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

Don't they have any accurate history texts at Foggy Bottom?: Condi Rice compares Palestinians to blacks living under Jim Crow laws.

You should know something, Condi: it isn't always about you. To bone up on the subject, I suggest you read this.

And this.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:33 | link | comments (1)

Gee, ya think? Annapolis may be catastrophe for Israel, ex-official says.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:29 | link | comments

A fruitless plea: Times have changed and so has Great Britain. In the days when Britannia ruled the waves--or even when Maggie Thatcher was P.M.--the sight of a Brit imprisoned at the whim of demented Islamists would have occasioned a harsh and immediate response from the British government. These days, of course, Britain is a shadow of its former self, and prefers, whenever possible, to speak imploringly and wield a flaccid noodle (as it did when the Shias comandeered a British naval vessel two summers ago). Telegraph opiner Boris Johnson thus realizes there’s fat chance of the P.M. taking up a cudgel on Gillian Gibbons’ behalf, and is beseeching those who have some real power to make themselves useful:

…When the news broke yesterday teatime that poor Gillian Gibbons was facing prosecution in Khartoum for inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs, I am afraid my normal good humour momentarily deserted me.

How dare they! I spluttered, and for a brief undignified moment, I had fantasies of a return to the age of Palmerston.

Here is an innocent British citizen, a good and patently well-meaning 54-year-old British teacher. She has decided to make a new life for herself by giving instruction to children in one of the poorest countries on Earth. She has got herself into a muddle over the name of a teddy bear - and now she is facing 40 lashes or six months in jail.

There was a time when Britain would have sent a gunboat to rescue her. There was a time when MPs would have been holding furious debates on the matter, and bandying phrases such as "civis Britannicus sum".

In the old days there would have been démarche from Britain to Sudan, warning that His Majesty's government would not suffer a hair on her head to be disturbed.

Well, folks, that time is past. We must accept that the world has changed, and our place in the world has changed, too.

We must ask ourselves what earthly good we can do, and how we can persuade people to come to their senses. We need to encourage reasonable people in Sudan to get Gillian Gibbons out of jail as soon as possible and I have a feeling, alas, that there is not a lot to be gained by just quivering our jowls and invoking the spirit of Don Pacifico; or at least, not a lot that will help Gillian Gibbons.

Of course it is demented that this teacher should now have spent four nights in jail for calling a teddy bear Mohammed.

It is utterly bonkers that she should face the possibility of some barbaric punishment, for what was so obviously a complete misunderstanding.

She did what thousands of teachers do across Britain, and asked her class to come up with a name for their teddy bear mascot.

Her class, which included Muslim children, voted for the name of the prophet - which they themselves seem to have thought a pretty uncontentious choice, since millions of Muslim boys bear the same name.

She did not mean to imply that she thought the messenger of Allah was in any sense a cuddly toy. It simply did not cross her mind that there could be some idolatrous or blasphemous implication.

In so far as she caused offence to some of the parents, there must have been a thousand better ways to sort out the problem. She could have apologised; she could have instantly changed the name of the mascot to Paddington, or some other name less offensive to Muslims.

She could have called it Aloysius, like the chap in Evelyn Waugh, and though Aloysius is a pretty emetic name for a teddy bear, no one would have suggested locking her up.

She wasn't given the chance to do any of those sensible things, and the result is a mess; and it is worse than a diplomatic embarrassment. The jailing of Gillian Gibbons is helping to confirm people's worst prejudices about Islam.

It may be that the judge will simply spring her today, in which case all will be well. But if he doesn't, and if this business drags on, then there is one group that must speak up.

There's no point in the British government raging from afar, or rattling an empty scabbard. There's no point in us jumping up and down on the sidelines, and shaking our fists at Khartoum. Any such posturing would only help, of course, to deepen the intransigence of the Sudanese.

No, the voices we need to hear now belong to Britain's vast, sensible Muslim majority. If British Muslims speak up decisively and loudly against this lunacy, then they can achieve two good things at once. Their arguments will be heard with respect in Khartoum, since they cannot be said to be founded on any kind of cultural imperialism, or to be actuated by Islamophobia…

Who's he kidding? If Gillian has to depend on Britain’s vast, sensible Muslim majority to go to bat for her, the poor woman’s going to languish in a squalid, overcrowded, mosquito-infested Sudanese jail for a very long time.

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

Existential sock: Think Jean-Paul Sartre, only stretchier.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:55 | link | comments

 This ain't no teddy bear's picnic: With the appropriate apologies:

If you go down to Khartoum today

You’re sure of a big surprise.

If you go down to Khartoum today

You better go in disguise.

For ev’ry loon with time on his hands

Has gathered there to heed some commands

To seethe and rave about a grave insult to Islam.

 

Seething time for Sudanese.

They all are so displeased

A teddy bear bears the Prophet’s name.

See them madly dash about.

They like to scream and shout

That Islam itself has been defamed.

Watch them wildly ranting, too.

Good thing Gill’s not a Jew,

Or she’d be a goner for sure.

For days and days their fury will rage unabated

‘Cause they’re crazed little jihadis.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:45 | link | comments

The fine line between art and idiotic criminality: At “Combating Hatred,” the day-long gripe-fest put on for the grievance industry by Bay Street and other large corporations, a few of the speakers said they weren’t quite sure what “hate” was, but that they knew it when they saw it. (And some of them saw it in some mighty strange places—for example, in an opinion piece written by the National Post’s Jonathan Kay, who, oddly enough, was there as the conference’s token eee-vil conservative.)

The same observation, I believe, can be made about art: I don’t know what it is, but I know it when I see it.

This ain’t it (from the Globe and Mail):

A student at the Ontario College of Art and Design turned himself into police with his lawyer Thursday night after a multimedia bomb hoax at the Royal Ontario Museum on Wednesday night.

The 25-year-old allegedly made a fake bomb, along with an equally phony video posted on YouTube of the ROM blowing up, for a final project for his video class, police said.

"It would appear ... that it was, in my opinion, a misguided art project," Detective Constable Hector MacDonald said.

The ROM had to cancel a charity fundraiser and call in the bomb squad when a worker discovered the fake-bomb-in-a-bag - labelled "This is not a bomb." The online video was uploaded the same evening and relayed to news media outlets.

Jerkily shot with a hand-held camera and still on display yesterday, it depicts a smiling ROM visitor - possibly a genuine visitor whose recording was obtained by pranksters - who walks up to the entrance before disappearing from the screen with a bang, a flash and a chorus of shouts.

The fake bomb - which comprised three simulated pipe bombs wrapped in wire and a battery - was discovered by a security guard shortly after 6 p.m. outside the museum's Bloor Street entrance. It was shortly before more than 2,000 guests were due to arrive for the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research dinner, a $600-a-plate affair expected to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The dinner was cancelled, the Toronto police bomb squad arrived in force, along with its robot, and traffic was snarled around Bloor Street and rerouted for the next four hours.

The video, posted later in the evening, showed a simulated explosion and aftermath at the museum and similarly declared itself: "The fake bombing at the ROM, Toronto, 28.11.07."

In an interview with Torontoist.com yesterday, the man said he thought the disclosure notes he affixed to his project meant he wasn't breaking the law. He told the website the idea of the project was to show how context changes the meaning of a piece of art. In this case, something that is "quite clearly not dangerous, but when you put it in a different context the viewer recontextualizes it."

He has been suspended from OCAD for non-academic mischief. Two faculty members have also been suspended with pay, the college said in a statement.

The dinner will be rescheduled, likely in January, and much of the money being raised for CANFAR may still materialize, as corporate sponsors promised to honour their pledges.

The elaborate hoax nonetheless spelled a major disappointment. "This makes me feel very sad; it's quite a tragic event for the organization," said CANFAR executive director Elissa Beckett.

As to the video, there were no plans yesterday to remove it from public view. In general, videos that are neither pornographic nor unduly violent can get a free spot on the YouTube site, and there appears to be nothing illegal about airing footage of an explosion that never occurred.

Thorarinn Jonsson has been charged with common nuisance and mischief interfering with property.

Well, as long as there's "nothing illegal" about it...

If there’s any justice, Jonsson will get to do some “performance art” in prison with a hairy-backed cellmate named Spike.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:55 | link | comments (1)

"Squalid, overcrowded and infested with mosquitoes": A description from a satirical travel brochure of Sudan? Could be. But it also describes the jail cell where Islam-insulter Gillian Gibbons is set to serve her 15-day sentence--that is, if the seething crowd of the insulted doesn't get to her first.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:32 | link | comments (1)

“Science” in the Magic Kingdom: Who says the Wahhabis aren’t modern and up-to-date? Why, they’ve even gone and done one of those newfangled psychologimacal studies. Conducted by a noted expert in the fast-growing field of pilgrimage research, the study has revealed—now, hold onto your hats—that at least a portion of pickpockets who operate during Haj are there for the sole purpose of stealing!

I guess that’s why those psychologimacalists get the big bucks. From Arab News:

MAKKAH, 30 November 2007 — A recent study concludes that nearly a fourth of pickpocket crimes in the two holy cities are committed by people who are in the cities solely for the purpose of stealing from pilgrims or are pilgrims themselves who are supplementing their trips by theft.

The report, entitled “The Psychological and Social Impact Pickpockets Have on Pilgrims,” was the result of research by Mahmoud Kasnawi of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques’ Haj Research Institute with the aim of developing strategies to protect pilgrims from such crimes.

The study concluded that 17 percent of the pickpockets in and around the mosque complexes at Makkah and Madinah are there for the sole motive of stealing while 16.5 percent are the pilgrims themselves. The rest are opportunists that steal when the chances arise but aren’t pre-meditating these criminal acts.

The study also contends that 46.5 percent of the pickpockets arrested at the Grand Mosque in Makkah were Egyptians. About one in five people that have been arrested for pick-pocketing are women. About 14 percent of the pickpockets sleep in the Grand Mosque or on the pavements, bridges and tunnels, the study said.

The report underscored the need to minimize the sense of insecurity and loss of mental peace caused by the acts of pickpockets on the pilgrims.

Some gangs use children under the age of 15 to steal from pilgrims. Teenagers account for a third of the pickpockets.

Another finding of the study was that 10 percent of the pickpockets have been for Haj more than once, possibly encouraged to return because of the money they stole during the previous pilgrimage.

The study also said 84 percent of the arrested pickpockets were married while 67 percent of them had their family with them.

While 86 percent of the pickpockets traveled to the Kingdom on their private earnings, the remaining stole the money to pay for the travel expenses.

The study noted that most of the thefts take place close to Kaaba at the time of tawaf (circumambulation) to take advantage of the heavily crowded conditions and the fact that pilgrims often carry with them their valuables.

In other “scientific” news, pilgrims often get crushed to death because—stop me if you’ve heard this before—too many people are crammed into too small a space.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:14 | link | comments (2)

Two of a kind: There’s an immense chasm, we’re told, between “secular” Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas and his “extremist” rival, Hamas. Said chasm provided the rationale for the Annapolis sit-down, since the “secularist,” unlike the “extremist,” is supposedly amenable to “solving” things in a reasonable way.

So much for that theory. From the Jerusalem Post:

Fatah will fight alongside Hamas if and when the IDF launches a military operation in the Gaza Strip, a senior Fatah official in Gaza City said Thursday.

"Fatah won't remain idle in the face of an Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip," the official said. "We will definitely fight together with Hamas against the Israeli army. It's our duty to defend our people against the occupiers."

The Fatah official said his faction would place political differences aside and form a joint front against Israel if the IDF enters the Gaza Strip. "The homeland is more important than all our differences," he said.

The statements came amid reports that some Arab countries were planning to resume mediation efforts between Fatah and Hamas to avoid further deterioration in the aftermath of the Annapolis peace conference.

According to the reports, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have decided to invite representatives of Fatah and Hamas for talks on ways of ending their power struggle.

A senior Palestinian official who visited Cairo this week said the Egyptians and Saudis have reached the conclusion that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas won't be able to move forward with the peace talks with Israel without solving his problems with Hamas…

That’s the great thing about the Zionist entity. You can always count on it providing the incentive murderous Jew-haters need  to let bygones be bygones in pursuit of their larger goal.

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

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes: David Horowitz poses the question, "Have academic radicals lost their minds?"

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

Wretched equivalence, in song: As the writer/composer of “Elders,” a musical based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, I was heartened to hear that Canadian playwright Oren Safdie was assaying a cheeky musical take on the Israeli-Palestinian squabble. Alas, from the sounds of it, it’s another exercise in moral equivalence as purveyed by someone for whom there’s no right or wrong, only “nuance” and endless shades of grey. From the Ceeb (of course):

It’s fitting that Canadian playwright Oren Safdie should be opening a new musical satire called West Bank, U.K. in the very same week that saw another Middle East summit aimed at resolving the long, bloody Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Safdie’s show, premiering Nov. 29 at New York’s La MaMa theatre, is a Mideast allegory with a sitcom premise. Assaf, an Israeli Jew, arrives at his apartment in London’s West Bank after a long absence to discover that Aziz, a Palestinian refugee, has taken over the lease. NYC, their American landlady, steps in as mediator, suggesting they resolve the situation by sharing the place. At first, the two roommates get along, but when Aziz’s fundamentalist Muslim uncle and Assaf’s Orthodox Jewish girlfriend show up, the cosy arrangement begins to fall apart. Before you know it, there’s a furniture barrier dividing the flat and suicide bombers at the door.

The Middle Eastern-style songs, by Safdie’s collaborator Ronnie Cohen, include outrageous comic riffs on the Jewish conspiracy theory and the 72 celestial virgins promised to Muslim martyrs. (“My wives will wait for me in heaven; / They’ll want my manhood 24/7.”) There are cracks about “kikes” and “camel jockeys” and jokes about blasphemous cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. It’s a far cry from the gentle, Canadian-style humour of Little Mosque on the Prairie and much closer to the raw racial comedy of Sacha Baron Cohen and Sarah Silverman.

Safdie admits he and Ronnie Cohen were a little nervous about handling such incendiary subjects. “There were certain moments, when we were writing things, when we wondered, ‘Can we do this? Can we say that? Are we going to get bomb threats?’”

But Safdie, who is also directing the show, found his fears allayed in rehearsals. “My barometer has really been the two actors who play the lead roles,” he says during a telephone interview from New York. His leading men are Jewish-American Jeremy Cohen, who portrays Assaf, and Arab-American Mike Mosallam, who plays Aziz.

“[Mike] is quite an activist in the Arab community here, to the point where he refuses to go out for any terrorist roles, which are probably 90 per cent of the roles for Middle Eastern actors these days,” Safdie says. “And the guy who plays Assaf [Cohen] is just back from Israel and is quite a Zionist. And they seem to be OK with everything in the play — there doesn’t seem to be any concern. Besides, it’s an equal-opportunity offender,” Safdie adds wryly. “One group can’t complain that we’re being unfair; there are little jabs at everybody.”

Not that Safdie is only interested in scoring satiric points. “I want to get into the psychology behind why these people, and these countries, act the way they do,” he says. “For example, if the Israeli seems to jump to conclusions and is a little bit more defensive, it’s because of his history. And it’s like that hopefully for every character — we understand why they’re acting a certain way. I think that takes away the idea that there is a right or wrong; it’s more about how people behave certain ways because this is the way they are.”...

Here’s a heads-up for you, Oren. The reason the Palestinians act the way they do is because they want the Jews to am-scray. The reason Israelis behave the way they do is that some of them at least still think they have a right to stay, even though it—what’s that popular expression the kids like to use?—oh, yeah, “insults Islam.”

In “honour” of Oren, I am reposting one of the songs from “Elders.” It’s a take-off of a song from the Sondheim show, Sweeney Todd, a production of which was recently staged in my hometown. Sung by two of the Elders, the song deals with the age old canard that the “chosen” have a cannabalistic penchant for draining the blood of juicy young Gentiles to add piquancy to festival baked goods:

Holiday Pastry

 

There's nothing that is quite as tasty

As a little blood in your holiday pastry

A little blood in your holiday pastry

Makes it taste divine.

Mix it up with eggs and flour

Eat it hour after hour

It is what gives us the power

For our evil crime.

 

Have some Persian?

No, I’ve an aversion.

 

A little Moroccan?

Now you’re talkin’!

 

A morsel of Kurd?

Don’t be absurd.

 

A bisssel Chechan?

Makes me wretchan.

 

Some Sudanese?

Makes me sneeze.

 

A hot piece from Libya?

I’ll wear a bibya.

 

Something from Qatar?

Spread it like butter.

 

How ‘bout  some Syrian?

No, gives me delirium.

 

A drop from Dubai?

I’ll give it a try.

 

Some Abu Dhabi?

Did you bring the wasabi?

 

Azerbaijani?

Too much money.

 

Try my Malaysian?

Not my persuasion.

 

Any Jordanian?

I wouldn’t complainian.

 

Care for Somali?

Too hard to swalli.

 

Some Lebanese?

With couscous, please.

 

Turkish Delight?

Thank, not tonight.

 

A little Iraqi?

Well, just for a snaqi.

 

There’s nothing that is quite so yummy

As a little blood to fill your tummy,

A little blood to fill your tummy,

And your satisfaction grows.

 

Don’t be deceived by the Torah’s taboos

After all, we are the Jews

And we can have blood if we bloody-well choose,

As ev’ry Jew-hater knows.

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

Judenhass on campus: It has come to this—Jewish students on the campus of Toronto’s York University were forced to flee from an angry mob. From the Jewish Tribune:

TORONTO  – York University saw the worst antisemitic display ever on that campus last week, said Ben Feferman, senior campus coordinator for the Canadian region of Hasbara Fellowships, an Israel advocacy organization spearheaded by Aish Hatorah.

The Betar-supported Campus Coalition of Zionists (CCZ), together with Hasbarah, manned a table in Vari Hall, with permission from the university, with pamphlets and brochures about the danger emanating from Iran.

However, the situation became very difficult for the students who participated. They were vastly outnumbered by pro-Arab students who surrounded them, and eventually the pro-Israel activists fled. As they left, there was cheering by the pro-Arab mob.

According to Feferman, “I’ve never seen anything like this at York. We weren’t even discussing the issues anymore. It was pure Jew hatred. That’s what it’s come to.”
In fact, Feferman noticed an acquaintance there and said hello, but received no acknowledgement. She emailed him later that day to apologize, explaining that she didn’t want everyone to know she was Jewish. To Feferman, this episode is a red light. “We know there’s a crisis when a student on campus is afraid to reveal she’s Jewish and feels unsafe,” he said.

