Archived news and commentary: April 17 - 23, 2006

2006/04/17 - 2006/04/23
2006/04/10 - 2006/04/16
2006/04/03 - 2006/04/09
2006/03/27 - 2006/04/02
2006/03/20 - 2006/03/26
2006/03/13 - 2006/03/19

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Sunday, April 23, 2006

News and commentary:

"Another attack on freedom of speech" (Zacht Ei, 2006/04/23)
"Ms. Ebru Umar, who befriended the late Theo van Gogh, has been attacked near her house in Amsterdam. (She lives a couple of blocks from my house, but for obvious reasons I will not disclose her address.) The attack was allegedly carried out by two youths of Moroccan descent.
There's no need to point out obvious historic parallels, so I'll refrain from that.
I do not always agree with Ms. Umar's statements. I think she lets her emotions prevail over reason at times when a less passionate approach may be in order.
Yet that is precisely the point. Ms. Umar verbalizes her emotions, rather than channeling them into behavior which is supposed to physically intimidate others to stop verbalizing theirs.
The government, of course, should enforce the right to practice freedom of speech without fear of retribution. Yet the government seems to have a hard time acknowledging that there even is a problem. To my knowledge, state television nor radio - sorry, I mean: the ever impartial and balanced Dutch PBS - have mentioned this news.
Neither has the city mayor, Job 'Cup of Tea' Cohen, renowned for his ability to defeat Jihadists by drowning them in freshly brewed Darjeeling, issued any statement. He's probably too busy hoarding up tea.
Unsurprisingly, the culprits have not yet been arrested."

"Thousands Protest Brussels MP3 Murder. BBC Omits Facts" (Paul Belien, The Brussels Journal, 2006/04/23)
"Today, some 80,000 people participated in a silent march in Brussels to commemorate 17 year old Joe Van Holsbeeck, who was knifed on 12 April because he refused to hand over his MP3 player to two North African youths. The murder happened during the evening rush hour in a crowded Brussels central station. The murderers were filmed by security cameras, but it took a full week before the authorities released the footage. The assassins are still at large. ...
In fact, the initiative for the march came from Fouad Ahidar, a Moroccan-born Flemish member of the Brussels regional parliament, who said last week that many immigrants are equally worried about violent Moroccan youth gangs.
Ahidar, a father of five, already called for a protest march on 15 April, saying that if the victims had been immigrants and not Belgians, “or even if an immigrant just gets a few kicks from police officers, half of Brussels would be on the streets in solidarity with the victim.” According to the Moroccan-born MP, anti-Belgian racism is rife among Muslim street gangs. “This murder stinks of racism,” he said. “There is a growing group of criminal Moroccan and Turkish youths who go after victims who look like infidels. We have to fight racism in all its varieties, whether by the immigrants or the native community.” What Ahidar says is common knowledge but only he may say so. If a native Belgian makes such comments he or she risks being taken to court for racism by the authorities’ racism watchdog CEOOR, an instrument used by the government parties to silence political opponents." (See also: "Van Holsbeeck Murder: Bending Over Backwards in Brussels" (Paul Belien, The Brussels Journal, 2006/04/20) and "Murder Shocks Brussels While PM and Cardinal Blame Victims" (Paul Belien, The Brussels Journal, 2006/04/19))

"Islamic States Press for Limits on Free Expression" (Patrick Goodenough, CNSNews/Townhall, 2006/04/23)
The Danish cartoon affair II: "Islamic groups and governments are pressing ahead with a campaign to have international organizations take steps, including legal ones, to provide protection for their religion in the wake of the Mohammed cartoon controversy.
In a drive pursued largely away from the headlines, the Organization for the Islamic Conference (OIC) is promoting the issue at the United Nations and European Union, and having some success.
The executive council of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) this month approved an agenda item entitled "respect for freedom of expression, sacred beliefs, values and religious and cultural symbols."
Introduced by more than 30 Islamic states and the subject of considerable debate, the motion explicitly tied freedom of expression to "respect for cultural diversity, religious beliefs and religious symbols."
It also directed UNESCO's director-general to carry out a "comprehensive study of all existing relevant international instruments." ...
Addressing a meeting of European imams in Vienna, Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik of Austria - the current E.U. president - also referred to the cartoons. "Freedoms do have limits that should not be overstepped," she told 300 Muslim religious leaders from across the continent.
At the same gathering, the head of the E.U.'s official anti-racism body bemoaned what she said was a "dangerously high" level of anti-Muslim discrimination in Europe.
Beate Winkler, head of the European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia, said E.U. governments should provide time for religious programs on public broadcasters and support mosque construction.
Participant Turfa Bagaghati of the European Network Against Racism -- an E.U.-funded NGO -- told Islam Online it was time Muslims pressed 'for their rights, like enacting laws banning aggression on Islam.'"

