From Carl in J’lem

Believe it or not, there are Israelis who still don’t get it. Unfortunately, many of them are members of our mainstream media.

An ‘art exhibit’ that featured female ‘Palestinian’ suicide bombers dressed as Medieval portraits of the Virgin Marry and holding Baby Jesus (see sample picture at top left) was quickly taken down on Thursday after relatives of terror victims arrived to protest. The exhibit was originally put up at Sokolov House in Tel Aviv, the headquarters of Israel’s press association. Why it never occurred to the members of that ‘august’ body that someone might be offended by such an exhibit in Israel is simply beyond me. And the ‘artists’ who prepared this travesty and continued to defend it – two women named Galina Bleich and Lilia Check – are simply beneath contempt.

Why are the pictures offensive? Even ABC seems to get it.

Across the divide in Palestinian circles the bombers are often depicted as tragic martyrs driven to their desperate actions by forces beyond their control.

If Ms. Bleich and Ms. Check had created a picture of Mohamed Atta nailed to the cross, and put 9/11 statistics on the card showing it, would Americans have been offended? You bet. And you can bet that they wouldn’t have dared to do that to Americans.

So why do they feel free to do it to Israelis? And why is our mainstream media so callous as to allow this sort of exhibit in their headquarters?

We have a national sickness.

Links:

• Obama: Settlements are bad, blah…blah…blah…
• Mayor of London calls for a day of fasting to ‘help understand Muslims’
• Scottish Islamic Foundation Appeals for Money
• Prague: anti-Mosque demonstration fizzles
• Stalinist recanting by an Iranian blogger
• Yemeni Liberal Criticizes Appointment of Dalia Mogahed as Obama’s Advisor on Islam
• Canada to Extradite Killer of Arizona ‘Heretic’…

* Apologies are in order, but how did Brackman get to deposit his turd in the AGE in the first place?

* Latest update: Jews consider legal action over ‘racist’ article in The Age

Brackman: a disciple of Mahatir Mohammed or just another Jew-hating Asshole?

Tim Blair – Tuesday, January 20, 09 (11:47 am)

The Age apologises: 

The editorial team at The Age has offered an unreserved apology to the Jewish community for the controversial Michael Backman column that appeared in last Saturday’s newspaper.

A formal apology appeared on page two of Tuesday’s edition (January 20) of the newspaper, with The Age editor Paul Ramadge telling The AJN that the anti-Semitic views expressed by Backman “have no place at The Age. We completely reject his views”.

* The terrorist supporting AGE provides a forum for Mamduh Habib and “Gitmo Torture”

* Did the New Yawk Slimes find a buyer?

“We fully accept that the article has caused hurt and distress to the Jewish community and we apologise without reservation,” he said.

Ramadge said the story was published while he and other senior editors were on leave.

“We have a different crew editing the paper during the holiday period,” he said.

Ramadge would not comment on whether any Age employees would lose their jobs over the publication of the story, but did admit that more than one Age staffer were guilty of “errors of judgement”.

“We have taken steps to ensure that this sort of thing doesn’t happen again,” he said, adding that the staffer was being dealt with internally. 

Sounds like the dreaded counselling. No word yet from Backman himself. 

Tim Blair previously:

Age columnist Michael Backman: “The world’s Muslims have no head …”

Australian writer Caroline Overington: “Actually, it’s Daniel Pearl who has no head, but go on Mr Backman …” 

Caroline Overington shakes Brackman out of his tree in The Australian:

The Jews are to blame

UPDATE III: The Age apologises: 

A column by Michael Backman headlined “Israel living high on US expense account’’ was published in error.

The Age does not in any way endorse the views of the columnist, apologises for the distress the column caused to many readers, particularly in the Jewish community and regrets publication of the column.’

The item is on page two of the print edition.

UPDATE II: There are some who say that Michael Backman’s column, in which he blames Israel for the World Trade Centre attacks and the Bali bombings; and says that young Israelis quibble over small amounts of cash,isn’t anti-semetism. It’s free speech. Alive to that idea, here’s the Backman piece again, with word “Israel’’ replaced by free-floating words like “Arabic’’ and “Muslim’’ and “Islamic”:

THERE’S a memorable scene in the Stephen Spielberg film ‘Schindler’s List’. After the German invasion of Poland, the fuhrer, Adolf Hilter, tells confidants he wants to show the plotters that killing Jews ”is cheap as chips.”