Another disturbing issue that day, according to Feferman, was that a Hillel executive was standing nearby, watching. Feferman can’t understand why he didn’t take action or get his students to help out.

When asked why they didn’t offer to support Hasbarah and CCZ, Tilly Shames, associate director, Hillel of Greater Toronto, did not answer the question directly referencing a program Hillel had held previously that experienced no protest.

Shames said, “Hillel @ York ran an extremely successful Israel program in a very public space (Vari Hall) on campus last Thursday. The Israel program was received positively and embraced by the student body. Hillel experienced no protest for running a public Israel program.”

“This is one of the first issues we’ve moved forward with in a pro-advocacy way, rather than being put in a reactive situation later on,” said Orna Hollander, executive director of Betar Canada.

The following day, Palestinian Media Watch’s Itamar Marcus addressed York students on the daily indoctrination of children living under the Palestinian Authority to hate Jews.
“It was absolute chaos,” Hollander declared. “It was impossible to moderate. People would ask loaded questions. Marcus wasn’t given an opportunity to respond. He refused to get into a screaming match. One girl, raised in Canada, said she herself would gladly be a suicide bomber and would have no qualms raising her daughter to become a shahid.”

A couple of weeks ago, when US-based anti-Israel professor of linguistics Noam Chomski was scheduled to address York students via satellite, CCZ and Hasbarah joined forces to provide information about what Chomski stands for.

“We wanted to do a protest,” Feferman said, “but the university administration wouldn’t allow it, saying they didn’t want a lot of noise and they were afraid that signs could be used as weapons.” The students settled for a table with handouts about Chomsky and two large posters, one depicting Chomsky with [Hezbollah leader] Nasrallah. One poster quoted Chomsky’s statement: “I see no antisemitic implications in denial of the existence of gas chambers, or even in denial of the Holocaust.”

The event was successful in providing information, Feferman said. “Over the course of four hours, a few hundred people came by. About half of them were moderate people who said they had heard about Chomsky in their English class and didn’t know he had these views. The other half were people who condemned Israel and insisted Hezbollah isn’t a terrorist organization. At one point they came together and surrounded us, argued about issues and blamed America and Israel. We had good security, including non-uniformed security guards. We succeeded in raising awareness of Chomsky’s worldviews, although at times it was confrontational. We’re now organizing a protest for the Finkelstein event at U of T on Thursday.”

Hasbarah and CCZ are making plans to launch a presence at Ryerson University, where the vice-president of the student union has made several unsuccessful attempts in recent months to impose a boycott, divestment and sanctions motion against Israel and has organized a number of anti-Israel programs on campus.

(Last week, when a couple of Ryerson Student Union leaders tried to introduce a boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel at the annual congress of the Canadian Federation of Students, more than two-thirds of the voting plenary rejected the call. B’nai Brith had called on the Federation to reject categorically the boycott proposal.)

“Two [Ryerson] students in the past few weeks called me and said they need help doing something,” Feferman said. “We’re going to try to find the students there and hope to start advocating properly on campus.”

After the anti-Jewish near-rioting at York last week, one student representing the “Independent Body and Advocates of Peace and Humanity,” handed out flyers stating its opposition to any comparison of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmanidejad with Hitler and claiming that CCZ was marginalizing Iranians by attacking Iran’s leader. It should be noted that the same students who resent any criticism of Ahmanidejad and worry about a negative impact on Iranian students are active proponents of anti-Israel activity.

“Freedom of speech is only for them,” Feferman said. “The right to censure a country’s leader is only for them.”…

Just like in Nazi Germany, way back when.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:08 | link | comments

Déjà vu: The international Jewish conspiracy, a.k.a. "The Lobby,” has been getting busy again. When it isn’t pulling the levers of power in Washington (see the Mearslimer diatribe) it’s throwing its weight behind a Jewish quadroon in France. From the Telegraph:

An Algerian minister threatened to ignite a diplomatic row by claiming that Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, owed his election to "the Jewish lobby".

Mohamed Cherif Abbés, the minister of war veterans, insinuated that Mr Sarkozy, whose grandfather was of Greek-Jewish origin, was an agent of Israel. "You know the origins of the French president and those of who brought him to power," Mr Abbés told an Algerian newspaper.

He said Bernard Kouchner, the foreign minister, had joined Mr Sarkozy's government because he had Jewish roots. "It was the result of a movement that reflects the will of the real architects of Mr Sarkozy's accession to power - the Jewish lobby that has a monopoly on industry in France," he said.

Mr Sarkozy is due in Algeria next month for talks with Abdelaziz Bouteflika, his counterpart, and hopes to win contracts to build nuclear power stations. The French foreign ministry said the remarks were contrary to good relations.

La plus ca change…

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:26 | link | comments (3)

 Care bear: A Globe and Mail editorial condemns the ursine lunacy in Sudan:

A soft toy is alleged to be the West's latest weapon in the clash of civilizations.

British schoolteacher Gillian Gibbons has been charged with insulting Islam and inciting religious hatred and could face flogging or jail in Sudan over a class project that went horribly awry. The teacher asked her seven-year-old students at a private school in Khartoum to name a teddy bear. Unsurprisingly at the largely Muslim school, Mohammed was the winning choice. Each student then took Mohammed home for a weekend and was asked to keep a diary of the toy's activities. It is hard to view the assignment as anything worse than an act of cultural naiveté on Ms. Gibbons's part.

But when word that a stuffie had been named after Islam's Prophet leaked out, Islamic leaders, who might have been expected to dispense mercy in the name of the Merciful, reacted disgracefully, seizing on the excuse to provoke jihadist sentiment. A leading organization of the clerics issued a statement alleging Ms. Gibbons's purported blasphemy was not the product of ignorance but a "calculated action" undertaken by those "plotting against Islam." The 54-year-old Ms. Gibbons, a primary teacher from Liverpool who has been in Sudan half a year, hardly fits the mould of a crusader.

The offence against Islam was not Ms. Gibbons's. It was committed by the clerics baying for her blood over a transparently innocent act.

Hear, hear. But you wouldn’t think, in this day and age, you’d have to point that out.

Thus does sharia in an Islamist backwater have an impact far beyond its borders.

My letter to the Globe:

One has grown used in recent times to hearing about perceived “insults” to Islam and the over-the-top reaction they often incur in the “insulted.”  For the life of me, though, I can’t fathom the Khartoum teddy bear kafuffle.

They’re flipping out because a school teacher named the class stuffie Mohammed?

Seems to me that, since teddies are furry, appealing and adorable, that’s actually a compliment, not an insult.

Update: Mohammed the teddy pleads his case (via the appropriate Elvis tune):

Imams, let me be

Their lovin’ teddy bear.

Call me Mo,

Take me home.

Give me hugs to spare.

Oh, let me be

(Oh, let him be)

Their teddy bear.

 

I don’t wanna be insultin’

‘Cause insults make you burn.

I don’t wanna cause no floggin’

Even tho' you

Think that teacher has to learn.

Just wanna be

(Just wanna be)

Their teddy bear.

Can’t you see

No blasphemy

Has happened anywhere?

Oh, let me be

(Oh, let him be)

Their teddy bear.

 

Imams, let me be

The stuffie in the school.

Take a pill.

Try to chill.

And please, now,

Don’t be cruel.

Oh, let me be

(Oh, let him be)

Their teddy bear.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:10 | link | comments (2)

Et tu, V.C.?: The betrayals seem to be coming fast and furious these days. First, George and Condi force Israel to participate in a latter-day Wannsee Conference (only this time around, the Jews get to sit down with the Nazis and help plan their own genocide). Now there’s word that a high-level Vatican official is endorsing the Palestinian “right of return”—essentially, something the Arabs cooked up to ensure Israel’s demise through the weapon of overwhelming demographics. From Ha’aretz:

A senior Vatican cardinal said on Wednesday that all Palestinian refugees had a right to return to their homeland.

Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican department that formulates refugee policy, made the comment as U.S. President George W. Bush was set to revive long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks at a White House summit.

"Palestinian refugees, like all other refugees, have a right to right to return to their homeland," Martino said in response to a question about the 44-nation conference in Annapolis on Tuesday.

 

Martino did not make clear whether he meant refugees had a right to return to homes in what is now Israel or to an eventual Palestinian state.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have
pledged to try to forge a peace treaty by the end of 2008 that would create a Palestinian state.

The issue of the return of Palestinian refugees, along with the status of Jerusalem, is one of the most sticky issues in a peace treaty.

There are some 4.5 million Palestinian refugees in camps in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Successive Israeli governments have made clear they will not accept the right of return of Palestinians who left homes in what is now Israel, saying it would threaten the country's existence.

Some ministers have said that some Palestinians might be allowed to settle in Israel on humanitarian grounds if a final peace settlement is reached.

The Vatican, which sent a delegation to Annapolis, supports a Palestinian homeland as well Israel's right to exist in security.

Um, scuzi, your eminence, but how is Israel supposed to “exist in security” if some 4.5 million Palestinians are allowed their “right” to enter its borders and smother it to death?

Now, it could be that this senior Cardinal was speaking on the fly and that his statement doesn’t reflect official Vatican policy. If so, the Pope will no doubt clarify the matter a.s.a.p.

And if he doesn’t, his silence will speak volumes.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:37 | link | comments

More Tom foolery: It’s been several years since NYT pundit di tutti pundits Thomas L. Friedman endeavoured to float the lead balloon of a Saudi “peace” plan. The credulous columnist did so at the behest of the Wahhabis—who could spot a clueless wishful thinker from miles away. In today’s paper, TLF demonstrates that the ensuing years haven't brought even a scintilla more wisdom:

The Middle East is experiencing something we haven’t seen in a long, long time: moderates getting their act together a little, taking tentative stands and pushing back on the bad guys. If all that sounds kind of, sort of, maybe, qualified, well ... it is. But in a region in which extremists go all the way and the moderates usually just go away, it’s the first good news in years — an oasis in a desert of despair.

The only problem is that this tentative march of the moderates — which got a useful boost here with the Annapolis peace gathering — is driven largely by fear, not by any shared vision of a region where Sunni and Shiite, Arab and Jew, trade, interact, collaborate and compromise in the way that countries in Southeast Asia have learned to do for their mutual benefit.

So far, “this is the peace of the afraid,” said Hisham Melhem, Washington bureau chief of Al Arabiya, a satellite news channel.

Fear can be a potent motivator. Fear of Al Qaeda running their lives finally got the Sunni tribes of Iraq to rise up against the pro-Al Qaeda Sunnis, even to the point of siding with the Americans. Fear of Shiite thugs in the Iranian-backed Mahdi Army has prompted many more Shiites in Iraq to side with the pro-U.S. Iraqi government and army. Fear of a Hamas takeover has driven Fatah into a tighter working relationship with Israel. And fear of spreading Iranian influence has all the Arab states — particularly Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan — working in even closer coordination with America and in tacit cooperation with Israel. Fear of Fatah collapsing, and of Israel inheriting responsibility for the West Bank’s Palestinian population forever, has brought Israel back to Washington’s negotiating table. Fear of isolation even brought Syria here.

But fear of predators can only take you so far. To build a durable peace, it takes a shared agenda, a willingness by moderates to work together to support one another and help each other beat back the extremists in each camp. It takes something that has been sorely lacking since the deaths of Anwar Sadat, Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein: a certain moral courage to do something “surprising.”

Since 2000, the only people who have surprised us are the bad guys. Each week they have surprised us with new ways and places to kill people. The moderates, by contrast, have been surprise-free — until the Sunni tribes in Iraq took on Al Qaeda. What I’ll be looking for in the coming months is whether the moderates can surprise each other and surprise the extremists.

The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, announced even before he got to Annapolis that there would be no handshakes with any Israelis. Too bad. A handshake alone is not going to get Israel to give back the West Bank. But a surprising gesture of humanity, like a simple handshake from a Saudi leader to an Israeli leader, would actually go a long way toward convincing Israelis that there is something new here, that it’s not just about the Arabs being afraid of Iran, but that they’re actually willing to coexist with Israel. Ditto Israel. Why not surprise Palestinians with a generous gesture on prisoners or roadblocks? Has the stingy old way worked so well?...

“Stingy”?! You call releasing hundreds of jihadis bent on your destruction “stingy”? What’s your idea of “generous,” Tom? Opening the cell doors and letting out the whole damned lot of them?

As for the idea that Rabin and Arafat displayed “moral courage”—‘tis to laugh. The only thing Rabin displayed was a refusal to see things clearly—a refusal that resulted in thousands of deaths, including, ironically, his own. And the only thing Arafat displayed was a shrewdness far greater that his enemies’; when they handed him another opportunity to become powerful and siphon off lots of aid money earmarked for his people into his own personal bank accounts, who was he to balk at such a sweet, no-strings-attached deal?

But how’s this for a “surprising” gesture: the President stops trying to burnish his legacy/pander to the oily Sheiks/get Arab Sunnis to form a common front against Iranian Shias, or whatever the heck it is he’s doing, and publicly acknowledges that until such time as Muslims shun the doctrine of Islamic supremacy, no infidel anywhere in the world will be safe.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:36 | link | comments

Prescient Marxist: As a tormented Utopian once observed, history occurs twice. First time around, it’s a tragedy. Second time around, it’s a farce.

That isn’t to say, though, that out of this farce, a tragedy on the scale of the Shoah couldn’t arise.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:04 | link | comments

Today on the Ceeb: On Ceeb radio show The Current, host Anna Maria Tremonti is delving into the following stories:

With violence once again sweeping the suburbs around Paris, we'll get an update on the situation and look at why these neighbourhoods are so prone to violent confrontations with authorities.

And we'll have a feature interview with the person behind "Shooting Back," a project that involves putting video cameras in the hands of Palestinian civilians in order to document what happens to them.

Meanwhile, on tonight’s episode of  Little Mosque on the Prairie, Ceeb TV’s fantasy sitcom about funny Muslims and silly infidels sharing space in a small Saskatchewan town, “Baber runs afoul of a little-known Muslim concept: the evil eye. Is his run of bad luck the will of God? Or his own fault?...”

That’s the Ceeb for you. Day after day, reality and fantasy have become little more than a hard-leftist farrago of “harmless” Muslims and “oppressive,” “agresssive,” and “bloody-minded” Jews.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:47 | link | comments

More evidence that the left is out to lunch: A Guardian pundit gives kudos to quisling Milquetoast Olmert for being the first Israeli leader to acknowledge Palestinian “pain and suffering”:

It's not news that the key players at the Middle East peace talks in Annapolis are three men united by weakness. George Bush is in his last year with opinion poll ratings somewhere around his ankles, Ehud Olmert's numbers are not much better while Mahmoud Abbas is a president who rules only half his people. That said, strength and weakness are relative qualities - some are weaker than others.

The evidence for that came in the contrast in the speeches delivered by the two antagonists. Ehud Olmert included a remarkable passage about Palestinian suffering: "For dozens of years, many Palestinians have been living in camps, disconnected from the environment in which they grew, wallowing in poverty, neglect, alienation, bitterness and a deep, unrelenting sense of deprivation. I know that this pain and deprivation is one of the deepest foundations which fomented the ethos of hatred towards us."

No Israeli prime minister has ever spoken of the Palestinian refugee experience in such terms before. Golda Meir denied there was even a Palestinian people. But now Olmert has come close to recognising the experience that lies at the heart of Palestinian national identity. To speak of Palestinian refugees "disconnected from the environment in which they grew" is to acknowledge that their roots lie elsewhere - in lands from which they were dispossessed and which are now Israel.

This may sound like a statement of the obvious to the rest of the world, but for an Israeli leader to say as much is significant. It marks a step away from the denial of historic reality which has for so long been a feature of official Israeli discourse…

No it doesn’t. It betokens a crippling moral solipsism to which Jews have historically been prone, and marks a perilous move away from acknowledging the historical reality of Arab rejectionism. That, and not Palestinian “pain and suffering”—which, after all, is mostly the fault of the Palestinians, the other Arabs and the UN—is the source of the irresolvable “problem.”

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

Bush fails the moral test: It’s hard to decide what’s more sickening—the rapturous reception the gullible mainstream media have according the Annapolis charade, or the charade itself.

After reading this piece in FrontPage Magazine by P. David Hornik, I’m giving the charade the slight edge:

“For too long, the people of Darfur have suffered at the hands of a government that is complicit in the bombing, murder, and rape of innocent civilians. My administration has called these actions by their rightful name: genocide.”

 

So said President Bush in a speech last May 29. At the end of the speech he said: “I call on President Bashir to stop his obstruction, and to allow the peacekeepers in, and to end the campaign of violence that continues to target innocent men, women and children. And I promise this to the people of Darfur: The United States will not avert our eyes from a crisis that challenges the conscience of the world.”

Just last November 1, in a message to Congress on the “Continuation of the National Emergency with Respect to Sudan,” he wrote: “Because the actions and policies of the Government of Sudan continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, the national emergency [originally declared by President Clinton in 1997] must continue in effect beyond November 3, 2007.”

It was strange, then, to find in attendance at the Annapolis conference on Tuesday one John Ukec, ambassador to the U.S. from Sudan. In other words, among the invitees of a purported peace conference was a representative of a regime that the convener of the gathering himself, George Bush, had openly accused of genocide.

Sudan’s presence, though, wasn’t totally inappropriate to the morally upside-down world of the conference, which pitted a lone democracy, Israel, against the dictatorial-anarchic Palestinian Authority backed by a supporting cast of nine other Arab dictatorships of which Sudan was only the most egregious, along with the Arab League and the 56-member Organization of the Islamic Conference only a handful of whose countries could loosely qualify as democracies.

Moral inversion was well manifested in the Israeli-Palestinian “joint statement”—pursued like a sacred elixir for months by Secretary of State Rice and finally read out by Bush at the start of the conference—in which the sides “express our determination to . . . confront terrorism and incitement, whether committed by Palestinians or Israelis.”

