

To direct a scene or two.

So I’ll advise the princess; Hillary Clinton, that is.

And be deferential, and full of high fizz.

Deferential, thrilled to be of use,

Politic, incautious, not too meticulous;

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

At times, indeed, quite ridiculous—

On more than one occasion that I prefer not to recall, the Fool.

 

I grow old…I grow old…

It’s high time to give it a rest, I’m often told.

 

Shall I go on another day? Well, what else do I have to do?

I shall be an elder statesman,

An eminence grise,

If that's okay with you.

And I will keep on plugging away, until I’m good and through…

 

I have lingered in the chambers of the Senate,

With interns, with their hair streaked blonde and sandy.

But, luckily, I’m old—and not so randy.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:20 | link | comments

Spinal confusion: Mark Steyn attributed the Crown’s decision to honour Salman Rushdie with a knighthood to multiculti cluelessness. Daniel Pipes says it was due to the “insouciance” of Rushdie’s friends, including Christopher Hitchens, who assumed that the little matter of the Islamist vendetta against Rushdie was a thing of the past.

Either way, Pipes insists the knighthood is definitely no indication that the invertebrate Brits have suddenly generetated a spine. From the New York Sun:

…I warned Mr. Rushdie in 1998 against his giddy insistence on being in the clear. For one, the edict remained in place; Iranian leaders do not believe themselves competent to undo it (a point reiterated by an ayatollah, Ahmad Khatami, just the other day). For another, freelancers around the globe could still nominate themselves to fulfill Khomeini's call to action.

But Mr. Rushdie and his friends ignored these apprehensions. Christopher Hitchens, for example, thought Mr. Rushdie had returned to normal life. That became conventional wisdom; such insouciance and naïveté — rather than "backbone" — best explains awarding the knighthood.

I welcome the knighting because, for all his political mistakes, Mr. Rushdie is indeed a fine novelist. I wish I could agree with Mr. Dhume that this recognition of him suggests "the pendulum has begun to swing" in Britain against appeasing radical Islam.

But I cannot. Instead, I draw two conclusions: First, Mr. Rushdie should plan around the fact of Khomeini's edict being permanent, to expire only when he does. Second, the British government should take seriously the official Pakistani threat of suicide terrorism, which amounts to a declaration of war and an operational endorsement. So far, it has not done that.

Other than an ambassadorial statement of "deep concern," Whitehall insists that the minister's threat will not harm a "very good relationship" with Pakistan. It has even indicated that Mr. Ijaz ul-Haq is welcome in Britain if on a private visit. (Are suicide bombers also welcome, so long as they are not guests of the government?) Until the Pakistani authorities retract and apologize for Mr. Ijaz ul-Haq's outrageous statement, London must not conduct business as usual with Islamabad.

Now that would constitute "British backbone."

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:37 | link | comments

High hopes: Hamas’s Muppet spokesperson is p.o’d because his “movement” has been shut out of the Mideast summit. Meanwhile, in another paper, other Palestinians are p.o.’d because Israel isn’t doing nearly enough to help bolster the fortunes of Fatah’s fearful leader, Moo Abbas. According to Globe sob brother, Mark “Malarkey” MacKinnon (always willing to listen to Palestinian grievances), Olmert's offer to release 250 members of Fatah currently living on Israel’s coin in prison (an offer which begs the question: Is Olmert insane?) just won’t cut it. “If Abbas is going to be supported,” says Basem Ezbadi, a political scientist at Birzeit University in Ramallah, and thus a very astute intellectual, “the Israelis need to provide him with a concrete, meaningful compromise.”

What’s the compromise? “He has to be able to say to the people ‘Hamas are a fanatic group, and only I can give you an independent state.’”

 

Yeah, that’ll work.

 

Here’s the tongue-lodged-firmly-in-cheek letter I sent the Globe:

 

So after empowering Hamas by voting it into office, and after Hamas, with support from Iran, soundly trounced Fatah in a bloody civil conflict in Gaza, the Palestinians are now demanding that Israel do more to help Fatah triumph over Hamas?

 

I think that falls under the heading “Expecting waaay too much.”

 

And, of course, I couldn’t resist updating a favourite song from my childhood:

 

Next time you’re blue

And you feel like a clue,

There’s a lot to be had

So here's a few…

 

Just what makes Islamist Hamas

Want to kick up such a big fuss?

Everyone knows Hamas

Jus'

Wants to kick up a fuss.

‘Cause it’s got high hopes.

It’s got high hopes.

It’s got “we want our holy war to fly” hopes.

So anytime you’re readin’ how

They have made a vow

To wipe Jews off the map,

Oops, there goes the rest of that Hamas,

Oops, there goes the rest of that Hamas,

Oops, there goes the rest of that Hamas crap.

 

Just what gives with Yasser’s old crew

Demanding Jews ride to their rescue?

Anyone knows Fatah’s

Cause

Should give Jews real pause.

But it's got high hopes.

It’s got high hopes.

It’s got “we can prevail if we still try” hopes.

So when those summit members whine

‘Bout Peace in Our Time

Just remember Fatah

Ain’t no better than the jihadis.

Wants to take it slower, if you please.

Aims to bring the Z.E. to its knees

Soon.

Real soon!

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:24 | link | comments

Feckless Chihuahuas: I found this item tucked away in the Globe and Mail’s “IN BRIEF” section:

Vienna -- Acting on a request from Iran, the IAEA said yesterday it will send a team to Tehran to work jointly on a plan meant to clear up suspicions about the Islamic republic's nuclear activities.

The invitation, conveyed Sunday by a senior Iranian envoy, was portrayed by some diplomats as a positive step in IAEA attempts to learn more about past activities that could point toward a weapons program. The invitation was linked to a recent Iranian offer to stop stonewalling the agency in its probe of more than two decades of Iranian nuclear activities, clandestine until 2002 when they were revealed by a dissident group. Reuters

So you mean the only reason we know about the mully-bullies’ nuclear plans is because a dissident group, and not the designated international watchdog, revealed them?

 

Then why did the Chihuahua-in-chief and his useless organization—now preparing to work in concert with the mullahs in order to “clear up suspicions” (but in all likelihood, not the nukes)—get the Nobel Peace Prize? By all rights, it should have gone to the dissidents.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:05 | link | comments

Old Muppets never die…they just become spokesmen for Hamas: Ever wonder what happens to old Muppets once they retire? Well, one of them, Fozzy Bear, seems to have “reverted” to Islam, moved to Gaza and become a spokesman for what Toronto Star scribe Oakland Ross calls “the Hamas movement.”

Here’s Fozzy—now known as “Fawzy”—expressing his displeasure at how “the Hamas movement” has been passed over in favour of Fatah. You will notice that Fozzy’s media experience serves him in good stead here, as Ross eagerly records his every fatuous statement and does his level best to make Hamas sound, er, on the level: 

GAZA CITY–Hamas says no.

When it comes to negotiating a Middle Eastern peace without its participation – or trying to – the radical Islamic movement says it just won't work.

"We believe in unity of land and people," declared Fawzy Barhoom, chief spokesperson for the movement that seized control of the Gaza Strip and its 1.5 million people in bitter fighting earlier this month.

"The national Palestinian project has to be implemented by all," he said.

As far as Hamas is concerned, a summit of Israeli and Arab leaders in Egypt yesterday marked a step backward in the search for Mideast peace, at least in part because Hamas was not invited to participate.

"We consider the summit as a negative and unjustified step," said Barhoom.

The organization was conspicuous by its absence from the list of those meeting at Sharm el-Sheik, a summit attended by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and the leaders of Jordan and host Egypt, both of which have signed peace treaties with Israel.

Barhoom warned that such gatherings are really aimed at persuading other Arab states to accept the status quo between Israel and the Palestinian territories.

He called on Jordan and Egypt to instead support Palestinian claims against Israel, including the status of Jerusalem, the return of nearly five million Palestinian refugees, and the establishment of agreed-upon borders between Israel and a future Palestine.

"We are against any type of splitting of Palestinians," said Barhoom.

This impoverished, war-battered territory is slowly picking up the pieces following a week of shocking violence earlier this month that pitted Hamas against its chief Palestinian rival for military and political power, Fatah – a six-day shootout that left nearly 200 people dead.

Barhoom blamed Fatah for most of the recent traumas afflicting Palestinians and also held senior Fatah officials – notably top security adviser Mohammed Dahlan – responsible for the continued captivity of British TV reporter Alan Johnston, kidnapped more than three months ago in Gaza.

"From the beginning, we in Hamas have condemned this kind of treatment of journalists," he said.