But enough about Hitler .. what about Arabs?

The Muslim world’s utter inability to transform the West from enemies into friends has imposed big costs on us all: bombs on London public transport, bombs in bars in Bali, and even the loss of the World Trade Centre towers in New York.

It is not true that these outrages have occurred because certain Islamic fundamentalists don’t like Western lifestyles and so plant bombs in response.

Rather, it is Muslims - or more correctly, Saudi Muslims - that is at the nub of these events.

….. (The reason) is that Muslims do NOT seem to feel for one another in a way that Christians and others do …

In this respect, the West is like a body: kick it in the leg and the rest of the body feels it. Kick it hard enough and the entire body will be energised to defend itself.

Pictures of distraught Jewish mothers beside the mutilated bodies of their children are circulating right now ….

Consider the United States. Every citizen of this outpost has printed in his or her passport that the passport is not valid for Muslims. And given that Americans are not allowed to hold dual citizenship, this essentially means that every Muslim person – including those who are not Saudis – is banned from visiting the United States.

“When will the US recognise Muslims?” I once asked the then finance minister. “Once Muslims treat the World Trade Centre with a little more respect” was his reply.

The enmity many in the West now feel for Arabs has nothing to do with religion.

Trekking in Nepal is fashionable among young Arabs.  So much so that many shops in Kathmandu and Pokhara have signs in Arabic. But 
once you get on the trekking circuit and speak with local Nepalese guides and guesthouse operators you soon discover how disliked the Arabs are … they say that the 
young Arabs are rude, arrogant, and smell strange, like they’ve wipe themselves with their left hand, instead of using toilet paper.

The Arabic world needs to change. The Parsees of India might provide a model. The Parsees are a very tiny, very rich ethnic and religious minority …. Violence against them is unthinkable.

How have they achieved this? They don’t fly aeroplanes into public buildings. Their overriding characteristic is a deep interest in the welfare of others. So the Parsees have peace and the Arabs do not.

UPDATE:: The Age has apparently pulled the vile piece.

ORIGINAL POST:

Are you wondering about the root cause of problems in the Middle East – no, scrap that … are you wondering what’s behind all the problems between Islamic fundamentalists and Westerners, right across the globe?

The Jews are to blame!

So says Michael Backman, in this opinion piece in The Age.

Some choice cuts …

Excuse me … Israel’s inability to transform the Palestinians into friends… ? Like, Palestinians want to be Israel’s BFF? (Then again, perhaps they do; they’re always sending things over.) But anyway, Israel’s refusal to take a missile as a hand of friendship in a cunning disguise …. 

It has? How so, Mr Backman?

Ah-hah! It was Jews that flew those planes into the towers, and carried those back packs onto London buses.  Who knew?

No. There is nothing Islamic fundamentalists like more than Western decadence.

Well, of course. Israel – that is, the Jews – are responsible for the death of thousands of people in the World Trade Centre and of footballers on holiday in Bali.

Mr Backman goes on to say that the Jews have managed to unite Muslims across the world in hatred of them:

Actually, it’s Daniel Pearl who has no head, but go on Mr Backman: 

Is that not a touch racist? Backman seems to be saying that all Muslims hate Israel, and support gross acts of terror.

Which is why no Western nation has ever gone to the aid of an ally in, say, a world war; why there are no links whatsoever between, say, Australia and the United States; or indeed England and the United States; none between the nations of Europe; none between Christians across the globe. 

Which can mean only one thing. More dead 15-year-old surfer girls in a bar in Kuta. 

No, of course not. If all the Jews of Israel were driven into the sea, terrorists would still be firing rockets into people’s homes and blowing up buses of others in Israel.

Besides, it isn’t the Jewishness of Jews that Muslims find offensive. No, it’s just that Jews are loathsome.

Because of Palestine? No:

This has nothing to do with religion or politics: rather, they say that the young Israelis are rude, arrogant, and argue over trifling amounts of money even though they clearly have means.

A-ha! See, it’s not because they are Jewish! It’s because they are money-hungry, penny-pinchers. 