"In Tape, bin Laden Urges Fighters to Sudan" (Steven R. Hurst, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/04/23)
The Danish cartoon affair I: "CAIRO, Egypt - Osama bin Laden issued ominous new threats in an audiotape broadcast Sunday, purportedly saying the West was at war with Islam and calling on his followers to go to Sudan to fight a proposed U.N. force.
In his first new message in three months, bin Laden said the West's decision to cut off funds to the Palestinians because their Hamas leaders refuse to recognize Israel proved that the United States and Europe were conducting "a Zionist crusader war on Islam."
"The blockade which the West is imposing on the government of Hamas proves that there is a Zionist crusader war on Islam," said the speaker on the tape broadcast by the Al-Jazeera network.
"I say that this war is the joint responsibility of the people and the governments. While the war continues, the people renew their allegiance to their rulers and politicians and continue to send their sons to our countries to fight us." ...
In the message broadcast Sunday, bin Laden also called for a global Muslim boycott of American goods similar to the recent boycott of Danish products after the publication there of caricatures of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad.
He also said the artists who drew those offending cartoons should be handed over to him for trial and punishment." (See also: "Image of Muhammad" - News and commentary on the Danish cartoon affair.)

"Hamas guards open fire on Fatah supporters in Gaza" (AFP/Yahoo! News, 2006/04/23)
"GAZA CITY (AFP) - Three people were wounded after guards loyal to the governing Hamas movement opened fire on supporters of the former ruling Fatah faction at the Palestinian health ministry, police said.
One of the victims was critically hurt after being shot in the chest while the other two suffered leg and hand wounds.
The police and witnesses said that the guards had opened fire Sunday during an argument with followers of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Fatah, who had come to complain about the treatment of a patient.
The patient had protested in person to Baseem Naim, health minister in the new Hamas-led government, but then summoned the Al-Aqsa followers after failing to get approval for a hospital transfer.
Witnesses said the guards at the ministry in central Gaza City were the first to shoot at the Al-Aqsa followers who then returned fire."

"Jail loos turned from East" (Jamie Pyatt, The Sun, 2006/04/23)
"Jail bosses are rebuilding toilets so Muslim inmates don’t have to use them while facing Mecca.
Thousands of pounds of taxpayers money are being spent to ensure lags are not offended.
The Islamic religion prohibits Muslims from facing or turning their backs on the Kiblah — the direction of prayer — when they visit the lav.
Muslim lags claimed they have had to sit sideways on prison WCs.
But after pressure from faith leaders the Home Office has agreed to turn the existing toilets 90 degrees at HMP Brixton in London.
The Home Office refused to reveal the cost of the new facilities — part of an “on-going refurbishment”.
One Muslim former inmate said: “The least the Prison Service can do is make sure people can practise their religion correctly in prison.”
But a Brixton jail officer said: 'If they didn’t get locked up for committing crime they would not have this problem. Yet we have to sort out their loos. If we weren’t paying for it as taxpayers I’d laugh my socks off.'" (Hat tip: The Brussels Journal.)

"Old States, New Threats" (Robert D. Kaplan, The Washington Post, 2006/04/23)
"We are entering a well-armed world, with more players than ever who can unhinge the international system and who have fewer reasons to be afraid of us. That's why a resentful state leader, armed with disruptive technologies and ready to make use of stateless terrorists, poses such a threat. Hussein was a wannabe in this regard. According to a Joint Forces Command study, parts of which appeared in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs, he was preparing thousands of paramilitary fighters from throughout the Arab world to defend his regime and to be used for terror attacks in the West. Looking ahead, Ahmadinejad would also be a prime candidate for such tactics, as would Chavez, given his oil wealth and the elusive links between South American narco-terrorists and Arab gangs working out of Venezuelan ports.
We face a world of unfriendly regimes, even as our European allies are compromised by burgeoning Muslim populations and the Russians and Chinese deal amicably with dictators, because they have no interest in a state's moral improvement. Never before have we needed a more unified military-diplomatic approach to foreign policy. For the future is a multidimensional game of containment."

"Death squads target Baghdad's dustmen" (Ali Rifat and Hala Jaber, The Sunday Times, 2006/04/23)
"Iraq's dustmen — mainly students working their way through college — have become targets for assassination in the country’s latest wave of ethnic violence.
In the past month 22 mostly Shi’ite dustmen have been killed on duty, prompting the governor of Baghdad to appeal to the public to protect them or face a refuse crisis in a city that is already in chaos.
Mountains of festering, unbagged filth are spilling across road junctions and street corners as the dustmen, who earn £1.70 for each four-hour shift, become increasingly wary. ...
Asked why the dustmen were being targeted, a Sunni insurgent in the district replied that they had brought punishment on themselves. ...
“We are not against cleanliness or those who work for the good of the country, but these men are traitors — firstly for being Shi’ites and secondly because we have warned them time and time again that we plant booby traps and explosives in rubbish heaps and they shouldn’t report discoveries to the police, but they always do,” claimed the insurgent."

"Iran’s president recruits terror master" (Sarah Baxter and Uzi Mahnaimi, The Sunday Times, 2006/04/23)
"Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, attended a meeting in Syria earlier this year with one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, according to intelligence experts and a former national security official in Washington.
US officials and Israel intelligence sources believe Imad Mugniyeh, the Lebanese commander of Hezbollah’s overseas operations, has taken charge of plotting Iran’s retaliation against western targets should President George W Bush order a strike on Iranian nuclear sites.
Mugniyeh is on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorists” list for his role in a series of high-profile attacks against the West, including the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jet and murder of one of its passengers, a US navy diver.
Now in his mid-forties, Mugniyeh is reported to have travelled with Ahmadinejad in January this year from Tehran to Damascus, where the Iranian president met leaders of Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas.
The meeting has been dubbed a “terror summit” because of the presence of so many groups behind attacks on Israel, which Ahmadinejad has threatened to wipe from the map."

