 By Dr. Sami Alabraa "Jews are the enemy of Allah," declared Ismael Gharaballi during a service in a mosque in Bielefeld, Germany. "This is not only my belief, but also Allah's conviction," the Palestinian imam and Hamas activist declared, waving his Koran in the air. The congregation of about 200 thundered, "Allahu Akbar!" Then Gharaballi turned to another page in the Koran and read, "... and kill them [he explained this to mean unbelievers, especially the Jews] wherever you overtake them and expel them from wherever they have expelled you" (Surah 2, verse 191). "What are you waiting for?" he cried. "Allah Himself is telling us kill them. No peace can be made with the Jews." After the prayers, I approached Gharaballi in the cafeteria of the mosque and asked him if he was serious about what he had preached. "Of course, I am. This is not any book. This is the word of Allah." Then I asked if he would kill a Jew here in Germany. He answered: "Yes, especially those Israelis who are occupying Arab land." I reminded him that this would be murder and for that he would land up behind bars. Ismael retorted angrily: "I don't care. The Koran is our law and constitution and anything else is just rubbish." Referring to Hitler, Ismael told me: "The man was a hero, almost a Muslim. I'm one of his fans." Read more ...Source: Family Security Matters
 Jason Koutsoukis in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald reports on the brutality of Hamas towards Gaza's citizens
PALESTINIAN civilians living in Gaza during the three-week war with Israel have spoken of Hamas's attempt to hijack ambulances. Mohammed Shriteh, 30, is an ambulance driver registered with and trained by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. "Mostly the war was not as fast or as chaotic as I expected. We would co-ordinate with the Israelis before we pick up patients, because they have all our names, and our IDs, so they would not shoot at us."
Shriteh said the more immediate threat was from Hamas, who would lure the ambulances into the heart of a battle to transport fighters to safety.
"You hear when they are coming. People ring to tell you. So we had to get in all the ambulances and make the illusion of an emergency and only come back when they had gone."
Eyad al-Bayary, 32, lost his job as a senior nurse at the Shifa Hospital because he is closely identified with Fatah.
Since the ceasefire was declared on January 17, Hamas has begun to systematically take revenge on anyone believed to have collaborated with Israel before the war. According to rumour, a number of alleged collaborators have already been executed.
Taher al-Nono, the Hamas Government's spokesman in Gaza, told the Herald that 175 people had been arrested so far on suspicion of collaborating.
And if the sentence is death? "We will respect the decision."
The commander of one al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade unit, who used the name Abu Ibrahim, said he would never accept peace or negotiation, even if it might lead to the creation of a Palestinian state.
Ynetnews.com reports that Hamas may have inflated the death toll in Gaza:
ITALIAN newspaper Corriere della Sera reported Thursday that a doctor working in Gaza's Shifa Hospital claimed that Hamas has intentionally inflated the number of casualties resulting from Israel's Operation Cast Lead.
"The number of deceased stands at no more than 500 to 600. Most of them are youths between the ages of 17 to 23 who were recruited to the ranks of Hamas, who sent them to the slaughter," according to the newspaper article. The doctor wished to remain unidentified, out of fear for his life.
A Tal al-Hawa resident told the newspaper's reporter: "Armed Hamas men sought out a good position for provoking the Israelis. There were mostly teenagers, aged 16 or 17, and armed. They couldn't do a thing against a tank or a jet. They knew they are much weaker, but they fired at our houses so that they could blame Israel for war crimes."
The reporter for the Italian newspaper also quoted reporters in the Strip who told of Hamas's exaggerated figures, "We have already said to Hamas commanders: why do you insist on inflating the number of victims?"
These same reporters mentioned that the truth that will come out is likely to be similar to what occurred in Operation Defensive Shield in Jenin. "Then, there was first talk of 1500 deaths. But then it turned out that there were only 54, 45 of which were armed men," the Palestinian reporters told the Italian newspaper.
Denis Maceoin in The Jerusalem Post:
WATCH those films of Hamas gunmen dragging screaming children along with them to act as human shields, watch how they fire from behind the little ones, knowing no Israeli soldier will fire back. And even as they put their own children's lives at risk, they shout to high heaven that the Israelis are Nazis and the Jews are child-killers. Hamas has become proficient at resurrecting the blood libel, just as its fighters use the Nazi salute, just as their predecessor in the 1930s and '40s, Haj Amin al-Husseini, conferred with Hitler about building death camps in Palestine and raised a division of SS troops in Bosnia to fight for the Reich.
It is all self-contradictory: The Left supports gay rights, yet attacks the only country in the Middle East, where gay rights are enshrined in law. Hamas makes death the punishment for being gay, but "we are all Hamas now".
Iran hangs gays, but it is praised as an agent of anti-imperialism, and allowed to get on with its job of stoning women and executing dissidents and members of religious minorities.
If British Prime Minister Gordon Brown swore to wipe France from the face of the earth, he would become a pariah among nations. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatens to do that to Israel and is invited to speak to the UN General Assembly. Israel guarantees civil liberties to all its citizens, Jew or Arab alike, but it is dubbed an apartheid state; Hamas, ever the bully, kills its opponents and denies the rest the most basic rights, but we march on behalf of Hamas. Source: The Australian
 News that the FBI has cut off contacts with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is attracting media and political attention.
On Thursday, the IPT broke the story that the FBI wants CAIR officials to answer questions about their organization's un-indicted co-conspirator status in the Hamas support trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development before resuming relations. Evidence in that trial, which ended in November with the conviction of five former HLF officials on 108 counts, shows that CAIR was part of a network of Hamas support organizations in the U.S. and that founders Nihad Awad and Omar Ahmad were individually listed on a phone list of the "Palestine Committee" created by the Muslim Brotherhood for that purpose.
On Friday, five U.S. House Republicans, including the head of the bi-partisan Anti-Terrorism Caucus Sue Myrick, sent their congressional colleagues a letter with the IPT story attached. "Members should think twice before meeting with representatives of CAIR," the letter said.
And Fox News picked up the story, reporting that the FBI confirmed the IPT's reporting: "An official at the FBI's headquarters in Washington confirmed to FOX News that his office directed FBI field offices across the country to cut ties with local branches of CAIR."
CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper declined to comment to the IPT last week. However, CAIR issued a statement to FOX News blaming the freeze out on the Bush Administration: "It is not surprising that we would be singled out by those in the previous administration who sought to prevent us from defending the civil rights of American Muslims." Source: IPT Blog
By Abul Kasem Sura 12: Yusuf (Prophet Joseph) 12:19 A passing caravan’s water-drawer rescued Joseph. Contradiction: 12:20 says Joseph’s brothers sold him as a slave for a miserly price. 12:100 Joseph thought Satan had created enmity between him and his brethren; Joseph’s parents and his brothers prostrated before Joseph. Contradiction: 2:255, 3:2, 3:18, 11:2, 20:98, 40:62, 40:65 say humans must prostrate (worship) only to Allah, and no one else. 12:109 Allah sends revelations to men only. Contradiction: 27:82 says Allah also sends a beast as a messenger. Contradiction: 35:1 says Allah sends angels with wings as messengers. Contradiction: 6:130, 11:69, 11:77, 22:75 say Allah also sends jinns and angels as messengers. Read more ...Source: Islam Watch
By Jerry Gordon  Several members of the U.S. House of Representatives Anti-Terror Caucus have sent a Dear Colleague letter today emblazoned with the warning: "Beware of CAIR". The signatories include: Reps. Sue Myrick (R-NC), Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), John Shadegg (R-AZ), and Paul Broun (R-GA). Rep. Myrick is the author of the Wake Up America Agenda aimed at countering Militant Islamic infiltration of American institutions. Why the warning message from these concerned Members of Congress about the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR)? Because CAIR is about to storm Capitol Hill on February 6th in an intense lobbying blitz to combat its designation as an unindicted co-conspirator in the successful Dallas federal court retrial and conviction of The Holy Land Foundation caught funneling millions in charitable contributions to the Palestinian terrorist group, Hamas. These House Members of the anti-Terror caucus want to get the message out to their colleagues and constituents that meeting with CAIR, given recent actions by the FBI distancing the agency staff, both national and regional from the Muslim Brotherhood Front, would be tantamount to sanctioning CAIR's terrorist commitments to Hamas. Read more ...Source: Red CountyHon. Sue Myrick
Hon. Peter Hoekstra
Hon. John Shadegg
Hon. Paul Broun
Hon. Trent Franks
Latest recipients of The MASH Award
 By Mshari Al-Zaydi It is as if the aim of the blood shed in Gaza and the tears shed by its people was to tell the Arabs and the world: Hamas is who you must talk to! The head of Hamas politburo Khalid Mishal excelled in declaring the “divine victory” on January 21 during his “divine speech” televised from Damascus, the capital of Hamas. He said, “The time has come for you to deal with Hamas,” (Asharq Al-Awsat, 22 January 2009). Khalid Mishal, and this declaration of his, was echoed in neighbouring Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). Essam el Erian, a prominent figure and theorist in the MB, wrote an article celebrating the victory and exploring the different ways it can achieve regional gains for both Hamas and the Arab resistance camp. He listed the gains that Hamas had achieved (or rather what Hamas failed to achieve vis-à-vis the Israeli military’s brutal indiscrimination), which Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood sought to transform into self-gain to be used against the Egyptian government and all Arab governments that fail to comply with Islamic Shariaa and carry out Jihad in line with its own vision. Read more ...Source: Asharq Al-Awsat
By Dan Diker and Khaled Abu Toameh Israel's three-week military operation in Gaza in December-January has raised the issue of the possible return of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party to Gaza to replace the Hamas regime. The Israelis, Americans, the major European powers, and especially the Egyptians favor Abbas' forces regaining control not only over Gaza's border crossings, but also over the entire Strip. However, international demands for Fatah's return to Gaza face seemingly intractable obstacles. A previous U.S.-funded and armed Fatah security regime in Gaza had entirely failed. Years of massive corruption and gangsterism by Fatah security forces resulted in an Iranian-financed, armed and trained Islamic emirate ruled by Hamas. Abbas had had the full backing of the international community to turn Gaza into the Hong Kong of the Middle East. Instead, Fatah collapsed under a Hamas assault in summer 2007. Read more ...Source: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
 By John Perazzo This past Monday and Tuesday, West Chester University (WCU) in Pennsylvania presented a forum titled “Islam in America: Understanding Intercultural Differences.” That benign-sounding title gives no indication of the bitterly anti-Israel, anti-American views espoused by the key individuals who spoke at the event. The fact that such views were represented becomes less surprising, however, when we consider that one co-sponsor of “Islam in America” was the Muslim Students Association (MSA). West Chester’s campus MSA is a chapter of MSA National, which was originally founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that supports the worldwide imposition of Islamic Law and seeks to pursue “a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying … Western civilization from within.” The keynote speaker at “Islam in America” was one of the most influential Shi’a religious leaders in the United States, Imam Sayid Hassan Qazwini. Carefully presenting himself to the public as a voice of reason and moderation in the Muslim community, Qazwini heads the Dearborn, Michigan-based Islamic Center of America (ICOA), the largest mosque on the continent. He has been embraced by three credulous American presidents—Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama—as a valued ally in the quest for mutual respect and tolerance among practitioners of different faiths. Moreover, Qazwini was given the honor of offering a prayer at the opening session of the 108th Congress in 2003. Read more ...Source: FrontPage Magazine
By Jamie Glazov
The recent Mumbai horror has been yet another chapter in the dark tale of homegrown terror, as evidence indicates that British-born Pakistanis were among the Mumbai terrorists.
In this special edition of Frontpage Symposium, we have assembled a distinguished panel to discuss the problem of the jihadization of homegrown Muslims. Our guests are: Brigitte Gabriel, a terrorism expert and the founder of ACT! for America. Her new book is They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It. Raheel Raza, a leading Muslim reformer, award winning writer, professional speaker, diversity consultant, documentary film maker and interfaith advocate. She is the author of Their Jihad . . . Not My Jihad. Visit her site at RaheelRaza.com. Christine Williams, the producer and host of the live current affairs Canadian daily talk show On the Line. The program has been recipient of five international awards. She holds a degree in Research Psychology from McMaster University and has distinguished herself as a political and crime reporter. Joan Lachkar, Ph.D., a licensed Marriage and Family therapist in private practice in Brentwood and Tarzana, California, who teaches psychoanalysis and is the author of How to Talk to a Narcissist (2007), The Many Faces of Abuse: Treating the Emotional Abuse of High -Functioning Women (1998), and The Narcissistic/Borderline Couple: A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Marital Treatment (1992). Dr. Lachkar speaks nationally and recently presented, "The Psychopathology of Terrorism" at the International Psychohistorical Association, and at the Rand Corporation. She is an affiliate member of the New Center for Psychoanalysis, and writes in the Journal of Emotional Abuse. Dr. Nancy Kobrin, a psycho-analyst, Arabist, and counter-terrorism expert. Read more ... Source: FrontPage Magazine
 By Joe Kaufman When it comes to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, many in the radical Muslim community choose to exploit imagery related to the Holocaust in an attempt to gin up animosity towards Israel. One of the promoters of this offensive practice, Affad Shaikh, is a representative of a well-known Islamic organization, CAIR. Recently, Shaikh took the offense to a new level – or in this case, a new low – by evoking an infamous Nazi propaganda-driven anti-Jewish libel and by posting to the web a defaced photo of a familiar Holocaust victim. Since the beginning of the Gaza attacks, the Council on American-Islamic Relations or CAIR has been on the attack, as well – against Israel. This makes sense, given the group’s deep connection to Palestinian terrorists – CAIR was created by Hamas operatives and CAIR was recently named in a federal Hamas fundraising trial. One of the CAIR leaders who has been extremely vocal in his anti-Israel rhetoric is Affad Shaikh, the Civil Rights Coordinator of CAIR-Los Angeles (a.k.a. CAIR-California). Upset at the Gaza situation, Shaikh has posted numerous anti-Israel messages on different blog sites. Shaikh is involved with – what he calls being a “collaborator” for – various blogs. One fittingly goes by the name Anti-“Israel,” a site which broadcasts articles written by leaders of Hamas. In a January 8th article published by Anti-“Israel,” entitled ‘This Brutality Will Never Break Our Will to Be Free,’ the head of Hamas Khaled Meshaal admitted to Hamas’s use of rockets against Israelis. He wrote, “Our modest, home-made rockets are our cry of protest to the world.” Read more ...Source: FrontPage MagazineAffad Shaikh
Latest recipient of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award
 By Gao Shan, Fu Yiming | BAGHDAD, Jan. 30
With her son's photo in hand and a sense of sadness and helplessness in eyes, an old woman sat on a ropey wooden stool beside the gate of the election campaign office of Sawsan al-Mawla, a female candidate from the Iraqi National Dialogue Front. Two guards with rifles standing aside looked at her sympathetically but still refused to let her in through the gate. She stretched out her hand and mumbled to everyone passing by for help.