Or else …what? More dead civilians in many distant cities?

Not violence against anybody else in Mumbai, however.

Unlike Jews, with their bling-bling and their stacks of gold that they never spend but sit and count. 

Well, actually no, as this article points out: 

But Backman goes on: 

And some people that hatred of Israel is a) justified and b) reason to kill; and some do not.

Andrew Bostom comments:

What rot and  just pure crude Jew hatred –He refers to the model “Parsees” ie. the Zoroastrians of Iran/Mesopatamia (Iraq) who were victimized by a brutal jihad genocide and Islamization of their indigenous homeland and escaped to live under tolerant Hindu rule. This is the “model” example? So the jihad is acceptable? But what if the Hindus had not prevailed in part of their homeland, against the same and other Muslim jihadists who completely vanqusihed the Zoroastrians? There would have been no tolerant environment for the “Parsees” to be living in. And Jews have also lived peaceably with Hindus for centuries as well. The problem isn’t Judaism, or Zoroastrianism, or Hinduism–it is Islam   

Nuff said…

Another update:

UPSET AND AMAZED

Tim Blair – Thursday, January 22, 09 (05:27 am)

*  From the Slime & Slander department:

* Islamo-shyster Yusuf Irfan describes himself as ‘illustrious and sensible’ and  -sort of- apologizes for the turds he constantly deposits on the doorsteps of people he doesn’t like hates:

*   Didn’t take long for Shem to produce another of his great cartoons…

         Irfan Yusuf Apologizes to Daniel Pipes 

September 17, 2008
http://www.meforum.org/press/1983

PHILADELPHIA – Irfan Yusuf and the Canberra Times have issued an apology to Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, concerning a defamatory article written by Yusuf.

* ”Muslim Weekly” Apologizes to Daniel Pipes for Tariq Ramadan defamation

* Canadian Islamic Congress apologizes to Daniel Pipes “without reservation”

On August 18, 2008, the Canberra Times, an Australian newspaper, published Yusuf’s “Justice the remedy required to help Bosnia heal.” In it, Yusuf mentioned a speech Mr. Pipes delivered to a dinner hosted by Quadrant magazine earlier this year which was subsequently published as “Europe or Eurabia?” in the Australiannewspaper. Yusuf incorrectly stated that in his speech, Mr. Pipes had

predicted Europe’s next Holocaust victims would be Muslim migrants. Frighteningly, Pipes suggested that Muslims thoroughly deserved such slaughter.

Upon receipt of Mr. Pipes’s protest against this sickening misrepresentation, Irfan Yusuf and the Canberra Times agreed to issue a public correction, retraction, and apology, which appeared in the newspaper’s print and online editions:

The Canberra Times and Irfan Yusuf accept that Mr Pipes never predicted nor has he ever endorsed a Holocaust of European Muslims, and they unreservedly apologise to him for the errors.

Freelance journalist Jeremy Lott commented sarcastically on this, what he called “soon-to-be-a-classic” apology:

So sorry about accusing you of wanting a second Holocaust, Mr. Pipes. It was an innocent mistake. We hope you understand.

In a more serious vein, Mr. Pipes responded that “Irfan Yusuf has a history of writing inaccurately about me, something I have already noted and corrected. His having embarrassed the Canberra Times should send a signal to responsible media everywhere to decline his tendentious writings.”

Brooke Goldstein, head of the MEF’s Legal Project, added that “It is unacceptable for a newspaper to publish defamatory lies about Dr. Pipes. It is encouraging, however, that the Canberra Times and Irfan Yusuf have acknowledged their error.”

For immediate release
For more information, contact Brooke Goldstein at Goldstein@MEForum.org

Apology from the Cranberry Times:

An opinion article published in The Canberra Times by Irfan Yusuf on August 18, ”Justice the remedy required to help Bosnia heal”, cited the US analyst Daniel Pipes as predicting that Europe’s next Holocaust victims would be Muslim migrants and it alleged that Mr Pipes suggested Muslims thoroughly deserved such slaughter. The Canberra Times and Irfan Yusuf accept that Mr Pipes never predicted nor has he ever endorsed a Holocaust of European Muslims, and they unreservedly apologise to him for the errors.