Added today:
"Amsterdam Mulls Axing Dole for Women in Burqas" (Der Spiegel, 2006/04/21)

Saturday, April 22, 2006

News and commentary:

"Islamist protest in N.Y. – 'Mushroom cloud on way'" (WorldNetDaily, 2006/04/22)
"A New York rally by the Islamic Thinkers Society outside the Israeli consulate yesterday featured chants of "The mushroom cloud is on its way! The real holocaust is on its way!"
The demonstration by the Queens-based group was monitored by the Investigative Project on Terrorism whose members noted signs including "Islam will Dominate" and a picture with an Islamic flag flying over the White House. ...
The chants were in Arabic and translated by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, headed by Steve Emerson, a former reporter for CNN.
Here are some excerpts from the chants:
Leader (in Arabic): "With our blood and our lives we will liberate al Aqsa!"
[The rest also respond in Arabic:] "With our blood and our lives we will liberate al Aqsa!
Israeli Zionists What do you say? The real Holocaust is on its way"
"Takbeer!"
Response: "Allahu Akbar!"
"Takbeer!"
Response: "Allahu Akbar!"
"Zionists, Zionists You will pay! The Wrath of Allah is on its way!
Israeli Zionists You shall pay! The Wrath of Allah is on its way!
The mushroom cloud is on its way! The real Holocaust is on its way!"
"Israel won't last long ... Indeed, Allah will repeat the Holocaust right on the soil of Israel"
"Takbeer!"
Response: 'Allahu Akbar!'" (See also a video: "Islamic Thinkers Society in NYC" (YouTube, 2006/04/23))

"Fatah, Hamas Gunmen Clash in Gaza" (Ibrahim Barzak, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/04/22)
"Violent clashes and mass protests erupted Saturday across the West Bank and Gaza Strip between followers of the militant group Hamas and Fatah rivals, after a Hamas leader accused Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of treachery.
The two sides traded gunfire and hurled stones and firebombs, escalating a fierce power struggle between militant and moderate factions focused on control over Palestinian security forces.
Abbas said Saturday he would not allow the accusations to plunge the Palestinians into civil war.
The unrest followed the president's recent moves to take control of all six security forces and Hamas's response that it would form its own shadow army, made up of militants and headed by a top fugitive Israel has been hunting for years.
Abbas' prompt veto of that plan provoked a scathing comment late Friday from ruling Hamas party's political chief, Khaled Mashaal.
"We can understand that Israel and America are persecuting us, and seeking ways to besiege and starve us, but what about the sons of our people who are plotting against us, who are following a studied plan to make us fail," Mashaal said from his base in Syria, without mentioning Abbas by name.
Fatah's senior leaders promptly accused Mashaal of "igniting and preparing for civil war." Tens of thousands of party loyalists took to the streets of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, protesting Mashaal's remarks and demanding an apology.
Clashes were ugliest Saturday in Gaza City, where Hamas and Fatah followers traded gunfire and hurled grenades and firebombs. Hundreds of university students threw stones over the wall separating Hamas- and Fatah-run schools. Fifteen people were wounded, two seriously."

"Executed for the crime of entertaining the children" (Daniel McGrory, The Times, 2006/04/22)
Iraq II: "For the crime of staging a children’s show, Faud Radi and Haidar Jawad were executed by the new moral guardians of Baghdad.
The actors were part of the Happy Family Team, a troupe adored by millions of Iraqi children from its frequent appearances on television. The theatrical group and a dozen others were planning an 11-day festival to help youngsters to forget momentarily the curfews, bombings and other dangers of daily life in this city.
Armed militias, which pass for the law in many neighbourhoods these days, had other ideas and set out to sabotage the event. ...
Then, on the eve of the festival, Mr Radi, 20, and Mr Jawad, 25, were returning to their homes in the Amirayah district of western Baghdad, the heartland of Sunni insurgents.
They were in the van, so they made an easily identifiable target. They had offered to drive a woman friend to hospital on their way. Their vehicle came under a barrage of gunfire on a main road. Mr Jawad and the woman passenger died instantly. Mr Radi was dragged from the van and beaten to death.
Sifting through photographs of the murdered men, Mr Eadi said: “What has Baghdad come to when actors are seen as the enemy? We are not politicians. We don’t care what a child’s religion is. Our goal is to bring joy. Whoever did this cannot have a family of their own, or how could they murder someone who just wanted to make people laugh? This is the start of a mini Taleban in Baghdad if the gunmen decide what we can and cannot do as entertainers.” He buried his head in his hands."

"Top Shiites Nominate A Premier For Iraq" (Nelson Hernandez and K.I. Ibrahim, The Washington Post, 2006/04/22)
Iraq I: "Jawad al-Maliki, an experienced political operator and advocate for Iraq's Shiite Muslims, won the approval of Shiite party leaders for the post of prime minister on Friday, a day after the parties' original nominee bowed out under political pressure.
The move could end the political paralysis that has gripped Iraq since national elections were held on Dec. 15. Maliki, a senior member of the coalition of Shiite parties that holds the largest number of seats in Iraq's parliament, is now on course to lead Iraq's first long-term government since the fall of Saddam Hussein. If ultimately chosen, the former exile would inherit grave challenges, among them an economy in tatters, an insurgent movement that continues to attack Iraq's government and its U.S. backers, and ethnic and sectarian tensions that threaten to tear the country apart."