With those words Israel—a democracy struggling against sixty years of violent aggression that does not engage in terrorism or incitement any more than Finland or Iceland—trashed its achievements, its identity, its Jewish heritage, and equated itself with one of the most terroristic and incitement-ridden societies of all time…

The Jews took a wisp of land that was mostly desert and, against all odds and in defiance of nearly every expectation, turned it into a vibrant, successful, thriving nation. The Arabs, with immense tracts of lands and vastly more natural resources, preside over failed, barely-functioning despotic swamps, into which the Americans have sunk untold gazillions just so they don’t fall into the hands of jihadis. And yet the Bush administration is determined to punish the successful and reward and further empower the losers—who, by the way, will continue to hate his guts long after Annapolis has become a distant memory.

Just goes to show that a Bush spawn may attend to forge a bold and principled path vis a vis the Jews, but when push comes to shove, he is bound to revert to the Bush père default setting—love the Saudis and, in the immortal words of Bush I factotum Jimbo Baker, f**k  the Jews.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:39 | link | comments

Toxic recipe: Globe and Mail scribe Mark “Malarkey” MacKinnon describes the situation on the ground in the wake of the Annapolis launch:

…On the ground, there were few signs that peace was near. At least seven Palestinians have been killed in clashes with the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip since the summit began Monday. All the dead were believed to be Hamas members.

Israel's army and air force carry out regular strikes inside Hamas-controlled Gaza, usually in response to rocket fire directed at nearby Israeli cities. Four homemade Qassam rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel yesterday, doing little physical damage.

Ah, yes. Those “homemade” rockets.  Cooked up with tender loving care by Palestinian housewives in their E-Z Bake rocket ovens. And nothin’ says lovin’ like somethin’ from the oven…

Or, at least, those are some of the associations those using the word “homemade” would have you dredge up from your subconscious.

My letter to the Globe suggests that “homemade” is a particularly inapt way to refer to Qassams.

Could we not resolve to retire the word “homemade” as a way to describe Qassam rockets—the ones Palestinians in Gaza have continually hurled into Israel? Such a description imparts a positive connotation—cookies baking in the oven—to deadly weapons that do, in fact, destroy and kill.  The adjective also wrongly suggests that there’s an unfair imbalance here: Israel has the advantage of sophisticated weaponry while Hamas has to resort to building makeshift rockets from do-it-yourself kits that they whip up at home.

Qassams may not be the most complicated devices, but they are not the product of home hobbyists. They are manufactured in industrial areas of Gaza, or made in Egypt and smuggled across the porous Egypt-Gaza border.

It is a cruel insult to the citizens of Sderot, the Israeli town that has borne the brunt of—and suffered so much from—Qassam rocket attacks, to describe such a negative, destructive weapon in such a pleasant, positive way.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:32 | link | comments

NJB in E.Y.: Nice Jewish Boy Jerry Seinfeld dropped by Eretz Yisroel the other day to promote his bee flick, Bee Movie (“B” movie—get it?). While there, he had a chance to trade quips with one of Israel’s most clueless political figures. From israelinsider:

Comedian, actor and scriptwriter Jerry Seinfeld suited up like a nice Jewish boy to visit the President, the Prime Minister (wearing a casual sweatshirt, and various tourist sites.

He arrived Thursday to promote his animated film Bee Movie, which he co-wrote, co-produced and stars in (his voice at least). Israel is Seinfeld's first stop on a world tour to promote it.

On Friday, Seinfeld toured Yad Vashem -- Israel's memorial to the six million Jews slaughtered in the Shoah [Holocaust], Jerusalem's Old City and Masada. He met with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Shimon Peres. He told Peres that he was excited by the warm welcome he got in Israel, and astounded by how popular his sitcom, "Seinfeld," -- still being re-run a dozen times a day on cable -- is in this country.

"You can imagine how much people like you here and respect you," Peres told Seinfeld as the two sat in suits and ties in front of Israeli flags at Beit Hanassi.

Seinfeld explained the idea of his movie to the 84-year-old Nobel peace laureate. "It's about a bee who's not sure that he wants to go into honey," Seinfeld said, as Peres laughed. "They tell him he has no choice."…

Which, funnily enough, describes the situation  of the Jews at Annapolis.

Posted by: scaramouche at 00:03 | link | comments

Hilarious!: Satirical blogger iowahawk on the recent spate of Hollywood floperoos. (hat tip Bobblehead:

Los Angeles - Despite critical acclaim and massive promotional budgets, a wave of anti-Santa holiday pictures floundered at the box office over the Thanksgiving opening weekend, leading some entertainment industry analysts to question whether Hollywood had overestimated the American public's loathing for the Claus administration and a seemingly endless shopping season.

"I'm not sure went wrong," said Jeff Bell of the MPAA after the release of the weekend Nielsen/EDI movie box office figures. "With all the griping you hear about the holidays, it stood to reason that people would flock to theaters for a chance to vent their hatred at that fat red fascist bastard. I blame illegal downloaders."

Whatever the reason, the financial results were grim.

"Kringle's  List," starring George Clooney, Matt Damon, and Julia Roberts in a cautionary tale of rogue elf agents inside the North Pole's illegal Naughty and Nice wiretapping operation, led the pack of anti-Claus releases with weekend receipts of $68,500, for a $26 per-screen average. The film's take was only good for a #34 showing overall, just behind the limited arthouse re-release of the 1965 Don Knotts classic "The Incredible Mr. Limpet," but studio spokesman Rob Foulet said the film could eventually recoup its $180 million production budget through strong word-of-mouth and a new advertising campaign that downplays the film's elfin geopolitical psychodrama in favor of Miss Roberts' breasts.

"We're not saying she has a nude scene in the film, but we're not saying she doesn't," said Foulet. "That's up to the ticket buyers to find out."

A similar fate befell "In the Valley of Elves," TriStar's $80 million claymation remake of the 1964 Rankin-Bass classic "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." With an all-star cast including Tommy Lee Jones as Dasher, a reindeer father haunted when his naive red-nosed son Rudolph (Ryan Phillipe) volunteers for a dangerous rooftop mission only to be killed by Santa (Javier Bardem) in a friendly fireplace incident, the film's strong Oscar buzz was expected to carry it to a big opening weekend. Instead, the fog-of-Christmas-Eve drama could only muster $24,813 from 2,505 screens. One Tri-Star executive blamed the disappointing receipts in part on the the film's R rating and controversial interspecies gay love scene between Rudolph and Herbie (Jake Gyllenhaal), a young elf who undergoes a sexual and dentisty awakening.

Star power was also unable to save Sundance Films' "Dialog On 34th Street," Writer/ Producer/ Director/ Star/ Costume Designer/ Makeup Artist Robert Redford's take on the Christmas quagmire. Just last month the film had a triumphant debut for Redford at Redford's prestigious Sundance Film Festival, where it brought home Best Picture and earned Redford the Golden Redford for his portrayal of a young, gauzily-lit rugged dissident intellectual cowboy filmmaker who exposes the lies told by a department store Santa Claus (Tom Cruise) to a cynical 7-year old girl (Meryl Streep). During its national weekend opening, however, it was only able to generate $7,425 in tickets sales, a figure which some industry analyst said would not cover the film's advertising budget, let alone the CGI and spackle cost for Mr. Redford's closeup scenes. The film may have also suffered from lukewarm reviews that faulted its overly cerebral tone, and 68-minute laptop dialog between Cruise and Streep.

Faring even worse was "The Midnight Polar Express," Searchlight's $250 million computer animation tale starring Reese Witherspoon as a mother whose children are falsely accused of naughtiness, abducted to the North Pole on a magical rendition train, and taken to Chrismo Island where they are iceboarded by a sadistic Santa's Helper (Sean Penn). Its five-day weekend take was an anemic $3216, or $1.47 per screen. While clearly disappointed in the results, Searchlight studio spokeswoman Renee Sachs said that the film would make up some of the shortfall through merchandising tie-ins, like the new MPE torture toy Happy Meal at McDonalds.

"Collect all six!" said Sachs.

The most controversial of the new releases, Brian De Palma's "Red on Green," also proved to be the weekend's biggest financial disappointment. The film's documentary-style depiction of brutal gang rapes, genital torture, and candy cane stabbings by North Pole workers earned critical raves and a Palm d'Or award for De Palma when it debuted at the Cannes Film Festival earlier in the year, but the positive advanced notices were not enough to fill theater seats. According to Nielsen/EDI the film generated only $18.00 in box office receipts -- apparently two tickets sold to DePalma and producer Mark Cuban -- and was later revised downward to $9.00 after Cuban asked for a refund. 

De Palma defended the film's weak opening box office, noting that it was based on only 15 screens in New York, Los Angeles, and Pyongyang.

"I think it'll really break out when we open in Dallas," said De Palma. "We're giving away free Dirk Nowitzki posters to the first 500,000 ticket buyers!"

"I have a Palm d'Or award," added De Palma…

That and a buck fifty won't even get you a skinny Mochacchino at an L.A. Starbucks, Bri.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:46 | link | comments

Easily gulled; thick as a brick: Melanie Phillips reports on the astounding credulousness/cluelessness of the British media:

The British media is reporting the Annapolis meeting with an absolutely stupefying degree of ignorance and blindness. The story pretty well agreed by one and all is that this meeting has the ingredients for a major breakthrough, because never before have the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships been so ripe for compromise and agreement; and yet it is likely to be yet another tragically missed opportunity, because both Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas are weak leaders who are unable to take their people with them.

The truth, as I have been repeatedly saying, is very different. America is putting Israel under enormous pressure to accept conditions which would entail its destruction. As a result, it is strengthening the mortal enemies not just of Israel but of the free world, against which they are currently at war. America is congratulating itself for having brought these rogue states to Annapolis because it thinks this augurs a breakthrough in their recognition of Israel and the beginning of an alliance against Iran. On the contrary, it means instead that these rogue states understand that America is offering them the means to weaken and ultimately destroy Israel — and thus in turn dramatically weaken the west. For these purposes, Iran is an irrelevance (except for the presence at Annapolis of Syria, through which its patron Iran will actually be strengthened). Such is the criminal stupidity of an America that has fallen under the catastrophic sway of the Baker-Hamilton 'new realist' doctrine, which holds that engaging with the mortal enemies of civilisation weakens them and strengthens those defending civilisation. It does not. It strengthens those enemies and weakens their designated victims.

None of this, of course, is reflected in the degraded British coverage, which is focused narrowly upon the Israel/Palestinian impasse and underpinned by a belief that Israel is the problem because of its fundamental illegiitmacy -- a belief based on profound historical ignorance…

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:25 | link | comments

A lotta “intifada”: As predicted, the seething has begun. From the times online:

Abu Haroon, a black-clad, bearded militant spent Monday, as he spends many days, trying to fire rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel. Yesterday, though, he took the day off.

“We have orders not to fire any rockets on Tuesday, because of the Annapolis summit,” he said. But there was a rider. “We can resume normal activities after the summit ends.”

Across the region, Palestinians and Israelis marked the historic gathering of their leaders on the Maryland coast with a mixture of controlled fury and calculated indifference.

Chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” filled the streets of Gaza City, as tens of thousands protested against the summit. The Islamist group Hamas organised the rally to emphasise that Mahmoud Abbas, the moderate Palestinian President, does not speak for the entire Palestinian population. Hamas seized control of Gaza last June after routing Fatah forces loyal to Mr Abbas, and the President’s lack of control of Gaza has raised questions about his ability to carry out a future peace deal.

In the West Bank, where Mr Abbas holds sway, hundreds defied a ban on anti-Annapolis rallies to attend protests held by small Islamist groups. One man was killed by Mr Abbas’s security forces and nearly fifteen were injured, according to local medics.

“I did not authorise [President Abbas] to speak for me. I did not authorise him to give up a single piece of my land. He should be working to lift the suffering of the Palestinian people and to bring unity back to the people instead of fooling around with the Israelis,” said Mahmoud Abd-el-Kadr, a 40-year-old bus driver who attended the protest in Gaza City. Another Gazan woman, who identified herself as a 34-year-old teacher, called the officials gathered in Annapolis “a bunch of losers”, adding that they did not represent the issues that were important to the daily lives of Palestinians…

Like, you know, getting rid of the Jews and stuff.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:18 | link | comments

Annapolis is destined to fail because...: The Palestinians and their Arab supporters aren't interested in nationhood. They're only interested in eliminationhood.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:10 | link | comments

JudeRat: I figured it out: The Saudis are the Nazis and Olmert and his regime are the Judenrat helping facilitate the genocide.

If you don't want to lose your supper (or breakfast, or lunch) I'd advise you not to watch this clip of the Rat on NPR.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:38 | link | comments

Key obsession: The Iranians, who were purposely left off the Annapolis guest list, say they hold “the key” to solving the Middle East’s security problems. “No, no,” say the Syrians.  We’ve got the 'the keys' to solving the mess.”

Then there are the Palestinians, who continue to make a great show every year of  hauling out their sacred keys—ones to homes they vacated in ’48 and have been longing to “return” to ever since.

To all these excitable key-holders, there is only one is only reasonable response: Put away your keys. They’ve changed the locks.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:56 | link | comments

Why Annapolis is a complete waste of time, in a nutshell: “Arab states insist normalization with Israel not on the agenda at conference”—Ha’aretz.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:41 | link | comments

France fried: It’s those testy young lads of unspecified origin—again. They’ve redoubled their efforts to darken the City of Lights. From AP:

VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France -- Rampaging youths rioted overnight in the suburbs of Paris, hurling Molotov cocktails and setting fire to dozens of cars. At least 77 officers were injured, a senior police union official said Tuesday.

The violence was more intense than during three weeks of rioting in 2005, said the official, Patrice Ribeiro. Police were shot at and are facing "genuine urban guerillas with conventional weapons and hunting weapons."

Some officers were hit by shotgun pellets, Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said. She said there were six serious injuries, "people who notably were struck in the face and close to the eyes."

The trigger for the rioting was the deaths of two teens killed in a crash with a police patrol car on Sunday in Villiers-le-Bel, a town of public housing blocks home to a mix of Arab, black and white residents in Paris's northern suburbs.

Residents said that officers left the crash scene without helping the teens, whose motorbike collided with the car. Officials cast doubt on the claim, but the internal police oversight agency was investigating.

Youths first rioted that night and again overnight Monday to Tuesday, when the violence apparently got worse. Rioters set police barricades on fire and threw stones and Molotov cocktails at officers, who retaliated with tear gas and rubber bullets. In Villiers-le-Bel and surrounding areas, youths set fire to 36 vehicles, the area's prefecture said. Youths were seen firing buckshot at police and reporters.

A police union official said a round from a hunting rifle pierced the body armor of one officer who suffered a serious shoulder wound. Among the buildings targeted by the youths was a library, which was set afire.

In Sunday's violence, eight people were arrested and 20 police officers were injured -- including the town's police chief, who was beaten in the face when he tried to negotiate with the rioters, police said…

Just goes to show what happens when you try to “negotiate” with people who despise you and want you gone.

Are you taking notes, Condi?

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

A voice of reason: Ralph Peters understands what’s at stake at Annapolis, even if George and Condi don’t get it. From the New York Post:

November 27, 2007 -- SHORT of intolerable carnage, there's no durable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem. None. The best all parties can hope for is an occasional time-out.

 

A respite between rounds isn't worthless, of course - lives are saved, Israel's economy improves and the Arabs get one more chance to get their act together. But we're forever disappointed because we're convinced there's a good, permanent solution, if only we can figure it out.

That's the American way: a can-do spirit, the conviction that no problem's too tough for us. But, in the real world (and in the bizarre fantasyland of Arab culture), some foreign problems can't be resolved equitably. They can only smolder on, occasionally erupting in flames.

In the Middle East, you can't buy peace. You can only buy time. If we want to help at all, the fundamental requirement is to have realistic expectations.

At present, the situation is aggravated by the Bush administration's desperate quest for a headline-worthy foreign-policy success - mirroring the Clinton administration in its closing years. But desperation's a poor basis for dealing with a geopolitical problem of near-infinite complexity, with ill will on every side except our own.

What happens in the course of Middle East "peace" talks under such circumstances? Whether the American administration is Republican or Democrat, it pressures Israel for concessions - since the Arabs won't make any. Prisoner releases precede each summit; territorial handovers come under discussion.

For their parts, Arab leaders and their representatives assume we're sufficiently honored if they just show up. We hear no end of nonsense about the great political risks they're taking, etc. We're suckers for any fat guy in a white robe with an oil can.

Today's session in Annapolis may or may not result in a we-the-undersigned statement or a few unenforceable commitments. And yes, there's merit just in bringing folks together and keeping them talking. But the baseline difficulty is that we want to solve problems for people who don't really want those problems solved.

Mahmoud Ab- bas and his Fatah Party, for example, couldn't accept a genuine peace tomorrow morning - even though Hamas' coup in Gaza has put them up against the wall. Their problem? The most successful jobs program in the Arab world has been Palestinian "resistance" to Israel.

Consider what peace with Israel - real peace - would mean in the West Bank and Gaza, in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley: Tens of thousands of gunmen (and terrorists) out of work, with no marketable skills - and radicalized by decades of fanatic rhetoric.

Think a punk who's grown accustomed to swaggering around town in a face mask with a Kalashnikov is going to scrub squat toilets for a living?

Generations have grown addicted to the struggle - and its perks. It's the only bearable justification for their individual and collective failures in life. Real peace with Israel would probably spark a convulsion throughout the Arab world - as tens of millions realized that their sacrifices were a travesty that merely empowered thieves.

Another reason Arab states won't make peace: Most of their leaders have only survived in power because they have Israel to blame for every disappointment their people face. Israel has become the great excuse for every self-wrought failure in the Middle East - and that excuse is more valuable to Arab rulers than peace could ever be.

Were peace ever to arrive, Arabs might begin to demand good government. And the corruption that has thrived during decades of crisis could come into question. Worst of all, Arabs might have to accept responsibility for the catastrophic condition of their own societies.

In the end, the problem's difficulty can be put in New York City terms: A shiftless, violent family that turned an apartment into a slum was evicted. The new tenants cleaned up the place and made the apartment a showcase. Now the former tenants hate them for it - and want the apartment back.

But the apartment can only accommodate one family.

If you want a sober perspective on the Annapolis dog-and-pony show, just ask yourself this: Who will leave disappointed, if nothing much results?

The Arabs won't care. They came because we got on our knees and begged.

The Israelis will just be relieved that their latest trip to the geostrategic dentist is over.

Any Russians soiling the furniture at the Naval Academy will be delighted if another American effort flops.

And the Europeans just popped in to check the "we care" box.

