“Europe’s Muslim lobby is becoming increasingly assertive and skilled at pressuring European policy-makers into implementing countless pro-Islamic policies.”

Soeren Kern, Hudson New York

Europeans often fantasize about America’s so-called Jewish lobby, which they claim has a chokehold over American finance, media and politics and is responsible for all manner of conspiratorial evil. But few Europeans like to talk about the growing influence of Europe’s Muslim lobby, a conglomeration of hundreds of Muslim political and religious organizations — many of which are media-savvy mouthpieces for militant Islam that openly pursue anti-European, anti-Western and anti-Semitic agendas and often receive financial support from Islamic fundamentalist countries like Saudi Arabia.

In a Europe where Islam is the fastest-growing religion, and where the number of Muslims has tripled over the past 30 years, Europe’s Muslim lobby is becoming increasingly assertive and skilled at pressuring European policy-makers into implementing countless pro-Islamic policies, especially ones that institutionalize Islamic Sharia law. Muslim lobby groups are, in fact, transforming European society in ways unimaginable only a few years ago; critics say their ultimate goal is nothing less than the Islamification of Europe.

Some of the most effective Muslim lobby groups are located in Britain, home to one of the largest Muslim communities in Europe, and include organizations such as the Muslim Council of Britain [MCB], Britain’s largest Muslim umbrella body with around 500 affiliated national, regional and local organizations, mosques, charities and schools. It recently pressured the British government into adopting Islamic law and giving Sharia courts full powers to rule on Muslim civil cases.

The British government has quietly sanctioned the powers for Sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence. Whereas previously, the rulings of Sharia courts in Britain could not be enforced, and depended on voluntary compliance among Muslims, rulings issued by a network of five Sharia courts are now enforceable with the full power of the judicial system, through the county courts or High Court. Sharia courts with these powers have been set up in Birmingham, Bradford, London and Manchester and the network’s headquarters are located in Nuneaton, Warwickshire; and two more courts are being planned for Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Overall, at least 85 Islamic Sharia courts are now operating in Britain, almost 20 times as many as previously believed. A study by the Civitas think tank found that scores of unofficial tribunals and councils regularly apply Islamic law to resolve domestic, marital and business disputes, many operating in mosques. The study warns of a “creeping” acceptance of Sharia principles in British law.)

Although the MCB, which represents half of the country’s 3 million Muslims, presents itself as the moderate face of Islam in Britain, the group has its origins in the extreme orthodox politics of Pakistan. The MCB and some of its affiliates sympathize with, and have links to, conservative Islamist movements in the Muslim world, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood and Pakistan’s Jamaat-e-Islami, a radical party committed to the establishment of an Islamic state in Pakistan ruled by Sharia law.

Far from promoting moderate Islam, the MCB’s real objective, critics say, is to help Muslims in Britain become more radical in their beliefs.

Among other positions, the MCB believes death is the appropriate penalty for apostasy and homosexuality. The group recently endorsed a pro-Hamas declaration that calls for Jihad against Jews and Israel, and condones attacks on British troops. The MCB also regularly makes headlines for boycotting Holocaust Memorial Day ceremonies in Britain; it is also campaigning for the establishment of an alternative Genocide Memorial Day that will “incorporate similar tragedies.”

Another Muslim group, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee of the United Kingdom (MPACUK), has the outspoken aim of mobilizing Muslim voters to affect the outcome of British elections. During the general elections in 2010, MPACUK was pivotal in de-seating six members of parliament (MPs) who were perceived as being not sufficiently pro-Muslim.

During the 2005 general elections, MPACUK launched a smear campaign against Labour Party MP Lorna Fitzsimons. MPACUK distributed a leaflet claiming that Fitzsimons had done nothing to help the Palestiniansbecause she was Jewish. Another leaflet said: “Lorna Fitzsimons is an ardent Zionist and a member of the most powerful anti-Muslim lobby in the world, the Israel lobby.”

Fitzsimons is not in fact Jewish, and MPACUK later withdrew the leaflet. But MPACUK did succeed in unseating Fitzsimons; ever since then, many British MPs have been bending over backwards to appease Muslim voters.

MPACUK recently worked with Britain’s Channel 4 television to produce a documentary titled “Operation Muslim Vote.” With the aim of pressing for a larger participation of Muslims in British politics, the documentary tells the story of two MPACUK activists who head to northern England to take on the safe seats of several “pro-Zionist war mongering MPs.”

MPACUK’s website says its work is defined by the core principle of anti-Zionism: “MPACUK opposes the racist political ideology of Zionism and aims to counter the influence of the Zionist lobby. Openly available evidence demonstrates a Zionist agenda to dominate the Middle East and push a ‘clash of civilisations’ between Islam and ‘The West’. We therefore believe that anti-Zionism is a strategic priority to counter the greatest and most urgent threat facing the Ummah [the Muslim Diaspora].”

Its website also says Muslims in Britain should be pro-actively engaged in mainstream media and politics as the most effective way to “reviving the fard (obligation) of Jihad.”

Muslim lobby groups have also pressed the British government to enact the Racial and Religious Hatred Act, which creates a new crime: intentionally stirring up religious hatred against people on religious grounds. Predictably, the new law has established new limits on free speech in a country where the politically correct elite routinely seek to silence public discussion about the escalating problem of Muslim immigration.

The growing power of Europe’s Muslim lobby was most recently demonstrated by the European Union’s decision in mid-December to quietly abandon a new measure that would have required halal (religiously approved for Muslims) meat products to carry a label to help non-Muslim consumers identify their origins. With the exponential growth of Europe’s Muslim population, thousands of tons of religiously slaughtered halal meat is now entering the general food chain, where it is being unwittingly consumed by the non-Muslim population.

By bowing to Muslim pressure groups — such as the World Halal Forum Europe and the Halal Monitoring Committee — and dropping the halal labelling requirement, the EU is effectively establishing Sharia law as normative for Europe’s meat industry. The halal controversy, in which Muslim lobby groups are seeking to impose the requirements of Islam, not just on their own people, but also on the rest of society, illustrates how the rise of Islam is influencing the daily lives of hundreds of millions of non-Muslim Europeans.

In France, which has the second-largest Muslim population on the continent after Germany, several Muslim lobby groups are vying to represent the country’s estimated 4.1 million Muslims. The French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) serves as the official interlocutor with the French state in the regulation of Muslim religious activities, and as such it is the de facto representative of all French Muslims before the national government. The other main Muslim lobby groups are the Rally for French Muslims (RMF),backed by Morocco, and the Union of French Islamic Organisations (UOIF), close to the Muslim Brotherhood.

In Germany, home to Europe’s largest Muslim population in absolute terms, the powerful Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB), itself a branch of the Turkish government’s religious affairs authority, has succeeded in persuading the city of Cologne to approve the construction of a new mega mosque. The futuristic mosque will hold up to 4,000 worshippers, and will have a large dome and two 55-meter (180 feet) minarets, each as tall as 18-story office towers. The 4,500-square-meter (48,000-square-foot) mosque, which has a price tag of €20 million ($26 million), is being financed by donations from more than 800 Muslim groups inside and outside Germany. Critics of the project say the mosque is a deliberate effort to spoil Cologne’s skyline by taking attention away from the city’s Gothic cathedral, a globally famous Christian landmark.

In recent months, Muslim lobby groups have also persuaded the German government to adapt Germany’s secular education system so that it caters to Islamic preferences. The German Education Ministry has, for example, agreed to fund Islamic studies at several state universities to train Muslim prayer leaders and religion teachers. Germany’s Education Minister, Annette Schavan, says: “We want as many imams as possible to be educated in Germany. Imams are bridge builders between their congregations and the communities in which their mosques stand.” She states further that Germany would need 2,000 imams and teachers if all 16 states offered Islam courses.