Friday, April 21, 2006

News and commentary:

"Amsterdam Mulls Axing Dole for Women in Burqas" (Der Spiegel, 2006/04/21)
"An official in Holland's biggest city wants to introduce legislation that would ban unemployed women who wear a burqa from receiving welfare payments if it prevents them from finding a job. The issue is the latest Dutch soul-searching over its relations with its own immigrants.
The Multicultural Netherlands is having a serious identity crisis. These days, the country's immigrant melting pot is feeling more like a powderkeg. The latest spark in Holland's mini culture war came this week from the social affairs alderman for the city of Amsterdam, who says women who wear burqas are having trouble finding jobs. His solution? Take it off or lose your benefits.
Ahmed Aboutaleb has proposed introducing legislation that would allow the city to cut welfare payments to women who insist on wearing a burqa if it can prove the full-body covering is the reason she can't find a job.
"Nobody wants to hire someone with a burqa," he told the Dutch women's magazine Opzij. 'In that case, I say: off with the burka and apply for work. If you don't want to do that, that's fine, but you don't get a benefit payment.'"

"The Global Jihad" (Andrew G. Bostom, FrontPageMagazine, 2006/04/21)
A review of Efraim Karsh's "Islamic Imperialism: A History":
"Karsh’s terse presentation makes clear the imperial aspirations — and enumerates the spectacular conquests — of the Muslim Caliphs who succeeded Muhammad, and the major Islamic dynasties, from the Umayyads (661-750) and Abbasids (750-1258), to the Ottomans (1290-1923). However, constrained by an untenable ancillary hypothesis — that the specific “millenarian imperial tradition” under examination, i.e., jihad, is ultimately a mere generic, desacralized imperialism, the remainder of Karsh’s analysis includes only cursory information regarding critical and demonstrably unique features of the jihad. ...
In fact the consensus view of orthodox Islamic jurisprudence regarding jihad, since its formulation during the 8th and 9th centuries, through the current era, is that non-Muslims peacefully going about their lives — from the Khaybar farmers whom Muhammad ordered attacked in 628, to those sitting in the World Trade Center on 9/11/01 — are “muba'a”, licit, in the Dar al Harb. And these innocent non-combatants can be killed, and have always been killed, with impunity simply by virtue of being “harbis” during endless razzias and or full scale jihad campaigns that have occurred continuously since the time of Muhammad, through the present. This is the crux of the specific institutionalized religio-political ideology, i.e., jihad, which makes Islamdom’s borders (and the further reaches of todays jihadists) bloody, to paraphrase Samuel Huntington, across the globe, notwithstanding Karsh’s desire to desacralize the jihad, and his insistence that there is 'no clash of civilizations.'"

"Hamas and Abbas Clash Over Control of Security Forces" (Greg Myre, The New York Times, 2006/04/21)
"Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas today came into sharp conflict over control of security forces, as Mr. Abbas moved to block the new government's decision to name a well-known militant to a senior security position and create a force to be made up of militants.
The security changes had been announced on Thursday by Said Siyam, the Interior Minister and a Hamas leader.
Tayeb Abdel-Rahim, a senior aide to Mr. Abbas, said the President would send a letter to Prime Minster Ismail Haniyeh telling him the moves were illegal and improper.
Both Israel and the United States had denounced the security changes. ...
Mr. Abbas has some authority to block appointments, but just how much is not clear, particularly since his predecessor, Yasir Arafat, kept tight if informal control over all personnel decisions.
In the letter to the prime minister, Mr. Abbas said that "all the officers, soldiers and security personnel are asked not to abide by these decisions and to consider them non-existent," according to the Associated Press." (See also: "Militants on New Palestinian Security Wing" (Ibrahim Barzak, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/04/20))

"Sectarian violence seen on the march in Egypt" (AP/The Washington Times, 2006/04/21)
CAIRO -- Egypt's latest bloodletting between Christians and Muslims has many fearing an explosion of sectarian violence in the Arab world's most populous country, fueled by frustration with plummeting living standards.
Increasingly radicalized Muslims, facing growing unemployment, have found it easier to take out their anger on the small Christian minority than confront the government of President Hosni Mubarak, social commentators say.
"It's a war with ourselves, with fanaticism and hatred among the sons of this nation," said Muhammad El-Sayed Said, an Egyptian political analyst. "What makes things more dangerous is that it is the poor and marginalized who have become part of these clashes, which gives it a popular depth that is hard to control."
The latest clashes erupted last Friday with knife attacks at three Coptic Christian churches in the port city of Alexandria. Three days of rioting by Christians and Muslims followed. Two persons -- a Christian and a Muslim -- died, at least 40 were wounded and more than 100 were detained."