The only unhappy campers will be us. We set ourselves up. Again…

Update: More uncommon common sense--this time from Daniel Pipes.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:52 | link | comments

A mighty wind: It bloweth ill. With appologies to Rodgers and Hammerstein:

Annapolis

Where the ‘rabs come sweepin' down the room.

While o’er in Iran

They have a plan

To kill Yids with one great big kaboom.

Annapolis

Where they’re gonna have a lot of fun

Carving up the land.

Gee, ain’t it grand,

Jews outnumbered there

Sixteen to one?

 

We know that George Bush loves the Sauds

Even tho’ they are nothing but frauds.

 

So when he says,

“Heed me ‘cause I’m the Prez.”

He’s only sayin’

“I have a goal

Annapole-is

'Cause Sauds swiped my cojones.”

 

You know that the Prez loves this Saud

Even tho’ he purveys the jihad.

 

So when we say, “Quit.

This summit’s full of sh*t.”

We’re only sayin’

You can’t appease or placate ‘em.

No, not even one bit.

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

This is the way George Bush ends/Not with a bang but a whimper: The Jews, on the other hand, get gangbanged.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:15 | link | comments

Barf:

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:50 | link | comments

Down with cheese curds and gravy: While angry “youths” are up to their old hijinks— torching everything in sight— another group of French protesters has tangled with gendarmes because of anger over a popular Quebec dish affectionately known to some as a "coronary on a plate.”

Oh, wait. Wrong Poutine.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:52 | link | comments

Angry young men: En France, encore. From the Turkish Press:

Angry youths set fire to buildings, shops and a police station after two teenagers died Sunday in a crash with a police car at a Paris suburb, as 21 policemen and firefighters were injured in the unrest, police said.

A police station in the town of Villiers-le-Bel was set on fire and another one in neighbouring Arnouville was wrecked after the pair -- aged 15 and 16 -- were killed in the accident.

Police said there were reports of "small groups attacking shops, passers-by and car drivers" to rob them. One suspect carrying jewelry from a looted store at Villiers-le-Bel was detained.

Rioters torched two garages, a petrol pump and two shops, pillaged the railway station at Arnouville and set fire to at least 21 cars. Police reported at least seven arrests.

Four riot police officers and three other police officers were wounded in clashes which erupted after 6:00 pm (1700 GMT) accident, according to first reports.

Police earlier said that another officer who tried to calm the situation suffered injuries to his face.

Early Monday, some 100 youths thronged the accident site as police forensic experts examined the area.

"The truth should emerge or we will take the law in our own hands," some of them warned the police.

Omar Sehhouli, the brother of one of the victims, told AFP he wanted the police officers "responsible" for the accident to be brought to justice.

He said the rioting "was not violence but an expression of rage."…

See, it isn’t officially “violent” if it’s done by those who can claim to be “victims” of officialdom.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:39 | link | comments

Another un"bear"able insult: A Brit teaching in Sudan is in deep doo-doo for allowing her students to name the class teddy “Muhammad.”  From the Guardian:

A British primary school teacher has been arrested in Sudan accused of blasphemy for allowing her pupils to name a teddy bear Muhammad, it emerged today.

Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, was arrested yesterday at her home inside Unity high school, a British international school, after a number of parents made a complaint to Sudan's education ministry.

The school's director, Robert Boulos, said Gibbons had since been charged with blasphemy, an offence he said was punishable with up to three months in prison and a fine.

Gibbons's colleagues told Reuters they feared for her safety after receiving reports that young men had already started gathering outside the Khartoum police station where she was being held.

Boulos said Gibbons was following a national curriculum course designed to teach young pupils about animals and their habitats. This year's animal was the bear.

Gibbons, who joined Unity in August, asked the class of mostly seven-year-olds to name the toy.

"They came up with eight names including Abdullah, Hassan and Muhammad. Then she explained what it meant to vote and asked them to choose the name." Twenty out of the 23 children chose Muhammad.

Each child was allowed to take the bear home at weekends and was told to write a diary about what he or she did with the toy. The entries were collected in a book with a picture of the bear on the cover, next to the message "My name is Muhammad," said Boulos.

Boulos said the first he knew about the course was last week when he received a phone call from the ministry of education, saying a number of Muslim parents had made formal complaints.

A spokesman for the British embassy in Khartoum said it was still unclear whether Gibbons had been formally charged. "We are following it up with the authorities and trying to meet her in person," he said.

Boulos said he had decided to close down the school until January for fear of reprisals in Sudan's predominantly Muslim capital. "This is a very sensitive issue," he said.

"We are very worried about her safety," he added. "This was a completely innocent mistake. Miss Gibbons would have never wanted to insult Islam."

Unity, an independent school founded in 1902, is governed by a board representing the main Christian denominations in Sudan but teaches both Christians and Muslims aged four to 18.

Good thing the “insult” didn’t go any further. Can you imagine the ruckus had one of the bear’s young charges tried to flush “Muhammad” down the loo?

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:20 | link | comments (1)

Party pooper: Iran’s holiest rollah has noticed that the Persians have been pointedly left off the Annapolis guest list, and is none too pleased that his arch-rivals, the Custodians of the two Holy Shmoly Mosques, got an invite. From the Jerusalem Post:

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday called the Annapolis conference a failure on Monday, claiming it was meant to salvage America's reputation in the region rather than realize the rights of Palestinians, state television reported.

"Today, all politicians know in advance that this conference has already failed," Khamenei said in a speech broadcast by state TV. "The US and its accomplices hope to preserve their reputation with this conference and compensate for past failures of the fake Zionist (Israeli) regime."

Khamenei's comments came on the heels of a telephone call late Sunday between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah in which the Iranian president expressed disappointment at Saudi participation in the parley.

"I wish the name of Saudi Arabia was not among the participants at the Annapolis conference," the official news agency IRNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

Don’t worry, oh frenzied one. Just ‘cause they’re Arabs doesn’t mean they don’t hate the fake Zionist (Israeli) regime—and long for its demise—every bit as much as you do.

But maybe that’s what’s shaking his sheets: he wants the Shias to get the credit for ridding the world of the Jews since that’s the only way his sodden Messiah (last seen centuries ago plummeting down a well) can come back.

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

An unlikely "convert": Guess who's gone "Kaballah?" The Arabist prince's homely spouse.

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

Can’t do it: Can’t listen to Ceeb sob sister, Margaret “The Voice” Evans go on and on about those poor “refugees” who, for decades now, have been unable to see their “homeland,” but who, because of stories told to them in childhood, continue to pine for it. (Margaret earned her nic because of the marked change in the tonal quality of her voice whenever she’s talking about Arab “victims”—it goes all soft and whispery, and, lefty squish that she is, she sounds like she’s having such a hard time containing her emotions that she may be about to burst into tears. Oddly enough, this tonal quality is notably absent whenever she’s talking about Jews.)

There. Changed the station to JAZZ FM. Much better now.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:35 | link | comments

Annapolis pile-on: During previous Peace in Our Time efforts—Oslo, Wye, Camp David—the Palestinians have had to go mano a mano with the Jews without the benefit of their Arab posse. This time, though, things will be different, as the Palestinians will have their entourage with them, and the Jews will be forced to contend with the whole howling pack.

An early Christmas prezzie for the Wahhabis from their friends at the White House.  From CNN:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A top Palestinian official has hailed the fact that representatives of Arab countries will attend Tuesday's summit in Annapolis, Maryland.

"After seven years of total stalemate, President Bush with [Secretary of State Condoleezza] Rice are providing an opportunity for us and the Israelis to resume the negotiations," Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said.

"The different thing today from any other conferences throughout our conflict -- you have the Arab world coming."

Erakat told CNN's "Late Edition" Sunday that the inclusion of the wider international community will correct the mistakes of the last Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in the United States.

Syria and Saudi Arabia agreed to attend in the final days leading up to Tuesday's conference, after a push from the Arab League, which agreed to participate following a meeting on Friday.

Syria, which the U.S. State Department calls a sponsor of terrorism, announced Sunday it would send Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al-Miqdad, rather than its foreign minister, to Tuesday's conference, according to Syria's state-run news agency SANA.

Israeli government spokeswoman Miri Eisen welcomed Damascus' decision to attend.

"It's positive that Syria chose to send anybody," Eisen told CNN. "We weren't sure they would. The fact that they're choosing to send somebody who is openly Syrian ... [to] a conference which is all about the Israeli-Palestinian track is an important one."

"The whole world is coming to tell Palestinians and Israelis, 'We are standing shoulder to shoulder with you,' " Erakat said. "This is significant."

While the 2000 Camp David summit took the peace process "a long, long, long way," it was limited because it only included U.S., Israeli and Palestinian delegations, according to Erakat.

"Today I think we learned the mistakes of what went wrong in Camp David -- the absence of Arabs, the absence of the international community, the support system that should be provided by many parties," he told CNN. "This is what's being done today."

Erakat is part of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' delegation, which arrived at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, on Saturday night, as anxiety over possible Palestinian concessions prompted protesters to take to the streets of Gaza.

The Israeli delegation, led by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, arrived Sunday.

Erakat agreed that no "magic stick" would emerge from the 24-hour meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, but said it would provide the basis for talks that should begin the day after Tuesday's meeting.

"I think the most important thing today is [the] 28th of November, the day after Annapolis," Erakat said. "Palestinians and Israelis will stand next to each other and announce that they are launching the permanent status negotiations, deciding to put a work plan for the negotiations, and to carry out their obligations emanating from the road map."

Erakat told CNN his team is open to discussing land swaps, meaning that if Israel takes parts of the West Bank, then the Palestinian Authority could take parts of Israel for a future state.

On Monday, President Bush will hold separate White House meetings with Olmert and Abbas. Rice will hold a dinner Monday evening for all the delegations at the State Department, and Bush will speak.

Tuesday will be the main event, a full -- and likely long -- day of meetings. On Wednesday, the president again will meet the Israelis and Palestinians at the White House.

Rice described the final U.S. push for the conference -- persuading the Israelis and Palestinians to move past a demand for a new document before the conference and leap ahead to the new negotiations on Tuesday.

"It's hard in something this complex to just have principles," Rice explained. "The devil is in the detail. You might as well get to the detail, and that is what they are going to do."

The main thrust of the Annapolis talks will be establishment of an independent Palestinian state -- the two-state solution. But other huge issues related to regional peace are expected to surface, especially since long-time Israeli foes, Syria and Saudi Arabia and others, will attend.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch told reporters last week that everyone would have the opportunity to speak at Annapolis. "We will not turn the microphone off for anyone," he said.

The Syrian decision to attend comes less than three months after Israeli warplanes attacked a site in Syria reported to be a facility linked to nuclear weapons.

Israel accuses Syria of helping Palestinian militants who oppose the Jewish state's existence. It says Damascus is helping Iran and its anti-Israel policy.

Like Iran, Syria is listed on the U.S. State Department's roster of State Sponsors of Terrorism along with Cuba, North Korea and Sudan.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Sunday the conference will draw a line between moderates and extremists in the Arab world.

"There will be those who are here, those who support the process, and there will be those who are shouting -- Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah," she said. "They will be on the outside trying to stop this conference from happening."

Lippy Tzipi is labouring under the delusion that there’s a quantum difference—“a line,” if you please—between the “moderates” and the “extremists.” There isn’t. The only difference is that there are Arabs who, for the moment at least, are prepared to defer their gratification at seeing the Jewish state wiped out until a later time; we call them “moderates.” There are also Arabs, many supported by nuke-building Persians, who are much too impatient to sit down at a table and work out the fiddly bits of a faux “peace” treaty. These “extremists” want to wipe out the Jews RIGHT NOW. Oh, and by the way, they wouldn’t mind wiping out the “moderates,” too. Thus, when it comes to the Jews at least, the only real difference between the “moderates” and the “extremists” is not their desire to expunge Israel, but their time-table for getting the job done.

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

The Jews are expendable—again: Melanie Phillips minces no words in describing America’s heinous betrayal of the Jews:

Whatever actually happens at Annapolis, what is blindingly obvious right now is the extent of America’s betrayal of the Jewish people and, in the process, of its own supposed core doctrine post 9/11. President Bush, through his proxy Condoleezza Rice, is pushing Israel to accept suicidally indefensible borders. By contrast, there is no pressure on Mahmoud Abbas to adhere to the first commitment of the Road Map, which is for him to dismantle the Palestinian infrastructure of terror. Only the victim of this terror is to make the most ‘painful sacrifice’ of all — its own existence.

There are many very shocking aspects to this American position. The first, and most dramatic, is the way in which President Bush has reneged on his own commitment to Israel. At the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs, Dore Gold spells out the extent of this perfidy:

 

On April 14, 2004, Prime Minister Sharon presented his Gaza Disengagement plan to President Bush and received as a quid pro quo a presidential letter with a set of U.S. guarantees about the shape of a future Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement. Sharon appeared before the Knesset on April 22, 2004, and explained the significance of the Bush Letter:

There is American recognition that in any permanent status arrangement, there will be no return to the ‘67 borders. This recognition is to be expressed in two ways: understanding that the facts that have been established in the large settlement blocs are such that they do not permit a withdrawal to the ‘67 borders and implementation of the term ‘defensible borders.’

…The Bush Letter did not intend to impose the outlines of a peace settlement in lieu of future Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. However, it laid out an updated vision of the U.S. position on a final peace settlement if the U.S. were actually asked to provide these details by the parties, especially if negotiations stalemated. The Bush Letter, moreover, did not represent a sharp break with past U.S. policy; it was fully consistent with UN Security Council Resolution 242. Former President Ronald Reagan used the language of ‘defensible borders’ in September 1982 and it was adopted by former Secretary of State Warren Christopher in January 1997 in his letter of assurances to former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

There is a serious question about the exact standing of the Bush Letter on the eve of Annapolis. Buried in the address by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the United Jewish Communities General Assembly in Nashville on November 13, 2007, was a surprising sentence: ‘I believe that most Israelis are ready to leave most of the — nearly all of the West Bank, just as they were ready to leave Gaza for the sake of peace.’2 It is doubtful that Rice was reflecting on the results of any serious Israeli public opinion poll, which actually show strong Israeli support for retaining strategic areas of the West Bank, like the Jordan Valley. And given Israel's bitter experience from unilaterally leaving the Gaza Strip, it is difficult to draw analogies from Israeli positions on Gaza prior to the August 2005 disengagement and Israeli positions, at present, toward withdrawal from the West Bank. It is likely that she carefully chose her language as a trial balloon, couching a new possible U.S. position on borders as a general statement about Israeli public opinion.

Having decided to convene the Annapolis meeting, the Bush administration is under enormous pressure to make sure it succeeds. The situation that has been created provides the Arab states with enormous leverage over Washington to revise its positions on the core issues in order to obtain their attendance at a high enough level. Even if the U.S. does not issue its own statement in lieu of the Joint Statement, a revised U.S. position could come in the form of a presidential address or even private communications from Washington to Arab capitals that erode the Bush Letter and empty it of much of its original content.

So why is this happening? People have noticed that the proposal on the Annapolis table is essentially a reheated version of the Saudi ‘peace’ plan, which required Israel to retreat to the 1967 ‘Auschwitz’ borders, exile Jews altogether from their holiest place, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and accept the mass immigration of Arabs from the disputed territories — which would destroy Israel’s existence as a Jewish state — despite the creation of a separate state of Palestine (from which of course Jews would be excluded). The most likely immediate reason for President Bush’s shameful acceptance of this proposal to annihilate by stealth its ally, Israel, is the fact that, as this article suggests, Saudi is calling the shots. If anyone should doubt the vast power of the Saudi lobby, this provides a primer.

So much for the supposedly all-powerful American Jewish lobby of which we hear so much and from so many. It turns out that six million overwhelmingly Democrat-voting American Jews are totally eclipsed by the power over a Republican President of Saudi oil. Well, waddya know.

But the Saudi lobby has been in place for a very long time. So why has Bush performed this astounding volte-face now? Two explanations. The first is that he is but the latest to be captured by Presidential Middle East Derangement Syndrome — the fantasy that he can engrave his place in history as the President who brought the simulacrum of peace to the Middle East. The second is that this is in line with the idea that a historic realignment is under way, in which mutual interests with the west mean that ‘moderate’ Islamic states such as Saudi Arabia can be brought into a grand coalition against Iran provided a bone is thrown their way. That bone — don’t laugh — is supposed to be a Palestinian state.

Of course, the idea that Saudi is at all concerned about the fate of the Arabs of the territories is ludicrous; the idea that if a state of Palestine comes into being this will make all the difference to Saudi’s membership of a coalition against Iran is beyond ludicrous. If Saudi thinks that it is in its interests to present itself as America's ally against Iran, it will do so regardless of the fate of the Palestinians. Its cause in the Middle East is not and has never been their interests; it is, as it always was, the destruction of the Jewish state. Saudi may be Iran’s regional enemy but in terms of the global jihad they are both singing from the same murderous songsheet. Saudi wants Israel annihilated and its holy sites in Jerusalem erased. And America, in this bone-headedly stupid and amoral strategic error, is trying its damnedest to help bring this about — thus signalling its wholesale retreat from the ‘Bush doctrine’ and calamitously undermining the defence of the west.

Annapolis is America’s Munich — and Israel is the new Czechoslovakia.

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:20 | link | comments (2)

Outnumbered: Israel’s Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni claims Israel won’t allow the Arabs to dictate the terms of "settlement." From the Ceeb:

As Arab countries prepare to sit down with Israel for the first time in several years, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Sunday made it clear they should not expect to dictate the contours of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

Arab League members grudgingly agreed to send their foreign ministers to a U.S.-hosted conference meant to renew Israeli-Palestinian peace talks after a violent, seven-year lull in negotiations. On Sunday, holdout Syria said its deputy foreign minister would attend.

Livni, on her flight to Washington, D.C., suggested that a lack of Arab backing contributed to the failure of the last round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in early 2001. The Arab world, she told reporters, "should stop sitting on the fence."

"There isn't a single Palestinian who can reach an agreement without Arab support," Livni said. "That's one of the lessons we learned seven years ago."

But she also said, "It is not the role of the Arab world to define the terms of the negotiations or take part in them."

Arab countries had been reluctant to attend the conference, which begins Monday night in Washington, then moves to Annapolis, Md…

The confirmed list of Arab invitees includes the Arab League and Arab countries such as Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen, Kuwait, Iraq, Libya, Mauritania, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. The list of Jewish invitees is limited to one miniscule Jewish state.

