Author: sheikyermami

* Victor Davis Hanson still has hope. But its time for contingency plans:

Hardly Turkish Delight

[Victor Davis Hanson]
I thought (and wrote to that effect) that both the gratuitous and toothless Senate resolutions calling for the de facto trisection of Iraq, and condemnation of Turkey for the century-old Armenian holocaust were unnecessary barbs that would only inflame an already anti-American Turkey.

BUT we should confess that much of Turkish anti-Americanism is ill-founded and derives from their own ongoing fights between Islamists and Attaturk Secularists and has nothing to do with anything the United States has done. Recent polls reveal that Turks are among the most anti-American and anti-Christian peoples in the world, the latter fact not surprising to anyone who reads deeply of the 500-year history of Hellenic-Ottoman relations.

A second point: by and large the United States has treated Turkey well. We support its entry into the EU; we tried to be fair in the Cyprus dispute (despite the Turkish brutal invasion in 1974); we offered a lot of money to use bases to supply the invasion of Iraq; we advise the Greeks patience in the face of constant Turkish overflights in the Aegean. We were a good ally in the Cold War, and kept the Soviets doing to Turkey what it did to Eastern Europe.

Again, nothing really justifies the elemental hatred that the present generation of Turkey seems to exhibit for America, or the perverted manifestations of anti-Semitism or things like the mega-hit, anti-American film and subsequent TV series Valley of the Wolves (replete with murderous American soldiers and an organ-harvesting Jewish doctor).

Where does that leave us? I believe we need to cool the resolutions, continue to talk nicely to Turkey, send out diplomatic peace-feelers, assuage Turkish wounded pride, hope for the best—and start making immediate contingency plans for a possible dramatic break from this erstwhile critical Nato ally.

And that would mean backup plans should it become necessary to abandon facilities inside Turkey, and seek closer relations with Armenia, Kurdistan, Greece, Cyprus, and other regional neighbors. Perhaps both sides have been clumsy, but there are developments going on in Turkey that are far larger than inept diplomacy, and we should quit denying the danger, or despair that without the old Turkey we are adrift in the Eastern Mediterranean. We are not.

We should never promote such divides, but recognize the current course of Turkish politics is not necessary ahistorical, but may in fact be a natural reaction against the historical aberration of Attaturk’s secularism, as European Turkey begins to become overwhelmed, demographically and culturally, by anti-Western, anti-globalization Anatolian Islamism, and thus begins to replay the historical role of the Ottomans-whom, contrary to current orthodoxy, I don’t find to have very been positive for civilization as a whole.

*

Blaming the Jews in Islamist Turkey

* You knew that was coming, didn’t you? Or were you just wondering why it took so long?

The Islamist regime of Turkey blamed the Jews today for that US House committee resolution condemning the Armenian genocide in 1915.
In an interview with the liberal Islamic Zaman newspaper on the eve of the resolution’s approval Oct. 10 by the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said he told American Jewish leaders that a genocide bill would strengthen the public perception in Turkey that “Armenian and Jewish lobbies unite forces against Turks.”

Babacan added, “We have told them that we cannot explain it to the public in Turkey if a road accident happens. We have told them that we cannot keep the Jewish people out of this.”

The Turkish public seems to have absorbed that message.

more

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Turkey update: 

Turks bomb Kurds in Iraq using US-made attack helicopters.

 “Turkish Troops Bomb Suspected Rebel Positions in Iraq,” from AP:

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish warplanes and helicopter gunships attacked positions of Kurdish rebels along the rugged Iraqi-Turkish border on Wednesday, the country’s official Anatolia news agency reported.
Several F-16 warplanes loaded with bombs took off from an air base in southeastern city of Diyarbakir, private Dogan news agency and local reporters said.

U.S.-made Cobra and Super Cobra attack helicopters chased Kurdish rebels some 3 miles into Iraqi territory on Sunday but returned to their bases in Turkey after a rebel ambush killed 12 soldiers near the border, the official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

*

* A recurring pattern: google ‘Spain arrests Islamic ….’ and you get page after page of the same. When will authorities in Al Andaluz grow some cojones and call for the immediate internment and deportation of these jihad apes?

* Members of the Spanish national police carried boxes of documents from a Muslim society they raided in the city of Badalona.