Thursday, April 20, 2006

News and commentary:

"Militants on New Palestinian Security Wing" (Ibrahim Barzak, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/04/20)
For "militants", read "terrorists": "The new Palestinian interior minister named a well-known terrorist as his top aide on Thursday and announced the formation of a new security branch to be composed of terrorists."
The Popular Resistance Committees have been involved "in a number of bombing incidents on military and civilian targets in the Gaza Strip", including the "May 2, 2004 killing of the unarmed and pregnant Tali Hatuel, and her four daughters aged 2 to 11, on Kissufim road.":
"GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - The new Palestinian interior minister named a well-known militant as his top aide on Thursday and announced the formation of a new security branch to be composed of militants. ...
Interior Minister Said Siyam issued a decree appointing Jamal Abu Samhadana, the head of the Popular Resistance Committees, as director general of the Interior Ministry. Samhadana's group is responsible for many of the homemade rockets launched at Israel in recent weeks.
Samhadana, a former security officer who was dismissed for refusing to report for duty during the uprising against Israel, was given the rank of colonel.
Interior Ministry spokesman Khaled Abu Hilal said Siyam also was forming a new security branch that would be answerable only to him to bring law and order to the Palestinian streets.
"This force is going to include the elite of our sons from the freedom fighters and the holy warriors and the best men we have," he said. "It's going to include members of all the resistance branches."
The Interior Ministry said it was not clear how many people would be in the force but most of them would be from militant groups." (See also: "Pregnant mother, four daughters laid to rest" (Margot Dudkevitch, The Jerusalem Post, 2004/05/02))

"Van Holsbeeck Murder: Bending Over Backwards in Brussels" (Paul Belien, The Brussels Journal, 2006/04/20)
"Joe Van Holsbeeck, the 17 year old boy who died after being butchered with a knife by North African youths in Brussels Central Station last week, was buried today. Muslim immigrants distributed home baked bread during the funeral. ...
The parish priest of the Catholic St. Elisabeth Church of the Brussels borough of Haren told Belgian radio this morning that the parents wanted to ensure that “immigrants would not feel excluded at the funeral service.” The priest did not hand out the Holy Eucharist to the mourners, but the immigrant neighbours of the Van Holsbeeck family distributed home baked bread. This, the priest explained, was “a sign of fraternity” between Belgians and immigrants. ...
Earlier this week school friends of Joe’s launched a petition asking the authorities “to initiate a dialogue with young criminals” and warning against racist politicians. Isabelle Kumps, one of Joe’s friends, said that Joe was an anti-racist. “He would have been horrified if his death were to be exploited by a political party.” She regretted, however, that half the commuters in Brussels Central Station flatly refused to sign the petition. 'They tell us to our faces: ‘Next time I am going to vote Vlaams Belang. That will be a greater service to Joe.’'" (See also: "Murder Shocks Brussels While PM and Cardinal Blame Victims" (Paul Belien, The Brussels Journal, 2006/04/19))

"Guilty as Charged" (Robert Spencer, FrontPageMagazine, 2006/04/20)
"After years of denial, Sami Al-Arian has finally admitted it: he has pleaded guilty to a charge of “conspiracy to make or receive contributions of funds to or for the benefit of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a Specially Designated Terrorist” organization. He has agreed to accept deportation. In his 2002 defense of Al-Arian, Eric Boehlert wrote: “The al-Arian story reveals what happens when journalists, abandoning their role as unbiased observers, lead an ignorant, alarmist crusade against suspicious foreigners who in a time of war don't have the power of the press or public sympathy to fight back.” Reality is just the opposite. The al-Arian story reveals what happens when journalists and Leftist academics, abandoning their role as unbiased observers, lead an ignorant, alarmist crusade against Americans who in a time of war try to defend our country from those whose politics make them the darlings of the Leftist media and academic establishment. ...
Paul Perez, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida, put it succinctly: “Al-Arian has now confessed to helping terrorists do their work from his base here in the United States -- a base he is no longer able to maintain.” He is unable to maintain that base today no thanks to CAIR, Nicholas Kristof, Eric Boehlert, John Esposito, and numerous other pillars of today’s academic and journalistic elites – elites which Al-Arian’s guilty plea have been shown once again to be thoroughly, irredeemably corrupt." (See also: "Al-Arian admits ties to jihad group" (Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch, 2006/04/18))

"Muslim students 'being taught to despise unbelievers as filth'" (Sean O'Neill, The Times, 2006/04/20)

"The Doctrine

‘The water left over in the container after any type of animal has drunk from it is considered clean and pure apart from the left over of a dog, a pig, and a disbeliever’
‘There are ten types of filth and impurities: urine, faeces, semen, carrion, blood of carrion, dogs, pigs, disbelievers’
‘When a dog, a pig, or a disbeliever touches or comes in contact with the clothes or body [of a Muslim] while he [the disbeliever] is wet, it becomes obligatory- compulsory upon him [the Muslim] to wash and clean that part which came in contact with the disbeliever’

From the al-Hilli text"

"MUSLIM students training to be imams at a British college with strong Iranian links have complained that they are being taught fundamentalist doctrines which describe nonMuslims as “filth”.
The Times has obtained extracts from medieval texts taught to the students in which unbelievers are likened to pigs and dogs. The texts are taught at the Hawza Ilmiyya of London, a religious school, which has a sister institution, the Islamic College for Advanced Studies (ICAS), which offers a degree validated by Middlesex University. ...
They have a single fundraising arm, the Irshad Trust, one of the managing trustees of which is Abdolhossein Moezi, an Iranian cleric and a personal representative of Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, the Iranian supreme religious leader.

Mr Moezi is also the director of the Islamic Centre of England in Maida Vale, a large mosque and community centre that is a registered charity. Its memorandum of association, lodged with the Charity Commission, says that: 'At all times at least one of the trustees shall be a representative of the Supreme Spiritual Leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran.'"