Barhoom was responding to an alarming video posted on the Internet yesterday by Johnston's captors, an outfit calling itself the Army of Islam but generally considered to be a front for the territory's criminal Dagmoush clan.

The BBC journalist was shown wearing what he said was an explosive vest, which his captors have vowed to detonate if either Hamas or Britain attempts to secure his freedom by force.

Barhoom said Dahlan had promised the Dagmoush clan millions of dollars and weapons if they continue to hold the reporter, in order to deny Hamas the public-relations coup of securing his release. "It may take more time," he said, "because of this criminal group."…

 

“This crimimal group”? Nice to see that even though Fozzie has become spokesman for a bunch of genocidal Islamo-fascist thugs, he has managed to retain his antic sense of humour.

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

Pants suit: A Washington D.C. court has ruled that a disgruntled dry cleaning customer—disgruntled because the dry cleaners, which had promised customer satisfaction, lost his pants—won’t receive the $54 million he had sued for to compensate for the loss.

All I can say is that must have been some nice pair of pants.

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

Fun faith (female division): Want to know what devout Muslim women in Muslim countries do for fun? From the I.O. post below, it seems, not a whole heck of a lot; fun is the domain of the men. And really, how much fun can you have when you’re shut away in purdah?

But if you read Janice Broddy’s 1989 anthropological study, Wombs and Alien Spirits (mentioned today in an earlier post), you will discover that in parts of Africa, and specifically, in a village in Sudan, women have a novel and time-honoured way to burst out of their boredom. Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on how you look at it—the bursting entails being possessed by a red jinn, or zar. (Apparently, jinn come in three shades—black, white and red. The black ones are wicked, the white ones are good and the red ones are, well, somewhere in between.)

 

Here’s what a woman in this village can do if she’s not possessed: obsess about her fertility, for which she bears sole responsibility, and upon which her entire social status hinges. If she manages to successfully produce some children, especially sons, she has the chance to remain married and live long enough to become a bossy old Grandma butting into the lives of her progeny and their young’uns—the supreme status for women in this culture. If she fails to reproduce, miscarries and/or has stillbirths, her husband will likely summarily divorce her by reciting “I divorce thee” three times, and she will probably never get to be an intrusive Bubbie.

 

Here’s what a woman in this village can do if she is possessed: smoke, drink, sing raucous, sexually suggestive songs and dance the Sudanese version of the hootchie kootchie. In other words, a woman with no external genitals who spends most of her time tending to women’s work behind closed doors has society’s sanction to kick up her heels like Britney Spears during a night on the town. The one proviso: a woman can only behave this way within the context of a public ritual. But since sacrificing and roasting a goat is usually part of the proceedings, it’s a very enjoyable kind of ritual—dinner and a show.

 

There are all sorts of different zars, each one generally conforming to a recognized “type” (the Ethiopian zar; the Western infidel zar; the black African zar being just a few of them—reminiscent of the Commedia dell’arte, but with lots more characters). It doesn’t really matter which zar is doing the possessing; what matters is that everyone believes that the zar holds the key to a woman’s fertility, and that if a husband wants his wife to become pregnant he must comply with the zar’s requests, no matter how outlandish or expensive they might be. In essence, the zar "kidnaps" a woman's fertility, and her husband is forced to pay a ransom in order to release it.

 

As I was reading the book—which may well be strangest and most unintentionally hilarious work I have ever read—I couldn’t help thinking that never in a million years could I be an anthropologist. The reason: were I doing a field study in a remote and backward location, and the women I was studying were to tell me in all seriousness that they were inhabited by cheeky “spirits”—oftentimes by many at once; and further, that they could evade blame for fertility problems (for which they would otherwise be held exclusively responsible) by deflecting it onto the zar(s); and further, that because of these spirits, their husbands were obliged to give them stuff; and further, that once they came down with this “illness”, they could act like Paris Hilton pre-jail sentence; and further, that once “possessed,” one could never be “cured”, and could expect the zar to keep showing up again and again, like a case of herpes (only much more fun and far more profitable); and further, that at least two thirds of the women in the village were said to be “possessed”: sorry, folks, I don’t think I’d be able to continue my studies because I’d be rolling on the ground, unable to contain my laughter. (In which case, they might think that I was “possessed," too.)

 

Good thing I’m a cranky contrarian and not an anthropologist.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:01 | link | comments

Fun faith: In Islam Online’s popular “Ask about Islam” feature, someone poses the following question:

Hello, I wonder if you can help me. I am working on a documentary about Muslim stereotypes and I wondered if anyone can tell me what people of the Muslim faith might do for fun in their country (e.g., Turkey and Saudi Arabia have a history of belly dancers). Any suggestions would be helpful…

 

Here’s an excerpt from the lengthy—and most helpful—response:

 

…In Islam, having fun is acceptable as long as it's not done excessively or to the exclusion of duties, and does not violate any religious or ethical code.

On the collective level, Muslims do the same things that all other people do for fun: attend social gatherings, especially for weddings, births, and other special occasions; play indoor and outdoor games; go out to cafés, restaurants, Internet cafés, movies, and malls; play sports (especially football [soccer], which is really popular in the Arab world where I am from); and watch television, and so on.

Of course, many of the practices are also different among cultures. For example, alcohol and other recreational drugs are forbidden in Islam, so these are not usually present in social gatherings.

Another example is what men do for fun here in Egypt (where I am from): They go hang out in cafés (which are the equivalent of pubs in the West) and chat and play backgammon.

I give you these examples to share with you the complexity of Muslim life and the fact that what applies to the world applies to Muslims — although going to a café per se is valid Islamically, playing backgammon is frowned upon because playing with dice is blameworthy as it puts emphasis on chance. Still, for better or worse, this is what the majority of Muslim men in a Muslim country like Egypt do.

As for the example of belly dancing you mentioned, although in public situations (all situations that include anyone other than a woman's husband) because of its eroticism, it is Islamically invalid, but still it is done. By the way, it is not widespread in Saudi Arabia. It is found more in Turkey and Egypt…

Well, no one ever accused the home of the Committee of the Propogation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice of being “fun.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:39 | link | comments

Burkini beach: A body that advises the British government on issues pertaining to religious education has called for schools in a section of London to allow Muslim girls to wear “burkinis” for instructional swim.

The word burkini, as Islam Online explains, “is derived from the words burqa (a head-to-ankle dress) and a bikini.”

 

Like you couldn’t figure that out.

 

The burkini sounds like it could look like this. But it actually looks like this. So you can see that the only thing it has in common with this is that both are intended for use in the water.

 

Here's the I.O. report:

 

CAIRO — A British government advisory body has issued a set of recommendations for schools in the western London borough of Ealing on dealing with Muslim students for "success through diversity," The Daily Mail reported on Sunday, June 24.

"The guidance suggests that the pools allow these burkinis," said Nora Leonard, one of the authors of guidelines issued by the Ealing council's Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education (SACRE).

"I have spoken to the firm which runs our pools and they are all in favor of it."

The Guidance for Schools with Muslim Pupils asked schools to let Muslim girls wear the head-to-toe burkinis in swimming lessons.

The governmental advisory body cited complaints by an increasing number of Muslims that the conventional swimming costumes violate their Islamic beliefs.

"Swimming facilities in the borough do not allow girls to wear full leotards and leggings in the pool for health and safety reasons," said the guideline.

Authors said adopting the burkini would stop Muslim girls from trying to cover their bodies with other unsuitable clothing.

"Schools are being encouraged to allow burkinis because of that," Leonard said…

Also, because if you wear a real burqa in the pool, you’re apt to plummet to the bottom like a rock.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:19 | link | comments

Garton Ash’s multiculti message: There’s a rather confused peroration by Timothy Garton Ash in the Los Angeles Times. Garton Ash, long one of slippery Salafist Tarik Ramadan’s biggest boosters, says the Brits were well within their rights to honour Salman Rushdie’s contributions to literature with a knighthood. At the same time, however, in a free society one musn’t expect that everyone will behave rationally, and part of the price of freedom is that we must be prepared to tolerate the intolerance of those who don’t (behave rationally, that is): 

…The right to free speech is not unlimited. In determining its limits, context matters.

American Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously observed that a man should not be free to shout a false alarm of "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Now, the fact is that even if a secular liberal intellectual were to say, "Mad Mullah X deserves to be shot," the likelihood that someone would go out and shoot Mullah X as a result is close to zero. There are no al-Darwinia brigades practicing bomb making in secret laboratories, awaiting an order from their beloved imam Richard Dawkins to assassinate Mullah X.