* What’s wrong with this picture? Why does Spanish law enforcement have to cover up like Islamo-fascist thugs in Gaza?

MADRID (Thomson Financial) – Six people suspected of recruiting Islamic militants to send to Iraq have been arrested by Spanish police, the interior ministry said.
Paramilitary police were searching the homes of the suspects in the northern Burgos region, it said.
The cell is alleged to have operated through internet chat rooms and discussion groups.
‘The dismantled group was organising clandestine meetings, was gathering funds for imprisoned terrorists (and) was justifying terrorism,’ the ministry said.

*

Caliphate News Network Discovers ‘Jihad Cells’ 

Police seize ‘world jihad’ team 

MADRID, Spain (CNN) — Six suspected Islamic militants were Wednesday arrested in northern Spain on suspicion of using the Internet to recruit for and plot a ‘world jihad,’ a Ministry of Interior statement said.

The arrests came in Burgos province, a few hours’ drive north of Madrid.

The six, allegedly linked to international Islamic terrorist activity, were seized in an operation involving U.S., Danish and Swedish intelligence agencies, the statement said.

“A large part of the activity was carried out on restricted Internet ‘chats’ and forums, which shows that the cell arrested was the first one detected and dismantled in Spain that promoted ‘world jihad’ through the Internet,” the statement said.

Police were searching the homes of the six suspects and also a butcher shop run by one of them. Documents and computers were seized, the statement said.

Some of the money raised by the group allegedly was sent to Islamic terrorist convicts or suspects in prison, it said.

The alleged ringleader is Abdelkader Ayachine, an Algerian, and his top aide, Wissan Lotfi, a Moroccan. They were allegedly preaching violent jihadi ideology to promote an international “holy war,” especially in Iraq, the statement said.

More 

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Australia’s All New KRudd

Real Bad Craziness in the UAE

Photos of Laura Bush in the UAE.

I believe in women’s rights. In fact, I’m passionate about it, despite the attempts to paint me as a “right wing hater.”

Why doesn’t the Bush administration stand up and say this is not right? Why are we coddling and appeasing and smiling at creatures who do this to their women?

*

Debbie Schlussel has more 

If the BBC is reporting this, it’s got to be even worse than it appears: Jail ‘hardening’ terror convicts.

From LGF
Al-Qaeda prisoners in UK jails are being hardened instead of reformed, top Whitehall sources have told the BBC.

A major programme of radicalisation is underway in prisons, targeting vulnerable young men and preaching violent jihad, it has been claimed.

The BBC’s Frank Gardner said sources claim Islamist convicts are undergoing the same process IRA members did at the Maze prison in Northern Ireland.

* Real bad clueless crazyness:

Ministers hope to tackle the problem by training prison imams, he added.

* They may just as well teach bomb making skills in prison, so these disenfranchised youths will have job skills when they return to their rightful place in society.

*

Scottish “wannabe suicide bomber” jailed

LONDON (Reuters) – A Scottish (?) student, described by prosecutors as a “wannabe suicide bomber”, was jailed for eight years on Tuesday for possessing terrorism-related materials including bomb-making instructions.

Mohammed Atif Siddique, 21, from central Scotland, was found guilty last month of possessing and distributing terrorist material via Web sites.

He had argued he was only conducting research and was merely looking at Islamist terrorism to find out “why young Muslim men like him act the way they do”.

Judge Lord Carloway said: “You told fellow college students that you intended to become a terrorist and one of your targets would be central Glasgow.”
Siddique’s lawyer, Aamer Anwar, told reporters after the trial that his client had been “found guilty of doing what millions of young people do every day — looking for answers on the Internet”

More

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UK Muslims to govt: Want us not to become jihadists? Give us money

Paying tribute to barbarians: Britain’s shameful history and America’s war against the Barbary states

A direct and honest appeal: Want peace? Pay the jizya.

A Government Minister was told yesterday to stop talking and start funding as he addressed a group of young Yorkshire Muslims battling to prevent members of their community becoming extremists.
Community Cohesion Minister Parmjit Dhanda was told that young Muslims were still annoyed about the war in Iraq and tensions in the Middle East.