Elsewhere in Germany, in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, Muslim lobby groups are working with the Culture Ministry to design Islam-friendly classes for public schools. The new guidelines recommend cancelling all school trips during the month of Ramadan; taking into account the sensitivities of Muslims when planning internships and school events; and assigning less schoolwork during Ramadan because fasting could lead to loss of performance and concentration among Muslim students.

In the German state of Lower Saxony, the German Muslim Central Council is urging the Education Ministry toinclude Islam in its schools’ core curriculum as part of a politically correct initiative to counter growing anti-Islam sentiments in the country. In Berlin, the Ministry for Education, Science and Research recently published a guide called “Islam and School,” which gives teachers practical advice on how to avoid offending Muslim students.

In Scandinavia, the Muslim Council of Sweden, an umbrella organization of Islamic groups in the country, is pressuring the Swedish government to implement special legislation for Muslims in Sweden. The demands include: the right to specific Islamic holidays; special public financing for the building of mosques; a demand that all divorces between Muslim couples be approved by an Imam; and that Imams should be allowed to teach Islam in public schools.

As Europe’s Muslim population grows, Muslim lobby groups are also exerting significant influence on European policy in the Middle East, resulting in a notable hardening of official European attitudes toward Israel. Several European countries, for instance, eager to maintain good relations with local Muslim communities, are laying the political groundwork for the EU to recognize a Palestinian state, possibly as early as October 2011,even if negotiations for a permanent settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are not concluded — a total abrogation of the UN’s signed Oslo accords.

In December 2009, the EU adopted a resolution that for the first time explicitly calls for Jerusalem to become the future capital of a Palestinian state. The move not only reflects the EU’s efforts to prejudge the outcome of issues reserved for permanent status negotiations, but in December 2010, an influential group of former EU leaders and officials published a letter urging the EU to implement sanctions against Israel.

Europe has also been “ground zero” for a series of anti-Israel lawsuits which exploit the legal principle of universal jurisdiction in order to harass current and former Israeli political and military leaders, with the twin aims of tying Israel’s hands against Palestinian terror and delegitimizing the Jewish state. Such “lawfare” is often aided and abetted by Muslim lobby groups in Europe by means of financial and logistical support.

The steady demonization of Israel by European officialdom is also affecting the European street, where the line between valid criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism is becoming dangerously blurred. A survey conducted by the University of Bielefeld, for example, shows that more than 50% of Germans equate Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians with Nazi treatment of the Jews, and that 68% of Germans say that Israel is waging a “war of extermination” against the Palestinian people. In terms of Europe as a whole, an official EU poll shows that the majority of Europeans regard Israel as the greatest threat to world peace.

Another report commissioned by the EU’s Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia (now called theEuropean Union Agency for Fundamental Rights) found that Muslim immigrants are largely responsible for the sharp increase in anti-Semitic violence in Europe.

Predictably, Muslim lobby groups pressured the EU into preventing that report from being released to the general public.

EUrabia Alert

The elimination of Western culture & civilization is  a done deal according to these documents from the planned Euromediterranean Process, of which few have heard.  In reality, this is the biggest treason in history – and the most intelligent, done by stealth, lying/concealment, demoralization, dechristianisation, and corruption.

Europe´s Death Certificate. Jordan Obtains “Advanced EU-Status”: EU´s 4 Freedoms Incl. Free Migration After Morocco. Egypt and Tunesia Next

Link to poster.

Summary: The EU is fully engaged in the delivery on its promise at the 6. Euromediterranean Foreign Ministers´ Conference in 2003 of the allocation of the EU’s 4 freedoms, including freedom of movement, into the EU. First the EU granted Morocco,  now Jordan these 4 freedoms – and the European Union announces that Egypt and Tunisia’s are next. The treaty with Jordan is the first within the framework of the ENP – the European Neighbourhood Policy. This article shows the contents of the agreement: It states to aim at strengthening the multilateral institutions of world governance! Moreover, the agreement will bring visa facilitation and promote the free circulation of people and workers between Jordan and the EU – Jordanians are to have equal social rights in the EU as native Europeans. It will coordinate their social security systems, it will strengthen the fight against terrorism and harmonize the judicial system in Jordan with that of the EU and incorporate  Jordan into the EUROPOL and CEPOL, and exchange judicial information and  promote cooperation between law enforcement authorities in general. It will increase exchanges of students and trainees and include many more Jordanian students in the Erasmus Mundus and Tempus programs. It will enhance the cultural cooperation and increase Jordan’s participation in relevant EU cultural cooperation programs. And much more. After 3 years negotiations will take place ”to lift cooperation to a higher level.”
All these actions in relation to the Muslim “partners” in connection with the alreadystealth, lies/concealment, demoralization, dechristianisation,  and corruption. This is the Luciferian New World Order, based on the Talmud.

“You are of your father the devil. There is no truth in him. For he is a liar, and the father of it.”  (John 8:44). To the Pharisees, the authors of  the Talmud, the foundation of the New World Order and here and here. Pres Obama´s media czar , Julius Genachowski is a Talmud Ace to secure “internet neutrality” – a la another Jew, Jay Rockefeller?

We were never told about the Euromediterranean Process and here. And when I asked ministers and MPs for an explanation, any comment was refused. A 2 MEPs of the Danish People´s party flattened the problem so obstinately that it was very suspicious. Our bought and here media has entirely concealed it, the most cowardly way of lying, since it costs us our independence and even our souls  – and very few ever heard of it. Nevertheless it is the death certificate of Europe. The Euromediterranean is the biggest lie in history alongside with the global warming lie.

Without any ado, without our media having told us about it, the EU has as of 26 Oct. 2010 granted Jordan an “advanced status” according to its promise to the then 10 “partner countries” at the 6. Euromediterranean Foreign Ministers´Conference in Naples on 2–3 Dec. 2003 of having The EU´s 4 Freedoms , incl. free movement for their citizens in the Euromed. area. The only condition was progress as for democracy and economy.   Free movement of persons is so important  that  i.a. for this reason the EU is now threatening Switzerland, which has tightened her immigration rules. On 13 July 2010 the equally silenced Union for The Mediterranean and here with a parliament of its own and a secretariat was proclaimed for all countries on the Mediterranean coasts except Libya incl. all EU members. This enormous organisation is largely unknown, since it is a piece in the puzzle to create the world state consisting of an re-awakening Rockefeller plan about a North American Union, the Union for the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf and the ASEAN + 3 (China, Japan, Australia).  That is why the EU passionately supports a UN Parliamentary Assembly, a World Parliament. And that is why Iran has to be subdued somehow. The below ENP Action Plan clearly mentions “global governance” as the aim – as also stated by EU President, the Bilderberger puppet, van Rompuy.

EU Press Release 6 Dec. 2010: We have agreed on an “advanced status” for Morocco, a country that has made a clear choice to modernise and to strengthen relations with the EU. With Jordan, we have concluded a new “advanced status” Action Plan, and we are discussing similar arrangements with other neighbours, such as Egypt and Tunisia.
However, the Union for the Mediterranean  has not brought about the degree of progress we had hoped for in our neighbourhood – especially concerning democracy, rule of law and respect for human rights. Both EU Member States and partner countries want stronger relations based on high level political co-operation and deeper economic integration. Civil society organizations are also very supportive of the ENP as a tool to advance shared values and good governance. We develop a framework in which our expectations of partners are spelled out more clearly, as are the “rewards” that our partners will obtain if those expectations are met. Kommentar: Here is Morocco´s Action Plan. Not even that Morocco is breaking the premises of this advanced status is being mentioned in the media. The EU is now fulfilling its promises by granting its “partners” (in the New World Order – see videos on right margin of this blog)  “advanced status” one by one! The foundation of this New World Order project is the Barcelona Declaration from 1995.