If, however, a Muslim cleric or intellectual says, "Salman Rushdie deserves to be shot," there are people out there who may take it literally. Remember that Rushdie's Japanese translator was murdered, his Italian translator was stabbed and his Norwegian publisher attacked because Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had called for everyone involved in propagating "The Satanic Verses" to be punished. Because of this explosive context, Muslim speakers need to exercise a particular care in their choice of words.

We non-Muslims need, in return, to be generously clear about the distinction between what a free society requires of them and what we merely desire. We may desire that they abandon what we regard as outmoded superstitions, that they "see reason," become modern, liberal and secular. But, in a free society, nobody should require that of them.

The toleration of widely differing opinions and beliefs is precisely what distinguishes a free society from the ideological regimes of the Middle East. Rushdie wrote a fiction that was deeply offensive to many Muslims. Muslims have the right to be deeply offensive back. Indeed, they have the perfect right to articulate positions that we may regard as irrational, retrograde and oppressive. All that a free society requires of them — as of every other citizen — is that they conduct this argument peacefully and obey the law of the land…

Garton Ash fails to explain how peaceful argument is even possible with citizens who are in the grip of outmoded superstitions that make them irrational, retrograde as well as of their blooming minds.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:41 | link | comments

Crazy, mixed-up organs: In an article about the pervasiveness of female genital mutilation in Egypt—the World Health Organization puts the prevalence of FGM there at more than 95 percent—Toronto Star scribe Oakland Ross offers the following reassurance:

Female circumcision is frequently misconstrued as an Islamic custom but it has no basis in any religion. In Egypt, it is just as common among Christians, who make up about 20 per cent of the population.

 

Good to know. Totally false, mind you, but good to know.

 

I have no idea why Christian girls in Egypt are being brutalized in this way—a matter of “when in Rome, do as the Romans do,” perhaps? But I know for a fact that the reason Muslim girls in Egypt and other parts of Africa have their dangly bits removed has a lot to do with their religion. Here’s the letter I sent to enlighten Mr. Ross and the Star’s multiculti bien pensants:

 

While it is true that there is nothing in the Koran that calls for female genital mutilation, and that Christian girls in Egypt are subjected to the same brutal procedure, it is also true that when Muslim girls are “circumcised,” their religion is used to justify it. In her riveting memoir, Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who was born in Somalia, recalls how it was used as the pretext for her mutilation, and recounts her harrowing and excruciating operation—as well as that of her younger sister, who never recovered from the mental trauma of the ritual and later committed suicide.

 

A clue to what’s really going on here can be found in the 1989 book Wombs and Alien Spirits, a study of Muslim women in a town in northern Sudan. According to the author, Janice Broddy, a professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto, both male and female circumcision are perceived as serving a specific—and a specifically Islamic—purpose. The male foreskin is seen as being like a “veil” over the penis, and since a veil betokens femininity, it must be removed so the penis can be de-feminized and become fully “male.” Similarly, the clitoris is considered to be too much like a penis, and must be removed in order to de-masculinize women—who according to Islamic teachings are given to uncontrollable fits of sexual passion—and render them more docile, “female” and suitable for marriage.

 

Thus, it’s going to be an uphill battle of massive proportions to try to persuade women to give up a practice that strikes at the very core of their identity—both as women and as Muslims.

 

Penises with veils; vaginas with little penises—no wonder they’re so sexually messed up.

 

Update: What timing! The Grand Mufti of Egypt has just announced a ban on FMG, a rite he calls un-Islamic.

 

It remains to be seen if this pronouncement has any impact on the age-old practice. It has already been banned by the government of Egypt, with no apparent reduction in the number of genital renovations.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:54 | link | comments

Contemptible constitution: It was a hard fought battle, but at the end of day Great Britain has ceded its last shed of sovereignty to a behemoth known as the EU Constitution. Melanie Phillips is withering in her contempt for the obnoxious beast. From the Daily Mail:

…Even by its own ruthless standards, the scale of the intended deceit and the railroading of its own procedures to ensure that it gets away with it are truly breathtaking.

What actually happened in last Saturday's pre-dawn diplomatic brawl in Brussels was that Mr Blair's red lines turned into the colour of fudge and then faded from sight altogether.

The supposed safeguards he secured on the core issues of foreign policy, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, economic policy and criminal justice are simply not worth the paper they are written on.

For the new treaty doesn't just extend the EU's powers.

It turns it into a constitutional freak, a bureaucratic Frankenstein's monster without a shred of democratic legitimacy, which will destroy what remains of our powers of self-government and make Mr Blair's apparent "opt-outs" absurdly irrelevant.

For example, the EU is now to have its own foreign minister.

The fact that this panjandrum will be called the EU's "high representative", which sounds like something straight out of Gilbert and Sullivan, does not detract from his power - which is to head a diplomatic service with ambassadors worldwide in pursuit of an EU foreign policy.

What's more, member states will be forced to support that policy "actively and unreservedly" - and will be barred from launching military strikes or declaring war that might be thought to damage the EU's standing.

In other words, we would be forbidden from defending our own interests and would be forced instead to do whatever the EU collectively decides...

Gee, I wonder what the high representative’s foreign policy vis-à-vis Israel is likely to be:

 

“I am the very model of a continental panjandrum

By looking at my C.V. it is evident where I come from.

I pinch myself sometimes because

I can’t believe I’ve plucked this plum.

Although my very office makes Ms. Phillips

Gloomy, grim and glum.

 

The office—well, it ain’t exactly stinking with democracy.

In fact it’s yet another massive European bureaucracy.

As “free” and “democratic” as a secular theocracy

You needn’t dig too deeply to perceive the rank hypocrisy.”

 

You needn’t dig too deeply to perceive the rank hypocrisy.

You needn’t dig too deeply to perceive the rank hypocrisy.

You needn’t dig too deeply to perceive the rank hypocrisy.

 

“I’m very good at siding with those plentiful Mohammedans.

I’m proud to say I qualify as one of their most eager fans.

In short, because they have the oil and a ‘slamic identity

I feel no great compunction when I shaft the Zionist entity.”

 

In short, because they have the oil and a ‘slamic identity

He feels no great compunction

When he shafts the Zionist entity...

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:36 | link | comments

 Musical conspiracy: Some years ago I wrote a musical version of that Czarist fabrication that became a “warrant for genocide,” The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. My take, which I call “Elders!,"  was Gilbert and Sullivan married to Mel Brooks, but this version, which I found on YouTube, is more Red Hot Chilli Peppers—with a zesty ZOG twist, of course.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:05 | link | comments

Obama’s extreme stupidity: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has criticised those who have “hijacked” an essentially peaceful religion.

 No, not the extremists who have “distorted” Islamic teachings by resorting to jihadist violence. Obama’s concerned about the right-wing evangelical Christians who, for those of his persuasion (clueless, leftist), constitute a far graver threat. From the Boston Globe:

 

HARTFORD, Conn. --Sen. Barack Obama told a church convention Saturday that some right-wing evangelical leaders have exploited and politicized religious beliefs in an effort to sow division.

 

"But somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and faith started being used to drive us apart. Faith got hijacked, partly because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, all too eager to exploit what divides us," the Democratic presidential candidate said in a 30-minute speech before a national meeting of the United Church of Christ.

 

"At every opportunity, they've told evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage, school prayer and intelligent design," he said.

 

"There was even a time when the Christian Coalition determined that its No. 1 legislative priority was tax cuts for the rich," Obama said. "I don't know what Bible they're reading, but it doesn't jibe with my version."

 

A call was placed to the Washington, D.C.-based Christian Coalition of America seeking comment.

 

Obama is a member of the United Church of Christ, a church of about 1.2 million members that is considered one the most liberal of the mainline Protestant groups.

 

He was warmly received by the crowd of more than 8,000 at the cavernous Hartford Civic Center, and was introduced as "one of ours" by the Rev. John H. Thomas, general minister and president of the United Church of Christ.

 

Obama was invited to speak to the church's biennial synod more than a year ago, before he declared his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination, Thomas said. The freshman Illinois senator was invited to talk about "how personal faith is lived out in the public square," Thomas said...

 

I don’t know and, frankly, don’t much care how Obama choses to live out his personal faith in the public square. What I do know is that I’m sure glad those right-wing evangelicals are around right now because they belong to one of the few groups in the U.S. that can be depended upon to support Israel.

 

Also, I’m pretty sure that none of them is likely to strap on some dynamite-rigged apparel and self-detonate in a crowd in the unswayable belief that that’s what Jesus requires of them.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:46 | link | comments

Infernal tweeters: An item on the Ceeb website queries “where are the songbirds?”

I know where they are. They’re in the magnolia tree outside my bedroom window, chirping maniacally at 4:30 in the morning, and preventing me from falling back asleep.

 

Anyone know where I can get my hands on a BB gun?