And, in what he described as a “robust debate”, he was told by members of the Leeds Muslim Youth Forum (LMYF) that they were fed up of having meetings with Ministers that appeared positive at the time but never resulted in the funding they were after.“We don’t want to sound money hungry but we need it to progress as an organisation, to allow us to get our voices heard within the community. The problem at the moment is Ministers listen to what we say, but never act upon it.”

But, but, says the government official, we’ve already ponied up plenty:

Mr Dhanda, a Sikh, told the Yorkshire Post: “We have invested £6m of money nationally in our Preventing Violent Extremism programme, with £17m over three years behind that.

* Why not tell them this, Dhanda? “We’re going to enforce British law. You are in Britain. You must obey it. Poverty and disenfranchisement are no excuse for mayhem. Renounce Islamic supremacism and any hope to impose Sharia, accept the parameters of British society and law, work with law enforcement officials to root out jihadists from your community, and things will go well with you.”

More

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Caught Another One: Mosque man jailed for tobacco and DVD scam

THE man behind plans to open Corby’s first mosque was sent to prison for six weeks yesterday for selling illegal tobacco and possessing pirate DVDs with intent to sell them.

Mohammad Choudhury, 49, of Blenheim Walk, Corby, was sentenced after two separate courts heard the same case when magistrates on the first bench could not reach a decision on whether to send him to prison.

More

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YouTube helps to cook Cat Stevens History

* The coffee-filter fits…

Incriminating vid taken off the web:

The former pop star known as Cat Stevens, aka Yusuf Islam, aka Yusuf (no Islam, for gullible Westerners), has had YouTube remove the video in which he Wishes for Salman Rushdie’s Death by Fire.

When asked if he’d go to a demonstration to burn an effigy of Rushdie, Yusuf Islam replies, “I would have hoped that it would be the real thing.”

But if you click on the YouTube logo in the video you’ll see this message:

This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Yusuf Islam

How can Cat Stevens claim the copyright on a British TV show from 1989?

It’s just another outrageous example of the pro-Islamist bias of YouTube.

Wikipedia has another account of the show that Cat Stevens doesn’t want you to see:

Two months later Yusuf Islam appeared on a British television courtroom-style program, Hypotheticals.

In the episode, (“A Satanic Scenario”) Stevens/Islam is videoed having this exchange with moderator and Queens Counsel Geoffrey Robertson:

Robertson: You don’t think that this man deserves to die?
Islam: Who, Salman Rushdie?
Robertson: Yes.
Islam: Yes, yes.
Robertson: And do you have a duty to be his executioner?
Islam: Uh, no, not necessarily, unless we were in an Islamic state and I was ordered by a judge or by the authority to carry out such an act – perhaps, yes

* Update: Dutch Intifadah Expected to flare up in Berlin also:

So erwartet der Innenminister von Berlin, Senator Körting (SPD), in den nächsten Tagen auch eine “Emotionalisierung” der kurdischen Mitbürger (Quelle: Berliner Morgenpost 23. Oktober 2007) – und meint damit gewalttätige Ausschreitungen.

Jihad Watch Germany

*

* Paul Belien at the Brussels Journal reports on riots just yards from where the Counterjihad Summit in Brussels was held last week. An update on the Dutch Intifadah:

Europe’s no-go zones or SUAs (“sensitive urban areas”) are multiplying. These are areas where the police no longer dares to venture and where Islamists hold sway. Every night since the beginning of last week, immigrant youths have been torching cars and clashing with police in Amsterdam’s Slotervaart district. The incidents started on Oct. 14 when a policewoman shot dead Bilal Bajaka, a 22-year old ethnic Moroccan, whilst he was stabbing her and a colleague with a knife. The officers were stabbed in the breast, face, neck and back. Surgeons could only narrowly save their lives.
Since the incident, Slotervaart has seen rioting almost every night. The Amsterdam Moroccans are “shocked” because one of them has been killed by an infidel woman. According to his family, Bilal Bajaka was mentally deranged and had a suicide obsession. Ahmed Marcouch, the Moroccan-born Socialist mayor of Slotervaart, criticized the Dutch authorities for failing to provide adequate health care for Bajaka’s mental problems.