Then Sawsan al-Mawla, a woman in her 40s, came to the gate. Elegant in her manners, Mawla dressed in fashion with black overcoat and colorful scarf. She has light brown short hair with a natural wave and soft contours, similar to Hillary Clinton, the new U.S. Secretary of State and the former First Lady.
She listened to the miserable story of the poor old woman, 52-year-old Bushra Yusif, and comforted her. Yusif's son in the photo was killed by a car bomb in Baghdad. Another son is jobless while her husband is suffering from mental illness. She came to several government agencies for help but got no response. If she couldn't get enough money for the rent of her house, her family would be kicked out of the door. Occasionally, she saw the election poster of Mawla on the street. With some hope, she came to Mawla to have a try.
Mawla gave the old women 65,000 Iraqi Dinars (about 55 U.S. dollars) and called for an official in the Iraqi government to help the old woman to find a job for her son.
"You see, it's just an example of the misery life of Iraqi women," pointing to the old woman sitting and sobbing in the corner, she told Xinhua. "Without ambition, I wouldn't go to elections, I want to be Iraq's Hillary, so that I will serve my country and be an example for Iraqi women who have already suffered a lot in the war."
"I am honored to be a candidate and head of the Front's woman organization in Karkh district in western Baghdad. To help widows, orphans and those poor women in need in this war-torn country is my duty," she said.
Mawla is just one of thousands of Iraqi women now running in Saturday's election. More than a quarter of the about 14,000 candidates registered for provincial elections are women. According to election laws that try to ensure the presence of women in political system, each party that wins seats in provincial council must give a third of their seats to women.
"My election campaign is through radio and TV in addition to other ways such as Internet and posters. But my favorite way is to face people directly in districts. What pleases me is that wherever I go, people are keen to see a stronger role of women."
With the coming of the elections, posters can be seen on the walls across Baghdad city.
Though it is usually harder for a woman than a man to campaign, Mawla is still optimistic. She said, "Although my district is a hot spot, but I moved freely and used to help putting my posters on the walls that made popular among people. They always tried to express their admiration for my bravery so I got so many people who promised to elect me. And those people in my district volunteered to protect me."
Mawla is a mother of two youngsters, Sarah and Hatem, who are high school students in Baghdad. Campaigning in a country dominated by conservative religious blocs since U.S.-led invasion in 2003, she admitted disagreements among her family.
"It is true my family tried to prevent me at the beginning because of the fragile security and they were afraid that my life would be threatened, but I insisted and managed in my ways to persuade them," She said, "I told them that if you are afraid and I am afraid, who will change Iraq? Why would we leave Iraq for others?"
Hanaa Adwer, head of the Amal (Hope) Society for Woman Affairs, a non-governmental organization, said "Women candidates struggling for women's rights are under pressures in Iraq, politically and socially. Politicians are only giving women a supplementary role for their lists."
"Many women candidates had to quit election campaigns because they received threats, but still we have some who are persisting in. I hope we are on the right way in our struggle to change the traditions of our male-dominant society."
The poll is coming, but is it to signal any kind of new beginning for Iraq?
"God bless you and your win in election," the old woman Yusif embraced Mawla with tears welling in her eyes before leaving. More people came and will come to Mawla for help. Can she deal with that?
Can she be Iraq's Hillary?
(Jubury Shaalan and Jamal Hashim also contributed to this report) Source: Xinhua
 Abdul Rahman Al-Khatib was seriously burned after getting too close to the torched US and Israeli flags. Source: Gateway PunditAbdul Rahman Al-Khatib
Latest recipient of the Evil Dumbass Award
Hamas officials, headed by Hamas political bureau chief Khaled Mash'al, are contending that Hamas' victory in Gaza has paved the way to Jaffa and Haifa, and are calling on the Palestinian Authority to join the jihad and the resistance. Following are excerpts from statements by Hamas leaders: Mash'al: "The Resistance Entered Every Home, and Has Become an Ideal Among the Arab Nation and Worldwide""What happened in Gaza was the first real serious war [fought by] our people on their territory, and therefore it constitutes a turning point in the war with the Zionist enemy. The occupation has failed both politically and in the [battle]field, in that it was compelled, after three weeks, to stop the fighting unilaterally, with no agreement, binding conditions, or stipulations restricting the resistance. "Two weeks prior to the ceasefire, the Zionist entity, through mediators, attempted to impose on us conditions of surrender, [i.e.] stopping the resistance in Gaza by [declaring] a long-term tahdia [calm] and disarming it. "However, we staunchly held our ground both in the [battle]field and in the political arena. We rejected these conditions, and they were forced to stop their aggression, [admit] defeat, and withdraw unconditionally. We were adamant in our rejection [of these conditions], since we put our trust in our people's choices and rights..." Read more ...Source: MEMRI
Schools can have a major role to play to protect children from domestic violence such as 'honour'-based violence and forced marriage. Jenni Whitehead looks at a report by the House of Commons Home Affairs CommitteeA new report published by the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee looks at domestic violence, including forced marriage and so called ‘honour’-based violence, and its effect on children. The report pulls together findings from the recent investigation into how local authorities are tackling these issues, particularly that of forced marriage. The report calls for early intervention and prevention strategies and views schools as having a major role to play in early recognition and reporting and ongoing support of pupils at risk. Read more ... Source: Teaching Expertise
 By Gregg Krupa SOUTHFIELD -- Muslims and interfaith leaders in Metro Detroit are asking a local radio station owner to discontinue broadcasts in which, they say, a Coptic priest has repeatedly defamed the Prophet Muhammad over the past year. In an Arabic-language broadcast Wednesday on WNZK 680/690 AM, the Rev. Zakariah Boutros said the Muslim prophet Muhammad had engaged in necrophilia and gay sex, according to the Council on American Islamic Relations. Boutros has previously come under fire from area Muslims, who say he disparages Islam. The controversial, American-based priest can be heard on purchased time slots on radio stations internationally. His words have stirred controversy in Egypt and Great Britain, and are embraced by a number of bloggers and Web sites that criticize Islam. Amani Mostafa, who hosts the program "Questions About Faith" on which Boutros spoke Thursday, said Boutros was "reading from an Islamic text" when he said, over the air, that the Prophet Muhammad slept in the grave of a dead woman and allowed a man to kiss and caress his chest. Read more ...Source: The Detroit News
 STOCKHOLM, Jan 28: Small groups of radical Islamists have a stranglehold on part of a southern Swedish town that saw violent riots last month, a report submitted to the Swedish government said on Wednesday.