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:27 | link | comments (1)

Science and submission: Discover magazine has a special report—its July cover story—on Islam and science, and how a strict belief in the former greatly inhibits the latter:

Cairo, Egypt: “There is no conflict between Islam and science,” Zaghloul El-Naggar declares as we sit in the parlor of his villa in Maadi, an affluent suburb of Cairo. “Science is inquisition. It’s running after the unknown. Islam encourages seeking knowledge. It’s considered an act of worship.”

What people call the scientific method, he explains, is really the Islamic method: “All the wealth of knowledge in the world has actually emanated from Muslim civilization. The Prophet Muhammad said to seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave. The very first verse came down: ‘Read.’ You are required to try to know something about your creator through meditation, through analysis, experimentation, and observation.”

Author, newspaper columnist, and television personality El-­Naggar is also a geologist whom many Egyptians, including a number of his fellow scientists, regard as a leading figure in their community. An expert in the somewhat exotic topic of biostratification—the layering of Earth’s crust caused by living organisms—El-Naggar is a member of the Geological Society of London and publishes papers that circulate internationally. But he is also an Islamic fundamentalist, a scientist who views the universe through the lens of the Koran.

Religion is a powerful force throughout the Arab world—but perhaps nowhere more so than here. The common explanation is that the Egyptian people, rich and poor alike, turned to God after everything else failed: the mess of the government’s socialist experiment in the 1960s; the downfall of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Arab nationalism; the military debacle of the 1967 war with Israel; poverty; inept government—the list goes on.

I witness firsthand the overlapping strands of history as I navigate the chaos of Cairo, a city crammed with 20 million people, a quarter of Egypt’s population. In residential neighborhoods, beautiful old buildings crumble, and the people who live in them pile debris onto rooftops because there is no public service to take it away. Downtown, luxury hotels intermingle with casinos, minarets, and even a Pizza Hut. The American University in Cairo is a short distance from Tahrir Square, a wide traffic circle where bruised old vehicles brush pedestrians who make the perilous crossing. At all hours men smoke water pipes in city cafés; any woman in one of these qawas would almost certainly be a foreigner. Most Egyptian women wear a veil, and at the five designated times a day when the muezzins call, commanding the Muslims to pray, the men come, filling the city’s mosques.

The Islamic world looms large in the history of science, and there were long periods when Cairo—in Arabic, El Qahira, meaning “the victorious”—was a leading star in the Arabic universe of learning. Islam is in many ways more tolerant of scientific study than is Christian fundamentalism. It does not, for example, argue that the world is only 6,000 years old. Cloning research that does not involve people is becoming more widely accepted. In recent times, though, knowledge in Egypt has waned. And who is accountable for the decline?

El-Naggar has no doubts. “We are not behind because of Islam,” he says. “We are behind because of what the Americans and the British have done to us.”

We are not behind because of Islam. We are behind because of what the Americans and the British have done to us.

The evil West is a common refrain with El-Naggar, who, paradoxically, often appears in a suit and tie, although he is wearing a pale green galabiyya when we meet. He says that he grieves for Western colleagues who spend all their time studying their areas of specialization but neglect their souls; it sets his teeth on edge how the West has “legalized” homosexuality. “You are bringing man far below the level of animals,” he laments. “As a scientist, I see the danger coming from the West, not the East.”

He hands me three short volumes he has written about the relationship of science and Islam. These include The Geological Concept of Mountains in the Holy Koran, and Treasures in the Sunnah, A Scientific Approach, parts one and two, along with a translation of the Koran, whose title page he has signed, although his name does not appear as a translator.

In Treasures in the Sunnah, El-Naggar interprets holy verses: the hadiths, sayings of the Prophet, and the sunnah, or customs. There are scientific signs in more than one thousand verses of the Koran, according to El-Naggar, and in many sayings of the Prophet, although these signs often do not speak in a direct scientific way. Instead, the verses give man’s mind the room to work until it arrives at certain conclusions. A common device of Islamic science is to cite examples of how the Koran anticipated modern science, intuiting hard facts without modern equipment or technology. In Treasures of the Sunnah, El-Naggar quotes scripture: “and each of them (i.e., the moon and the sun) floats along in (its own) orbit.” “The Messenger of Allah,” El-Naggar writes, “talked about all these cosmic facts in such accurate scientific style at a period of time when people thought that Earth was flat and stationary. This is definitely one of the signs, which testifies to the truthfulness of the message of Muhammad.”…

Further along in the article another Egyptian man of science, a chemistry professor at Cairo U, assures the Discovery scribe, Todd Pitnick, that Islam and science are completely compatible:

 

“Islam has no problems with science,” he says. “As long as what you do does not harm people, it is permitted. You can study what you want, you can say what you want.”

 

What about, say, evolutionary biology or Darwinism? I ask. (Evolution is taught in Egyptian schools, although it is banned in Saudi Arabia and Sudan.) “If you are asking if Adam came from a monkey, no,” Badawy responds. “Man did not come from a monkey. If I am religious, if I agree with Islam, then I have to respect all of the ideas of Islam. And one of these ideas is the creation of the human from Adam and Eve. If I am a scientist, I have to believe that.”

But from the point of view of a scientist, is it not just a story? I ask. He tells me that if I were writing an article saying that Adam and Eve is a big lie, it will not be accepted until I can prove it.

“Nobody can just write what he thinks without proof. But we have real proof that the story of Adam as the first man is true.”

“What proof?”

He looks at me with disbelief: “It’s written in the Koran.”

Silly infidel! What more "proof" do you need?

The one bright spot in this vast region of darkness: Tunisia. That’s because, as a government official who didn’t want to be named article explains,

“We have succeeded in keeping extremism and that mentality out of our schools and institutions,” says a government official who asks not to be named. “We are an island of 10 million people in a sea of Islamists. The extremists want to remove the buffer between religion and everything else, including science. There has to be a buffer between religion and science.”

And this buffer—“the closest thing in the Arab world to separation of mosque and state—allows for the kind of free inquiry allows for the kind of free inquiry that is anathema in other, more devout countries. As well, it allows for another type of free inquiry that is generally verboten elsewhere:

“Islamic science” is not a university subject here, as it is in Egypt; “Islamology,” which looks critically at Islamic extremism, is.

Another critical difference:

In contrast to the situation in Egypt, where even the most Western-oriented scientist I talked to at some point or other declares himself to be “a good Muslim,” in Tunisia the personal religious views of scientists I meet hardly seem relevant.

A voice of reason can be found in an unlikely quarter. It belongs to prince El Hassan bin Talal, the brother of King Hussein, the late king of Jordan:

[Hassan] is also candid, calling suicide bombers “social rejects” and questioning the validity of those who would take the Muslim world back to the times of the Prophet Muhammad. “Are we talking Islam or Islamism?” he asks, pointing out the difference between the religion and those extremists who use the religion to advance their own agendas. “The danger [posed by Islamists] is not only to Christians but also to Islam itself. The real problem is not the Arab-Israel issue but the rise of Islamism.”

Science, rather than religion, is the way to ensure a country’s future, Prince Hassan believes, and he has made supporting scientific achievement a personal mission for almost 40 years. He envisions projects that would promote regional partnerships, including with Israel—an idea that, despite official peace between the countries, remains controversial.

Hassan would now be king if his brother hadn’t passed him over in favour of his Beaver Cleaver-resembling spawn.

Another opportunity lost.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:25 | link | comments

Animal crackers: Jonathan Isby, a blogger on the Telegraph site, has a post about London Mayor Ken Livingstone and his ideas re an appropriate mascot for his city’s Olympics:

…[In] an interview with Nick Ferrari on LBC 97.3FM, Livingstone waded in with the following thoughts: "China’s got five coloured dolls representing earth, fire, forest and so on and Moscow had a bear," he said. "It would be the sort of thing you’d want to take home for your kids as a fluffy toy, so we shouldn’t have too much problems with that. What animal signifies London? The rat or the pigeon," he concluded.

Ken the Rat as the 2012 masoct.(sic) There's a thought...

And maybe his co-mascot can be George the Pigeon.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:14 | link | comments

Rumour has it: There’s an alarming rumour making the rounds. It goes something like this: The EU may be willing to “lower the bar” in discussions with Iran, meaning the EUnuchs have already decided there's no way they can get Iran to give up its nuclear plans. Well, Condoleeza Rice wants us to know that there is absolutely, positively no truth to that rumour. And because she seems to be so vehement in her denial (she “protesteth too much”?) it sounds like there may well be immense truth to it (as there was to the Gitmo rumour, also resolutely denied at first). From Fox News:

PARIS —  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice maintained a firm line Sunday against efforts to soften conditions for Iran to enter talks over its disputed nuclear program, dismissing as "chatter" discussions among U.S. allies about a new approach.