Bilal Bajaka was, however, a personal friend of Mohammed Bouyeri, the Jihadist who ritually slaughtered the Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh in 2004. Bilal’s attack on the two police officers came exactly two years after the arrest of his brother, Abdullah Bajaka, the leader of an alleged plot to blow up an El-Al Boeing at Amsterdam airport. Bilal’s family background is not at all deprived.

* There goes the poverty argument:

One of his sisters is a medical doctor, another sister is a Dutch judge.

[…]

Similar events are currently taking place in Brussels, the capital of neighbouring Belgium and of the EU. Last Sunday, demonstrating Turkish youths ransacked an Armenian restaurant in the Sint-Joost-ten-Node borough. According to the owner the police was present at the scene but did not interfere while his establishment was being demolished. The Armenian had to flee for his life.

Another man who had to run for his life was the Belgian journalist Mehmet Koksal, an ethnic Turk. He was attacked around 11 pm on Sunday evening by a group of some twenty Turkish youths in front of the American embassy in Brussels, a few yards from the Belgian parliament building. The Parliament and the US Embassy are less than one kilometer from Sint-Joost-ten-Node. Koksal fled to a nearby police car, but a female police officer refused to let him into the car, whereupon the youths savagely beat him up. Fearing that they were about to lynch him, the police officers changed their attitude and allowed the journalist to seek refuge in their car….

*

* A poster from JW has some suggestions: 

Bilal Bajaka was mentally deranged and had a suicide obsession.”

Apparently a normal condition for Moslem infected with jihad.

Should be equated with dog infected with rabies.

Remedy? shoot on sight.

Posted by: unicorns62000

* Let us know how you feel..! 

*

* Brussels commie mayor and Islamo-fascist sympathizer Freddy Thielemans has no problem with a little Muhammedan intifadah, as we can see here:

“What? Me worry…?

*

Earlier this year:

Muslim policeman shoots Dutchman who tries to protect pregnant woman from Muhammedan mob:

In the Utrecht neighbourhood of Ondiep saw riots in the past two days after the police shot a man, Rini Mulder. The man had been fighting with a group of immigrant youths who were intimidating the Ondiep residents on Sunday. They had attacked a pregnant Dutch woman. When police arrived Mr. Mulder raised his arm to indicate that he had called for them. A policeman shot and killed him. The policeman is a Muslim, like the youth that was raising hell.

The killing caused fury amongst the working class White population. Mr. Mulder had been popular amongst his peers and they blamed the police for being too cowardly to touch immigrant youth. Killing Mr. Mulder was the spark that ignited the riots. A former police station in the neighbourhood was burned down on Sunday evening. Football supporters joined the fray and confonted the police. The mayor of Utrecht cancelled a consultation with the Ondiep residents out of fear. After Sunday the police cordoned the neighbourhood off.

Link

*

‘‘Death to America”- in America. Another case of Sudden Jihad Syndrome?

* But Ahmad was no terrorist, authorities believe.

* Teacher who attacked base had death wish, FBI says

A Miami Central High math teacher was arrested after attacking the Homestead Air Reserve Base in a failed suicide bid, authorities say.

BY DAVID OVALLE
dovalle@MiamiHerald.com

Wielding two butcher knives bought at Wal-Mart and vodka bottles to use as explosives, Tahmeed Ahmad chanted ”Death to America” and told Homestead Air Reserve Base guards he wanted to kill soldiers.

But Ahmad was no terrorist, authorities believe.

Rather, the Miami Central High School math teacher wanted to ”commit suicide by cop” when he attacked military policemen stationed at the west gate just before midnight Sunday, the FBI said.

Ahmad did not get his wish. One officer fired his handgun at Ahmad. He missed.

”We take security very seriously at the base, but this was quite an unusual event,” said Lt. Col. Tom Davis, a base spokesman. “Our security forces are well trained and responded appropriately.”

Police quickly arrested Ahmad, 22, whose mother says is mentally ill and had recently been in a mental institution. The FBI charged him Monday with assaulting a U.S. government employee.

Ahmad is in his first year teaching math at Miami Central High, 1781 NW 95th St.

Ahmad had been added to a federal terrorist watch list, but officials had long since concluded he was not a credible threat, Davis said.

The teacher told agent Richard W. Lunn he would have used a gun but that a week ago, a dealer refused to sell him one because he had not lived in Florida for 90 days, as required by law.