Given that the deck has been so methodically stacked against her, Livni clearly doesn’t stand a chance.

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

Anal retentives: I’m sure there’s a clear psychoanalytical explanation to account for the ongoing stories about revolting indignities supposedly being visited upon Korans in bathrooms (including this latest one from Nigeria, where a university student sparked campus unrest when he “confided in his colleagues that he mistakenly used a page of the Quran when he went to toilet in the night and that he never knew the paper he used were pages from the Quran”—I ask you, is that even plausible?). But I couldn’t even begin to account for the bizarre fixation that marries the Koranic and the cloacal, and which seems, as well, to incorporate a perverse and unpleasant sexual element.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:53 | link | comments

Annapolis Arabs sing: A tuneful fave from the Swing era:

All of it,

Why not take all of it?

Have a fit

If Jews have a portion.

Take this land,

It’s Dar al Islamic.

We can't share.

Our rage is Titanic.

Jews don’t rate

So we’ll eliminate

The pesky state

They claim is Judaic.

They took our land

Now, heed our command,

And let us take all of it.

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:01 | link | comments

 Ever our own worst enemy: The New York Sun has an article that looks at Israel's Jewish defamers. By sheer co-incidence, I happen to have just read the following in Ruth Wisse's 1992 book, If I Am Not For Myself…THE LIBERAL BETRAYAL OF THE JEWS:

A great many European Jews tried to escape the ignominy of anti-Semitism through conversion. Before the modern period, and in Russia until the Revolution, a Jew who wished to quit his people had to convert to Christianity, which made the choice more painful but in no way affected the boundaries between Jew and non-Jew. After Emancipation, the promise of equality raised hopes of acceptance in the Jews while the concurrent rise of anti-Semitism increased their insecurity. Offered the possibility of citizenship, modern Jews less often converted to Christianity than identified with the liberal politics and outlook that had south their advancement. If they were then still unwelcome, they often blamed the Jew in themselves for having alienated the liberal, or tried to mitigate opposition to themselves by dividing the “good” Jews from the “bad.” Early reformers of the Enlightenment blamed anti-Semitism on the reactionary dress and practices of the Hasidic Jews; Jewish socialists blamed anti-Semitism on the Jews who had agreed to play the role of middlemen in feudal societies and on Jewish capitalists who took over their role as exploiters; Jewish assimilationists blamed anti-Semitism on the false consciousness of nationalist Jews who refuse to melt into the mainstream. Anti-Semites got it wrong as usual when they accused Jews of betraying their countries of citizenship as a consequence of their “dual loyalty.” From the dawn of Emancipation until the present, the conflict of loyalties that anti-Semitism forces upon the Jews resulted almost exclusively in their betrayal not of Gentiles, but of fellow Jews.

Now, in a chilling duplication of the past, anti-Zionism affects Jewish attitudes toward Israel precisely the way anti-Semitism once affected Jewish attitudes toward Jewishness. When Arabs began to attack the legitimacy of Israel, they forced liberal Jews, including liberal Israelis, to choose between confidence in the Jewish state and confidence in the triumph of liberalism. Under political pressure that has grown steadily stronger in the past twenty years, many Israelis tried responding to the charges against them by differentiating between the pure and good Zionism of ingathering versus the evil Zionism of expansionism. Despite the transforming presence of a Jewish country, intellectuals and writers in Israel today, like their diaspora counterparts of the 1930s, try to separate their own “progressive” desire for an independent homeland for the “reactionary” desires of their fellow Jews, in order to escape the Arab politics of hatred.

Annapolis is set to reveal the obvious: the attempt to deflect Judenhass by condemning and distancing oneself from those misidentified as the “bad” Jews will prove as as futile today as it was back then.

Posted by: scaramouche at 14:30 | link | comments

Jemima puddles and ducks: Jemima Khan, the British glamazon who “reverted” to Islam to marry soccer player Imran Khan (she later divorced him and is known in the tabs as actor Hugh Grant’s main squeeze) condemns those who view Islam as a monolith and can’t see the good in it. And because she is a product of her environment and the times, she also takes the opportunity to indulge in a non sequitar, condemning those who call critics of Israel anti-Semitic (not mentioning, of course, that many of them are antisemites, and that making such a charge is often a smokesceen that allows them to sling mud at the hated Zionists with impunity). From the Telegraph:

I recently attended a debate entitled "Is Islam good for London?" Despite its billing as the most important issue facing Londoners today, the "for London" in the title proved superfluous. It was the intellectual equivalent of reality TV: excruciating to watch but impossible to walk away from. At that kind of very confrontational debate, people turn up to support their own team. It's more about who is wrong than who is right. Rarely does anyone leave with a changed view.

The spectacle kicked off with an assertion by the journalist Rod Liddle that "the pernicious, bigoted, misogynistic, totalitarian, fascistic ideology of Islam must be rejected".

There was a spirited defence of Islam by Ed Husain, reformed extremist and author of The Islamist. He argued that Islamism and Islam are distinct: Islamism is a political ideology, which proposes a profoundly conservative religious vision for state and society which in its attitudes to apostasy, women, homosexuality and free speech is generally anathema to Western liberal convictions (including, emphatically, his and, for the record, mine). The social conservatism and separatist mindset of Muslims in the West, he argued, must be challenged.

He was let down by his teammate Inayat Bunglawala (bungle by name…) of the Muslim Council of Britain, who went down in the first round to the braying of the audience.

Those arguing in favour of the Liddle point of view prefaced their arguments with the usual spiel about it being an attack on the ideology and not the people, but it all got horribly personal. When a female member of the audience asked a question about Palestine, a man behind me shouted "Nazi!" For the faint-hearted it was almost too bloody to watch.

It wasn't just me who found the title, tone and content of the debate disturbing. The liberal rabbi, Pete Tobias, described it as a "damaging and hurtful exercise", sinisterly reminiscent of the campaign a century ago to alert the population to "the Problem of the Alien" - namely the Eastern Jews fleeing persecution who had found refuge in the capital.

My view is that it was symptomatic of a much wider and deeper hostility to Islam and, contrary to the claims of the panellists, to Muslims too.

Martin Amis recently said it was the ideology of Islam and not Muslims he had a problem with, but added: "They are gaining on us demographically at a huge rate. A quarter of humanity now and by 2025 they'll be a third. We're just going to be outnumbered." It's clear when he talks of the dangers of being outnumbered and outbred, that Amis is not talking about the ideology or even militant Islamists, but about ordinary Muslims.

He continued (in what he later defended as a "thought experiment"): "There's a definite urge - don't you have it? - to say the Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order. What sort of suffering? Not let them travel. Deportation - further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they're from the Middle East or from Pakistan… Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole Muslim community and they start getting tough with their children."

On the subject of Muslims, liberal intellectuals like Amis find themselves uncomfortably in bed with the neocons. They even sound alike. British Muslims that I know feel overwhelmed in the face of such hostility.

In my experience, having lived for 10 years in a Muslim country and visited many others, there is a huge variety of beliefs within Islam and a cultural diversity amongst Muslims that is not often taken into account. Islam is not a monolithic entity. Which Islam, which Muslims do they hate? Mystical Sufi Islam? The culturally-influenced Islam of the Subcontinent? The literalist and extreme Wahabbi Islam? Militant jihadist Islam?

The Albanian Muslim is different from his Saudi brother. There are devout Muslims and less devout Muslims. Some drink, some don't. Some believe in arranged marriages, others have sex outside marriage. A minority believe that homosexuals and infidels should be murdered. A majority find such views repugnant.

It's true that the Muslim community is bad at introspection and self-criticism. Labelling all critics Islamophobes, as often happens (though Rod Liddle outed himself: "Islamophobia? Count me in") is an old ploy to close down debate. It was used 70 years ago, when a critic of the Soviet Union could expect to be called a fascist. A critic of Israeli government policy today is often labelled anti-Semitic.

And although Muslims increasingly feel like a demonised minority, even by liberals, it is also true that Islam is an ideology. As such it must expect to be challenged in an open society, no matter how uncomfortable or personal that debate becomes. Not only must Islam - with its social and political mandate - expect to be challenged by modern secular society but, more importantly, it must also expect to be challenged from within the Islamic tradition. Its evolution depends on such a challenge.

But it would help greatly if critics of Islam would give as much attention to the moderate Muslims engaged in that vital internal debate as they do to the hook-handed, effigy-burning few.

It would help greatly, too, if apologists for Islam could own  up to the problematic passages in the Koran, as well as the problematic aspects of the perfect Prophet’s life—whose example continues to inspire the faithful and is the source of so many of our current difficulties.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:29 | link | comments

Pathetic fallacies of the Annapolis summit: There are at least five—count ‘em—five. From the Jerusalem Post:

The first is that Palestinian society can be reformed by outsiders. Middle Eastern societies have already proven their resistance to attempts by Western powers to change their old ways of doing business. It is naïve to believe that political and social dynamics rooted in centuries-old traditions can be easily manipulated by well-intentioned, but presumptuous Westerners. President George W. Bush should have learned this lesson from his experience in Iraq.

Change among Palestinian and other Middle Eastern societies can only originate from within. And if such a positive evolution were to take place, it would more likely be brought about from within by an autocratic ruler than from the outside by well-meaning Westerners.

Moreover, American power to change the foreign policy of even minor international actors must not be exaggerated. The late Hafez Assad of Syria said "no" to president Bill Clinton in Geneva (March 2000), and Yasser Arafat did the same at Camp David (July 2000).

The second fallacy is that economic assistance to the Palestinians can alleviate political problems. Since the Oslo Accords in September 1993, the Palestinian Authority has received the most economic aid per capita in the world. Yet billions of euros transferred to the PA have been squandered or misused. Like some other Third World actors, the PA has been ingenious in siphoning a not insignificant amount of the aid it gets to those least in need of outside support.

Moreover, economic aid is only as good as the ability of a recipient's economy and government to use it productively. Therefore, it is doubtful that sending more money to the dysfunctional Palestinian economy will do any good.

The third fallacy is that Mahmoud Abbas can become the agent for change and therefore he deserves the support of the West. Abbas's record as a leader is dismal. He failed to unite the security services under one organ as he pledged and has not followed through with his anti-corruption election campaign promises. If anything, the chaos within the PA increased under his presidency. The Hamas takeover of Gaza is an obvious indication of his weakness.

The fourth fallacy is that Palestinian society can be quickly transformed into a good neighbor of Israel and that a stable settlement is within reach. Since the Oslo Accords, the PA's education system, media, and dramatic militarization process has done great damage to the collective Palestinian psyche. A society mesmerized by the use of force and embracing of the shahid (martyr) ready explode among the hated Israelis will not change overnight. Numerous facets of Palestinian society have been radicalized and the widespread influence and popularity of Hamas is a clear indication of such a process.

IN CONTRAST to Egypt and Jordan, where pragmatic politics led to agreements with Israel, Palestinian politics is not pragmatic and is ever more radicalized by Hamas and a young militaristic generation. What they expect to get from Israel is totally unrealistic. The differences between Israel and the Palestinians are unbridgeable. After being subjected to a terrorist campaign beginning in 2000, Israelis are unlikely to take blind risks for an uncertain settlement. Palestinian demands for bringing refugees from 60 years ago and their descendents into Israel and for control over parts of old Jerusalem are simply not acceptable in today's Israel.

Moreover, Israel has already received American acquiescence for holding on to the large settlement blocs near the 1949 Armistice Lines, nor is Israel about to give up the strategic Jordan Valley.

The fifth fallacy is that Hamas control of Gaza can be uprooted by intra-Palestinian politics. While Hamas's takeover of Gaza is correctly identified by the US as a victory for the Islamist forces in the Middle East and inimical to Israeli-Palestinian rapprochement, a Fatah led by Abbas cannot bring Hamas back under the PA umbrella. The West Bank Palestinians are too weak to impose their will on Gaza and without territorial contiguity they have little leverage on Gazan politics.

And in point of fact, it is Israel's counter-terrorist activities that prevent the West Bank falling into the hands of Hamas - not Abbas.

The Americans are not likely to attain their noble objectives and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will continue to simmer because the Palestinians cannot get their act together…

Also, because they and other Arabs remain committed to putting an end, once and for all, to the Zionist “experiment.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:31 | link | comments

This one’s for you, Dad: When I was very young, my late father’s favourite group was a folk trio called The Limeliters. Though never as popular as their contemporaries, The Kingston Trio, the Limeliters had a strong cult following, and even reunited for a time in the 70s. They had a cheeky, madcap streak that appealed to my Dad, who also appreciated The Goon Show and Monty Python.

For no particular reason, I happened to think of the Limeliters this morning, and found this, a rousing song about Israel in which they even assayed some Hebrew, on You Tube. It would be great if someone could play it for the assembled at Annapolis.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:19 | link | comments

Isn't that nice of them?: Arabs give U.S., Israel benefit of doubt at Annapolis.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:43 | link | comments

Lies, damned lies, and Shia statistics: The results are in and, according to a survey “ordered” by Fars News Agency (who says the media lack power?), the majority of Iranians are delighted with the “conservative” tack their government is taking:

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- 55.5% of Iranians believe that the present parliament with a conservative majority has been more successful in solving people's problems than the reformist parliament acting at the time of former President Khatami, results of a recent opinion poll suggested.

The results of the poll, ordered by FNA and conducted by one of the creditable polling centers in Iran, said that 25.6% of the 10,830 people polled in different Iranian cities stated that the reformist government had served more successfully than the present parliament.

The same survey showed that 78.9% of Iranians support parliament's approvals and policy on the country's nuclear issue.

According to the results, 78.9% of the subjects described parliament's performance and approvals with regard to the nuclear issue as "appropriate" and "fully appropriate".

While 40.7% of the subjects believed that MPs have proved to be highly motivated in removing people's problems, 25.8% said that their representatives at the parliament seem to be a little or little motivated.

The same opinion poll showed that a majority of Iranians will participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

Results suggested that a minimum 44% and maximum 70% of Iranians will cast a vote in the upcoming elections…

Well, as long as it’s been conducted by one of Iran’s “creditable” polling centers…

Still, for a fascist, this-aint’-nothing-more-than-window-dressing type election, the expected turnout sounds rather low. Didn’t Joe Stalin and Sadaam Hussein used to get at least 90 something per cent of their “voters” to show up? Or have the numbers been purposely (and purposefully) low-balled so Iran’s leaders can crow about the “unexpectedly” high turnout later on?

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:38 | link | comments

Shilling for the enemy: Noam "Lord Haw Haw" Chomsky bloviates from a bully pulpit on the Shia-Nazi website.

Way to go, Noam!

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:05 | link | comments (1)

I couldn't have said it better myself: No more Middle East peace charades, please.

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

Parsing Abdullah: To hear the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques talk, he sounds like he’s really big on interfaith  dialogue. Here he is sounding all tolerant and inclusive in his in-house organ, Arab News:

JEDDAH, 25 November 2007 — Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah yesterday called upon the followers of different faiths to uphold their shared values to promote world peace and understanding.

"If different communities and cultures would turn to their great principles (taught by their religions) then they would find many things that bring them closer, keep them away from conflicts and improve their human qualities," the king said.

King Abdullah made this comment while receiving Chief Executive of World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab and Middle East Director Sherif El-Diwany. He also stressed that corporate as well as individual activities should be based on moral values that create perfect human beings…

What he’s really saying: If different communities and cultures (meaning you, you obdurate Crusader and Jewish dhimmis who, as recounted in the noble Qur’an, have failed to heed your own religious teachings) would only accept the one true faith and allow it to take the lead, a genuine “peace”—the “peace” of Islam—could finally prevail.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:58 | link | comments

Portrait of treachery: With apologies to Nat King Cole (but not to the woman in question):

Condoleezza, Condoleezza,

Bush has named you

To head up the ambush in Annapolis.

Is it only ‘cause his crony, King Abdullah,

Is such trouble and despises Zionists?

 

Do you know what you are doing, Condoleezza,

Or are you flailing in the dark and up a creek?

Many ‘Rabs have arrived at your doorstep—

They’ll lie there and they’ll cry there.

Are you nuts, are you blind Condoleezza

Or just a wishful-thinking Foggy Bottom sneak?

 

Do you know what you are doing, Condoleezza,

‘Cause to me it seems you don't know what to do.

Many ‘Rabs have arrived at your doorstep—

They’ll whine there and they’ll dine there.

Are you cracked, are you deaf, Condoleezza,

Or just a well-intended hen without a clue?

 

Condoleezza,

Condoleezza.

Posted by: scaramouche at 00:58 | link | comments

He blind-sided me with science: Another riveting essay by Mo Elmasry, head of the Canadian Islamic Congress. In an earlier piece, Mo outlined the immense debt the English language owes Islam for lending it so many wonderful words (some of which—oops!—weren’t even of Islamic origin). In this latest essay, he outlines the immense debt the West owes Islam for inventing so many wonderful mathematical and scientific concepts:

The science of charting the Earth's lands and waters was of primary importance to Muslim navigators, for next to faith itself and one's obedience to it, commerce and travel fed the social economy and thus governed people's daily lives.

In addition to improving the astrolabe (without which no Western mariner would feel safe on the open seas for centuries to come), Muslims were the first to apply the principle of magnetism to marine and land travel, perhaps as early as the 9th and 10th centuries.

Al-Khwarizmi and other leading Muslim scientists measured and standardized the length of a terrestrial degree, while Al-Biruni accurately determined latitude and longitude: in fact, six centuries before Galileo, he pondered the possibilities of the Earth's rotation about its own axis.

The leading 12th-century geographer al-Idrisi, a star product of the brilliant Islamic culture that flourished in Sicily, was commissioned by the Norman King Roger II to compile a world atlas. With dozens of maps covering areas never before charted, al-Idrisi's atlas became the best mapped representation of the known world in Medieval times. Muslim achievements in geography and cartography were still leading the world during the 15th-century. When Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama set out to sail down the coast of Africa, his ship was guided by a Muslim pilot using Muslim maps and sea-charts still unknown to Europeans.

Not surprisingly, Muslim geographical encyclopaedias and dictionaries were a mainstay of European libraries for centuries. Works such as al-Burini's History of India and Yaqut's Mu'jam al-Buldan lit the way for future Western explorers, traders, and historians.