British, French and German officials have begun debating whether to tolerate something less than a full freeze on Iran's work to enrich uranium, an ingredient for both civilian nuclear power or a bomb, officials in Vienna told The Associated Press on Friday.

Germany was supportive of such a concession, while France was opposed and Britain noncommittal, said the officials, who included U.S. and European diplomas and government employees. They said the talks were preliminary, and that nothing had been decided.

"I don't know where that's coming from," Rice said en route to France for two days of get-to-know-you meetings with the new, conservative-led French government and a strategy session on the violence and refugee crisis in Sudan's Darfur region.

Rice said in her discussions with other diplomats she has sensed no willingness to back off conditions that Iran's European and United Nations negotiating partners had set to begin formal talks.

Iran must stop, or suspend, its disputed activity during negotiations, so that it cannot continue to perfect its nuclear expertise while also bargaining to give it up.

 

Iran has refused, and sped up its enrichment work. Estimates vary, but Iranian scientists are fast mastering the difficult steps involved in nuclear development. Some experts, including the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, have suggested that time may be running out for talks on the terms Rice and others want.

Iran insists its nuclear work is aimed only at developing nuclear energy, and says it will not give up its right to work toward that goal. For the Iranians, the program has become a matter of national pride. The United States and some other nations are convinced Tehran is secretly working to build nuclear weapons.

"My counterparts when I talk to them are not interested in lowering the bar," Rice said. "There may well be chatter, and I'll call it chatter," Rice said, about other options, but she did not sound concerned about divisions within the international coalition arrayed against Iran.

Rice dismissed one possible half-measure _ a partial suspension of the activities that most concern the West, and U.N. monitoring of any ongoing work.

"I don't know what partial suspension means," Rice said, adding that to her the term means all or nothing. "I don't know what partial suspension would look like, and it doesn't seem to me to be a very wise course."…

Allow me to fill you in, Ms. Rice. “Partial suspension” means the lit’ler Hitler would be able to make some nukes, but maybe not as many as he’d like to make. In other words, the EUnuchs would allow him to drop an A-bomb on what he likes to call the Jewish “blot,” just so long as he doesn’t aim nukes any at them.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:08 | link | comments

Harpoon calls for dhimmitude: Harpoon Siddiqui says the jig is up and the triumph of Islamism is a fait accompli. Canadians must now decide with whom to side—with the victors (Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban, and their state sponsors) or with the vanquished (the U.S.):

The United States is spending $80 million to train and equip Mahmoud Abbas' Presidential Guard.

In Kabul, Hamid Karzai dare not move out of the cocoon of his elaborate American security. In Baghdad, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki must stay mostly in the American Green Zone.

That's not the only common thread in West Bank/Gaza, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The occupying powers are presiding over civil wars among terrorized peoples in collapsing societies run by militias, some funded directly or indirectly by the occupiers.

In Iraq and West Bank/Gaza, the people who could leave have. Those left behind survive on handouts of two kinds: banned but smuggled foreign funds subject to confiscation, or official aid subject to cancellation should the subjects misbehave, such as voting for Hamas.

In Afghanistan, people stave off hunger by cultivating opium crops, which are subject to erratic policies of eradication and tolerance.

Add to this the broader picture of American-Israeli alliances with such oligarchs as Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, King Abdullah of Jordan and the sheikhs of oil kingdoms.

These "moderates" want peace with Israel (good) but they cannot deliver it (bad). So they must strike poses: holding summits, such as the one tomorrow by Mubarak, Abdullah and Abbas in Sharam el-Sheikh, and issuing rote proclamations about peace, which their media, and ours, record dutifully.

But the game has run its course.

In the Middle East and beyond, American embassies and consulates, with their bulletproof walls and barriers and bunkers and tanks, are today's Crusader forts.

In the zones of conflict, including Lebanon, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban and Iraqi Shiite and Sunni militias are empowered – as are their paymasters, Iran, Syria and official and private circles in Pakistan and the sheikhdoms.

People everywhere are radicalized. Terrorism is on the rise.

At this point, realizing he may be giving the game away, Harpoon backs off a bit and tosses the gullible multicultists a bone—sort of:

The most obvious way out of this crisis is to end the occupations, forge peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and ditch the dictators and monarchs for democracy.

The most "obvious way," perhaps, but not the way Harpoon would like us to go—certainly not a "way" he's on side with: He'd prefer we "submit." How do we know this? Because the whole idea of regional democracy is so unpleasant, so distasteful, that he devotes an entire 28 words to it. He then spends the remainder of his column demolishing the notion and advising us to accept our inevitable defeat:

Israel and the United States are ostensibly committed to these goals. But they have a million excuses that they are being thwarted by indigenous forces of evil.

In other words, Israel and the U.S. (the real bad guys) lack the strength to prevail over “indigenous forces” who, Harpoon wants you to know (but is too clever to come right out and say so) aren’t really “evil”.

It is in this context that one must view the prospect of Tony Blair becoming the special envoy for the Quartet – the U.S., the UN, the E.U. and Russia – which was to bring about a two-state solution by 2005. The last envoy, James Wolfensohn, former president of the World Bank, quit in frustration last year, blocked at every turn from easing the political, social and economic strangulation of Palestinians, especially in the Gaza Strip.

And the UN's envoy, Alvaro de Soto, has just been quoted as saying that his mission was "pummelled into submission" by the Americans. He has also accused the U.S. of actively pushing for a confrontation between Fatah and Hamas.

There are other reports as well of how the U.S.-funded Fatah security forces, led by Mohammed Dahlan, known as the Pinochet of Palestine, systematically sabotaged Hamas, especially the unity government forged in March, through murder and mayhem.

Rather than resisting this disastrous agenda, Canada is an active participant in it, thanks to Paul Martin and Stephen Harper. Had either been in power in 2003, we would have been plunged into Iraq as well.

Canadian public opinion has forced Harper to commit himself to ending our Afghan mission in February 2009, which NATO was hoping to extend.

Canadians, always eager to help rebuild, have been balking for good reason: They do not want our troops to be the cannon fodder for America's endless warfare.

America’s endless warfare?! More like the endless jihad—thirteen hundred years and counting.

 

There is only one thing left to say: Stick it in your ear, Harpoon. There’ll be no bowing and scraping to Islamic overlords for this gal!

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:34 | link | comments

Rules for seething: Michelle Malkin has a piece about the Rushdie seethe-a-thon which she opens by citing “Jihadi's Guide to Etiquette Rule 11: Never leave home without your matches, effigy-hanging sticks and death threat placards. You never know when they'll come in handy.” 

Here are rules one through ten:

 

1.     Practice your angry gestures (arm-waving, fist-shaking, facial contortions, etc.) in the mirror at home before the protest. It’ll help you look more convincing during the actual event.

 

2.     Try to work up a good head of steam before you leave the house. That way, you’ll be able to reach your maximum seethe capacity much sooner.

 

3.     Wear loose-fitting clothing. Depending on the infidel outrage being protested, seething can raise the core body temperature by an average of at least three degrees, and loose garments allow the heat to dissipate more quickly so as to help prevent heat prostration and/or apoplexy.

 

4.     Make sure you have comfortable footwear. There’s nothing worse than being sidelined by blisters in mid-seethe.

 

5.     It’s a good idea to follow “the buddy system.” That way a friend can notify your next of kin should you be injured in the crush/tumult and require medical attention.

 

6.     Bring the kids! Why should they be left out of the fun?

 

7.     It is not appropriate to set up a kebab stand along the protest route.

 

8.     Some placard messages suitable for all occasions: Behead those who insult Islam; If you call me violent, I’ll have to kill you; Die, Infidel Swine.

 

9.     Don’t forget to mention the Zionists! They’re the ones who are really behind it all.

 

10.  After the event, remember to pack away your placards in a safe, dry place so they’ll be available to protest the next infidel outrage (which is no doubt coming up any day now).

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:42 | link | comments

A tale of two stand-offs: Remember a few months ago when the sailors on a British gunboat was commandeered by some Shias and the Brits behaved like a bunch of girls? (Well, actually, one of them was a girl. But still…) The Daily Mail has an account of a similar incident that occurred a few years ago when some Aussie sailors had a run-in with Iran. Only, instead of collapsing in a puddle of tears, as did one young British salt when a cruel Iranian interrogator threatened to take away his i-POD, the Aussies told the Iranians what they could do with themselves. From the Daily Mail:

It was a stand-off on the high seas like that which led to the arrest of 15 British sailors and marines by the Iranians earlier this year.