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

News and commentary:

"The Voices of Islam: What Muslims Hear at Friday Prayers" (Der Spiegel, 2006/04/19)
"Is there really a clash of the cultures between Islam and the West? SPIEGEL documents Friday sermons from mosques around the world. As imams guide their congregations, they praise the delights of paradise, sow the seeds of doubt in government authority -- and sometimes preach hatred.":
"In a Berlin mosque, a television crew secretly recorded the sermon of a Turkish imam who described the Germans as godless and railed against what their alleged stench. In London, hate preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri called upon the faithful to murder female tourists in his native Egypt, saying: "If a woman, even a Muslim woman, is naked and you have no way of covering her up, it is legitimate to kill her."
Other agents of the Koran speak moderately when addressing Western audiences, but their words turn decidedly more radical when directed towards Muslims. In an interview with SPIEGEL, television imam Yusuf al-Qaradawi, perhaps currently one of the most influential Islamic scholars around, magnanimously conceded that there is also room in heaven for devout Christians and Jews. But on his Arab-language website a short time later, he made it clear that he believes that Christians and Jews are ultimately nothing more than infidels. ...
Whereas imams in places like Istanbul and Jakarta tended to devote their sermons to theological exegesis, Friday prayers in Pakistan, Iran and the Gaza Strip were markedly more political. In these places, religious scholars whipped their listeners into a holy frenzy and drew a sharp line between the Dar al-Islam, or House of Islam, and the Dar al-Harb, or House of War -- the two spheres into which schools of Islamic legal thought have divided the world." (Hat tip: Jihad Watch.)

"Murder Shocks Brussels While PM and Cardinal Blame Victims" (Paul Belien, The Brussels Journal, 2006/04/19)
"Last Wednesday Joe Van Holsbeeck, 17 years of age, was murdered in Brussels Central Station. He was stabbed five times in the heart by North African youths. They demanded that he give them his MP3 player. When Joe refused he was savagely murdered. The atrocity happened during the evening rush hour on a crowded platform. Though there were hundreds of people on the platform, no-one interfered – perhaps because many people do not notice what is happening around them on a crowded, noisy and busy platform where passengers are rushing to catch their trains.
Joe’s murderers escaped and have not yet been traced.The police say they are looking for two youths aged between 16 and 18 years old. Joe’s murder has shocked the Belgians. For an entire week the police, the authorities and most of the media have tried to downplay the fact that the killers are Muslim youths. Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt and Cardinal Godfried Danneels addressed the indignation, but gave it a spin of their own. How was it possible for such an atrocity to take place in a crowd with no-one interfering, they asked. Both Verhofstadt and Danneels said that Joe was a victim of “indifference in Belgian society.” “Where were you last Wednesday at 4 pm?!” the Cardinal asked the congration in Brussels Cathedral during his Easter sermon on Sunday. The Cardinal blamed the murder on the materialism and greed of Western society “where people get killed for an MP3 player.” ...
Jean-Marie Dedecker, a senator for Verhofstadt’s Liberal Party, writes in an op-ed article today that the first thing the police officers who investigated the murder wanted to know was whether Joe had made “racist remarks” whilst refusing to hand over his MP3 player."

"Sienna Miller Is Targeted By Islamic Extremists" (Lowri Williams, Entertainmentwise, 2006/04/19)
"British actress Sienna Miller has been targeted by Islamic extremists after agreeing to star in the remake of Theo Van Gogh’s film ‘Submission’. [Note: It's rather a remake of his thriller "Interview" from 2003.]
Since signing up for the film Miller has received threatening letters warning her to pull out of the film.
Theo Van Gogh was brutally murdered in 2004 after his 2003 version of ‘Submission’ sparked anger in some sectors of Islamic society.
However, Miller is determined not to let the letter get to her. An insider told the Daily Star: “Sienna refuses to give into these threats.
“The people behind them represent everything she abhors. The film hasn’t got anything to do with Islam.
“Sienna play’s America’s most popular soap actress who strikes up a romance with a fading political journalist.
“But because it’s being made as a tribute to Theo, the Islamic fundamentalists have hit the roof.
'She was scared to begin with. But her co-star Steve (Buscemi) has been receiving similar letters, so they’ve been supporting each other and laughing about it.'"

"Iranian group seeks British suicide bombers" (Robert Tait in Tehran and Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian, 2006/04/18)
"Relations between the west and the hardline Iranian regime are set to worsen after a Tehran-based group claimed yesterday it was trying to recruit Iranians and other Muslims in Britain to carry out suicide bombings against Israel.
The Committee for the Commemoration of Martyrs of the Global Islamic Campaign, which claims to be independent but has the backing of the regime, said it is targeting potential recruits in Britain because of the relative ease with which UK passport-holders can enter Israel.
The claim came hours after nine people were killed by a suicide bomber in Tel Aviv, and days after a prediction by the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that Israel would be blown away in a "storm". President George Bush refused to rule out a limited nuclear strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Mohammad Samadi, a spokesman for the group, told the Guardian that striking at Israel was the priority of his recruitment drive. "The first target is Israel. For us, that is the battlefield," he said. "All the Jews are targets, whether military or civilian. It's our land and they are in the wrong place. It's their duty to pay attention to safety of their own families and move them away from the battlefield," he said."