Ibn Baas was one of the greatest traveler-authors of the Middle Ages. Covering 75,000 miles between North Africa and China during the 14th century, he recorded in his famous book, Rihla (meaning "journey") everything from geography and politics to local religious and social customs wherever he visited. A later Muslim geographer produced the first authoritative account of Africa, which remained a basic source of European knowledge for two centuries.

The knowledge gained by Muslim geographers and cartographers was passed to the West largely through translators appointed by Christian kings, who were eager to advance their own nations by enriching them with Islamic scientific and intellectual achievements. Indeed, when the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II founded the University of Naples in 1224, one of his major aims was to enable Western scholars to learn from Islamic culture.

It is hard to imagine what modern life would be like without Arabic numerals. The history of the last seven centuries, particularly in the West, would certainly be different if 13th-century Europe had not adopted the Arabic style of counting and calculating.

Arabic numerals, as they came to be called throughout the world, also made it far easier to cope with simple everyday sums. Try solving even a simple arithmetic problem in Roman numerals -- the system in general Western use until the 13th century - and you would find it extremely unwieldy and time- consuming! Thus the Muslims gave to Europe an essential tool on which all of the world's science and commerce now depends.

The further mathematical development of Algebra - in which alpha-numeric symbols are capable of infinite potential or possibilities -- was a crucial innovation by 9th-century Muslims, most notably al-Khwarizmi, one of the greatest scientific minds of his era. Here, at the heart of this pivotal achievement, is a reflection of the Islamic faith in the mathematical concept of a universe whose creation by God is an unending, or infinitely living process.

Later Muslim scholars also made revolutionary advances in trigonometry and geometry. These new mathematical developments made it possible to reform the calendar to such a level of accuracy that it would be in error by only one day in five thousand years.

Armed with such flexible, yet precise methods of calculation, Muslim astronomers could explore the heavens in greater detail than had ever been possible. Their discoveries were not only important to science, but again both important and practical to their faith; for Muslims everywhere needed to know exactly in which direction to turn for prayers, what course to set for pilgrimages, and exactly when to begin the month-long fast of Ramadan.

In fact, it would take volumes to talk about Muslims contributions to mathematics and astronomy in the detail they deserve.

The 8th century scientists al-Fazari, al-Farghani, and al-Zarqali, as well as later scholars al-Battani, Ibn-Yunus and others, improved instruments such as the astrolabe and compass, built unprecedented large-scale astronomical observatories, and compiled planetary tables and star charts that were used throughout Europe for centuries.

In observing and mapping the movements of the sun, planets, stars and other heavenly bodies so comprehensively, Muslim astronomers expressed the fundamental aims of Islam, which urged a never-ending quest to understand God's visible signs in the cosmos.

Through observing the material universe, Muslims came to better understand the works of God. Nothing that humans could investigate on earth or in space was considered alien by these scientists.

Thus throughout the Muslim world, it was not at all unusual for an astronomer to be also a mathematician, geographer, physician, or even something of a philosopher and certainly, to some degree, a theologian!

Such multi-disciplined scholars paved the way for the European "Renaissance man" concept - a kind of versatile genius represented by Leonardo da Vinci, among others. He and other gifted scientists throughout the West, such as Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo and Newton, benefited from the fruits of disciplined Muslim mathematician-astronomers who passed on their methods of objective investigation, as well as their preserved transcriptions of early classical pioneers, including Aristotle and Ptolemy.

Without this great combined heritage, the European Renaissance and modern Western civilization could hardly have taken shape as they did.

Without their Muslim scientific forebears, would it indeed have been possible for 20th-century astronauts to set foot on the Moon?...

Thanks for the history lesson, Mo. I’m sure at least some of it is true. Now, would you mind explaining to us why there seems to be a marked scarcity of “Renaissance men” in the Muslim world? Could it perhaps have something to do with Islamic doctrine and the way it inhibits rather than advances scientific inquiry?

Posted by: scaramouche at 23:56 | link | comments

Palestinian expectations: In song.

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

There’s Gold in them thar clueless hills: Dore Gold, that is, Israel’s former ambassador to the U.N. Gold has always been as blessed with clear-sightedness as Ehud Olmert, Israel’s wrong man at the wrong time, has been befuddled by cluelessness. From the Toronto Star:

JERUSALEM–To hear Gen. Yom-Tov Samia tell it, the world can forget about peace in the Middle East any time soon.

Never mind that an international peace summit is set for this coming Tuesday in Annapolis, Md.

What looms ahead in Samia's estimation is renewed and deadly clashes between Israel and Palestinians – strife that will claim some 5,000 Palestinian lives and an untold number of Israelis.

"The terrorist organizations in Gaza are looking only for one thing," said Samia, former head of Israel Defence Forces' southern command. "The next war with Israel."

Welcome to the Holy Land, where even the optimists are sounding pessimistic these days, while the pessimists are sounding an awful lot like, well, like Gen. Samia – convinced the slightest miscalculation by their political leaders will spell certain disaster and thus opposed to the taking of chances.

"Going to Annapolis is a wasting of 200 visas for the United States," said Samia. "I'm not expecting anything from Annapolis except frustration on all sides."

Some 40 governments or institutions have been invited to send representatives to the meeting in Maryland, but it has become increasingly unclear what advances the one-day conference can be expected to produce.

Saudi Arabia waited till yesterday to confirm that its foreign minister, Saud al-Faisal, would attend the meeting, while Syria – another critically important player in the labyrinth of Middle East politics – was still apparently undecided.

The idea for the Annapolis meeting was first broached following the commencement this past July of fortnightly meetings between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the first hopeful steps toward regional peace after seven years of violence and almost complete diplomatic inaction.

For a while, the optimists were sounding downright optimistic.

"Maybe it was my wishful thinking," said Moshe Ma'oz, professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Jerusalem's Hebrew University.

Now, observers on both sides say they doubt there is much likelihood of a breakthrough either in Annapolis or in the coming months.

"I don't know if you can achieve peace with weak leaders," said Nader Said-Foqahaa, a prominent pollster in the West Bank capital of Ramallah. "Abbas does not have the ability to do anything."

With only a fragile hold on one half of a divided people, Abbas will likely be hard-pressed to deliver on commitments, while Olmert heads a tenuous parliamentary coalition that could easily disintegrate over any number of issues involving Israel and the Palestinians.

"The only way out of this is to unite Palestinians through action, and that means action against Israel," said Said-Foqahaa.

Like others here, Ma'oz says he had high initial hopes for the Annapolis meeting, believing that the participants would address many of the key issues that have long divided Israel and Palestinians, issues that include security guarantees for Israel, the future of Jerusalem, the location of borders between Israel and an independent Palestine, and the right of return claimed for some 5 million Palestinian refugees and their descendants.

Originally, the two governments were expected to draft and sign a joint statement in advance of the meeting, a document that would set out a series of shared principles and establish a timetable for peace negotiations that many hoped – and some still hope – could produce a final agreement in a year or so.

But Abbas said yesterday the two sides would arrive in Annapolis with no joint declaration in hand.

According to Dore Gold, head of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, it should have been apparent all along that the divisions between Israel and the Palestinians are unbridgeable, at least for now. He blames the Americans for failing to see this.

"The United States say they know the contours of a settlement and `we just need to get them there,'" he said. "But this is a mistaken analysis. I think the parties may be even farther apart than before."...

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:37 | link | comments

Down with people: As if it weren't bad enough that mankind is killing off the polar bears and destroying Mother Earth, now there's word that we're so sucky and powerful that we're shortening the life of the entire flipping universe.

Something that definitely cannot be offset by purchasing credits from Fat Al's Cozy Carbon Credit Emporium and Karaoke Bar.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:27 | link | comments

Annapolis syndrome: It’s a newly-identified cognitive disorder which renders sufferers incapable of discerning reality. Among those who’ve been hit by it:

·         Condi Rice, who believes the Annapolis confab will result in a democratic Palestinian state that will act as a bulwark against an aggressive, nuclear Iran.

·         Ehud Olmert, who is tickled that he actually get to sit down at the same table as the Saudis, even though none of the Wahhabis would ever deign to shake his hand lest they pick up his Judeo-Zionist ape n’ pig cooties.

·         Hamas, which told VOA News that the attendance of Arab nations “…opens the door to normal relations with Israel.”

·         Israeli spokesman Mark Regev, who, in the same VOA News article claims “the whole point of this international meeting is to have a meeting of the moderate forces, those forces that want peace, those forces that oppose the hateful and extremist agenda of Hamas. And what we'd like to see is the Arab world be more involved and get off the fence.”

Let’s deal with each case, one by one:

·         Condi’s case is particularly severe since it has manifested itself as a delusional comparison of the Palestinians—whose culture embraces the jihad and reveres those willing to die in its name—with pre-civil rights era blacks in the American south. For Condi to expect the Palestinians to shun “extremism,” embrace democracy, and stand up to the Shias is more than ludicrous. It is, quite simply, bonkers.

·         Ehud Olmert, too, is seriously deranged, since all he seems to care about is getting to sit down at the same table as the Saudis, the world’s foremost purveyors/funders of the jihad ideology.

·         The case of Hamas may be the odd one out here, since Hamas must know there’s no way the conference will result in “normalized relations.” More likely, it’s upset to have been left off the guest list.

·         Here are some of the “moderate” Arab “fence-sitters” who’ve been invited to the Appeasapalooza: Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Kuwait, Libya, and the United Arab Emirates. Only someone suffering from a bad case of Annapolis syndrome—like Regev—could describe any of these autocracies as “moderate” and expect them to commit getting off the fence and supporting that “two state solution.”

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:01 | link | comments

 "V" for victory: Mahmoud Abbas responds to the question, "How may states are you going to pretend to agree to at Annapolis?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:51 | link | comments

A song for Condi: In advance of Annapolis, this one's for you, Madame Secretary:

Tell us when you’ll get a clue.

Tell us Condi, Condi, Condi.

Up a creek with no canoe

And who’ll drown?

Must be the Jew.

 

Tell us why you are so blind.

Tell us Condi, Condi, Condi.

Why you’re plum out of your mind

And determined to go on.

 

All the Arab League is here.

Ev’ry single frikkin’ member

And their rationale is clear—

Make that Jew state go away.

 

By the time you get a clue,

Condi, Condi, Condi, Condi.

Israel will soon be through.

And the world'll go, "Boo-hoo." 

 

Long as Saudis have the oil

You’ll continue to placate ‘em

As we Zionists recoil

At your callous, craven ways.

 

Bucking for a ‘bel Peace Prize,

Condi, Condi, Condi, Condi?

Keep on list’ning to their lies

And you’re more than a shoe-in.

Armaggedon can begin.

You’ll have a rude awakenin’.

Posted by: scaramouche at 20:03 | link | comments

 Madness to their method: So far the Bush administration’s “light unto Arab nations" project in Iraq has yet to enlighten even a corner of that vast, dark region. However, that hasn't deterred Condi et al from moving on to the next quixotic quest—an attempt to get the Arabs to stand up to the nuclear mullahs by getting the Jews and Palestinians to hammer out a peace deal:  From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States hopes one byproduct of its Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking will be a moderate Arab alliance to counter Iran's influence in the region, but analysts are skeptical the strategy will work.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has argued that a strong Palestinian state could act as a bulwark against a rise in extremism, mainly from Iran, which Washington accuses of backing groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories.

Rice is hosting a Middle East peace conference in Annapolis on Tuesday and wants broad Arab "buy-in" as she tries to launch the first serious negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians for seven years.

Rice was asked this week if ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had more to do with Iran than anything else.

"It's a strange argument," she told reporters but she reiterated her view that growing extremism in the Middle East was a key factor driving the main players in the region to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"I think they understand the broader threat of extremism in the region, and that extremists use this (Israeli-Palestinian) conflict," she said.

Arab states have been pushing the Bush administration for years to be more active in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking but there is skepticism about current U.S. intentions coupled with lingering Arab mistrust following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

While many Sunni Arab states shun Shia Iran's role in the region, they do not want to be associated with any U.S. "bullying efforts," said Bruce Riedel, a former analyst with the CIA…

You mean Condi sincerely believes she can get the Palestinians--the Palestinians!--to do a complete about face and act as a buffer against the mullahs? And no one at Foggy Bottom or the White House has pointed out that she is out of her bleeding mind?

I don't know what they put in the drinking water in Washington, but there doesn't seem to be a sane person left in the joint.

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

Dry Bones looks ahead to Annapolis:

Posted by: scaramouche at 16:59 | link | comments

The road to "Utopia": Pint-sized bloviator ‘Moud ‘Mahdinehad ties Iran’s nuclear ambitions to its desire to achieve “perfection”. From the Tehran Times:

TEHRAN - President Mahmud Ahmadinejad here on Wednesday said that Iran is prepared to hold talks on its nuclear program with all countries except the Zionist regime.

“The White House leaders should know that they are standing before a united and invincible nation,” Ahmadinejad told well-wishers in the northwestern city of Ardebil.

“They should know that the Iranian nation regards resistance against hegemonic powers as its duty,” the president noted.

“The enemy is making every effort to get even a very small concession from us before admitting complete defeat in the nuclear issue.... I hereby announce that despite all threats, the Iranian nation will not give the smallest concession to the West,” the president said as he started the second round of his visit to the province.

Ahmadinejad stated that “Today the Iranian nation is trying to make progress towards perfection.”

He advised the world powers to pay respect to Iran’s inalienable rights.

“In our opinion the nuclear issue has been concluded because we have moved according to the (International Atomic Energy) Agency’s law,” Ahmadinejad said.

Utterly chilling. When a power-hungry zealot like Ahmadinejad (or Hitler, or Stalin, or Mao) talks about “perfection,” you can be sure that, unless he’s stopped in his tracks, untold millions are going to die for the sake of his Utopian dreams.

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

Sure beats the Macarena: There’s a new ring tone hit in Spain. From UK Press:

Many Spaniards were so amused when their king told Venezuela's president to "shut up" that they want to hear the words every time their phone rings.

About half a million people have downloaded a mobile phone ringtone featuring the phrase "Por que no te callas?" or "Why don't you shut up?". That's what King Juan Carlos told Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez during a heated confrontation at a summit in Chile last week.

T-shirts and mugs featuring the words are also becoming a profitable business, and videos of the confrontation have been a hit on the YouTube website.

As Red Skelton once quipped: "Well, it only proves what they always say -- give the people what they want, and they'll come out for it."

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

It started with "the grassy knoll":  Lefty conspiracy-mongering and moonbattiness, that is.

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

Le mot juste: Historian Timothy Garton Ash is on a quest for the perfect way to describe those who are waging violent jihad against infidels. He’s decided that “Islamists” is too broad, since not all Islamists are violent, and has settled on “jihadists”. From the Globe and Mail:

…Most Islamic terrorists are, in some sense, Islamists, but most Islamists are not terrorists. They are reactionaries. They propose a profoundly conservative religious vision of society that, in its attitudes to free speech, apostasy, homosexuality and women, is generally anathema to liberal secular convictions. But for the most part they do so, at least in the cases mentioned above, through peaceful political means, not violence. At the most moderate end of the broad spectrum of political Islamism, as represented by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development party in secular Turkey, they are closer to the U.S. Christian religious right than they are to al-Qaeda.

So what should we call the suicide mass-murderers and would-be mass-murderers? The best answer I have found so far is "jihadists," especially in the form "jihadist extremists" or "jihadist terrorists." I know that jihad can also be construed as peaceful spiritual struggle, but the Muslim opinion-leaders who I have consulted seem ready to accept this usage. It places a clear demarcation line between ordinary Muslims, even non-violent political Islamists, and the dealers in death, yet it does not obscure the religious connection. In fact, it makes it clearer than either of the alternative terms. Jihad, holy war, is precisely what the suicide-bombers tell us - in their pre-murder valedictory messages - that they were proudly engaged upon.

These are the people who are out to kill us and tear apart the civil fabric of our societies. When I say "us" I don't just mean secular liberals or Christians; I mean equally the innocent Muslim fellow citizens whom they murder in the same blasts and whose acceptance in the wider society they jeopardize. Two obligations follow. There is an obligation on us, non-Muslims living in open societies, to choose words carefully. Until someone comes up with a better one, I think jihadists is the most appropriate shorthand. There is, however, an equal, matching obligation on our Muslim fellow citizens. That is to condemn, audibly and unambiguously, the jihadists who threaten us all.

Garton Ash makes it sound as though there’s a clear distinction between “non-violent” Islamists and “violent” jihadists. In fact, the lot of them are Islamic supremacists, some waging jihad with their own bodies, some funding the jihads, all of them "conservative reactionaries" who want to fulfill the imperatives of their holy texts. Thus, the “non-violent” Islamist may not strap on a bomb and blow himself up on a crowded public conveyance, but in seeking to extend the sway of sharia, Islamism poses a threat to Western civilization that is equal to if not greater than the jihadists’.

My question for the esteemed historian: Can’t we do away with the poli-sci-speak and call the violent ones “jihadis”?

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:35 | link | comments

House of Mouse grows some--maybe: Sounds like Disney has decided to take on Hamas after all for defaming the Disney Corp icon by turning him into a toxic, hateful, jihad-preaching pest. From Dis:

According to sources in Israel, Diane Disney Miller has affirmed that unspecified steps will be taken against Hamas. This is in response to the Palestinian group using a Mickey Mouse look-alike character, Farfour, to promote hatred of Israelis and Americans.

When Farfour first appeared on children's programming, there was international outrage at the message he was promoting. In response, Farfour was beaten and killed by a character portraying an Israeli policeman.

The Israeli consulate in Los Angeles had appealed to the Walt Disney corporation to invoke legal action based on this misuse of it's (sic) copyright.

While the Disney company has declined to respond, Walt Disney's daughter Diane has called the character 'evil' and stated that action will be taken.

Posted by: scaramouche at 22:23 | link | comments

Kudos to the King: I’ve been meaning to commend Spain’s King Juan Carlos for having the cojones to do what so many have longed to do: tell that big mouth Hu Chavez to shut up.

You may not be aware that back in the day (the day long before 9/11, when I was still a lefty and Clinton and Yeltsin were the leaders) Canadian a cappella group Moxy Fruvous sang a tribute to the Spanish King who, according to them, had pulled a Mark Twain Prince and the Pauper-style switcheroo.