EU Press Release 26 Oct. 2010: On the occasion of the ninth EU-Jordan Association Council‘s meeting of 26 October 2010, the first ever European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) Action Plan incorporating the “advanced status” partnership was agreed by the two parties.
“Jordan has become an increasingly significant player, a regional actor and a key interlocutor for the European Union in the Middle East,” stated Catherine Ashton, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the European Commission.

The “advanced status” partnership will be based on the overarching objective of promoting peace, stability and prosperity in the EU neighbourhood. The advanced status is building on the core values Jordan and the EU share, i.e. the rule of law, good governance and the respect for human rights.

The “advanced status” partnership further expanded the areas of cooperation between Jordan and the EU opening up new opportunities in economic and trade relations via a progressive liberalisation in services and the right of establishment, facilitation of market access, progressive regulatory convergence and preparations of future negotiations on a deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement, as well as reinforced cooperation with certain European agencies and programmes. More EU information here.
The Jordan Times 28 Oct. 2010: Jordan and the European Union on Tuesday agreed on the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) Action Plan, under which the Kingdom enters into an “advanced status” partnership with the supranational institution. “This is a great achievement for Jordanian diplomacy. Jordan is the second Arab country to obtain advanced status after Morocco,” Minister of Industry and Trade Amer Hadidi told The Jordan Times yesterday, calling on the business sector to take advantage of the opportunities the agreement presents.

ENP Action Plan for Jordan – an excerpt
After three years, decisions by Jordan and the EU may be taken on the next step in the development of bilateral relations, including the possibility of new contractual links.
“Effective management of migratory flows and facilitation of movement of persons in conformity with the acquis, in particular examine the scope for visa facilitation for short stay for some categories of persons to be defined jointly.”Implement the Jordanian Sustainable Development Strategy, and implement the government’s strategy to reduce poverty • Develop the transport, energy and information society sectors and networks through sector liberalisation, investment in infrastructures and interconnection with EU networks. Notice in particular the marked texts: (28), (40), (41), (46), (48), (63), (64), (65): These taken together with the many other agreements mean mortal danger to Europe´s stability, prosperity and cultural survival.
Quite clearly global governance is mentioned as the aim.

Comment
As I see it these Action Plans with  the EU are the New  World Order´s death certificates for the European nation states, their cultures and religion. It is a silent liquidation, people seeing it happening under their very eyes – but still they don´t grasp what is actually going on. It is high treason in the usual sense of the word – but like good and evil, right and wrong, truth and lies, all other concepts in the New World Order adopt meanings twisted 180 degrees to what we are accustomed to – so all of a sudden traditional European values are treacherous – to the New World Order antivalues.

The Action Plans open up for a flood of citizens from the “partner Countries”. Now from 1 Jan. 2011, Muslims from the “partner” countries Bosnia-Herzegovina and Albania will have visa-free travel into the Schengen zone. And guess where they will go? Well, where the social offers for them are the best, of course. So, a migration is about to take place, 1.3 mio Albanians having applied for passports into the EU, And as the “partners” south and east of the Mediterranean also obtain free access, native Europeans will soon be a minority, which has to keep all those “partners”  alive, for the immigrant master race does not work – according to one of their imams. Native Europeans will become slaves or hunted game – unless they convert to Islam, as anywhere where the Muslims have taken power in previously Christian lands.  They occupied 30% of our state  budgets in Denmark and Sweden in 2001.

Well, that does not concern the decadent native Europeans. The Euromediterranean Process is considered just an insignificant thing by the few who even heard of it. In reality, this is the biggest treason in history – and the most intelligent, done by stealth, lying/concealment, demoralization, dechristianisation, and corruption. This is truly Luciferian.

APPENDIX to the ENP Action Plan for Jordan
Promote the stability and effectiveness of institutions strengthening democracy and the rule of law including good governance and transparency.
Further enhancement of the independence and impartiality of the judiciary, upgrade its quality and strengthen its administrative capacity.
Support the freedom of the media and strengthening freedom of expression
Ensure respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms in line with Jordan’s international commitments
Promote Equal Treatment of women.
Promotion of fundamental social rights and core labour standards
Develop an enhanced political dialogue and regular exchange of information on Common Foreign Security and Defence Policy (CFSP) and European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). – Work with the EU to make multilateral institutions and conventions more effective, so as to reinforce global governance
Combating terrorism.
Continue progress in the establishment of fully functioning market economy through structural reforms.
Promote investment in Jordan
Promotion of sustainable development
Liberalisation of trade in goods
Facilitate market access of industrial products.– Implement the Palermo Action Plan for the Free Movement of Industrial Products approved by the July 2003 Euro-Mediterranean Conference of Trade Ministers.
Remove obstacles to the establishment and operation of companies.
Gradual abolition of restrictions on supply of services.
Development of financial services.
Further development of capital markets. Liberalisation of Payments, Capital Movements
(28) Facilitate the movement and integration of workers. – Equality of treatment of Jordanian and Community workers nationals who are legally residing and working in the territory of the Community or Jordan, elimination of discrimination.
– Coordination of social security schemes.
Develop the conditions to enable competition between the EU and Jordan companies and among Jordanian companies.
Establish implementing rules on competition, including in particular a consultation mechanism.
(40) Management of migratory flows and prevention of illegal migration – Dialogue on asylum issues. – Exchange of information on migration issues (entry and stay, integration) and illegal migration – Discussion on the possibility of co-operation on transit migration.
(41) Start and develop dialogue in visa issues– Develop visa co-operation, including the possible adaptation of visa systems, the visa and travel documents issuing procedure including their security. – In order to facilitate the circulation of persons, examine within the context of existing structures, de possibilities of facilitation visa issuing (simplified and accelerated procedures in conformity with the acquis)
Reinforce the fight against drugs
Develop co-operation in the fight against money laundering
(46) Develop co-operation between Jordan and EU Member States judicial and law enforcement authorities – Implement relevant international conventions and, where already ratified, start developing national legislation for their implementation
– Exchange of information between EU, EU Member states and Jordanian law enforcement agencies, including on matters related to the International Criminal Court. – Co-operation in the field of police training between Jordanian and European police academies and colleges, as well as with CEPOL – Explore the possibilities for co-operation between Jordan and EUROPOL (European Police Office).
(48) Strengthening cooperation to combat terrorism – Develop cooperation to strengthen the fight against the financing of terrorism in line with the standards laid down in the FATF recommendations on terrorism financing. – Develop cooperation between law enforcement agencies to combat terrorism. – Develop judicial cooperation in the context of combating terrorism.
Take steps to adopt an updated overall energy policy converging towards EU energy policy objectives.
Progress on energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources.
Take steps to ensure that conditions for good environmental governance are set and start implementing them.
(63) Reform and upgrade the education and training systems and work; within the framework of the Jordanian national programme, towards convergence with EU standards and practice. – Encourage the participation in the Erasmus Mundus programme.
(64) Enhance co-operation in the field of education, training and youth – Establish a policy dialogue between EU and Jordanian authorities in the field of education and training – Explore the possibility of extending co-operation in the areas of school education, vocational education and training through the possible extension of the TEMPUS programme. – Increase links among Jordanian educational institutions and with the EU – Enhance youth exchanges and co-operation in the field of non-formal education and intercultural dialogue.
(65) Enhance cultural co-operation – Enhance Jordan’s participation in the relevant EC cultural co-operation programmes.
Increase the level of health security, health information and knowledge.
Communicable Disease Surveillance and Health Security (Epidemiological Surveillance and Control).

Egyptian Cleric Salem Abu Al-Futuh: We Will Conquer Italy and the Rest of Europe, as Well as North and South America; The West Will Convert to Islam

MEMRI

The world belongs to Allah! Move over, filthy  kaffirs, submit or pay the jiziya……….