Added in archive:
"Miss Iraq goes into hiding from militants" (AP/MSNBC, 2006/04/12)

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

News and commentary:

"Crisis in Europe" (Bruce Bawer, The Hudson Review/FrontPage Magazine, 2006/04/18)
"My learning curve was steep. When I look back, it's as if one day the whole business wasn't even on my radar screen, and the next day I understood that it was the most important issue of our time.
It happened in Amsterdam, a city I flipped for in 1997 and moved to a year later. But it wasn't till 1999, when I lived briefly in a predominantly Muslim neighborhood, that I took in the fact that the city was divided into two radically different and almost entirely separate communities. One of them, composed mostly of ethnic Dutchmen, was secular, liberal, and (owing to a very low birthrate) dwindling steadily; the other, composed of immigrant Muslims, lived in tradition-bound, self-segregating enclaves whose autocratic leaders despised democracy and whose population (thanks to high birth and immigration rates) was climbing rapidly. This division, I soon realized, was replicated across Western Europe. Clearly, major social friction-and more-lay down the line.
Yet nobody talked about it. Or wanted to." (See also [PDF]: "Crisis in Europe" (Bruce Bawer, The Hudson Review, Winter 2006))

"Al-Arian admits ties to jihad group" (Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch, 2006/04/18)
"Rumpled Academic Update -- possibly one of the last. "The plea deal: USF professor Al-Arian admits ties to terror group," from the Orlando Sentinel, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

Details of Sami Al-Arian's plea agreement emerged Monday after a federal judge unsealed documents related to hearings held last week out of public view.

In it, the fired University of South Florida professor admits being a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and helping others associated with the terrorist group -- including his deported brother-in-law Mazen Al-Najjar -- in immigration matters and lying to conceal their ties.

All the talking heads who have assured us all along that Al-Arian had nothing to do with Islamic Jihad should be issued sandwich boards reading "Al-Arian Admits to Being A Member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad" and made to wear them during their next five media appearances." (See also: "The plea deal: USF professor Al-Arian admits ties to terror group" (Pedro Ruz Gutierrez, Orlando Sentinel, 2006/04/18))

"Egypt's grand mufti issues fatwa: no sculpture" (Ursula Lindsey, The Christian Science Monitor, 2006/04/18)
"CAIRO - More than 1,300 years after the Muslim conquest swept through Egypt, one of the country's highest religious authorities has declared that its ancient sculptures are forbidden by Islam.
In his fatwa - or religious ruling - issued earlier this month, Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa quoted a saying of the prophet Muhammad that sculptors will be among those receiving the harshest punishment on Judgment Day.
Artists and intellectuals here say the edict, whose ban on producing and displaying sculptures overturns a century-old fatwa, runs counter to Islam. They also worry that extremists may use the ruling as a pretense for destroying Egypt's ancient relics, which form a pillar of the country's multibillion-dollar tourist industry. ...
Egypt is dotted with millennia worth of Pharaonic antiquities. Mohsen Said, of the country's Supreme Council for Antiquities, says, "We display statues so they can be studied and so people can get to know their heritage. This is Egypt's national heritage. We don't display them for worship."
But while artists and intellectuals called the Gomaa's ruling against sculptures "ridiculous" and "a return to the dark ages," several prominent sheikhs supported the mufti.
The influential Sheikh Youssef Al Qaradawi agreed that "Islam prohibits statues and three-dimensional figures of living creatures" and concluded that 'the statues of ancient Egyptians are prohibited.'" (See also: "Fatwa against statues triggers uproar in Egypt" (AFP/Khaleej Times, 2006/04/03))

"Egyptian editorial lauds suicide bomb" (AP/The Jerusalem Post, 2006/04/18)
Tel Aviv IV: "An Egyptian state-controlled newspaper praised Monday's suicide attack in Tel Aviv, which killed nine people and wounded dozens, calling it an act of sacrifice and martyrdom.
Egypt has always taken pains to condemn the violence by both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is exceptional for one of the country's three biggest newspapers, whose editor is effectively appointed by President Hosni Mubarak, to endorse a Palestinian attack on Israeli civilians.
"It is not required of the Palestinian people that they raise their hands in surrender, accept the daily Israeli attacks and watch waves of settlers occupy their land and build settlements," wrote Al Gomhuria in an editorial of its Tuesday edition.
"It is not required of the Palestinian people that they clap Israel and its allies while they mobilize the whole world to besiege the heroic [Palestinian] people ... because they have chosen Hamas," the editorial said, referring to the United States and European Union's cutting off funds to the Palestinian Authority because its Hamas government refuses to renounce violence.
"For all that, the sacrificial and martyrdom attack occurred in the heart of Tel Aviv, and there will be more later," the daily warned. In the Islamic faith, a martyr goes to heaven."

Monday, April 17, 2006

News and commentary:

"Olmert: 'We will know how to respond, we know what to do'" (The Jerusalem Post, 2006/04/17)
Tel Aviv III: "The new Hamas-led PA government called the suicide bombing a legitimate response to Israeli "aggression."
"We think that this operation ... is a direct result of the policy of the occupation and the brutal agression and siege committed against our people," said Khaled Abu Helal, spokesman for the Interior Ministry.
Earlier, Moussa abu Marzouk, a Hamas leader abroad, told Al-Jazeera television that 'the Israeli side must feel what the Palestinian feels, and the Palestinian defends himself as much as he can.'"