The times—and my political outlook—have changed, but the song remains as enjoyable as ever.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:59 | link | comments (2)

Thought I’d share: This mighty satisfying “give ‘em hell” letter to the editor of NOW Magazine, Toronto’s unbearably earnest/sanctimonious hard -left giveaway rag. The letter takes the paper to task for its unthinking devotion to every holy bovine in the barn:

I was reading your letters to the editor while on the bus. Yes, imagine that! I voted for the Conservatives and I take public transit.

Your enlightened readers have it all figured out. If only dummies like me just surrendered ourselves to the learned proletariat, the world would be a paradise.

So let me get this straight. Vote NDP, pay more tax, ride my bike to work, be pro-choice, hate all things American, assume no one could possibly be a terrorist, hate organized religion, sympathize with the incarcerated criminals who are victims of the system, embrace my inner homosexuality, reject meat, support immigration, hate big business.

Oh, what a world this would be!

Conor D. O'Hare

Toronto

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:45 | link | comments

Islam and Slavery 101: Here’s a history lesson you won’t learn in school or read in the mainstream media, courtesy Bill Warner and FrontPage Magazine. Read it and weep at our wilful blindness:

…Slavery is the fruit of Islamic duality. Mohammed, the master of dualism and submission, used slavery as a tool of jihad because it worked. Mohammed’s life was infused with slavery. Slaves were the lifeblood of Islam. Mohammed, the white man, owned both male and female black slaves. His attitude was pure dualism.

The most disgusting thing about Islamic slavery is not that Muslims enslave others, but that we ignore it. The Muslims have been fed the Koran and the Sunna in their mother's milk. They are doing what is ethical according to Islam. In a strange way, Muslims are to be pitied. A Muslim is the first victim of Islam.

The criticism of whites because of their being involved in slavery is standard fair in the media and the universities. Try to find a university that even teaches about the killing of 120,000,000 Africans for Muslims to profit from the 24,000,000 slaves.

Blacks define themselves on the basis of slavery. They will not go beyond the white, Christian version of slavery. There is only one theory of history in the black community—the West African Limited Edition version of history. Blacks will not admit the broad scope of slave history. Hindu slavery? It never happened. White and European slavery? It never happened. Slavery on the East coast of Africa? It never happened. A massive slave trade through the Sahara into North Africa? It never happened. Black, eunuchs at the Medina mosque? It never happened. This incomplete history of slavery is what the taxpayers fund in the state universities.

How can black leaders ignore Islam's sacred violence in Africa? Why aren’t the black columnists, writers, professors, or ministers speaking out? They are ignorant and in total denial. They are the molested children of Islam.

Blacks are dhimmis and serve Islam with their silence. There is a deep fear of Islam that makes them overlook and placate Islam. Arabs are the masters of blacks.

One thing whites and blacks have in common is that their ancestors were enslaved by Islam, and both are too ignorant to know it. Blacks and whites have a secret shame buried under the denial of being slaves inside Islam.

But the rest of the media and intellectuals line up as dhimmis, too. One of the marks of a dhimmi under the fourth caliph, Umar, was that a dhimmi was forbidden to study the Koran. The chief mark of dhimmitude today is ignorance of the Koran, the Sira and the Hadith. The ignorance of kafir intellectuals about Islam is profound.

They don't know about how jihad killed the 120,000,000 Africans, the 60,000,000 Christians, the 80,000,000 Hindus or the 10,000,000 Buddhists. Our intellectuals do not know about the Tears of Jihad (detailed in all of our books). That is a lot of death and ignorance—270,000,000 dead. Our intellectuals don't know, don't care and don't bother. They deny.

University Islamic studies never mention the Islamic political doctrine. The media discusses Islam in terms of political correctness, and multiculturalism. History courses don’t teach about the civilizational annihilation due to jihad. Religious leaders placate imams in public gatherings and have no knowledge what the imam actually thinks of them. Political thinkers do not even know Islam as a political force

The problem with this ignorance is that our intellectuals are unable to help us. They do not understand that Islam is a civilization based upon the ideal of dualism. Islamic ethics and politics have one set of rules for Muslims and another for kafirs. Our civilization is based upon the ideal of unitary ethics, the Golden Rule. We do not have two sets of laws and ethics, like Islam. Our intellectuals cannot explain what dualism has meant in the past or what it will mean for our future—civilizational annihilation.

Our intellectuals and the media have only one view of Islam—a glorious civilization. They have created the "terrorist", a bogus term based upon ignorance. And the "terrorist" is not even a "real" Muslim, but an extremist fundamentalist. All of these terms are based upon a profound ignorance of Islamic political doctrine.

Intellectuals cannot connect the dots of persecution of other intellectuals and artists today, such as Salman Rushdie, Theo van Gogh, the Mohammed cartoon riots, and Daniel Pearl. Their persecution is part of a 1400 year Islamic tradition of keeping all intellectuals and artists in line with the doctrine of political Islam. But for our intellectuals, there is no history, no connection, no pattern, no doctrine of Islam. Their only doctrine is the doctrine of denial. These intellectuals write our textbooks. Then our tax dollars buy the books to feed the ignorance.

What explains the intellectuals’ silence and ignorance? The enormous violence of jihad has produced the psychology of the “molested child” syndrome. Intellectuals fear, apologize for, and placate the Islamic abusers, ignoring the violence of the past. Then they turn around and advise our politicians. The result is an ignorant populace who look to our intellectuals for guidance and find treachery and lies.

Forewarned, as they say, is forearmed, but our intellectuals have failed to warn us, thus rendering us virtually helpless to fend off the jihad.

Posted by: scaramouche at 12:55 | link | comments (1)

Annapolis booster: Rami Khouri, the Palestinian who edits Lebanon’s The Daily Star and who is a staple of the Globe and Mail’s comment page, says that, despite their obvious reluctance, Arab nations should be delighted to attend the upcoming Annapolis conference. Khouri hopes they will “see it as a moral obligation and constructive political endeavour to explore any possible means of moving toward a negotiated settlement.” And by that he means there are a lot more Arabs than Jews, and Annapolis will afford them the opportunity to flex their muscles in a show of unity (their mutual enmity for the alien Jewish entity being the only thing that seems to unite them).

Of course, they’ll have their work cut out for them, since the U.S. is so wishy-washy about peace, and since Israel has put up an immense stumbling block—a demand to be acknowledged for what it is:

NEW YORK -- There is something unconvincing, even insincere, about the tentative steps and gestures made by those trying to arrange the meeting in Annapolis, Md., next week to relaunch Palestinian-Israeli peace talks.

It is hard to generate any real anticipation for a process in which the principal Israeli and Palestinian parties are politically weak, the hosts are imprecise and hesitant, the desired supporting Arab state actors play hard to get and the agenda is as clear as mushroom soup.

Those are all reasons why the Arabs invited to Annapolis should accept the invitation without reservations, go with enthusiasm and confidence and then use the gathering as a stage to demonstrate their will for a fair and negotiated peace. If Annapolis is a confused and murky process, the Arab world should respond to it with clarity and confidence.

Nowhere in the Annapolis process is there any decisiveness or conviction, any real sign of a burning desire to make concessions, compromises or genuine peace. The whole process smacks of self-serving U.S. expediency, rather than the sincerity of an honest mediator.

Washington seems to be trying to compensate for the heavy price it has paid in the world for three policies in recent years: ignoring the Arab-Israel issue for the administration's first six years, attacking Iraq and setting off a series of negative consequences in the region, and throwing its weight around by applying or threatening sanctions against governments it dislikes.

The United States now finds itself in the unenviable position of being criticized around the world and widely seen as a destructive power, yet not feared. It has lost much of its capacity to deter or cajole other countries. The sudden 180-degree turn on Arab-Israeli peacemaking is unconvincing precisely because it is so sudden, severe and out of character - almost maniacal in its intensity.

Nothing new can be seen in the preparations for the Annapolis meeting.

The principals are still dancing around the same old dynamics that have already failed several times in recent years - releasing some prisoners in Israeli jails, pledging to freeze Israeli settlement expansion, promoting Palestinian security forces and economic opportunity, and other such stalwarts and regulars of the post-Oslo attempt to make peace.

Israel has thrown in the new demand that the Palestinians formally acknowledge Israel as a "Jewish state," which complicates matters even further and makes agreement less likely. About 20 per cent of Israeli citizens are Palestinian Muslim and Christian Arabs, and their status in a specifically Jewish state would be unclear, as would be the rights of Palestinian refugees to a redress of grievance under existing UN resolutions.

Ah, yes, if only the Jews would back down from that one outrageous demand—to have a state that’s “Jewish”—all would be well.

My letter to the Globe:

Rami Khouri wants Arab nations to show up at the bargaining table at Annapolis even though Israel has thrown up a major stumbling block—a demand to be acknowledged as a “Jewish state.” According to Mr. Khouri, this is likely to be an all but insurmountable hurdle since 20 per cent of Israeli citizens are Muslim and Christian, and such an acknowledgement would somehow have a negative impact on their status.

Huh? I thought the whole point of a “two state solution” is that there would be two states—a Jewish one and a Palestinian one. And in the Jewish one at least, Israeli citizens—Jewish, Muslim and Christian—would continue to be accorded their full gamut of rights. How would that change with an acknowledgement that Israel is, after all, what it is?

Perhaps without meaning to, Mr. Khouri has exposed the real crux of the problem: not America’s lack of “enthusiasm” nor Israel’s intransigence, but the mindset which, for various reasons, has been unable to come to terms with the fact of Jewish sovereignty. Unless the Palestinians and Israel’s neighbours can find a way to override this mindset—their default setting—the "peace process" will remain permanently stalled.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:44 | link | comments (1)

Submitting to Earth worship: Wasn’t it curmudgeonly antisemite G.K. Chesterton who suggested that, “When people cease to believe in something, they do not believe in nothing: they believe in anything”? As syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher writes, one of the “anythings” that’s been embraced so ardently in our time, especially in post-Christian Europe, is the Church of Global Climate Change. It’s a pagan cult whose Vatican City is in Turtle Bay, and whose God is Al-lah Gore:

Last week, the secretary-general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, issued a new warning on global warming that began with this sentence: "We all agree. Climate change is real, and we humans are its chief cause ... we are on the verge of a catastrophe if we do not act."

Just a few days later the United Nations released a new report in which it confessed its previous estimate of AIDS cases worldwide was inflated by more than 6 million sick people. In India alone, the number of AIDS patients estimated by the United Nations dropped by more than half, from 6 million to 3 million.

"They've finally got caught with their pants down," Dr. Jim Chin, a clinical professor of epidemiology at the University of California at Berkeley and a former staffer at the World Health Organization, told The Associated Press.

The old, false U.N. numbers were the result of an obviously bad methodology, especially in India; prevalence rates among women in urban clinics were imputed to the population as a whole, thereby oversampling AIDS-prone prostitutes, addicts and people with multiple sexual partners.

So why did the U.N. scientists go with the bad data? According to professor Chin, U.N. officials were reluctant to admit fewer people were infected because that might translate into less funding to fight AIDS, which continues to devastate millions worldwide.

They fudged the data in order to inspire the masses to good actions, in other words.

As far as I can tell, the United Nations is like just about any other large bureaucratic institution -- a mixed body of people and ideals that does some good and is at least as susceptible to corruption as any other human thing. But in Europe, faith in the United Nations is reaching biblical proportions.

Which is why when the U.N. secretary-general reaches for the language of science to establish an absolute truth (global warming is a human-caused catastrophe) grounded in an obvious falsehood ("we all agree"), I find it creepy.

The statements have the form of scientific assertions, but they are clothed in a spirit of dogmatic certainty that is alien to the culture of scientific endeavor. A climate science that cannot predict the weather a month from now may have strong evidence that global warming exists, is human caused and will be a catastrophe, but it cannot possibly have yet produced a proof about which "all agree."

And yet "the masses," aka the public, must be goaded into right action by their betters' judgment.

Thus, a new faith system is emerging in the world, centered in Europe, but with outposts among the educated in many parts of the world. In his new book "Challenging Nature," Dr. Lee M. Silver, a Princeton molecular biologist, calls this emerging cultural system "post-Christian." While Christian-based cultures see human beings as uniquely moral beings given dominion over the Earth by God (hence the moral qualms about human cloning and embryonic stem-cell research, but not about genetically engineered plants or animal research), post-Christians "are more worried about the flora and fauna," notes New York Times science columnist John Tierney wryly. Frankenfoods, overpopulation, and technological progress created by our invasive species threaten as much fear as they inspire hope.

Post-Christian faith is rooted in fear that "Mother Nature" is weak, vulnerable, and yet full of violent retributive possibilities that must be assuaged by great sacrifices humbly offered by people under the influence of the new priesthood of international regulators.

The United Nations is now the arbiter of truth and our only hope of saving the planet…

There’s only one rational response to such terrifying irrationality: God help us all.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:32 | link | comments (2)

One Yerushalayim, indivisible: Back in July I sent an email to then Foreign Affairs Minister, Peter McKay, expressing my dismay at Canada’s refusal to list “Jerusalem, Israel” as a place of birth on a Canadian passport. Today I received the following reply (my bolds):

The Office of the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister, has forwarded to my predecessor, the Honourable Peter G. MacKay, on July 12, 2007, your email concerning Canada's policy on Jerusalem. I regret the delay in replying to you.

 

Canada does not recognize Israel's unilateral annexation of Jerusalem, nor Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Canada believes that the status of Jerusalem is a key final status issue that should be resolved as a comprehensive negotiated settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This policy is consistent with a number of United Nations resolutions that, since the 1947 Partition Plan, have reaffirmed the special status of Jerusalem.

 

The Government of Canada's passport policy stipulates that where an applicant is born in Jerusalem after May 14, 1948, the place of birth is to be shown in the Canadian passport as "Jerusalem" alone and not entered in conjunction with any country name. Canadian policy with respect to Jerusalem was established as such because the status of Jerusalem has not been definitely determined internationally. Passport Canada's policy with respect to Jerusalem reflects the Government of Canada's Middle East policy.

 

Thank you for taking the time to write and share your concern.

 

Sincerely,

 

Maxime Bernier

Minister of Foreign Affairs

 

I find it more than a little alarming that Canada considers Jerusalem to have been “unilaterally annexed” when in fact what occurred is that Israel was forced to fight yet another war it could not afford to lose and, as a result, gained control over that portion of Jerusalem that had previously been ruled by Jordan. During the Hashemites’ relatively brief reign there, from ’48 until ’67, Jews were denied access to the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site, Jewish gravestones were toppled and used to make latrines, and scores of synagogues, some centuries old, were destroyed.

Jerusalem does indeed have a special status—it is considered holy by three religions—and by now it should be amply clear that the Israelis, unlike the Arabs, have done an estimable job of ensuring that all three faiths have access to their holy places. One can only recoil in horror at the prospect of a city “divided” in a vain attempt to appease Arabs—who, make no mistake, won't settle for being in charge of only part of the city they call Al Quds—and to satisfy the stipulations of an outdated UN resolution.

The sooner Canada and other nations come to their senses and recognize Jerusalem as the undisputed, undivided capital of Israel, the better.

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

Oblivious to the obvious: A Toronto Star editorial deplores the harsh way the Wahhabis have dealt with an uppity woman:

In a brutal ruling that mocks all justice, Saudi Arabia's grandly named Supreme Judicial Council has just imposed a six-month jail term and 200 lashes on "the Qatif girl," a 19-year-old gang-rape victim.

Her crime? Being in the car of a man who was not a relative, then daring to publicly demand justice after she was raped. The judges apparently view that as "illegal mingling" and trying to "influence the judiciary through the media." At first, the victim was sentenced to 90 lashes, and her attackers to between 10 months and five years for kidnapping, not rape. Then, on appeal, the court imposed an even harsher sentence on her, when it gave the "kidnappers" two to nine years.

Ottawa has rightly denounced this ruling as "barbaric." It reeks of reprisal, not justice. Ottawa should urge King Abdullah, who claims to be reforming the legal system, where judicial whim trumps natural justice, to void the ruling and drop all charges against the victim.

This sends an ugly signal that Saudi rape victims should not press charges unless they are ready to be victimized a second time, in court.

Wrong, oh Star editorial writer. It reeks not of reprisal but of sharia, a religious law that systematically victimizes, diminishes and oppresses women.

Update: Foggy Bottom is as oblivious as the Star.

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

Extry, extry: U of T academic sez suicide bombers not necessarily motivated by religion, need "empathy." From the Globe and Mail:

Suicide bombers are not crazy and indeed are often driven primarily by motivators other than religious zeal, argues a University of Toronto sociology professor in a new research paper he says is likely to prove controversial.

In a paper published in the November issue of Contexts, a journal of the American Sociological Association published by University of California Press, Robert Brym argues that the most effective way of developing a workable strategy for dealing with such assaults is first understanding the assailant's point of view.

Dr. Brym's work focused primarily on the Middle East conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis, a topic he said he was at first reluctant to pursue - despite completing his bachelor's degree in Jerusalem - because it was so sensitive. However, in 2003, he was on a PhD selection committee when he came across a Palestinian student looking to do research on suicide bombers. Eventually, he began working with the student and an Israeli student on the topic. The Israeli student interviewed counterterrorism officials; the Palestinian student interviewed militants.

Dr. Brym's research suggests that empathy, rather than aggression, is the more effective tool for combatting suicide bombings.

"It is controversial," Dr. Brym said in an interview. "But ... our interviews led to the conclusion that much of decisions [regarding suicide bombing] involve retaliation. It is possible for the Israeli state to suppress the other side, but given the high motivation of both sides, they find workarounds."

Dr. Brym pointed to the decrease of suicide bombings in Israel over the past few years, adding that the number of rockets launched during the same period has shot up.

Dr. Brym was quick to point out that empathy doesn't have to entail "warm and fuzzy feelings" for the other side, but rather meaningful rewards and goals, such as releasing Palestinian tax dollars and working toward a two-state solution.

Intertwined with Dr. Brym's thesis is a parallel argument that suicide bombers are not necessarily driven by religion. In the case of the Middle East conflict, he says, notions of martyrdom and holy war began to gain popularity after secular approaches failed. He highlights another study that found fewer than half of suicide bombers between 1980 and 2003 (for whom ideological background information could be found) were identifiably religious...

My letter to the Globe:

 

I might be inclined to accept Dr. Robert Brym’s conclusions about suicide bombers “not necessarily” being motivated by religion if not for a number of factors that appear to seriously undermine his thesis.