The Rosengaard neighbourhood of Malmoe was the scene of two nights of unrest between immigrant youths and police last month.
Around 85 per cent of the 22,000 inhabitants are either immigrants or second generation immigrants and unemployment is 38 per cent
Radical Islamists control the lives of Rosengaard families and set the rules, authors Magnus Ranstorp and Josefine Dos Santos, terrorism experts at Sweden’s National Defence College, wrote in the report.
“Families who have just moved into the neighbourhood and who have never been particularly religious or traditional claim that they led freer lives in their home country than in Rosengaard,” the report said.
Muslim women who did not wear the veil in their home country were for example obliged to don it, according to the study.
The authors also singled out “cellar mosques” whose members serve as a kind of “thought police”.
The 30-page report, entitled “Threat to Democracy and Values - A Snapshot from Malmoe”, is based on interviews with 30 people working in the city, including the police, secret service, social services and teachers.
All of them except one said they had observed a radicalisation of Rosengaard in the past five years. Examples such as forced marriages of young teens abroad were cited, the report said.
The report also describes how Rosengaard residents who found jobs tended to move out of the neighbourhood, and how the number of students in public school has halved in recent years due to a rise in increasingly criticised state-subsidised “free schools” which in Rosengaard focus on Muslim teachings.
“The fact that there are fundamentalist groups in Rosengaard that organise child marriages, harass women that don’t wear the veil and encourage youths to isolate themselves from society is totally unacceptable,” Integration Minister Nyamko Sabuni said in a statement.
“Sweden’s laws, rights and gender equality apply to everyone, including those in Rosengaard,” she added.
The December riots in Rosengaard erupted following protests over the closure of an Islamic cultural centre that housed a mosque, and spread to become a general expression of discontent among disadvantaged youths. Source: AFPMore on this story: New report about Islamism in Sweden
 THE HAGUE, 29/01/09 - Moroccans in the Netherlands are not allowed to give their children any Berber names any more. In this way, Islamic identity is being stressed, Trouw newspaper reported yesterday.
By far the biggest group of Moroccans in the Netherlands are of Berber origin, a region in the mountainous north of Morocco. "They will now be forced to give their children a Moroccan-Islamic name," according to Trouw. "Morocco wants to secure the Moroccan identity of its nationals in this way, including the Moroccan Dutch."
The Moroccan government in Rabat sent all embassies and consulates abroad a list of banned name this week. Christian names were already forbidden. "We forbid Berber names because they conflict with the identity and because they open the door to the spread of meaningless names," said Idris Bajdi, a top official in Morocco, in the newspaper.
Labour (PvdA) MP Samira Bouchibti, a Moroccan national (by royal Moroccan decree) like all other Moroccans who moved to or were born in the Netherlands, is angry. "We must get rid of these lists of names and this interference. I want to be able to decide myself how I name my children. This is discriminatory."
Bouchibti also criticised her party leader Wouter Bos, who said at a PvdA party meeting earlier this week that dual passports "belong in the Netherlands." Bouchibti: "Bos has no enforced dual nationality and therefore does not know what it means in practice." Bos considers dual nationality can foster intergation. Source: NIS
Members of a Gaza family whose farm was turned into a "fortress" by Hamas fighters have reported that they were helpless to stop Hamas from using them as human shields.
They told the official Palestinian Authority daily newspaper that for years Hamas had used their property and homes as military installations from which the group would launch rockets into Israel, dig tunnels and store arms.
According to the victims, those who tried to object were shot in the legs by Hamas operatives.
Palestinian Media Watch quoted the official Palestinian Authority daily, Al-Hayat al-Jadida as reporting on January 27, "The Abd Rabbo family kept quiet while Hamas fighters turned their farm in the Gaza strip into a fortress. Right now they are waiting for the aid promised by the [Hamas] movement after Israel bombed the farm and turned it into ruins."
According to the report, the hill on which the Abd Rabbo family lives overlooks Sderot, making it an ideal military position for Hamas fighters.
The Abd Rabbo family members emphasized to the paper that they were not Hamas activists and that they were still loyal to the Fatah movement, but that they had been unable to prevent the armed squads from entering their neighborhood at night.