Following are excerpts from an interview with Egyptian cleric Salem Abu Al-Futuh, which aired on Al-Nas TV on August 18, 2010:

Salem Abu Al-Futuh: The nation of Islam will return – despite our current crisis and despite the arrogance of the West. The West is bound to be destroyed. Just like Allah destroyed the Byzantine and Persian empires, He will destroy the West at the hands of the Muslims. This is an unequivocal promise. These countries will convert to Islam. Islam will reach these countries.

[...]

Let us examine the divine sequence: First, the Caliphate will return. Then, the Muslims will live in tremendous prosperity. The economy of the Muslims will be the strongest of all. You are probably thinking that I’m not well today if I say such things. By God, there’s nothing wrong with me. I am speaking words of truth.

[...]

Great conquests will ensue. We will conquer Italy.

[...]

By Allah, we will conquer Italy. By Allah, we will conquer Italy and move into [the rest] of Europe. Islam will enter that entire region. Even America, you ask? Yes, even America. North or south America? Both North and South America. We will enter all these countries, and people there will be joining Islam in droves.

Emigration Up, Birth Rate Down

Graying Germany Contemplates Demographic Time Bomb

No, there is nothing in the Koran that obliges the fast breeding soldiers of Allah to pay the pensions of aging EUro-dhimmies…..

Germany is already facing a demographic nightmare as birth rates fall despite a slew of family-friendly policies. Now, new statistics show that more people are leaving the country than immigrating — adding to concerns about the country’s shrinking population. more from SPIEGEL…

We’re too broke to be this stupid

STEYN:

Beleaguered taxpayers may finally put a stop to the sheer waste of government spending

Back in 2008, when I was fulminating against multiculturalism on a more or less weekly basis, a reader wrote to advise me to lighten up, on the grounds that “we’re rich enough to afford to be stupid.”

Two years later, we’re a lot less rich. In fact, many Western nations are, in any objective sense, insolvent. Hence last week’s column, on the EU’s decision to toss a trillion dollars into the great sucking maw of Greece’s public-sector kleptocracy. It no longer matters whether you’re intellectually in favour of European-style social democracy: simply as a practical matter, it’s unaffordable.  Mark Steyn has more>>

“Is Europe Turning Japanese?”

You Should Be So Lucky   [Mark Steyn]

I found this an arresting headline – “Is Europe Turning Japanese?” – but a goofy opening paragraph:

The dismal growth prospects of many European countries has raised an increasing number of questions about whether large parts of the continent will emulate Japan of the 1990s and endure a decade-long economic stagnation. On the face of it, a long-lasting Japan-style post-bubble slump with deflation seems a plausible outcome for a large part of the continent.

For a start, Europe’s would be a no-bubble slump – and, as for “decade-long economic stagnation”, you should be so lucky. Japan isn’t in a “slump”, it’s in long-term decline. In my book, I recalled the days of hysteria about how “the yellow peril was annexing America and pretty soon they’d be speaking Japanese down at the shopping mall”:

It didn’t happen and it’s never going to happen. In the Nineties, I tended to accept the experts’ line that Japan’s rising sun had gone into eclipse because its economywas riddled with protectionism, cronyism and inefficient special-interest groups. But so what? You could have said the same in the Sixties and Seventies, when the joint was jumping. The only real structural difference between Japan then and Japan now is that the yellow peril got a lot wrinklier. What happened in the 1990s was what Yamada Masahiro of Tokyo’s Gakugei University calls the first “low birth-rate recession”. It’s not the economy, stupid. It’s the stupidity, economists – the stupidity of thinking you can ignore demography.

In that sense, Europe isn’t “turning Japanese”; it’s halfway there. In 1950 in Greece, one retiree was supported by roughly eight workers; by 2030, that ratio will decline to the point where one retiree will have to be supported by a mere two workers. That’s according to the official OECD figures. But the OECD defines “retiree” as “64 and over”, and workers as 20-64. And nobody in Greece works till 64. Hairdressers retire at 50 because it’s categorized as a “hazardous profession”. So realistically the worker/retiree ratio is probably heading for something closer to one-to-one-and-a-half. And, once that math becomes widely known, at least one of that one-and-a-half is gonna get the hell out rather than throw away his working life in a vain attempt to prop up Andreas and Spirou’s lavish retirement home.

Oh, but don’t worry about Greece. It’s being bailed out by Germany – a nation with marginally less insane social programs but just as fatal demographics. Here’s the way to look at it: How many banks would lend money to nonagenarians living beyond their means and riddled with lung cancer, heart disease and tertiary syphilis? That’s the EU bailout.

Europe’s War on Free Speech

Its not only Europe that is pandering to the OIC: the Obama czars are working overtime to re-introduce the “fairness doctrine” and there is a whole lot of new “hate-speech” laws about to be introduced that would criminalize criticism of Islam. In case you don’t know it yet, the Obama-bastards are also out to get control over the internet, the last bastion of free speech: Obama Plans Internet Grab: FCC to Embrace ‘Net Neutrality’

Thanks to the Gates of Vienna

Below is a report by Dale Hurd of CBN News about the suppression of free speech in Europe. Thanks to the Islamization of Europe and the influence of the OIC, “defamation of religion” laws work in one direction only: in favor of Muslims and against everyone else.

Lars Hedegaard of the International Free Press Society and Geert Wilders — two people who are already well-known to Gates of Vienna readers — are prominently featured in this video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWddn81Rfc0[/youtube]

Jihad Links:

• “Bawer argues that Europe is currently falling victim to a ‘silent Jihad,’ a hidden holy war perpetrated by radical Islamists on Western, social-democratic values”

• Egyptian would-be burner of Jewish books, defeated in bid to head UNESCO, whines — and blames the Jews, of course

Note to readers:

Apologies for slow blogging. We are changing providers and  that always causes problems. We shall be back to normal within a few days, hopefully…

‘Muslim immigration: the most radical change in European history’

“Christopher Caldwell is a mild-mannered Financial Times journalist who over the past decade has covered continental Europe (France especially) and its relationship with Islam in particular.

“That Caldwell is so mainstream, well-respected and analytical makes his conclusion all the more devastating – that the mass migration of Africans and Asians into Europe since the Second World War was an unprecedented, economically unnecessary and ill-thought-out plan that has had a profoundly negative impact on our way of life. Furthermore, he says, the mass importation of Muslims at a time when Europe has lost its own faith and Islam has developed a dangerous and powerful radicalism threatens the very freedom of Europe.

“… self-loathing was at the heart of the immigration experiment and later experiments in multiculturalism and political correctness; only a society so racked with self-hatred would have invited foreign labour in such numbers despite the economic benefits being so thin….

“Can Europe be the same? Clearly not. Can we reach some happy compromise that peacefully integrates such large communities and avoids the conflicts that have plagued such multi-cultural countries in the past? Probably not.

“Pim Fortuyn in Holland offered the best hope of a non-racist [sic!], liberal Europe that believed in itself; after his murder the future lies either with Nicolas Sarkozy, who believes in republican integration, or the likes of Geert Wilders, whose implacable hostility to Islam is increasingly shared across Europe.

“This is a fascinating, earth-shattering account of the most radical change in European history.”