 

First and foremost, the majority of these bombers are under the impression that they are waging a jihad against non-believers, a concept deeply rooted in their religious texts.

 

Second, prior to self-detonation, the bombers usually prepare a video in which they iterate their belief in “martyrdom”—another religious concept. Then there is that "added incentive"—the promise that, post-martyrdom, the bomber will be rewarded with his own personal harem of virgins up in Paradise. That, too, is a deeply-held religious belief.

 

Finally, in the case of Palestinian suicide terrorists and those who support them, there is the desire to, once and for all, get rid of the Jewish state, the only infidel-ruled polity in an all-Islamic region.

 

Given all that, Dr. Brym’s call to “empathize” with terrorists and downplay the religious underpinnings of their actions seems bizarre, to say the least, and could have the unintended consequence of making an already fraught situation even worse.

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

A: Suicidal*: Q: What do you call people who arm their enemies?  From Reuters:

Israel approved the transfer of a shipment of armoured vehicles and ammunition to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's security forces ahead of a U.S.-led peace conference, Israeli officials said today.

The shipment, which includes ammunition and 25 lightly armoured vehicles, will be used in the restive West Bank city of Nablus in an attempt to bolster Abbas against Hamas Islamists who seized control of the Gaza Strip in June.

"Within the framework of the Israeli gestures intended to bolster the Palestinian security forces for the prevention of terror, Israel has agreed to allow the Palestinians to receive 25 armoured vehicles for Nablus," an Israeli government official said.

Israel has provided earlier shipments of vehicles and ammunition in coordination with the U.S. government and earlier this month allowed more than 300 members of the Palestinian National Security forces to deploy in Nablus as part of a Palestinian campaign to improve law and order.

"In the event that additional Palestinian forces will be deployed in other Palestinian cities, Israel will favourably consider the entry of 25 more vehicles for security purposes," the official said.

*also short-sighted, deranged, clueless, imbecilic and in the grip of the same kind of wishful thinking which resulted in the Oslo calamity.

Posted by: scaramouche at 10:18 | link | comments

Guess who’s coming to dinner?: Oh, goody. No Chin Assad—the guy whose nuclear installation was obliterated by Israel some weeks ago—has been invited to attend the Annapolis shindig. And dollars to donuts the folks who did the heavy lifting for Western civ. by taking out No Chin’s nukes-to-be will get strong-armed into giving him back the Golan. For the sake of lasting “peace,” of course. From YNet News:

The United States issued formal invitations to some 40 nations and organizations on Tuesday ahead of the upcoming Annapolis peace conference. Officials in Jerusalem and Ramallah confirmed Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had received their invites.  

The list of confirmed invitees also includes the Arab League and Arab countries such as Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen, Kuwait, Iraq, Libya, Mauritania, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

Members of the international diplomatic quartet have also been given invitations. These include the UN, The EU, Russia, and Mideast envoy Tony Blair.

Other countries who may attend the conference are France, Germany, Britain, Canada, Japan, Italy, China, Norway, Turkey, Vatican, Brazil and Australia.

The US State Department confirmed the invitations had been sent out for next week's conference, though no agenda has been set and no schedule has been released for the meetings, which the US hope will kick-start negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said US ambassadors around the world had received a detailed list of instructions for issuing the invitations, which were extended to countries involved in the peace process, Arab nations and organizations such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund and the World Bank…

Oy vey! Talk about the Jews walking eyes wide open into an ambush.

Posted by: scaramouche at 21:30 | link | comments

Melanie nails it: Melanie Phillips says there’s only one possible “two-state solution”—and it won’t be realized by sitting across a table from faux secular, faux moderate Abbas:

The Annapolis conference (meeting?) is grotesque because Israel is being dragooned into ‘negotiating’ and making ‘painful sacrifices’ with an Arab side which is quite explicit that Israel should not exist at all (see chief negotiator Saeb Erekat’s statement, reported in my earlier post, that the Palestinians will never agree to Israel remaining a Jewish state). The very fact that America is forcing this meeting to take place regardless of this position is to legitimise and thus strengthen the terrorist Palestinian entity that has never stopped trying to wipe Israel off the map.

The apparent belief that a Palestinian state would a) rescue Mahmoud Abbas’s ‘moderate’ Fatah and b) be a bulwark against the threat from Iran is risible. There is only one thing which is currently preventing Hamas from taking over the West Bank just as it took over Gaza. That is the presence in the West Bank of Israeli troops, which are acting against Hamas and saving Abbas’s skin. If Israel were to withdraw tomorrow, Hamas would take over and Abbas would be history. A Palestinian state in the West Bank would turn into Hamastan and, just as in Gaza, would become a proxy for Iran and quite possibly also an incubator for al Qaeda. If no Palestinian state is established, Abbas will be history anyway. Either way, this is not good news for the region.

If the moderate Arab states want to avoid this terrible development on their doorstep — and they do — there is only one way forward. Jordan must legally take control of the West Bank that it formerly illegally occupied, thus subsuming the Palestinians into the state that was always effectively ‘Palestine’ and finally bringing about the two-state solution.

Posted by: scaramouche at 18:09 | link | comments

Tee hee: On the next mirth-provoking episode of Ceeb sitcom Little Mosque on the Prairie, “A Canadian Security Intelligence Service agent visits town, arousing suspicions around the mosque.”

Don’t you just hate when that happens?

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:58 | link | comments

Kay gives ‘em hell: I was going to write up my impressions of the “Combating Hatred Conference,” the day-long whinge-fest I attended last week that provided a forum for community “activists,” human rights types, racism industry professionals and other lefties to rage about Canada’s inherent suckiness and racism, but Jonathan Kay has saved me the trouble. (Thanks, Jonathan.) Kay—the token eee-vil conservative on one of the event's five, count 'em, five, panels—describes how he himself was accused of being a racist and was pilloried for expressing views that were out of line with the conference’s group-think. (So much so that I couldn’t help thinking at the time he was lucky no one had thought to bring tar and feathers). What he doesn’t emphasize is that he gave as good as he got—and then some. It was thrilling—no, exhilarating—to see him stand up to the bullies.

The only thing I would add to Kay’s superb deconstruction: my “favourite” speaker of the day. Kay missed her because, understandably, he skedaddled once his panel had finished. This woman, employed as a racism “consultant” by the feds, gave a Power Point presentation, replete with bullets, charts and jargon, in order to convince attendees (many of whom likely didn't need much convincing) that the reason certain, ahem, immigrants turn to extremism is because we here in Canada engage in what she called “identity stripping.” That is, we divest them of their identity and, well, what else is a poor, lost lad with no discernable identity to do but try to restore what was taken from him by plotting to blow up landmarks in the nation which gave him and his loved ones refuge? (Okay, I embellish a bit—she didn’t mention the part about blowing up landmarks.)

Makes sense to me—but only in the bizarro alternate reality of “racism consultants” who wilfully dismiss the jihad and prefer to blame its targets for the whole blooming holy war.

In the real world, Canada remains committed to the dogma of multiculturalism—the exact opposite of “identity stripping”—and lads the world over are turning to “extremism” not because they’ve been “stripped” of their identity, but because, if anything, their sense of who they are is too strong, overwhelming, even.

Also, "extremism" is de rigueur  if you want to hook up in Heaven with your own personal harem of luscious virgins.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:32 | link | comments (1)

Condi, Warrior Zealot: Frank Gaffney, the guy who produced a doc about the tensions between moderate and extremist Muslims that was all but buried by PBS, opines that Condi Rice has become a “zealot”—and a dangerous one, at that. From JWR:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is behaving like a zealot. In her ever-more-rash pursuit of a Palestinian state, she is exhibiting the syndrome defined by the philosopher George Santana, as one who redoubles her efforts upon losing sight of the objective.

Let's recall: The objective laid out by President Bush, when he decided in June 2002 to support the creation of a homeland for the Palestinian people, was to provide a stable, secure neighbor for Israel, committed to leaving peaceably with the Jewish State.

Mr. Bush explicitly preconditioned such support on: an end to Palestinian terror; a Palestinian leadership that was not tainted by ties to terrorism; and the elimination of the infrastructure in Palestinian areas that enables such behavior. After the 9/11 attacks, the United States was in the business of eliminating terrorist-sponsoring regimes, not creating them.

Now, however, it is crystal clear that the only outcome from Condi Rice's idée fixe — namely that she will convene a Middle East peace conference at the U.S. Naval Academy for the purpose of extracting from Israel the territorial concessions needed rapidly to establish a Palestinian state — has nothing to do with the original Bush vision. Under present and foreseeable circumstances, the best that can be hoped for from such a meeting is failure. For success will result in a new safe-haven for terror that is a mortal threat not only for Israel, but for the United States, as well.

Unfortunately, even the failure of Condi's Folly at Annapolis is likely to be a very bad outcome. To the extent that her actions are raising unwarranted expectations on the part of Palestinians and their Arab friends, past practice suggests it will translate into a pretext for new violence against Israel. That will be especially true if, as is also predictable, the Israelis are blamed for the outcome for not being sufficiently willing — in the face of Palestinian intractability — to make what are euphemistically called "painful" moves for peace. Another way to describe such moves are as reckless concessions that are certain to jeopardize Israel's security, and quite possibly ours.

After all, it is only reasonable to expect the West Bank to follow the trajectory of the Gaza Strip and, before it, southern Lebanon — both of which Israel abandoned to her foes, only to have those territories become staging grounds for attacks on Israel and secure incubators for terror against us. Among those operating from such areas are Islamofascist terrorist organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah, al Qaeda and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the newest addition to the State Department's list of such entities.

Condi Rice is nonetheless demanding that Israel now relinquish the West Bank and East Jerusalem to yet another terrorist organization: Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah. To be sure, the Secretary of State would have us believe that Fatah is no such thing. In fact, the entire Annapolis house of cards is built on the fraudulent foundation that the Palestinian faction established by Abbas' mentor, Yasser Arafat, is a reliable partner for peace and effective counterweight to Hamas, which now controls the Gaza Strip.

Only a zealot who has altogether lost any sense of reality could make such an assertion. Treating Fatah as the cornerstone of American diplomacy and demands on Israel is nothing less than perilous and irresponsible…

Unadulterated insanity. Condi is like the Alec Guinness character in the movie The Bridge on the River Kwai--self-righteous and inflexible, and determined to build the best damned bridge ever, even if it ends up benefitting the enemy.

Posted by: scaramouche at 11:06 | link | comments

Why do jihadis become jihadis?:  A Princeton professor who’s studied the matter concludes it has little to do with a person’s impoverished background and much to do with the desire to advance a particular agenda. From the American:

…The evidence suggests that terrorists care about influencing political outcomes. They are often motivated by geopolitical grievances. To under­stand who joins terrorist organizations, instead of asking who has a low salary and few opportunities, we should ask: Who holds strong political views and is confident enough to try to impose an extrem­ist vision by violent means? Most terrorists are not so desperately poor that they have nothing to live for. Instead, they are people who care so fervently about a cause that they are willing to die for it.

You would think by now that would be obvious. How disturbing to think it ain’t.

Posted by: scaramouche at 19:38 | link | comments (2)

Fascist fashionistas:  Looking for the perfect holiday gift for your mother/sister/wife/daughter/best chick friend? Look no further--here it is. From the Tehran Times:

TEHRAN -- The first volume of the series “Atlas of Iranian Costumes” covering the subject of head coverings is to come out soon.

The volume named “Atlas of Iranian Head-Covering” is part of a wider piece of research on Iranian costumes which is being carried out by the Anthropology Research Center of the Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Handicrafts Organization (CHTHO), the Persian service of CHN reported on Sunday.

The book details the factors which have been significant in the development of the various types of head-covering used in each region of the country including climate, religion and ethnicity, head of the Social Anthropology Department of the center explained.

Minu Karimnia, supervisor of the project, added “The complete atlas of costumes will be in three volumes –- head coverings, clothing and footwear -- the first part of which is now complete.”

She went on to say, “The entire project encompasses the costumes of Iranian people in 25 provinces and 564 urban, rural, and nomadic regions. It studies the dress of men and women in each region with respect to age, job, and season.

She continued, “The series includes the results of research undertaken on the colors used in clothing and the ways in which it has been accessorized by different types of decoration and jewelry. The work also covers the traditional habits and beliefs of dressing in particular costumes for special social ceremonies.

“In addition, the series reviews expressions and words related to costumes and locations where specific clothing was found,” she concluded.

The project began in 1999 under the supervision of Minu Karimnia and with the help of nine costume designers.

Along with input, no doubt, from more than one pushy, misogynistic mullah.

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

Campus protest: For far too long the University of Toronto has been a flaming hotbed of anti-Zionism--both in the classroom and as the site of an annual anti-Israel bash, Israeli Apartheid Week. A group called Scholars for Peace in the Middle East is taking steps to try to douse at least a portion of the flames. Here’s the media release describing its efforts:

SPME FACULTY AT UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO WEIGHING INTERVENTIONS WITH ALLEGATIONS OF ANTI-ISRAEL POLEMICS IN CLASSROOMS AND IN UNIVERSITY PROGRAMMING
November 17, 2007

After contacts from students and faculty at the University of Toronto, SPME is working with faculty members to decide what actions to take after faculty have tried unsuccessfully to meet with administrators to deal with allegations of anti-Israel polemics being taught in coursework there, as well as a number of anti-Israel events being planned to be offered on campus where there is concerned that there will be anti-Israel incitement. Despite a considerable group of 73 faculty members registering complaints, the University administration has been unresponsive and refused to meet. Interested University of Toronto faculty members should contact Prof. Eldad Zacksenhaus, Associate Professor of Medicine at eldad.zacksenhaus@utoronto.ca

Good luck, SPME. Looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:57 | link | comments

Striking a blow for free speech: After a documentary was aired exposing extremism in British mosques, police got tough—on the producers, not the extremists.  

Craven dhimmis.

A just-released report vindicates the broadcast. From the Telegraph:

Channel 4 has been vindicated by the media watchdog Ofcom after police complained about an investigative programme that exposed extremism in British mosques.

West Midland's police had faced criticism for targeting the producers of the show rather than the controversial preachers depicted in it.

Ofcom added fuel to that debate by praising Undercover Mosque as a "legitimate investigation, uncovering matters of important public interest."

The watchdog added: "Ofcom found no evidence that the broadcaster had misled the audience or that the programme was likely to encourage or incite criminal activity.

"On the evidence (including untransmitted footage and scripts), Ofcom found that the broadcaster had accurately represented the material it had gathered and dealt with the subject matter responsibly and in context."

Police claimed that the Dispatches programme had misrepresented the views of Muslim preachers and clerics with misleading editing.

Following today's ruling, the Channel 4 called the police's actions "perverse" and said they had, in some people's eyes, given "legitimacy to people preaching a message of hate".

The programme featured undercover recordings from speakers alleged to be homophobic, anti-Semitic, sexist and condemnatory of non-Muslims.

Excerpts from preachers and teachers included "Allah created the woman deficient" and "by the age of ten, it becomes an obligation on us to force her (young girls) to wear hijab and if she doesn't wear hijab, we hit her".

Other statements included "take that homosexual and throw him off the mountain" and "whoever changes his religion from Al Islam to anything else - kill him in the Islamic state".

Police initially launched an investigation into whether criminal offences had been committed at the mosques and other organisations featured in the programme.

They then said that it considered offences may have been committed by those involved in the production and broadcast of the programme, specifically in stirring up racial hatred.

After the Crown Prosecution Service advised that the prospect of conviction was unlikely, police referred Undercover Mosque to Ofcom, complaining that intense editing had misrepresented those featured in the programme.

Ofcom also rejected the 364 viewers' complaints it received after the programme was broadcast, which it said appeared to be part of a campaign.

I believe it’s called The Islamist Whinge and Seethe Disinformation Campaign.

Posted by: scaramouche at 13:17 | link | comments

Name that tune: Hu and his little pal Moo seem to be going out of their way to hook up with each other—Hu is in Tehran today, his fourth visit in two years.

What are these two up to? In can name it three words: no damned good.

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

War by other means: Egypt couldn’t defeat Israel militarily, so it signed a “peace” treaty and got on with the crucial task of undermining the Jewish state (and the Jewish people) by becoming the world’s foremost purveyor of Judenhass. By P. David Hornik in FontPage Magazine:

It was thirty years ago today that the then Egyptian president Anwar Sadat first visited Israel, publicly launching a diplomatic process that led to the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty. At present, though, Egypt is “the Arab world’s biggest center of publishing anti-Semitic literature.” So says a new report by the Tel Aviv-based Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.

This literature that Egypt puts out, says the Center, “is marketed across the Arab and Muslim world, distributed through the Internet, and sold every year at the Cairo International Book Fair.” The Egyptian government, “despite its ability to impose strict censorship,” allows all this to go on.

Seven of these books were purchased, apparently by someone from the Center, at the Cairo fair that was held this year from January 24 to February 4. The books, published in Cairo over the past four years, “recycle lies, fabrications, and anti-Semitic myths rooted in classical European and Islamic anti-Semitism.”

First there’s The Nature of the Jews [as reflected] in the Torah and the Talmud by Sheikh Dr. Ahmad Hijazi al-Saqa. The front cover sets the tone: a ship called World Zionism is sailing the globe while Jewish snakes crawl over the various continents (the back cover is even more grisly). The author holds a PhD in comparative religious research from Al-Azhar University, considered the leading center of Islamic and Arabic learning in the world.

The book begins by explaining that “the Jews hate the Muslims and hate all the peoples and nations, since the Devil has whispered in their ears saying they are the smart and the clever, while others are unclean beasts.” A later, typical passage states: “Almost all the revolutions, coups d’état, and wars that ever happened in the world were brought about by the Jews, instructed by the falsified Torah, the Talmud, and ultimately The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. [These texts] all incite [the Jews] to eliminate non-Jews, using all means to achieve their goal: ruling the world from Jerusalem….”

Then there’s Israel’s Follies and the Lies of Zionism: Religion and State by Ibrahim Abu Dah, who heads the Egyptian oppositionist newspaper Al-Siyasi al-Misri. This time the front-cover snakes, instead of crawling all over the globe, emerge from a Star of David containing pictures of Zionist, Israeli, and Jewish notables.

The Talmud, says Abu Dah, tells Jews that all the resources of the Earth belong solely to them, to be seized by them while freely kil