But this time the potential captives were Australians and they were a little less meek in their response.

While pointing their guns straight at the heavily-armed Iranian boats, the sailors simply told the troops to "**** off". And they did.

Their no-nonsense approach was very different to that of the much-criticised crew from HMS Cornwall, whose capture in the Gulf in March led to a diplomatic crisis.

Details of the Australian incident, which occurred well before the British humiliation, emerged yesterday…

Score one for plain speaking.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:35 | link | comments

LSE myth-making: The arrow on the British Muslim seethe-o-meter is stuck at “high,” and some untutored souls might be tempted to take this as an indication that the much-touted multicultural harmony appears to  be breaking down. Perish the thought. According to a new survey by some number crunchers over at the London School of Economics, there is no disharmony, and most British Muslims define themselves first and foremost as British.

Quel relief!

From the Toronto Star:

LONDON–Despite widespread perceptions to the contrary, Britain is not experiencing any large-scale culture clash involving immigrants and minorities who refuse to think of themselves as British, according to a new analysis of government data by the London School of Economics.

The study, co-authored by LSE economist Alan Manning and based on responses to a survey of nearly 1 million Britons, concludes that the idea of Britain becoming home to a mix of mutually incompatible cultures is a "melodramatic myth."

The LSE analysis found that 99.2 per cent of British-born Muslims think of themselves as British, compared with 99.1 per cent of British-born Christians and 99.6 per cent of British-born Jews.

The study found that among foreign-born Britons, those from poorer and less-democratic countries tend to assimilate more quickly into a British identity, in part because they have a greater tendency to take up citizenship.

Manning told the Star the figures should be of particular interest to the government of Gordon Brown, who next week will take over the premiership from Tony Blair.

The incoming prime minister has signalled that he intends to make a revived sense of "Britishness" one of the hallmarks of his leadership.

"It is clear that Brown wants to address issues of British identity and driving part of this is a sense of great crisis that has taken hold of significant segments of the public," Manning noted.

"But when you look at the data with an unbiased eye, there is not a generalized problem here.

"By all means, let the government delve into issues of Britishness and immigration, which is a bit of a shambles at the moment.

"But let them be careful that their ideas don't end off creating the problem they are designed to cure."

I guess these folks must fall into that .8 per cent.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:11 | link | comments

A “dignified” frenzy: British Muslims have been urged to  “act with dignity” and to protest the “Rushdie conspiracy” in a peaceful manner. 

Oops! Too late.

Posted by: scaramouche at 15:52 | link | comments

The good die young…and the bad linger on until well past senescence: When Billy Joel wrote “Only the Good Die Young”, he was thinking of a recalcitrant Catholic virgin. When I rewrote the song just now, I was thinking of a sanctimonious old gasbag who penned Palestine: Peace not Apartheid:

Shut up, old Jimmy, you’re full of hot air.

Your pro-Hamas spin is a cause for despair.

Ah, but sooner or later no one’s gonna care

About what you have to say.

Well, they gave you a peace prize,

Pumped up your pride.

Now your immense ego cannot be denied.

And so you have blustered and blundered and lied

About Hamas and jihad

And Jimmy’s one of the “good” who’s bad.

That’s what I said.

One of the “good” who’s bad.

One of the “good” who’s bad.

 

You might have gotten away with your blather and tripe,

But Jew-hate’s undone you

And so has your hype.

We’re getting so weary of those of your stripe—

Useful idiots who help jihad.

So come on, old Jimmy,

Hang up your spurs.

Time to retire before more harm occurs.

A Jew nation’s present despite your demurs:

It ain’t just a passing fad.

And Jimmy’s one of the “good” who’s bad

One of the “good” who’s bad.

 

You got a nice bright prize

That some nincompoops gave you in Olso.

You got Saudi loot.

And a bestseller to boot.

I can get it really cheap over there at my local Costco.

But I’ll save my bread

‘Cause Jim’s clear out of his head.

 

Oh, whoa, whoa,

And they say there’s a Heaven for willing shaheeds.

But Jim doesn’t care ‘bout their sexual needs.

He’d rather lust in his heart than acknowledge who bleeds—

‘Cause lusting makes him so mad.

And Jimmy’s one of the “good” who’s bad.

Oh, whoa baby,

I tell ya one of the “good” who’s bad,

One of the “good” who’s bad…

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:47 | link | comments

One last time: Charles Krauthammer is usually dead on in his analysis, but after reading Daniel Pipes the other day, I think Dr. K. has strayed off course when he says Fatah head Moo Abbas should get one last chance. From indystar.com:

…But let's remember who Abbas is. He appears well intentioned, but he is afflicted with near-disastrous weaknesses. He controls little. His troops in Gaza simply collapsed against the greatly outnumbered forces of Hamas. His authority in the West Bank is far from universal. He does not even control the various factions within Fatah.

 

But the greater liability is his character. He is weak and indecisive. When he was Yasser Arafat's deputy, Abbas was known to respond to being slapped down by his boss by simply disappearing for weeks in a sulk. During the battle for Gaza, he did not order his Fatah forces to return fire against the Hamas insurrection until the fight was essentially over. Remember, too, that after Arafat's death Abbas ran the Palestinian Authority without a Hamas presence for more than a year. Can you name a single thing he achieved in that time?

 

Moreover, his Fatah party is ideologically spent and widely discredited. Historian Michael Oren points out that the Palestinian Authority has received more per capita aid than did Europe under the Marshall Plan. This astonishing largesse has disappeared into lavish villas for party bosses and guns for the multiple militias Arafat established.

 

The West is rushing to bolster Abbas. Israel will release hundreds of millions in tax monies. The U.S. and the EU will be pouring in aid. All praise Abbas as a cross between Anwar Sadat and Simon Bolivar. Fine. We have no choice but to support him. But before we give him the moon, we should insist upon reasonable benchmarks of both moderation and good governance. Abbas needs to demonstrate his ability to run a clean administration and to engage Israel in day-to-day negotiations to alleviate the conditions of life on the ground.

 

We can prop him up only so much. In the end, the only one who can make a success of the West Bank is Abbas himself. This is his chance. His last chance.

 

How many “last chances” can one guy get? I know Krauthammer’s training is medical and not zoological, but I would ask him this: Can a leopard change its spots? Can a tiger change its stripes? Can a weasel become a gazelle? Can a snake become an eagle?

 

Can an arafat become a Mandela?

 

They can’t? So what, other than wishful thinking, makes anyone think that old Shoah-denying Moo can suddenly “evolve” into a two-state-solution-loving statesman? And even if he could, what makes anyone think the Palestinians, the vast majority of whom are still committed to a replacement nationalism/theology in which Israel is a goner, would be inclined to follow him down that path?

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:50 | link | comments

Time for a refresher course in reality: Peter Phillip, Deutsche Welle’s chief correspondent and “a Middle East expert,” weighs in on the current anti-Rushdie frenzy.

Only the narrow-minded would interpret the manifestations of open irritation and public outrage in the streets of Tehran and Islamabad as the actual expression of the public's mood. They are not. They are rather a finely orchestrated means for the authorities to serve a purpose.

To achieve their political goals or to distract from their own problems, the "security aware" -- some may say "repressive" -- regimes allow such demonstrations: against the insulting Mohammed caricatures in Denmark, against alleged desecration of the Koran somewhere in the world or, as is currently the case, against the distinction being paid by the queen to British author Salman Rushdie.

How many demonstrators in front of the British embassies in Tehran and Islamabad today even knew who Rushdie was 14 days ago? How many may have actually read the "Satanic Verses," the book that garnered Rushdie the anger of Islamic extremists? Probably none. But that's not really the point.

In 1989, the Iranian revolutionary leader Khomeini issued a fatwa against then unknown Rushdie, and Iran put a price on the author's head. For 10 years Rushdie had to go underground and live under police surveillance until Tehran admitted that while the now deceased Khomeini's fatwa could not be revoked, it did not need to be implemented. Rushdie's life could once again return to normal.

Now that new demonstrations are being aimed at the author, it's certainly not because of the "Satanic Verses." He is, after all, being recognized for his life's work, not a single book. But Iranian and Pakistani officials describe the knighthood as a new insult to one and half billion Muslims. And the Pakistani religion minister raised the bar with the threat of a suicide attack to avenge this unfriendly act on the part of the British royal family.

As if that's not an insult against all well-meaning people around the world, regardless of their religion, skin color or language. Such statements are a slap in the face to anyone who works for understanding and freedom -- especially between cultures. That includes Muslims who believe in their religion's true messages of freedom and understanding.