Source: Jerusalem Post
 U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) is nothing if not tenacious. He sent five letters to the State Department and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice during the last 15 months of the Bush Administration expressing his concern about intolerance and extremism in Saudi Arabian textbooks, especially those being used at the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA) in Alexandria, Va. An analysis by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) concluded that, despite promise to remove references to offending passages, the books still teach that "Jews conspired against Islam," that Sunni Muslims should shun all Shia Muslims and that killing an apostate or an adulterer is acceptable under Islamic law. Now there's a new team at the State Department and Wolf has written to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging her to act. He told Clinton his past overtures resulted only in "vague assurances on the part of the State Department and the school that the curriculum has been reformed. But these assurances are insufficient, particularly when they are utterly at odds with USCIRF's findings, and may be indicative of a wider problem-namely the status of Saudi commitments made in 2006 to conduct ‘a comprehensive revision of textbooks and educational curricula to weed out disparaging remarks.'" A resolution is needed, even if it turns out the matter has been resolved quietly, Wolf wrote: "If the students at ISA are not being taught or exposed to texts that incite hatred and intolerance of other people and faiths, then in all fairness to them and those associated with the academy, concerns should be put to rest. If, however, the content of the textbooks is consistent with USCIRF's findings, then action is required." Saudi Arabia was among the largest donors to former President Bill Clinton's charity foundation, Wolf notes. If Secretary of State Clinton wants to show those donations will not affect her decisions as the nation's top diplomat, Wolf writes, demanding answers from the ISA would be a good start. Source: IPT BlogHon. Frank Wolf
Latest recipient of The MASH Award
 Though it represents itself to be a Muslim civil rights organization, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) devoted most of its resources earlier this month to mobilizing opposition to Israel's attempt to neutralize Hamas militarily. It organized petition drives and bus caravans from chapters across the country to a protest held January 10th in Washington, D.C. On Thursday, the Investigative Project on Terrorism reported that the FBI has cut off contact with CAIR due to unanswered questions about the organization's roots in a Hamas-support network. Earlier this month, the IPT showed how CAIR officials dutifully avoid mentioning Hamas by name when discussing the conflict. Yet no major media outlet or political figure is challenging CAIR's positions or tactics. That may be because CAIR has cultivated sympathetic coverage in everything from local newspapers to the New York Times, nurtured alliances with members of Congress, including Democrats Jim McDermott of Washington, Keith Ellison of Minnesota and Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, all of whom have spoken at CAIR events. In the past six months the mayors of Houston and Tampa have issued proclamations designating "Council on American Islamic Relations day" in their cities. Not bad for a group labeled as a front group by an FBI agent during sworn testimony in a successful terror-finance prosecution in which CAIR is an un-indicted co-conspirator. Read more ...Source: IPT News
 By Pelargonium British Vogue, November 2008, featured an article about female converters to Islam by Jemima Khan, herself a woman who converted from Judaism for the sake of her marriage to Imran Khan over ten years ago. An excellent choice for a first husband, her father said at the time, although I would say not an entirely excellent choice of religion to be married to, for if she has chosen to leave the religion, she has been quieter about that than about her divorce – understandably, as she might well prefer to live a pleasant life with her children rather than risk being on the receiving end of a bit of anti-apostate Islamic activity. Interviewing three enthusiastic converters to her assumed religion did not evince a correspondingly excitable tone in Ms Khan’s writing. Indeed I detected a tone that could be interpreted as subtle cautioning regarding the leap these women had made, which cannot fail to be seen alogside her personal decision to return to England and a “Western” lifestyle after ten years in Pakistan; this was despite her assertion, several years ago, that the "superficialities" of a Western woman's lifestyle, which she had fully enjoyed, had "little to do with true happiness". read more ...Source: Islam Watch
Turkey's prime minister had a message Thursday for U.S. President Barack Obama: redefine terror and terrorism in the Middle East and use it as the basis for a new American policy. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country has played a key role in trying to mediate among Israel and Syria and the Palestinians, said Obama's new Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, will be in Turkey for talks Sunday. "President Obama must redefine terror and terrorist organizations in the Middle East, and based on this new definition, a new American policy must be deployed in the Middle East," Erdogan told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The Turkish leader appeared to be referring to the U.S. position toward Hamas and Hezbollah, which the United States considers terrorist organizations. While both have military wings, Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007 and remains in charge following the recent Israeli invasion. Hezbollah is a major political force in Lebanon. Read more ...Source: AP H/T: Weasel Zippers
 By Kathy Shaidle Imagine a Super Bowl with all male cheerleaders and half-time prayers. In that America, they drink Jihad Cola instead of Coke and thank Allah when they win an Oscar. Luckily, that America is fictional, one vividly described in Robert Ferrigno's 2006 futuristic novel, Prayers for the Assassin, set in 2040. But is it really so hard to imagine, in a world in which a man named "Barack Hussein Obama" can get elected President just a few years after Muslim hijackers destroyed the world's tallest buildings in the heart of New York City? Today many Americans are either blissfully ignorant of, or simply indifferent to, the slow, incremental growth of radical Islam in their midst.We sometimes hear about terrorist cells or suspicious Muslim "compounds" on the news. However, these stories represent merely the tip of an Islamic iceberg that could very well doom America. Not today or tomorrow. But in our lifetimes? That is a real possibility. And don't shrug off Islam as "just another religion." Muslim sharia law deems women to be inferior to men, and allows husbands to "lightly" beat their wives. Polygamy and child bride marriage are condoned and encouraged, due to the example of Mohammed himself, whose many wives included a nine year old. Anti-Semitism and slavery are enshrined in the Koran, as is exploitation of and even violence against all "unbelievers." Read more ...Source: RightSide News
 By: Yishai G (reserve soldier)
Hello,
While the world watches the ruins in Gaza, you return to your home which remains standing. However, I am sure that it is clear to you that someone was in your home while you were away.
I am that someone.
I spent long hours imagining how you would react when you walked into your home. How you would feel when you understood that IDF soldiers had slept on your mattresses and used your blankets to keep warm.
I knew that it would make you angry and sad and that you would feel this violation of the most intimate areas of your life by those defined as your enemies, with stinging humiliation. I am convinced that you hate me with unbridled hatred, and you do not have even the tiniest desire to hear what I have to say. At the same time, it is important for me to say the following in the hope that there is even the minutest chance that you will hear me.
I spent many days in your home. You and your family's presence was felt in every corner. I saw your family portraits on the wall, and I thought of my family. I saw your wife's perfume bottles on the bureau, and I thought of my wife. I saw your children's toys and their English language schoolbooks. I saw your personal computer and how you set up the modem and wireless phone next to the screen, just as I do.
I wanted you to know that despite the immense disorder you found in your house that was created during a search for explosives and tunnels (which were indeed found in other homes), we did our best to treat your possessions with respect. When I moved the computer table, I disconnected the cables and lay them down neatly on the floor, as I would do with my own computer. I even covered the computer from dust with a piece of cloth. I tried to put back the clothes that fell when we moved the closet although not the same as you would have done, but at least in such a way that nothing would get lost.
I know that the devastation, the bullet holes in your walls and the destruction of those homes near you place my descriptions in a ridiculous light. Still, I need you to understand me, us, and hope that you will channel your anger and criticism to the right places.
I decided to write you this letter specifically because I stayed in your home.
I can surmise that you are intelligent and educated and there are those in your household that are university students. Your children learn English, and you are connected to the Internet. You are not ignorant; you know what is going on around you.
Therefore, I am sure you know that Qassam rockets were launched from your neighborhood into Israeli towns and cities.
How could you see these weekly launches and not think that one day we would say "enough"?! Did you ever consider that it is perhaps wrong to launch rockets at innocent civilians trying to lead a normal life, much like you? How long did you think we would sit back without reacting?