Yet another adulatory review of Caldwell’s paranoid anti-Muslim tract, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, this one by Torygraph blogger Ed West in the Catholic Herald, 21 August 2009From the Bunglawussi blog…

Obama Gov’t Supports Islamic Terrorism:

DOJ reveals that Bush/CIA interrogators threatened KSM’s children; Holder to appoint special prosecutor

The Obama- bastards are on the side of our enemies…

• Obama’s Summer of Discontent By Fouad Ajami
• Bibi to Brits: “We’ve been building ‘settlements’ in Jerusalem for 3,000 years”
• Alinsky’s 12 Rules for Radicals explored by a conservative
• Human Rights Watch Can Never Be Viewed The Same Way Again
• Losing Ground Domestically, Obama Looks For A Big Win–Israel Better Look Out

ZIP Links:

• Pakistani Government Blatantly Lying to the World: Taliban Remain United After Baitullah Mehsud’s Death….
• Chechen Suicide Bomber Kills 4 Cops, Jihadist Leader Issues Death Fatwa Against Exiled Separatist Leader Living in Londonistan….
• Afghanistan: Allah’s Holy Warriors Celebrate Ramadan by Detonating Tanker Truck Packed With Explosives, 40 Killed….
• CIA: Severe Interrogation of KSM led to Arrest of al-Qaeda Operative in Ohio….
• Old and Busted: Taliban Beheading “Spies”- New and Hot: Blowing Them up…..

US gives more cash to Hamas

What’s that? It isn’t going to Hamas? See here and here.

Suicidal Short-Sightedness Update: “UNRWA assistance to Palestinian refugees from Iraq,” from ReliefWeb, August 23:

Official PA news agency: a Jewish state threatens all humanity

But all those Arab states full of jihadists? No problem!

“Humanity” for Arab-Muslims of course means Muslims only. Infidels or Jews need not apply…

They Sincerely Want Peace Update: “A Jewish state threatens all humanity: Official PA news agency,” by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook for Palestinian Media Watch, August 10

Sweden: Large Muslim population intimidates local Jews

“Strongest among men in enmity to the believers wilt thou find the Jews…” — Qur’an 5:82

Aftonbladet Blood Libel Update. “Stockholm’s rabbi: Large Muslim population intimidates local Jews,” by Matthew Wagner for the Jerusalem Post, August 24

“The release of the Abdel Basset al-Megrahi indicates to the jihadist world that their scorn for our lifestyle, for our Western values and freedoms is justifiable”

Why this was a bad idea. “Failing to learn the Lockerbie lesson,” by Laura Rosen Cohen in the National Post, August 24 (thanks to Kathy Shaidle):

[...] The release of the Abdel Basset al-Megrahi indicates to the jihadist world that their scorn for our lifestyle, for our Western values and freedoms is justifiable. Their insistence that our societies are decadent, morally inverted places are perhaps not without merit. If we do not punish the murderers of our own precious children, families and friends, if we do not extinguish the lives of the terrorists, or even incarcerate them, why should they think otherwise? Moreover, if we as a society, voluntarily send these messages of impotence and self-defeat to our enemies, why on earth do we deserve any of our remaining freedoms?

What case can be made for a society that annuls the value of its own citizens’ life and enables their murderers to live freely?

Let the Scottish example be a lesson to us all: the barbarians are at the gate. Instead of reinforcing the walls, we’ve just given them an extra set of keys and told them to make themselves at home. Inevitably, they will.

Over my dead body. Which is just the way they want it, of course!

Update:

Video on FGM in Islamic communities

• Female Genital Mutilation update: as usual, it has nothing to do with Islam, its just the “sunna of the prophet”…
• Female Genital Mutilation, Update
  

By: Jamie Glazov /FrontPageMagazine.com

How European governmental and non-governmental development-policy bolsters a horrific crime against hundreds of thousands of girls.

Update: A 19-year-old girl in Gothenburg has been awarded compensation after having been subjected to genital mutilation in Somalia as an 11-year-old.

More>>

Warning: graphic image(s)

FP: Ines Laufer, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

I would like to build on our last interview about your efforts to save migrant girls in Europe from FGM (Female Genital Mutilation).

Can you talk a bit about the situation in African, Arabian and Asian countries and how female genital mutilation is affected their by European development policies?

Laufer: European governmental and non-governmental development-policy widely undermines and hinders the efforts to eradicate FGM in African/Arab/Asian countries.

Since the early 1980’s, there have been numerous initiatives, networks and organisations on the African continent that are committed to the eradication of FGM in their countries. The largest network – that is still active today – is the InterAfrican Committé (IAC) which was  founded in 1984. At that time, the majority of development-agencies, as well as the WorldHealthOrganisation, UNICEF and other UN-agencies, refused to put the problem of FGM on their agenda and to support initiatives like the IAC, because they did not want to “interfere into a cultural custom.”

Mali Not Yet Ready to Ban FGM, Female Activists Told…

Dhimmi Watch: Yemeni Parliament votes down bill to outlaw female …

Female Genital Mutilation and Underage Marriage Continue…

Female Genital Mutilation: An Islamic Problem

Balkan Muslims Shun Organ Trafficking Investigator…

In the 1990s, organisations like UNICEF realised that FGM is very well suited to be exploited for raising funds. They created projects and called for generous donations within the Western population. It worked. For instance, to UNICEF Germany, the German people donated more than half a million D-Mark alone in 1994, for a FGM-project in Ethiopia – after a TV-broadcast and big article in STERN-magazine witnessed the live-mutilation of an Ethiopian girl-victim.

Today, 15 years later, UNICEF Germany still requires money for this project – that is likely to have yielded a few million Euros over the time (which is only an estimation, because UNICEF refuses to disclose the true amount). Only recently asked for measurable results of this concrete project – within such a long time – UNICEF is not able to give concrete answers. Obviously, because there aren’t lasting results. This would not even be a big surprise – because so-called “education-campaigns” which are destined to teach the mutilating families and mutilators about the devastating effects of FGM, generally widely failed.

And of course, they had to fail – because FGM is not an “exotic custom” that people perpetrate because they “don’t know better” – no – FGM is a very specific and very systematic kind of legitimized violence against a certain group of members (female children) in the concerned societies.

The consequences of the sexual mutilation of little girls are very well known and realised in all mutilating ethnic groups – but they are knowingly accepted while the girl’s individual health and well-being are subordinated to the male’s claim for sexual control.

So, while millions of donations are gathered and partly invested into disputable, unsuccessful projects, UNICEF knowingly accepts that the girls in all projects which are funded by the UN-agency – continue to be mutilated.

UNICEF – as well as all large development-agencies – refuse to integrate the abandonment of FGM in the project-areas into their support-conditions.

FP: Doesn’t all of this violate some kind of law?

Laufer: This policy of tolerance and acceptance towards FGM – and other forms of violence against children – strictly contradicts the UN-convention of Children’s Rights which has been created in 1989 and signed by all countries except Somalia and the USA and which could be a strong instrument to call for the respect of children’s rights within every single project.

By neglecting to consequently demand the girl’s protection from FGM,UNICEF and Co. must be considered complicit for the mutilation of thousands of little girls in the projects.

Furthermore, in ingratiation to the US-development-concern USaid for monetary reasons, UNICEF now consequently trivialises FGM as “Female Genital Cutting”, in German even as “Circumcision” and so paternalistically overrides the call of African activists to maintain the proper terminology “Female Genital Mutilation” – and even threatened to refuse funds to African groups who named the practice “FGM.”

Other non-governmental development-agencies like PLAN International, WorldVision, Kindernothilfe and CCFKinderhilfswerk work with a very lucrative system: They market so-called “sponsored children” to open the wallets of empathetic donors: They promise to use the money for guaranteeing a “better life” to the children. Up to 100 Million Euros, they acquire each year.

But none of these organisations is willing to protect the sponsored girl-children from FGM by including this point into the conditions for the project-partners:

Up to 400,000 sponsored girls in countries where FGM is practised are submitted to FGM – in front of the eyes of those hypocritical organisations, while they carry a yield of hundreds of millions to the organisation’s accounts.

We have documents where – the 100% avoidable – death of sponsored girls after FGM is reported. The donors of course are not told about the girl’s death-cause and that it has easily could have been avoided.