"Suicide Bombings Since Truce" (AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/04/17)
Tel Aviv II: "Palestinian militants have carried out nine suicide attacks in Israel and the
West Bank since a Feb. 8, 2005, truce declaration. All but one attack have been carried out by Islamic Jihad, a violent group with close ties to Iran:
• April 17, 2006: A bomber blows himself up at a Tel Aviv restaurant targeted previously, killing eight other people.
• March 30, 2006: A bomber disguised as a Jewish hitchhiker blows himself up in a car outside a West Bank settlement, killing four Israelis who stopped to pick him up. The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a violent offshoot of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas'
Fatah Party, claims responsibility.
• Jan. 19, 2006: A bomber disguised as a peddler blows himself up at a Tel Aviv felafel restaurant, wounding 20 people.
• Dec. 29, 2005: A bomber explodes at an Israeli army checkpoint in the West Bank, killing an Israeli soldier and two Palestinians.
• Dec. 5, 2005: A bomber blows himself up at a shopping mall in the coastal town of Netanya, killing five.
• Oct. 26, 2005: A bomber blows himself up in Hadera at a food stand, killing five.
• Aug. 28, 2005: A bomber blows himself up in the southern city of Beersheba, killing only himself.
• July 12, 2005: A bomber blows himself up outside a shopping mall in Netanya, killing five.
• Feb. 25, 2005: In the first attack after a truce is declared, a bomber blows himself up near a Tel Aviv nightclub, killing four."

"Suicide Bomber Kills 6 in Tel Aviv" (Daniel Robinson, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/04/17)
Tel Aviv I: "A Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up outside a fast-food restaurant in a bustling commercial area of Tel Aviv during the Passover holiday Monday, killing himself and six other people and wounding at least 35, police said.
A security guard posted outside the restaurant, the target of a previous suicide bombing earlier this year, prevented the latest bomber from entering the building, police said.
It was the first suicide attack in Israel since the Hamas militant group took over the Palestinian government 2 1/2 weeks ago.
The Islamic Jihad militant group claimed responsibility in a telephone call to The Associated Press. The attack came a day after the group had pledged to carry out more attacks. ...
The bomber struck a falafel restaurant targeted in an attack on Jan. 19 that wounded 20 people. The restaurant is in the bustling Neve Shaanan neighborhood near Tel Aviv's central bus station, which was crowded with holiday travelers."

"Haunted by Hussein, humbled by events" (Robert D. Kaplan, Los Angeles Times, 2006/04/17)
"It is not pleasant to be humbled by events. The failure thus far to secure Iraq raises the issue — despite the incompetence of the administration — of whether the invasion was a flawed idea to begin with. The argument will go on for years.
As for myself, because of the way the WMD argument intersected with the humanitarian one — buttressed, in turn, by my own memories of Iraq — there was never any chance that I would not have supported the war. Because Hussein's misrule was beyond normal dictatorship, even someone like me, skeptical about spreading democracy, felt it justified to remove him.
The way to avoid tragedy is to think tragically. Those who invaded the Balkans spoke in idealistic terms about the peoples there, but they generally executed their plans as if they also knew the worst about them. Those whose task it was to plan the invasion and occupation of Iraq not only spoke in idealistic terms about the Iraqis, they apparently believed their own rhetoric to the exclusion of other, more troubling realities.
We are not at the end of things in Iraq. Worse, we are in the middle of them. A national unity government will be a bunch of men in bad suits without institutions at their disposal, save for the United States military.
My most recent searing, first-hand impression of Iraq, from last December, is this one: one town and village after another getting back on its feet, with residents telling American troops not to leave."

Added in archive:
"Today Tehran, Tomorrow the World" (Charles Krauthammer, TIME, 2006/03/26)
"Facing down a culture where they talk like crazies" (Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun-Times, 2006/03/26)

See the archive for earlier news and commentary.

 

 

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"When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent. The term is not a slur; it is a technical label."

Jacques Barzun

Articles of the week

"Losing the Enlightenment" (Victor Davis Hanson, OpinionJournal, 2006/11/29)

"Allah’s England?" (Daniel Johnson, Commentary. November 2006)

"'Sex in the Park': The latest doings of the Danish imams" (Henrik Bering, The Weekly Standard, 2006/11/18)

"Narcissism on Stilts" (Harold Evans, New York Sun, 2006/11/16)

"Terrorists are recruiting in our schools, says MI5 boss" (Philip Johnston, The Daily Telegraph, 2006/11/10)

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From the archives

Oriana Fallaci, R.I.P.

"The Rage, the Pride and the Doubt" (Oriana Fallaci, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/03/13)

"How the West Was Won and How It Will Be Lost" (Oriana Fallaci, The American Enterprise, from the January/February 2003 issue)

"On Jew-hatred in Europe" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2002/04/13)

"Anger and Pride" (Oriana Fallaci, dennisprager.com, 2001/12/19)

Weekly archive

2006/12/04 - 2006/12/10
2006/11/27 - 2006/12/03
2006/11/20 - 2006/11/26
2006/11/13 - 2006/11/19
2006/11/06 - 2006/11/12
2006/10/30 - 2006/11/05

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› Kagan, Robert - Ye'or, Bat



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