I can hear you saying "it's not me, it's Hamas". My intuition tells me you are not their most avid supporter. If you look closely at the sad reality in which your people live, and you do not try to deceive yourself or make excuses about "occupation", you must certainly reach the conclusion that the Hamas is your real enemy.
The reality is so simple, even a seven year old can understand: Israel withdrew from the Gaza strip, removing military bases and its citizens from Gush Katif. Nonetheless, we continued to provide you with electricity, water, and goods (and this I know very well as during my reserve duty I guarded the border crossings more than once, and witnessed hundreds of trucks full of goods entering a blockade-free Gaza every day).
Despite all this, for reasons that cannot be understood and with a lack of any rational logic, Hamas launched missiles on Israeli towns. For three years we clenched our teeth and restrained ourselves. In the end, we could not take it anymore and entered the Gaza strip, into your neighborhood, in order to remove those who want to kill us. A reality that is painful but very easy to explain.
As soon as you agree with me that Hamas is your enemy and because of them, your people are miserable, you will also understand that the change must come from within. I am acutely aware of the fact that what I say is easier to write than to do, but I do not see any other way. You, who are connected to the world and concerned about your children's education, must lead, together with your friends, a civil uprising against Hamas.
I swear to you, that if the citizens of Gaza were busy paving roads, building schools, opening factories and cultural institutions instead of dwelling in self pity, arms smuggling and nurturing a hatred to your Israeli neighbors, your homes would not be in ruins right now.
If your leaders were not corrupt and motivated by hatred, your home would not have been harmed.
If someone would have stood up and shouted that there is no point in launching missiles on innocent civilians, I would not have to stand in your kitchen as a soldier.
You don't have money, you tell me? You have more than you can imagine.
Even before Hamas took control of Gaza, during the time of Yasser Arafat, millions if not billions of dollars donated by the world community to the Palestinians was used for purchasing arms or taken directly to your leaders bank accounts. Gulf States, the emirates - your brothers, your flesh and blood, are some of the richest nations in the world. If there was even a small feeling of solidarity between Arab nations, if these nations had but the smallest interest in reconstructing the Palestinian people - your situation would be very different.
You must be familiar with Singapore. The land mass there is not much larger than the Gaza strip and it is considered to be the second most populated country in the world. Yet, Singapore is a successful, prospering, and well managed country. Why not the same for you?
My friend, I would like to call you by name, but I will not do so publicly. I want you to know that I am 100% at peace with what my country did, what my army did, and what I did. However, I feel your pain. I am sorry for the destruction you are finding in your neighborhood at this moment. On a personal level, I did what I could to minimize the damage to your home as much as possible.
In my opinion, we have a lot more in common than you might imagine. I am a civilian, not a soldier, and in my private life I have nothing to do with the military. However, I have an obligation to leave my home, put on a uniform, and protect my family every time we are attacked. I have no desire to be in your home wearing a uniform again and I would be more than happy to sit with you as a guest on your beautiful balcony, drinking sweet tea seasoned with the sage growing in your garden.
The only person who could make that dream a reality is you. Take responsibility for yourself, your family, your people, and start to take control of your destiny. How? I do not know. Maybe there is something to be learned from the Jewish people who rose up from the most destructive human tragedy of the 20th century, and instead of sinking into self-pity, built a flourishing and prospering country. It is possible, and it is in your hands.
I am ready to be there to provide a shoulder of support and help to you.
But only you can move the wheels of history."
Regards,
Yishai, (Reserve Soldier) Source: Maariv
BackgroundFor three years, the Flight 93 Memorial Project has been relentlessly dishonest, publicly denying damning facts like the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent while making excuses for these facts in private. Example:Before the 2007 Memorial Project meeting, Project Partner and Flight 93 family member Patrick White was asked by the press about claims that the giant Crescent of Embrace points to Mecca. He said that all of the claims about what is in the design had been thoroughly investigated and been found to be untrue and " preposterous." In private conversation at the meeting itself, White acknowledged the Mecca-orientation of the crescent and made excuses for it, arguing that the almost-exact Mecca orientation cannot be seen as a tribute to Islam because the in-exactness of it would be "disrespectful to Islam." It is difficult enough to comprehend how Flight 93 family members can know that the giant crescent does indeed point almost exactly at Mecca, as critics are claiming, and still be okay with it. But White and the other Project Partners are going even further. They are knowingly covering up this damning information, and even flat lying to the public about it. Whatever the explanation, this is what we are up against. Memorial Project participants know that the press will only cover our denunciations of the crescent design in those rare instances where we are able to mount a substantial public protest. Since the press never checks the facts, Project partners just issue whatever denials will get them through that news cycle, no matter how dishonest. The above videoAn example of this shameless misdirection was caught on video at last summer's Memorial Project meeting. Alec Rawls, who made the trip to Somerset PA along with Tom Burnett Sr. (father of Flight 93 hero Tom Jr.), directed public attention to the crescent-topped Tower of Voices. A full-color advertisement in the Somerset newspaper showed the public what the Memorial Project and the press would not: that the Tower of Voices is topped with an Islamic shaped crescent, soaring in the sky above the symbolic lives of the 40 heroes:  At the meeting, Patrick White castigated Rawls for showing the meeting this artist's rendering of the crescent topped tower, even as this very same graphic was on display by the Memorial Project itself just outside of the courtroom where the meeting was taking place. White angrily denounced any suggestion that the approved plans for the memorial were indicative of what would actually be built, clearly implying that the crescent topped tower is no longer part of the planned memorial. Yet White had asserted exactly the opposite just three months earlier, when he and other family members involved with the Memorial Project declared that they would fight to build the design as approved: Commission Chairman John Reynolds said he anticipated that people who opposed the memorial design would present a petition to throw it out.
But family members yesterday said they will work tirelessly to have the monument completed according to the design by the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
"We're standing up and saying, 'Enough.' We're proponents of the winning design," said Patrick White, whose cousin, Louis "Joey" Nacke II, died on Flight 93.
...
Mr. White said his group rejected any wholesale change to the design but allowed that it would have to be modified as it shifts from paper to reality.