By financially and materially supporting those villages, communities and male decision-makers who are not willing to respect a least standard of children’s rights, who insist that the female children in their communities are mistreated by FGM, the repressive structures which largely hinder any chance of lasting development, are strengthened.

This hinders and undermines the serious work of initiatives like IAC and makes their efforts much more difficult.

The damage that is caused by this policy can not be compensated by the peanut-amounts which are spent by these organisations to a few selected projects who mainly aim to fight FGM.

The same critics against the FGM-tolerating policy of NGOs also needs to be addressed to the governmental development-aid:

Germany is the world’s second largest donator of development-aid. Those governments who propagate, perpetuate and tolerate FGM in their countries, who disrespect the most fundamental human rights – and therefore largely hinder their societies from lasting development – are generously supported. In 2007, more than 700 millions of German taxpayer’s money have been flowing to these governments, mostly to fulfil their economical requests.

Egypt alone, which just comes from re-legalising FGM, received 100 million Euros. And Ethiopia, whose government in 2008 adopted a law that will lead to a major “famishment” of most human rights-organisations in the country,  received not less than 70 million Euros. Alone from Germany.

No conditions, no call for the respect of Human- and children’s rights are linked to such generous support.

This policy again strengthens political leaders and governments who are far away from caring about the violent oppression of their female members in the society. This makes true development impossible.

Just recently, Günter Nooke – commissioner for human rights within the German government – had called to stop payments to countries who do not respect fundamental human rights He has roughly been answered back by the German ministry of development.

As long as in the governmental development-policy obviously is interested in very own objectives which seem to be more linked to economical and political influence than to true development – and as long as the tax-payers do not really care about the doubtful usage of their money, this situation will not change.

FP: Ines Laufer, thank you for bringing awareness to this issue.

Notes:

 

In 2000, when the African Women’s organisation in Vienna run the first (and still only) study on FGMamong migrants in Austria, it could be proven for the first time, that there is no link between the knowledge about the harmful consequences of FGM and the will to abandon the practice: It “has been shown that 56,8 of the interrogated migrants know that FGM has “side-effects” to girls and women, and 54,4% can not give any positive effect of the procedure. This knowledge doesn’t seem to have any influence on their attitude towards FGM: only 24,4% of group (60 people) support the complete abolishment of FGM. The majority of almost 76% is against its entire abandonment. See page 26.

Frontpage Interview’s guest is Ines Laufer, founder of the Task Force for Effective Prevention of Female Genital Mutilation, a network of Human-Rights-organisations and activists that is committed to measurable, broad prevention of genital mutilation among migrant girls in the EU. With the Task Force’s prevention-programme, for the first time true protection of minor girls from this violence comes into reach.

Update:

African genital cutters face fatwa, jail

Laurent Prieur and Abdoulaye Massalatchi, Reuters

To be taken with a grain of salt. These announcements are frequent, but change is far away:

Efforts to eradicate female genital circumcision in West Africa have taken a step forward with a fatwa against the practice in Mauritania and sanctions in Niger against mothers who subject their daughters to it.

Known also as female genital mutilation (FGM), the tradition involves removing external parts of a girl’s genitals and sometimes narrowing the vaginal opening. Bleeding, disease and problems in urinating and childbirth can result for millions of victims each year in Africa and the Middle East.

In many parts of West Africa, cutting has been presented as a religious obligation for Muslim women, leading many to believe that if they are not circumcised they are unclean and that their prayers will not be heard.

“Are there texts in the Koran that clearly require that thing? They do not exist,” the secretary general of the Forum of Islamic Thought in Mauritania, Cheikh Ould Zein, told Reuters of the fatwa signed by 34 imams and scholars.

“On the contrary, Islam is clearly against any action that has negative effects on health. Now that doctors in Mauritania unanimously say this practice threatens health, it is therefore clear that Islam is against it,” he added.

The fatwa, or religious ruling, was signed on January 12 but became widely known only this week in a country where some 72 percent of women are estimated to have undergone FGM and where practitioners charge an average 25 euros a time.

“The fact that the religious leaders in Mauritania are standing up and doing this is quite amazing,” said Molly Melching, executive director of Tostan, a Senegal-based organisation working in Mauritania on FGM.

MOTHERS FACE PUNISHMENT

The fatwa in itself is not binding, and would not have an impact on those communities practising FGM for centuries-old cultural reasons not linked to the arrival of Islam in Africa.

Yet it follows other tentative indications of a trend away from FGM in West Africa.

A Save the Children-backed campaign has seen 40 villages in Mali abandon the practice in a country where over 80 percent of the women have undergone FGM. In Senegal, the practice has been widely stopped since a law against it was passed in 1999.

In a sign that authorities in Niger are implementing a 2003 ban, 45 mothers in the southwestern town of Kollo received fines and suspended jail sentences of eight months this week for complicity in allowing their daughters to be cut.

Welfare specialist Moussa Hassane told Reuters that aside from the usual forms of excision, practioners in Niger used the technique to facilitate sexual relations with child brides.

Niger has one of the highest rates of early marriage in the world, with nearly 60 percent of women married between 15-19.

UN agency UNICEF statistics show a sharp fall in Niger in the incidence of FGM in the past decade masking stark ethnic differences, with three percent of Arab women circumcised but nearly two-thirds of some other tribal groups.

“A law is not what will change a social norm. For it to be sustainable it has to come from the people, a decision made by the people, because they really believe in it,” Melching said.

Fuhgeddaboudit!

European rabbis to boycott EU interfaith conference over Muslim Brotherhood connections of participating groups

• Bad Dhimmies: Tariq Ramadan is not pleased!

Indeed, the Muslim Brotherhood’s mission in the West — “a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions” — isn’t the kind of “interfaith” activity anyone should be encouraging. Especially not the EU.

“‘EU Muslim groups linked to Islamists’,” by Haviv Rettig Gur for the Jerusalem Post, via JW

Europe’s umbrella Orthodox rabbinic organization boycotted a Brussels interfaith conference hosted on Monday by EU institutions, in protest of the inclusion of groups they say are linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.

“We do not consider it appropriate that organizations such as the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe, or individuals who in the past made, or endorsed, anti-Semitic statements and who are clearly linked to the radical Islamist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood should be present at such gatherings,” said Rabbi Aba Dunner, executive director of the Conference of European Rabbis.

European Jewish leaders accuse some Muslim groups of exaggerated criticism of Israel that descended into anti-Semitic rhetoric in rallies throughout the continent during January’s Operation Cast Lead. The decision marks the first time Jewish representatives have boycotted the annual event.

The CER said in a statement it “regretted that the European institutions had chosen to patronize extremists that are not representative of the vast majority of Europe’s Muslim citizens who support dialogue and the democratic values of the European Union.”

The European Jewish Congress said it “supported the [CER's] decision.”

Three of the four Muslim organizations invited to the gathering are represented by people with “links to organizations affiliated with the international Muslim Brotherhood, an extremist organization known for supporting jihad against the West,” EJC president Moshe Kantor said.

Such a meeting “counterproductive to interfaith understanding” and “undermines the important interfaith efforts [of] so many European leaders,” Kantor said in a statement.

He cited the presence of Swiss Muslim academic Tariq Ramadan.

Kantor urged the EU institutions to “do their homework. There is simply no excuse for those who either preach hate or are affiliated with extremist religious organizations to be invited to any official interfaith gathering in Europe.”

The boycott drew criticism from Muslim leaders and the European Union hosts of the annual gathering.

According to European Muslim Network leader Tariq Ramadan, “Anything which has to do with targeting people for their religion is unacceptable.”…

Oh, really now.

Hugh Fitzgerald:

The Interfaith Racket, the Interfaith Healers, are a menace.