On Sunday night, Ahmad drove his car to the gate’s west entrance, hopped out and “charged the military police officers.”

‘‘The fellow was being very hostile toward the guard,” Davis said.

The military police officer fired in his own defense, the criminal complaint said.

It was unclear exactly how far away he was from Ahmad. An internal review of the shooting will be conducted, Davis said.

* Right. What we need now is a lengthy investigation of the police officer who missed. How cool is that?

Link

* After the 7/7 bombings in London Britains ex-PM Tony BLiar promised to deport 500 Muhammedan hate-preachers. Omar Bakri Mohammed, arguably one of the most notorious and vilest jihad vampires ever to suck the blood of unsuspecting Britons, was the only one who left (ironically) of his own accord, before he could be arrested and deported. As for the other 499 scumbags awaiting deportation, it has become very quiet. BLiar failed to deliver and his successor, Gordon Brown is wearing so much brown lipstick that his lips stopped moving altogether.

Omar Bakri Muhammed addresses an al-Muhajiroun rally in Trafalgar Square, London (Abu-Hamza, right)The British Government ran a ‘Covenant Of Security’ with radical Islamic groups like Al-Muhajiroun leaving them free to recruit for terrorist missions abroad as long as they did not attack targets in Britain. During the 1990s British intelligence used al-Muhajiroun to carry out attacks against Serbia as part of strategy to dismember the former Yugolsavia. Al-Muhajiroun withdrew from the covenant following the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in 2003, leaving it free to support attacks on the United Kingdom such as those carried out in July 2005.

Now this parasite is back in the news:

“I want to see the black flag of Islam over 10 Downing Street as I want to see it everywhere in the world. That is God’s will. It doesn’t matter if not everyone is Muslim so long as we get rid of this man-made law.”

Islamic Tolerance Alert. “I’ll be Bak-ri,” with thanks to JW

Outlawed Islamic fanatic Omar Bakri Mohammed has vowed to defy a ban on him returning to Britain – and challenged anti-terror cops to charge him or leave him alone.
The cleric – accused of turning young British Muslims to al-Qaeda with hate-filled sermons – claims he must fly to London to see his sick 12-year-old daughter.

Bakri begged Government officials to give him a two-week visa, insisting he’d had NOTHING to do with terrorism during the 20 years he lived in the UK.

But then he shot himself in the foot by launching a bizarre videoed rant against the country which still shelters his wife and six children.
The video can be seen here.

[…]
Amazingly we captured him on video as he exploded. He shook his fist and shouted: “You are just a people of fish and chips and hot dogs.
“Don’t tell me you are the best nation. This idea you are the best nation. You are the best nation for your culture. What is your culture?”

Later, at a seaside restaurant, he said he hoped Islam’s draconian Sharia law would be global.

He said: “Yes, I do want to see the black flag of Islam over 10 Downing Street as I want to see it everywhere in the world. That is God’s will.

“It doesn’t matter if not everyone is Muslim so long as we get rid of this man-made law.
“Man-made law is corrupted. One minute you say homosexuals are banned then they are allowed. Man changes his mind. Sharia law is based on a message from God.” And he dismissed claims he had urged Muslims to blow up Dublin airport last November, insisting it was a “sarcastic” joke because he knew he was being monitored by government agents.
Bakri – currently living in a posh three-bedroom flat overlooking the Mediterranean – was mobbed by supporters when he gave us a tour of the area and bragged: “I have got a very strong influence here.”
Asked about the crowds waiting to greet him, he told us: “You are used to seeing that only when people do it with a star, a pop star. But for them they do it out of respect. They treat me like a spiritual leader.”
Bakri claimed British backers help fund his lifestyle.
He said: “When people like you they have an Islamic bond with you – it is so powerful. They treat you like a brother or father – sometimes more than that.”
[…]
Bakri’s rants sparked fury in Britain last night.
Top Tory MP David Willetts said: “He should never be allowed to set foot on British soil again.”
And the Lib Dems’ Home Affairs spokesman Jeremy Browne said:
“We are a welcoming nation – but our distinctive hospitality should not be abused.”

* Don’t you just love these cheeky British expressions ?

*

Israel to come under Sharia law, says Israeli Arab cleric

That’s what the jihad is about — imposing Islamic law.