The abuse of religious sentiment for political means is not a new tactic. But in the case of Iran, one had hoped that things had changed. And one even believed that they had in the case of Pakistan, a country that is an important partner in the "fight against terror."…

So in Mr. Phillip’s expert opinion Islam is purely a religion of raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, and based on who the heck knows what—his own wishful thinking, perhaps?—he had hoped that things had changed in Iran?

 

Great expert you got there, DW.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:46 | link | comments

Tit for tat: The religious zanies have hit upon what they think is a sure fire way to get back at Westerners for applauding Salman Rushdie’s knighthood: giving a similar “honour” to Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar. From Islam Online:

KARACHI — While Christian and Hindu leaders joined their Muslim countrymen in protesting a British decision to knight controversial author Salman Rushdie, some scholars suggested honoring Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden as a counter action.

"Any protest against the British government is useless. They will not listen to any logic," Maulana Sami-ul-Haq, a prominent scholar and chairman of the Senate religious affairs committee, told IslamOnline.net.

He suggested that instead of protesting the British decision world Muslims should confer the title of "Sir" on Bin Laden and Taliban's leader Mullah Omer.

"In response to this step, Muslims should confer the title of Sir to bin Laden and Mullah Omer," he opined.

"The world will see the reaction of western countries if Muslims honor Bin Laden and Mullah Omer as British government did with Rushdie."…

Yeah, can you imagine the reaction? Why, the streets of London, Paris and Toronto will be teeming with seething Westerners, burning effigies of Mullah Omar and freaking out about this unwarranted insult.

 

Oh, wait. Wrong seethers.

 

I like his complaint about the Brits being the ones who refuse to “listen to any logic,” though. Considering the source, it’s awfully amusing.

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

Running on empty: The National Post’s token Lefty, CFRB Radio chat-show host John Moore, is in high dudgeon today about folks who flaunt their allegiance for a cause. More specifically, he’s referring to a local flap about emergency vehicles displaying “Support Our Troops” magnets. Toronto city council, in its ineffable wisdom, had tried to get the magnets removed; it has since backed down. But Moore, who has worked up quite a head of steam about the matter, thunders that the magnets betoken something far more disturbing than support for Canada’s mission in Afghanistan. They show that “We live in a society of empty gestures.”

Maybe so, John. But isn’t it interesting that you’ve glommed onto on the one gesture that you, as an unabashed Lefty, perceive as “empty”; I'm sure those who have made this gesture don’t see it that way. However, there are plenty of other causes out there—Save Darfur, Save Tibet, Save the Whale, Save the Whole Frikkin' Planet, etc.—that do afford ample opportunity for people to make empty gestures, mostly by slapping a sticker on their bumper, which often represents the sum total of their involvement in the cause. (It’s remarkable how a little gesture like that can make one feel so incredibly virtuous--but, hey, isn't that the pay-off? That and the warm and fuzzies of getting to ride around with "the cool kids" on the virtuous bandwagon.)

 

I can understand, though, why John wouldn’t want to criticize those empty gestures.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:34 | link | comments

Britainistan: An editorial in the New York Post—really, two quotations spaced eighty years apart—shows the trajectory of what was once the most powerful nation on Earth:

From Time magazine, Nov. 1, 1926, under "Trends":

"A Moslem mosque, the first in the British Isles, has been dedicated in the London suburb of Southfields. The opening ceremony was performed by Emir Feisal, king of Iraq, third son of the King of the Hedjaz. Mohammedan worshippers in England are a small but steadily growing body."

From The Associated Press newswire, June 7, 2007:

"Mohammad is the second most popular name being given to baby boys in Britain, and it's likely to beat out Jack for first place by year's end."

'Nuff said.

Posted by: scaramouche at 09:26 | link | comments

Camping it up: What are the odds? As the camp season is about to get underway, word is coming out of Washington that a very special year-round facility may be getting ready to shut its doors. I offer the following song parody with profuse apologies to late peerless parodist, Allan Sherman:

Hello sistah, hello bro-oh,

Here I am at Guantanamo-oh.

Camp is rarely ever borin',

And they even gave me my own pers'nal Koran.

 

All jihadis hate the kaffirs,

So our lawyers act as buffers.

They all say, "Hey, glad to see ya."

But we hate them, too,

'Cause their law's not sharia.

 

Guess you heard about the flushin'

That's the tale that Newsweek was pushin'.

As it turns out, it was bogus.

They just wanted to upset, rile and provoke us.

 

You remember Omar Khadr,

And his brudder, and the other,

Well, seems Omar could go free now

'Cause they messed up

On some technicality now.

 

Get me out, oh, sistah, bro-oh.

Get me out, I hate this Gitmo

Don't leave me here in this awful Hell

Where I can't even meet Fidel.

Get me out, I promise to amend my ways,

And not live in a jihad haze

Of battles very old

That are retold and told and told.

 

Wait a minute,

Seems Great Satan

Has now started insinuatin'

That camp closin' would be bettah,

Sistah, bruddah, kindly disregard this lettah!

 

Update: On second thought, maybe the correspondent better send it off after all.

 

Update: Kindly disregard the previous update.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:49 | link | comments

How the mighty have fallen: An Arab nation is now the proud owner of an icon of the British nation—the Queen Elizabeth 2.

Given that the Brits have been comporting themselves like abject dhimmis, the symbolism is perfectly apt, and still rather shocking.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:52 | link | comments

We say potato and they say pahtahto: In the wake of the recent civil violence in Gaza, it has become commonplace to hear that there are now two Palestinian entities—one in Gaza ruled by Hamas and one in the West Bank ruled by Fatah. But according to this article that appeared in Middle East Forum in 2001 (and which was mentioned today on The Corner), the divisions have been there for a long time and—whadya know?—Gazans and West Bankers don’t much like each other:

…While the West Bank is only about thirty miles from Gaza, there is more separating the two territories than an expanse of the Negev Desert.

For one, the different regional patriarchal clans have always dominated local politics in the two territories. Gaza's stronger local families include the Shawwa, Shafei and Middein families. In the West Bank, the Nashishibi, Huseini, Ja'abari and Masri families are among the dominant political elite. By nature, these clans are regional, and are often at odds, since they compete for economic, political and social stature.

The notion of Palestinian regionalism is further reinforced by the varied Arabic dialects spoken throughout the territories. West Bank dialects are similar to the Jordanian dialect, while influences of Egyptian dialect are heard throughout Gaza. Speakers of the Gaza dialect, for example, tend to pronounce the Arabic word for "fish" as samag, while West Bankers typically pronounce the word as it is written in standard Arabic - samak. According to a study done at Birzeit University in Ramallah, other differences can be found in intonation and even lexicon.³ Indeed, language is often a clear indication of a Palestinian's precise origin.

The absence of intermarriage between the territories is another dividing line. While traditional marriages arranged between tribal chiefs are no longer popular among Palestinians, one study notes that "kinship-based marriage arrangements now exist as a way to preserve the continued identity of dispersed communities."⁴ These communities derive from specific, smaller areas of the former Palestine and, by nature, do not cross the West Bank-Gaza divide.

Geopolitics have also exacerbated Palestinian tribalism and limited ties between the West Bank and Gaza. After the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948, Egypt occupied Gaza and Jordan occupied the West Bank. With Gaza under Gamal abd al-Nasser, and the West Bank under King Hussein, who was often wary of Nasser's influence in Jordan, the two territories had minimal contact during the next two decades. As a result, a pro-Egypt, pan-Arabist movement developed in Gaza, while many Palestinians in the West Bank developed an allegiance to the Hashemite Kingdom.

The West Bank under Jordanian rule also enjoyed a growing economic infrastructure that Gaza did not. While Gaza was largely neglected under Egyptian occupation, Jordan invested heavily in West Bank civil society through 1967. With an eye towards recovering the West Bank as Jordanian land, King Hussein continued to invest in the area until 1988, even while it was under Israeli rule. Thus, over time, the West Bank has emerged as a developing mini-state, while Gaza has wallowed in neglect.

When Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza during the June 1967 War, the gap increased. Israel placed tight travel restrictions on the territories for security reasons. The West Bank, which buttresses Jordan, sustained interaction with Arab countries, but Gaza, which borders the barren Sinai peninsula, had significantly less access to the rest of the Arabic-speaking world. Even during the best days of the Oslo process, Israeli security measures prohibited free travel between Gaza and the West Bank.

Today, security measures are so tight that Gazans and West Bankers are often restricted from seeing one another. In fact, many Gazans complain of how they must first travel to Egypt and then fly to Jordan in order to make it into the West Bank.

Palestinians who declared refugee status after the Arab defeats in 1948 and 1967 also contribute to the West Bank-Gaza division. In the West Bank, only 27 percent of the population are refugees, as opposed to the 64 percent that inhabit the Gaza Strip. Rather than living in hovels and tents, many West Bankers have invested in homes or businesses.