For the Muslims know exactly what they want. They want to make sure that Islam is seen as a “religion” just like any other, one that has “so much in common” with the other “abrahamic faiths.” They do not want the members of those other faiths to find out what the Muslim Jesus, the Muslim Moses, the Muslim this and that appropriated, and distorted, and then made into the “true” — i.e., Muslim — versions, actually signify. They do not want any investigation of what is central to Islam: the view inculcated by the texts, and reflected by 1350 years of conquest and attempted conquest (in the past, largely by military means, at present, because of unprecedented foolishness by many in the Western political and media elites, by other means, including deployment of the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da’wa, and demographic conquest, all so far continuing unchecked and even, by most people, unremarked) of non-Muslim lands. They do not want Infidels to find out what the texts really say. They do not want Infidels to find out about, much less to study, the works of hundreds of intelligent and learned scholars of Islam, but would prefer that the ignorant and the venal and the shallow — the armstrongs, the espositos, the sly apologists of MESA Nostra, both Muslim and non-Muslim — are read, while Schacht, Jeffrey, Andrae, Lammens, Snouck Hurgronje, and many others are simply forgotten or somehow overlooked, though the subject of their studies — Islam — for the texts of islam have not changed, and what Muslims are taught to believe about Infidels, above all about Infidels, has not changed. 

And the Interfaith Healers are a menace – those ministers, priests, and rabbis (why do you think Hindus and Buddhists are ordinarily kept out? Could it be because the point that the Muslims wish to make, as they attempt to shore up their position — expressed with such obvious menace in such phrases as “we are here to stay” and “we are not going anywhere” --is that standard, and shallow one, about “the three monothesisms” and what they supposedly “share” — what they “share” isnot quite a correct way to describe how Islam contains stories, and major figures, from both Christianity and Judaism, though in both cases much distorted, as well as pre-Islamic Arab lore, and to refer to these liftings — a figure named “Jesus” and a figure named “Moses” and of course a few of the Biblical stories and certainly echoes, here and there of Jewish and Christian texts (e.g., the much-quoted 5.32 is taken from a Jewish text, but its key modifier, the immediately following 5.33, is a purely Islamic addition) blandly as what the “three monotheisms” are said to “share” shows a schoolgirlish naivete, on the part of non-Muslims, that is not winsome or winning, but downright dangerous. Someone who becomes a minister, a priest, or rabbi may be a wise man or a fool; if a fool, his office should not lend him a false prestige. Don’t be impressed. Be ready to mock and expose, and rip off that clerical garb, whatever the clerisy. Off, off, you lendings!

• As we can see below, the “Jewish Christian Muslim Association of Australia” hasn’t got the message yet. The JCMA was the brainchild of Rabbi Kern Black,  one of those kumbayah clowns, and launched in 2003 with a generous government grant and has done stirling work spreading Islamo-propaganda.

Just  in thanks to Cassy:

Jewish Christian Muslim Association of Australia

Post Office Box 598

Melbourne 3001

The Jewish Christian Muslim Association of Australia (JCMA) today released its Melbourne Statement, a document prepared together following the recent hostilities in Gaza, and because of a recognition of the need for us all to continue to be in dialogue in a world so fraught with violence.

“The Statement notes that we will not only continue to pray for one another and be in dialogue, but we also call upon all parties that were part of those hostilities to find ways to build peace for all Palestinians and Israelis”, says Maureen Postma, Chair of the JCMA Board.

“People will note that in the Statement we are concerned not only to continue to build good relationships with Jews, Christians and Muslims in Australia, but we urge all world leaders to work in a peaceful way for a just resolution of the issues that divide the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.

“War and armed intervention, missile attacks and suicide bombings are not the answer.  Issues of poverty and hardship must be addressed immediately while the other issues continue to be worked on.

“We pray, and will continue to show our support for, leaders who work for peace and justice for Palestinians and Israelis.”

8^th May 2009,

Maureen Postma, Chair of the JCMA Board 0403 841200

_________________________________________________________________________________

JCMA is an Incorporated Association; its membership consists of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria, the Victorian Council of Churches and the Islamic Council of Victoria.

Kumbayah, kumbayah…..

 
Watching a civilization in decline

In this superb piece, freedom fighter Ayaan Hirsi Ali chronicles Europe’s confusion, demoralization and Islamization. “It’s time lily-livered Europe stood up to Muslim bigots,” by Ayaan Hirsi Ali in The First Post, May 5 (thanks to JW):

In 2006, I had a debate with Tariq Ramadan, the author of Western Muslims and the future of Islam. In the hypothetical event of a war between Egypt and Switzerland, for which community would he be prepared to die, I asked him.Mr Ramadan has dual citizenship. He’s an Egyptian by birth and a Swiss by naturalisation. His response was one of rage on different levels. Above all I think he was outraged that one should ask such a question. He refused to answer.

Mr Ramadan, like many other Muslims, may have two or more citizenships. From all that he expresses both in person and on paper, it is clear that his loyalty, above all, is to Islam. I do not doubt that he would die for Islam, like most Muslims, and that’s his prerogative. But what European countries have done is give citizenship to individuals who feel no obligation to share in their societies for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer and in the event of a catastrophe, sacrifice themselves.

No debate is more explosive than the debate on the future of Islam in Europe

In this way, they evade one of the chief criteria of citizenship. Political allegiance to the constitution of your country is the minimum requirement. It is this state of affairs that makes Christopher Caldwell’s bookReflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration and the West (Allen Lane, £17.99), which opens with the sentence, “Western Europe became a multi-ethnic society in a fit of absence of mind,” a chilling read.

• Italy: 60% of mosques “run by fanatical imams”
• Mark Steyn: Israel Today, the West Tomorrow

This absence of mind, which Caldwell lays bare, is reflected in Europe’s immigration policies and especially in its response to Islam. No debate today is more explosive, more sensitive, more confusing and more frightening than the debate on the future of Islam in Europe.

In March this year, the French intellectual Pascal Bruckner and I spoke about Caldwell’s book. Bruckner said, “Americans [like Caldwell] do not understand Europe. There are many Muslims who, in their daily lives, are more agnostic and in their practices even atheist, but are just Muslim in name.”

This seems to be reassuring. But would these agnostic and unpracticing Muslims, if push came to shove, die for Islam or for France? My guess is they would, most likely, die for Islam.

Caldwell discusses this theme in an interesting light: he does not overlook the Europeans who feel that Islam is a danger to European values but asks, “How can you fight for something you cannot define?” And this is Europe’s problem – insecurity about who we are, what our various flags mean, why, with every turn, we spend less and less on the military.

Europe has become a place for new religions, new creeds, multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism, transnationalism. Everything is thus relative. This is an uncertainty that the Muslim does not share. The Muslim ethic and tribal spirit are far more resilient and fierce in war than the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism.

The numbers and insights that Caldwell has collected in his book are visible to many Europeans. During my life in Holland, and in my trips back, I have spoken to European intellectuals who see the revolution that Caldwell describes so well in his book. They may not call it a revolution, they may also not see it as complete, but they see the identity crisis in Europe.

Take the debate on freedom of expression. In 1989 and afterwards, the provocations in the name of Islam were greeted with a confident, “No way! This is Europe, and you can say what you like, write what you like,” and so on.

Two decades later, Europeans are not so sure about the values of freedom of expression. Most members of the media engage in self-censorship. Textbooks in schools and universities have been adapted in such a way as not to offend Muslim sentiment. And legislation to punish ‘blasphemy’, if not passed, has been considered in most countries – or old laws that were never used are being revived.

Today, in the name of Islam, synagogues are vandalised

Take anti-Semitism in Europe. The sensitivity and guilt Europeans feel about the Holocaust is comparable to the sensitivity and guilt that Americans feel towards black Americans. A decade or two ago, it was unthinkable for Jews to be slandered openly and be targeted for no other reason than their Jewishness.