From Israel Today:

A leading Israeli Arab Muslim cleric said at the weekend that the Jewish state will very soon cease to exist and the whole of the country will come under Sharia (strict Islamic) law as another piece in the puzzle to reconstituting the Islamic Caliphate.

Indeed. “Palestine” is only a means to an end — a “no-state solution,” if you will, where nationalism is concerned.

In an interview with a local Arabic-language newspaper, Sheikh Kamal Khatib, deputy head of northern Israel’s Islamic Movement, insisted that the world is “on the threshold of a new era. The future belongs to Islam and the Muslims.”

Arab hatemongers  a la carte

* …und morgen die ganze Welt..!

Khatib said that in preparation for the coming Islamic takeover, Muslims who hold Israeli citizenship like himself should begin to actively rebel against the state by refusing to cooperate with and forming alternatives to the Israeli authorities.
Sedition. Is anyone in Tel Aviv listening?

Also at the weekend, Khatib’s boss, Sheikh Raed Salah denounced current peace negotiations leading to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict as an “evil Israeli scheme.” Salah, who is also an Israeli citizen, has long maintained that that Muslim world must not recognize Israel’s right to exist.

* * With Ol-merde in charge he’s probably right. Israel is heading straight to the abyss…

*

From death of the West—to knights of the West

A Christian view:

by James P. Pinkerton

The Call of Duty—and Destiny

In one of the great epics of Western literature, the hero, confronted by numerous and powerful enemies, temporarily gives in to weakness and self-pity. “I wish,” he sighs, “none of this had happened.” The hero’s wise adviser responds, “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide.” The old man continues, “There are other forces at work in this world … besides the will of evil.” Some events, he adds, are “meant” to be, “And that is an encouraging thought.”

Indeed it is. Perhaps, today, we are meant to live in these times. Perhaps right here, right now, we are meant to be tested. Maybe we are meant to have faith that other forces are at work in this world, that we are meant to rediscover our strength and our survival skills.

And so the question: can we, the people of the West, be brought to failure despite our enormous cultural and spiritual legacy? Three thousand years of history look down upon us: does this generation wish to be remembered for not having had the strength to look danger squarely in the eye? For having failed to harness our latent strength in our own defense?

With apologies to the frankenfood-fearers and polar bear-sentimentalizers, the biggest danger we face is the Clash of Civilizations, especially as we rub against the “bloody borders” of Islam.

What if, in the coming century, we lose that clash—and the source of our civilization? What if Muslims take over Europe? What if “Eurabia” indeed comes to pass? Would Islamic invaders demolish the Vatican, as the Taliban dynamited Afghanistan’s Buddhas of Bamyan in 2001? Or would they settle merely for stripping the great cathedrals of Europe of all their Christian adornment, rendering them into mosques? And what if the surviving non-Muslim population of Europe is reduced to subservient “dhimmitude”?

Link

Koran Commentary for Children Published in Egypt Features Incitement to Fight Christians and Jews 

Jihad for Kids Update from MEMRI (thanks to JW:

In an investigative article in the Egyptian weekly Roz Al-Yousef, journalist Asma Nassar revealed that a popular Koran commentary for children published in Egypt contains virulent incitement against Christians and Jews, and calls on both children and adults to fight them. Nassar’s critical article presents excerpts from the book and comments from Muslim scholars who participated in its writing and from senior Al-Azhar figures.
The following are excerpts from the article: [1]

How Could Al-Azhar Approve This Book for Publication?

The article stated: “This Koran commentary, intended for children, includes erroneous ideas which incite against the followers of the [other] monotheistic religions. For instance, the interpretation of the Al-Fatiha Sura [the first Sura of the Koran], states that [the expression] ‘those who earn Thine [i.e., Allah’s] anger’ refers to the Jews, and [the expression] ‘those who go astray’ refers to the Christians. [2] This [rendering] contradicts the tenets and the tolerant character of the Islamic faith….