However, Mr. White added, "They're not going to be changed based upon the idea that someone sees crescents everywhere." This was shortly after our blogburst group started hitting hard on the crescent-topped tower, which the Project Partners are known to have been angry about. In effect, White was directly insisting that the Tower would not be changed just because people were upset about its crescent shape. The press ignored White's implied denial that the crescent shaped tower will be builtIf the crescent shaped tower is actually to be removed, or changed to some other shape, that is a significant concession, and should have been widely reported, at least by the western Pennsylvania press, but it was not mentioned in any newspaper. Has the blatant Islamic-Supremacist symbolism of the crescent-topped tower actually penetrated the thick skulls of Patrick White and his cohorts? That is doubtful. When they only faced blogosphere pressure over the crescent-topped tower, their response was angry insistence that the design would NOT be altered. The difference in August was that everyone they had to deal with face-to-face had just seen the crescent topped tower in the local newspaper. The difference was exposure. Since the press went on to cover up what we worked so hard to expose, there is no reason to think that the Memorial Project will change the design at all. They managed to sneak their cover-up through one more news cycle, which is all they have ever cared about. Not that any tweaking of the design could ever make it anything but a terrorist memorial mosque in any case. The Tower, for instance, will still be a year round accurate Islamic prayer-time sundial, regardless of any change to the Tower's profile. (The Memorial Project knows about this too, and makes utterly dishonest excuses for it.) Better stand up and fight America, or there WILL be a terrorist memorial mosque on the Flight 93 crash site. To join our blogbursts, send your blog's url. Source: Error Theory
 Gary Duncan in Davos | January 30
BENJAMIN Netanyahu, the frontrunner to become the next Israeli prime minister, has warned that Iran's "100-yard dash" to securing nuclear weapons is a graver danger to the world than the global economic crisis.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, before Israel's election in 12 days, Mr Netanyahu claimed that Tehran was now close to securing an atomic bomb, and was in a "100-yard dash" to the finish line in the race to obtain the weapon.
Mr Netanyahu said that despite all its intractable problems, the financial and economic crisis would ultimately prove reversible and be beaten by governments and central banks.
But in an ominous alert to world leaders, he said: "What is not reversible is the acquisition of nuclear weapons by a fanatic radical regime committed to a pre-medieval view of the world.
"We have never had, since the dawn of the nuclear age, nuclear weapons in the hands of such a fanatical regime."
In hawkish comments designed to bolster his tough credentials in the forthcoming polls in Israel, Mr Netanyahu said that efforts by him and others to secure peace across the Middle East would be scuppered if Tehran secured usable nuclear weapons.
Insisting that he wanted to "move rapidly to advance a workable peace", with moderates in the Palestinian Authority and to "drive down the radicals", the former Israeli finance minister went on: "All of this will fall by the wayside if the world fails to stop Iran from arming itself with nuclear weapons.
"It was and remains the greatest challenge facing the leaders of the 21st century at the beginning of the 21st century."
Iran has denied it is seeking to acquire nuclear weapons and says it is pursuing nuclear power for peaceful uses. It also denied it is engaged in terrorism, instead accusing Israel of terrorist policies against the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, which were occupied by Israel after the 1967 Mideast War.
In a discussion on leadership alongside British Conservative leader David Cameron, Mr Netanyahu said that three qualities were required to be a successful national leader: vision, usable political power, and political courage.
"Unless you have the big three - the vision, the power and the guts - it is not going to happen," he said.
He outlined a proposed economic strategy for Israel including more stringent control of government spending, steep cuts in taxes, and a series of measure to enhance his country's international competitiveness, including the building of a new highway to connect Israel's two coastlines.
"My vision is that we can use this crisis to complete reforms so that Israel becomes one of the ten most competitive economies in the world," he said.
George Mitchell, US President Barack Obama's new Middle East envoy, was meeting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Israel.
Mr Olmert was reported to have told the envoy that Israel would be willing to evacuate some 60,000 settlers in the West Bank and hand over much of east Jerusalem as part of any permanent peace arrangement between Israel and the Palestinians.
But that policy would be thrown into doubt if Likud and Mr Netanyahu win. The latest election polls show Likud ahead of Mr Olmert's centrist Kadima party and its candidate for prime minister, Tzipi Livni, the Foreign Minister, by about five seats in the 120-seat parliament. Mr Olmert, who is facing corruption allegations, is stepping down.
Polls show Likud and other hawkish parties winning a majority in the parliament, giving Mr Netanyahu the best chance to form a government. Source: The Australian
 Five months after the daughter of a member of Saudi Arabia’s religious police was killed for writing online about her faith in Christ, Saudi authorities have reportedly arrested a 28-year-old Christian man for describing his conversion and criticizing the kingdom’s judiciary on his Web site.
Saudi police arrested Hamoud Bin Saleh on Jan. 13 “because of his opinions and his testimony that he had converted from Islam to Christianity,” according to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI). Bin Saleh, who had been detained for nine months in 2004 and again for a month last November, was reportedly being held in Riyadh’s Eleisha prison.
On his web site, which Saudi authorities have blocked, Bin Saleh wrote that his journey to Christ began after witnessing the public beheading of three Pakistanis convicted of drug charges. Shaken, he began an extensive study of Islamic history and law, as well as Saudi justice. He became disillusioned with sharia (Islamic law) and dismayed that kingdom authorities only prosecuted poor Saudis and foreigners. Source: Compass Direct NewsH/T: Dhimmi WatchUpdate: Blogger Arrested for Leaving Islam; Google Shuts Down WebsiteGoogle
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award
 His sister was a bad Muslim girlBy Robert Spencer Just received this one from three weeks ago: Waheed Allah Mohammad has pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree murder and first-degree assault for trying to kill his sister, Fauzia A. Mohammad, by stabbing her multiple times. Waheed Mohammad told investigators that Fauzia had dishonored the family and was a “bad Muslim girl,” but no worries -- this wasn't an attempt to add to the growing list of honor killings in the U.S. Oh, no. Waheed just snapped because of post-traumatic stress disorder. His lawyer explained: “I think it was probably more of a domestic violence incident than an attempted honor killing. It (honor killing) is a nice headline but it doesn’t seem to fit what happened here.” This kind of denial will only make for more honor killings in the U.S. Democrat and Chronicle:An Afghan refugee admitted today that he stabbed and seriously wounded his sister during an argument that began when she tried to leave her family.
Waheed Allah Mohammad, 22, pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree murder and first-degree assault in exchange for a prison term of at least five years and no more than 15 years.
His trial was to begin next Monday.