Today, in the name of Islam, synagogues are vandalised. There are open denials of the Holocaust. There is an active network of Muslim organisations lobbying to curtail or even get rid of Israel. There are incidents of Jews being harassed, beaten, even killed. All this is met with grim silence and rationalisations that it’s not really anti-Semitic but anti-Israel. Can you imagine anything like this happening today in America to black people and it being met with silence?

Be sure to read it a

AMERICA “ENRICHED” BY ISLAM? NOT!

* Obambi parrots George Bush’s nonsense about the “Religion of Peace” writes Paul L. Williams, Ph.D.with Michael Travis @ Shawarma Mayor

Turkish President Gul

OBAMA AS MUSLIM APOLOGIST

“We will convey,” Barack Obama told the Turkish Parliament Monday, “our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world – - including my own country.” He assured the Turkish leaders (who have become increasingly radicalized under President Abdullah Gul) that America “is not and never will be at war with Islam.” And he went on to say that “the United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans,” including his ancestors.

By making these remarks, Mr. Obama (who made a point of being introduced to the Turkish Nation as “Barack Hussein Obama”) is treading in the hobbled footprints of his foolhardy predecessor.

George W. Bush, the first person in history to declare Islam to be “A Religion of Peace”, stated in his second inaugural address, that Islam represented a major factor in the development of American heritage and culture and that “our national life [is sustained] by the truths of Sinai, the Sermon on the Mount, the words of the Koran.”

Barack Hussein and George W. appear to be blithely unaware that there were no Muslims among the passengers on the Mayflower or the settlers at Jamestown. Muslims were conspicuously absent from the ranks of George Washington’s Army of the Revolution and played no role in the creation of the American republic - – save for the fact that the new country’s first declaration of war was against the forces of Islam represented by the Barbary pirates.

Despite popular folklore, few Muslims numbered among the 12 million black Africans who were shipped to the New World from the 17^th to 19^th centuries. The Muslims, in fact, were not the slaves but the slave traders. Senegalese educator Amadou-Mahtar M’Bow has written that in 1587 a shipload of Moriscos (Spanish Moors) landed in a coastal area of South Carolina. The Moors, he contends, migrated to the mountains of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina where they established colonies. In reality, this is pure speculation. There is not a scintilla of archival or archaeological evidence to support this claim.

This is not to say that no Muslim slaves were transported to the colonies. Two such slaves – - Ayuiba Suleiman Diallo and Omar ibn Said – - were brought to America is 1731 but both were returned to Africa in 1734. In a Herculean effort to materialize at least one Muslim living in America before the Civil War, Muslims in America, an Islamic website, point to the name of Mahomet, the great grandson of Uncas, the founder of the Mohegan tribe, on a gravestone in Norwich, Connecticut. The name of this Native American, they argue, resembles that of the prophet, and, therefore, he must have been a convert to Islam. In a similar example of straining at gnats, the compilers of The Collections and Stories of American Muslims, a non-profit organization, claim that Peter Salem, a former slave who fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill, must have been a Muslim since “Salem” bears an etymological resemblance to “Salaam,” the Arabic word for peace. For additional proof, the compilers turn to folklore, such as the story of Old Tom, a slave at a plantation in Georgia, who allegedly uttered, “Allah is God and Mohammed his Prophet” on his death-bed – - and the apocryphal tale of “Old Lizzy,” a slave from Edgefield County, who reportedly said, “Christ built His first church in Mecca.”

Surprisingly, there is no record of any Islamic American among the enlisted and conscripted forces of World War I, let alone among the blue and grey armies of the Civil War. The great migrations that lasted from 1865 to 1925 brought 35,000,000 people to the New World: 4,500,000 from Ireland, 4,000,000 from Great Britain, 6,000,000 from central Europe, 2,000,000 from the Scandinavian countries, 5,000,000 from Italy, 8,000,000 from Eastern Europe, and 3,000,000 from the Balkans. But the number of Muslims who came here from the Middle East was statistically nil.

In 1960, aside from the temples of the Nation of Islam (which upheld a version of the Qu’ran that bore no similarity to the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed)), the only mosques in the United States were in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Dearborn, Michigan, and Washington DC (which opened in 1957) – - and all three professed less than 200 active members. Four other cities contained miniature mosques with less than fifty members.Small wonder, therefore, that Islam in America failed to merit the attention of Leo Rosten and Will Herberg.

Leo Rosten’s sixth edition of Religions of America appeared in 1975. It represented an exhaustive compilation of statistical information concerning every major and minor body of believers in the country. Entire chapters were devoted to such Protestant denominations as the Disciples of Christ, the 7^th Day Adventists, the Unitarian Universalists, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the various manifestations of Presbyterianism, Lutheranism, and Methodism. The study provided abundant data concerning the three forms of Judaism (Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform) and a lengthy discussion about the liturgical and doctrinal differences between Greek Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. It even contained facts and figures concerning the five percent of Americans who claimed to be Agnostic.

But the work contained no mention of Islam, not even as a footnote. This was not an oversight. The Muslims in America were statistically insignificant, numbering less than 5,000. What’s more, as Rosten and his fellow analysts were aware, the vast majority of these so-called “Moslems” practiced a form of Islam that bore no semblance to the 7^th Century pronouncements of the prophet Mohammad, let alone the teachings of the Quran and the Hadith. Indeed, at their weekly gatherings, the American Muslims – - almost all blacks from the inner cities – - sang Christian hymns.

In these halcyon days before the great Islamic Revolution of 1979, American sociologists continued to insist that membership within the three great bodies of Western religion (Protestantism, Catholicism, Judaism) remained the main means of self-identification within American society. In his classic study Protestant, Catholic, Jew, Will Herberg articulated this finding by writing:

Not to be a Catholic, a Protestant, or a Jew today is, for increasing numbers of American people, not to have a name. . . To have a name and an identity, one must belong somewhere; and more and more one “belongs” in America by belonging to a religious community, which tells one whatone is. The army sergeant who, when confronted with some theologically precise recruit (probably a high-church Episcopalian) who insisted he was neither Catholic, nor Protestant, nor Jewish, exclaimed in exasperation, “Well, if you’re not Catholic, or Protestant, or Hebrew, what in blazes areyou?, gave voice to the prevailing view of contemporary America. Unless one is either a Protestant, or a Catholic, or a Jew, one is “nothing”; to be “something,” to have a name, one must identify oneself to oneself, and be identified by others, as belonging to one or another of the three great religious communities in which the American people are divided.

We read these words with wonderment. There was a time when Americans were identified by their Judeo-Christian roots. Similarly, there was a time when people of different faiths (Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims) were not viewed as real Americans. And let’s remember that this was the finding of the leading sociologists of religion, not the claims of backwater Baptist ministers.

As little as a decade ago, these findings remained unchallenged. Americans could walk through crowded airports without encountering a woman in a burqa or a student in a shalwat kameez. Words such as jihad, imam, Sunni, and Shiite were not in common usage. Major cities contained no Islamic bookstores or clothing shops featuring designer Muslim headdresses. And vendors selling halalhotdogs were non-existent on the street corners of midtown Manhattan.

And now we have President Obama praising the Muslim world for its outstanding contributions to American culture.

Just what are these contributions?

It might be okay for Mr. Obama to bow before the Saudi Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in a gesture of obeisance, and it might be acceptable for him to present himself to President Gul as a Muslim American and to announce to the world thatAmerica is no longer a Christian nation.

But red-blooded Americans must never allow Obama, Bush, or anyone else to rewrite their history through the process of Newspeak and to deny their heritage as a people for the sake of globalism, multiculturalism, and a New World Order.

But has Islam really played a part in shaping the life of America? And have Muslims contributed to the cultural heritage of the United States?

Well, yes, I believe they have, and it is most unfortunate.