More from JW 

Pope Benedict XVI:

“Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

Muhammad & Aisha

Volume 7, Book 62, Number 64: Sahih Bukhari Aisha: the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death).
More

*

The Vatican responded Friday to the open letter sent at the end of Ramadan by 138 Muslim scholars to Pope Benedict XVI and a wide array of other Christian leaders. The response was somewhat deflating, given the mainstream media’s enthusiasm over the Muslim letter — an enthusiasm which the senders must have anticipated. Noting the Muslim scholars’ declaration that “the future of the world depends on peace between Muslims and Christians,” the Telegraph‘s headline was typical of the coverage: “Muslim scholars’ olive branch to Christians.” Reuters burbled about an “Unprecedented Muslim call for peace with Christians.” But was it really?

*
This week’s response from Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, the President of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, hardly seemed sporting. Tauran observed that the possibility of serious dialogue between Muslims and Christians was limited by the traditional Islamic understanding of the Muslim holy book: “Muslims,” he said, “do not accept that one can discuss the Koran in depth, because they say it was written by dictation from God. With such an absolute interpretation, it is difficult to discuss the contents of faith.”

Tauran went on to call for reciprocity between the treatment of Christians in Islamic lands and the treatment of Muslims in the West, decrying the fact that Muslims are permitted to build mosques freely in Europe, but Christians face difficulties or outright bans when trying to build churches in Muslim lands. “In a dialogue among believers, it is fundamental to say what is good for one is good for the other.”

*
But that presumes an equality of religions, and that one can admit the legitimacy of the other. And that is the element missing from the proposed debate.

Vatican rejects ‘Islamic Love’ overtures:

On the basis of the letter alone, it’s surprising that there has ever been conflict between Muslims and Christians, or Muslims and anyone. The scholars say: “in obedience to the Holy Qur’an, we as Muslims invite Christians to come together with us on the basis of what is common to us, which is also what is most essential to our faith and practice: the Two Commandments of love.” Yet the “Two Commandments of love” were nowhere in evidence last August when an Egyptian convert from Islam to Christianity was sentenced to death by Islamic clerics. “The Two Commandments of love” have not saved Christians in Baghdad, where Islamic gangs knocked on doors in Christian neighborhoods, demanding payment of the jizya tax specified for non-Muslims by the Qur’an (9:29). Nor is Iraq the only problem area: in Egypt, Coptic Christians have suffered discrimination and harassment for centuries, and their plight is increasing. In Pakistan a prominent Catholic priest said in August 2007 that Christians are frequently denied equality of rights with Muslims and subjected to various forms of discrimination.

More

* Some great comments here

*

 RESPONSE TO OPEN LETTER AND CALL FROM MUSLIM RELIGIOUS LEADERS TO CHRISTIAN LEADERS, 13 OCTOBER 2007:

Reading between the lines

On the surface the letter looks like a well intentioned and urgent plea for a better understanding between Muslims and Christians, so as to avert an apocalyptic war between the two largest religious blocs in the world.

If Muslims and Christians are not at peace, the world cannot be at peace . . . the very survival of the world itself is at stake . . . So let our differences not cause hatred and strife between us.

However, the letter goes on to lay the blame for all wars in which Muslims and Christians are involved on the actions of Christians.

As Muslims, we say to Christians that we are not against them and that Islam is not against them – so long as they do not wage war against Muslims on account of their religion, oppress them and drive them out of their homes. [emphasis added]

This implies that the war against Islamist terrorism is a global war of Christianity against Islam, and that Christianity is the aggressor against Islam (which is the radical Islamist view). There is no sense of sorrow or remorse for the wrongs inflicted by Muslims on Christians historically, or indeed currently in many Muslim lands. There is no recognition that in many places things may be the opposite, with Muslims oppressing Christians and driving them from their homes (e.g. in Iraq, Sudan, Nigeria, Indonesia and Pakistan). There is no mention of the Christian communities in Muslim lands suffering other kinds of persecution and discrimination. There is no admission that Muslim actions could have played any part in the alienation between Muslims and Christians.

* More 

Charles at LGF has a roundup of the increasingly shrill and hysterical reactions to Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week from campus Leftists at Columbia, Indiana, Minnesota, Penn State, Washington State, and Wisconsin.

So the campus Left is placing itself squarely on the side of those who want to implement the institutionalized oppression of women and religious minorities sanctioned by Islamic Sharia law, who deny the freedom of conscience, and want to impose upon the world a supremacist and totalitarian code.

Surprised?