The poverty associated with refugees directly contributes to two distinct economies. In 1997, more than 40 percent of Gazans were living below the poverty line ($650 year). That was four times the poverty rate in the West Bank, which hovered at only 11 percent. Unemployment figures before the al-Aqsa Intifada showed that 22 percent of all Gazans were unemployed, whereas only 9 percent of West Bankers were not working. And though the uprising has since taken its toll on both territories since October, Gaza is expected to be the hardest hit, with unemployment reaching 50 percent or more.

Due to these different circumstances, residents of the two areas have developed a quiet animosity toward each other. Khalil Shiqaqi, a prominent Palestinian sociologist, after conducting hundreds of interviews, notes the presence of "a psychological barrier between the inhabitants of the two territories and . . . mutual suspicion" that cannot be "disregarded or ignored."⁵

Shiqaqi's study, entitled The West Bank and Gaza Strip: Future Political and Administrative Relations, shows the existence of a prevalent West Bank belief that the Gaza Strip is "nothing but a big refugee camp."⁶ Further, West Bankers see the Gaza Strip as a backward society with "increased crime . . . and inclined to roughness, extremism, grimness, fanaticism and instability."⁷

Gazans, for their part, expressed their misgivings over the patronizing and discriminating West Bankers, who show them little respect.⁸ They also note that while Gazans are typically willing to accept the consequences of insurrection against Israel, "workers from the West Bank fill the work spots left vacant from when [Israel] prevents Gaza workers from coming to their jobs in Israel."⁹

Of particular interest is Shiqaqi's mention of the period between 1967 and 1971, when approximately 20,000 Gazans emigrated to the West Bank towns of Qalqiliya and Tulqarem. Extensive interviews revealed that during this first attempt at integration between the territories, tensions ran high. West Bankers saw their guests as messy, dishonest, less cultured, less educated and predisposed to poverty.¹⁰ Gazans felt that the local inhabitants were "racist," and treated them as "third class" citizens. ¹¹…

Good thing there’s an Israel around to act as a separation barrier between them.

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:37 | link | comments

He's alive!: Mansour Dadallah, the Taliban chief who assumed the august post when his brother Mullah Dadallah, the rhymin’ slime-man who was the previous Taliban chief, was dispatched to Hades, insists in an interview broadcast on Al-That-Jaz TV (translated by MEMRI) that the attenuated one is still extant.

If that’s so, what gives with the invisibility? The jihadist explains:

 

"These are simply military tactics. That's what Sheikh Osama bin Laden prefers, not to show himself. If he did appear in the media and meet with people, he might expose himself to danger. Sheikh Osama bin Laden's presence among the Muslims is an honor for us all, and we do not want him to disappear. We do not want to lose him. I also ask him to refrain from meeting anyone, and to remain in hiding. I ask him to continue to issue his instructions to the commanders, so that Al-Qaeda will continue to be active in Afghanistan, and will continue its activity throughout the world."

 

So he’s given up the photo ops out of concerns for his safety? Riiight. Surely with all his resources he could hire himself some of those big, burly bodyguards—the type who protect people like jihad-debunkers Irshad Manji and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. (I’ve actually seen Manji’s bodyguard. He makes the late Biggie Smalls look petite.)

 

More likely Osama has been pushing up daisies (or maybe poppies) for some time now, and it’s “simply military tactics” to declare otherwise.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:45 | link | comments

Dubious news agents: Arab Monitor, which bills itself as a “NEWS AGENCY on the MIDDLE EAST and the ARAB WORLD” (the usage--or, rather, misusage--of "on" being kind of a giveaway that English is likely not the agency's first language) condemns Mahmoud Abbas for launching “wild accusations about Hamas” and, even worse, straying from “Fatah’s original agenda”:

Ramallah, 21 June - Addressing the restricted audience of the Palestinian Liberation Organization's Central Council, convened for the purpose in Ramallah yesterday, Mahmoud Abbas broke all bridges with the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli occupation. He defined Hamas a gang of murderers and accused it of having "paralyzed" the Palestinian Legislative Council, ignoring the fact that some 25 percent of the Legislative Council's members are in Israeli jails. While Mahmoud Abbas ascribed to Hamas "criminal acts which were committed against the Palestinian people, their security headquarters and churches", the German magazine Der Spiegel, in yesterday's on-line edition, described the dungeons of these security headquarters in the Gaza Strip, after they had been discovered by the Executive Forces, where Fatah militia commanded by Mohammad Dahlan, for years tortured and killed its alleged opponents, prevalently members of Hamas.

 

In a manifest break with Fatah's original agenda, the liberation of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas defined the conflict between Fatah and Hamas as a conflict between the Palestinian national project and the alleged project to set up an "emirate of darkness". He also accused Khaled Meshal, head of the Hamas movement, of having tried to assassinate him. As proof, he offered a video-cassette showing unidentifyable masked figures allegedly trying to place a bomb, their jackets visibly exposing Hamas' symbols. In his speech, Abbas complained that Meshal had refused to even consider this kind of "evidence"...

 

Sounds to me like the NEWS AGENCY on the MIDDLE EAST and the ARAB WORLD is probably little more than a gussied up shill for Hamas.

 

But then, I've often have the same thought about AP, AFP and Reuters.

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

That porker won't fly: Norman Spector, a former Canadian ambassador to Israel and occasional Globe and Mail pundit, has an offering in today’s paper that has been headed Can Hamas be encouraged to make peace?

Spector opines that, all things considered, it cannot, and that we should therefore be concerning ourselves with other matters:

…What then is to be done now that Hamas has taken control there and Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas has retreated to his West Bank redoubt? How can Hamas be encouraged to enter into a comprehensive peace based on Canada's traditional policy of having a Palestinian state and a Jewish state living side by side?

Since it was endemic corruption that fuelled Hamas's electoral ascendancy over Fatah, any country that resumes direct financial aid to the Palestinian Authority should insist on good governance. Canada should also not go overboard in picking sides, as there's a real danger that, by embracing the already-lame Mr. Abbas, Western governments will completely destroy his credibility among Palestinians.

Though neither he nor Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is in a position to push for comprehensive peace, Canada should encourage both leaders to bring about demonstrable improvements in life on the West Bank.

And while Western humanitarian assistance in Gaza will likely have to increase, the disparity between life in the two Palestinian territories must still be visible if Amartya Sen's thesis is to be given a chance to play out. In a nutshell, Gazans must be given an opportunity to internalize the consequences of their democratic decisions - to change their votes if Hamas does not explicitly change its approach to Israel, as the PLO did before them in the Oslo agreement.

Western governments will also have to ensure that Iranian funds and weapons do not reach Hamas. Here, as we've seen in the case of North Korea, pressure on international financial institutions can be effective. And Canada should be warning the Egyptians not to be surprised if Israel reasserts control of Gaza's border with Egypt, if Egyptians themselves do not do more to prevent the smuggling of weapons into the Palestinian territory.

Me? I’m still stuck on the loopy headline. Here’s the letter I sent the Globe:

 

In response to the question Can Hamas be encouraged to make peace? (June 21), I would pose another query: Can a pig be encouraged to fly?

 

The answer to both, of course: Yes, they can, but given their inherent properties, expecting either peace or pig to become airborne at this time constitutes wishful thinking in the extreme.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:54 | link | comments

Fear factor: Toronto Star headine— Gazans fear future under Islamist law.

 I don’t blame them, but isn’t that something they should have considered before they decided to empower Hamas by electing it as their government?

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:36 | link | comments (2)

Reaping what he sowed: After spending gazillions of oil dollars in a concerted effort to spread Wahabbist toxins far and wide, the Saudi monarch is now said to be concerned that “Middle East conflicts could go global.”

Really? I thought that was the whole idea.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:16 | link | comments

Knight errant: An editorial in the Globe and Mail rushes to defend Rushdie’s benighted knighting, and to chide the religious zanies who are freaking out about it:

…[The honour] was granted in recognition of Mr. Rushdie's contributions to literature. The Satanic Verses, the novel that incurred the wrath of Iran's supreme religious leader, is but one of 13 literary works dealing with some of the most important social, cultural and religious issues of our time, including conflicts between faiths.

British officials have tried to explain the importance of free speech in a democratic society and the need for tolerance of different faiths, beliefs and values. These will fall on deaf ears among Muslim radicals who will undoubtedly seek to widen the protests, much as they did when they took to the streets over the publication in Denmark of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

To his credit, Mr. Rushdie has never been bullied into apologizing for writings that Muslims or people of other religions may find offensive. Nor should