Meanwhile, while calling us “fascists” and “bigots” and the like, they are going to shout us down, hurl abuse at us, and do all they can to interfere with our ability to speak freely, thus validating for themselves the “fascist” part of the Week’s name.

It promises to be an interesting week.

* Jihad Watch has more

*

Hitchens: Defending the Term ‘Islamofascism’ 

The term Islamofascism was first used in 1990 in Britain’s Independent newspaper by Scottish writer Malise Ruthven, who was writing about the way in which traditional Arab dictatorships used religious appeals in order to stay in power. I didn’t know about this when I employed the term “fascism with an Islamic face” to describe the attack on civil society on Sept. 11, 2001, and to ridicule those who presented the attack as some kind of liberation theology in action. “Fascism with an Islamic face” is meant to summon a dual echo of both Alexander Dubcek and Susan Sontag (if I do say so myself), and in any case, it can’t be used for everyday polemical purposes, so the question remains: Does Bin Ladenism or Salafism or whatever we agree to call it have anything in common with fascism?placeAd2(’news/slate’,’midarticleflex’,true)

I think yes. The most obvious points of comparison would be these: Both movements are based on a cult of murderous violence that exalts death and destruction and despises the life of the mind. (“Death to the intellect! Long live death!” as Gen. Francisco Franco’s sidekick Gonzalo Queipo de Llano so pithily phrased it.) Both are hostile to modernity (except when it comes to the pursuit of weapons), and both are bitterly nostalgic for past empires and lost glories. Both are obsessed with real and imagined “humiliations” and thirsty for revenge. Both are chronically infected with the toxin of anti-Jewish paranoia (interestingly, also, with its milder cousin, anti-Freemason paranoia). Both are inclined to leader worship and to the exclusive stress on the power of one great book. Both have a strong commitment to sexual repression—especially to the repression of any sexual “deviance”—and to its counterparts the subordination of the female and contempt for the feminine. Both despise art and literature as symptoms of degeneracy and decadence; both burn books and destroy museums and treasures.

Fascism (and Nazism) also attempted to counterfeit the then-success of the socialist movement by issuing pseudo-socialist and populist appeals. It has been very interesting to observe lately the way in which al-Qaida has been striving to counterfeit and recycle the propaganda of the anti-globalist and green movements.

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Bin Laden issues Iraq message

Osama Bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, has released a new audiotape calling on fighters in Iraq to unite and stand shoulder to shoulder.

In the tape broadcast by Al Jazeera on Monday, a voice sounding like bin Laden admitted that mistakes have been made in Iraq and exhorted the fighters to rectify them.
“Some of you have been lax in one duty, which is to unite your ranks,” bin Laden said. “Beware of division … The Muslim world is waiting for you to gather under one banner.”
In the audio recording, entitled “a message to the people of Iraq”, bin Laden called on tribal leaders and the leaders of armed groups to initiate an agreement between the different groups.

“The interest of the Islamic nation surpasses that of a group,” he said.

In recent months Sunni tribal groups have formed alliances and worked with US forces to confront al-Qaeda in Iraq.

More from Al Jizzeera 

Prisoners riot in Israeli jail

Clashes have flared in an Israeli jail, with about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners attacking prison guards and torching the tents where they had been held.

Thirty people were injured in the incident which occurred early on Monday at the Ketziot prison in the southern Negev desert, a prison spokesman said.
Ian Domnitz, a spokesman for the Israel Prisons Authority, said the violence broke out after guards began searching prisoners’ bunks for contraband.

The Prisoners Club, the main group representing Palestinians held in Israel, termed the cell searches “provocative”.

Ketziot is set up like a military camp, with security prisoners quartered in tents rather than buildings.

Riots quelled

In Monday’s riot, prisoners set 10 tents on fire and attacked the guards, wounding 15 of them, Domnitz said.

Prison officers moved in to quell the riot, injuring 15 prisoners, he said.

Four prisoners were hospitalised, with one critically wounded by a “non-lethal weapon”, Domnitz said.

“The weapon was used in response to the endangerment of the lives of prison officers in the cell block,” he said.

In the West Bank, Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a spokesman for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, accused Israel of conducting a “repression campaign” against the prisoners.

* This is what you have to expect from Mahmud Abbas…

He said the prison guards had used clubs, stun grenades and tear gas to disperse the crowd and said 250 people were injured.