During his plea before Monroe County Court Judge John J. Connell, Mohammad said he intended to kill his sister, Fauzia A. Mohammad, 19, when he stabbed her multiple times outside his family’s apartment on Linhome Drive in Henrietta. Read more ... Source: Jihad WatchWaheed Allah Mohammad
Latest recipient of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award
Robert Spencer's address at the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Wednesday Morning Club in Los Angeles 1/28/9. Source: Jihad Watch
By Joseph Farah It would have been impossible to imagine in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks that they would actually stir sympathy for Islam – even radical Islam. Yet there is no question, eight years later, that is exactly what happened. Though accurate statistics are elusive, Islam is growing in America – both through immigration and conversion. Islam has more effective lobbying groups in America than ever before. There are efforts to be more "inclusive" of Islam in government, schools, academia and business. There is more "sensitivity" to Islam in entertainment. And there is an almost suicidal eagerness to assume the best about Islam, its adherents and its intentions. Try to imagine what might have happened if (and, admittedly, this is very difficult to imagine) a group of Orthodox Jews crashed two planes into the World Trade Center, another into the Pentagon and a fourth into a field in Pennsylvania, killing about 3,000 Americans. Read more ...Source: WND
 By Mary Jacoby The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has cut off contacts with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) amid mounting concern about the Muslim advocacy group's roots in a Hamas-support network, the Investigative Project on Terrorism has learned. The decision to end contacts with CAIR was made quietly last summer as federal prosecutors prepared for a second trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), an Islamic charity accused of providing money and political support to the terrorist group Hamas, according to people with knowledge of the matter. CAIR and its chairman emeritus, Omar Ahmad, were named un-indicted co-conspirators in the HLF case. Both Ahmad and CAIR's current national executive director, Nihad Awad, were revealed on government wiretaps as having been active participants in early Hamas-related organizational meetings in the United States. During testimony, FBI agent Lara Burns described CAIR as a front organization. Hamas is a US-designated foreign terrorist organization, and it's been illegal since 1995 to provide support to it within the United States. The decision to end contacts with CAIR is a significant policy change for the FBI. For years, the FBI worked with the national organization and its state chapters to address Muslim community concerns about the potential for hate crimes and other civil liberty violations in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. But critics said the FBI improperly conferred legitimacy on CAIR by meeting with its officials, even as its own investigative files contained evidence of CAIR leaders' ties to Hamas. Last autumn, FBI field offices began notifying state CAIR chapters that bureau officials could no longer meet with them until CAIR's national leadership in Washington had addressed issues raised by the HLF trial, according to people with knowledge of the notifications. CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper declined to comment Wednesday when the IPT called for comment. Before hanging up, Hooper said "We're more than happy to cooperate with legitimate media. But we don't cooperate with those who promote anti-Muslim bigotry." In one letter obtained by IPT News, James E. Finch, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Oklahoma City field office, canceled a meeting of the local Muslim Community Outreach Program, a state-federal program designed to enlist Muslims in terrorism prevention and investigate reports of civil liberties violations. Read more ...Source: IPT NewsFBI
Latest recipient of The MASH Award
 Source: Atlas
 A youth slaughtered his mother on suspicion of illicit relations at Shaheen Colony in the Factory Area police precincts on Monday. The deceased was identified as 45-year-old Zarqa Sana.
According to Mirza Atif, another son of the victim, his elder but step brother Dilawar started exchanging harsh words with their mother over a family matter. During the process, the accused shot at and injured the victim. Later, he slaughtered her with a sharp-edged weapon. Rescue 1122 officials, after being informed, reached the scene and rushed the victim to the General Hospital where doctors pronounced her dead. Meanwhile, police officials reached the scene and removed the body to morgue.
Police sources, however, claimed that the killer was suspicious that his mother had developed illicit relations with a local of the area. They alleged that Zarqa was going to meet her paramour on Monday and Dilawar stopped her but she turned a deaf ear to his words. Factory Area Circle ASP Sarfaraz Virak said they had arrested the killer, who confessed to committing the crime in police custody, alleging that his mother had a bad character.
Two dacoits killed in ‘encounter’: Two car thieves were killed in an ‘encounter’ with the Iqbal Town CIA on Monday and police seized a stolen car as well as two Kalashnikovs, one launcher, four launcher shells and bullets.
On Sunday night, four dacoits took away a car (HX-157 Islamabad) from the Moghalpura police area. Police received information that the dacoits intended to take this car as well as another car (LEA-5676-06) to the tribal areas. Three dacoits were riding one car. One of them fled while the other two opened fire at police.
The police retaliated as a result of which two dacoits were killed on the spot. The other stolen vehicle was chased which the criminal later abandoned at Huma Block and managed to escape. Police also seized two Kalashnikovs, one launcher, four launcher shells and bullets. Source: The NewsH/T: Weasel Zippers
 By Akhtar Amin PESHAWAR: NWFP Minister for Elementary and Secondary Education Sardar Hussain Babak said on Tuesday that it had become difficult for the government to stop Taliban from torching and bombing girls schools in the restive Swat Valley. Commenting on destruction of yet another school by Taliban in Odigram, a suburb of Mingora city, on Monday, the minister said the government could not stop destruction of schools when the area people took up arms and wore suicide jackets to torch and bomb their own schools. He blamed religious parties (JI and JUI-F) for providing moral support to Swat Taliban and ignoring the violence with which they treated innocent people of the valley. “It is easy for leaders of religious parties to blame the provincial government for deteriorating law and order situation. But one should ask JI Chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed and JUI-F Chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman why they remain silent on terrorist activities of Mullah Fazlullah in Swat district,” Babak said. Read more ...Source: Daily Times
 Terrorist Kamel Bourgass, jailed for life By Chris Riches A MURDERING Al Qaeda terrorist has sparked outrage after threatening legal action under the Human Rights Act unless women prison wardens in his presence wear veils. Kamel Bourgass, 33, was jailed for life in 2004 after stabbing brave Special Branch officer Stephen Oake to death in a police raid. Now Bourgass is not only recruiting extremists to his twisted cause in Wakefield prison but is claiming that women wardens without veils infringe his human rights. He has even cracked sick jokes about the bravery medal DC Oake received posthumously, sneering that it was made from the “metal of my knife”. The Algerian had been preparing a deadly ricin poison attack on Bri tain when father-of-three Detective Constable Oake, 40, arrested him. Read more ...Source: Daily Express
By Victoria Huntley Moves have begun to try and get the radical Hizb ut-Tahrir Islamist group banned in Britain after the ruling group on one local authority in East London voted to get it proscribed. The Labour members on Tower Hamlets Council agreed last night (Monday) by a casting vote to get the controversial organisation outlawed. Council cabinet members abstained from the vote, while the rest of the Labour members were split on the issue, inside sources have told the East London Advertiser tonight. Half voted to get Hizb ut-Tahrir formerly banned, the rest voted against. Labour Group chairman Carli Harper-Penman used her casting vote, the sources said. Many felt the controversial organisation was causing strife and division in the community, while others challenged whether an all-out ban might not drive Islamic radicals underground. Read more ...Source: East London Advertiser
Al-Jazeera TV, January 22, 2009: "Today, Hamas Gangs Are Unleashed Like Packs of Animals on the Streets of Gaza Against Fatah Members" Yasser Abd Rabbo: "Yesterday, we heard Khaled Mash'al talking from Damascus about new, additional preconditions for national reconciliation - the only goal of which is to hinder the achievement of reconciliation. [...] "Today, Hamas gangs are unleashed like packs of animals on the streets of Gaza against Fatah members. Because the military bases and the prisons have been destroyed, they have turned Gaza schools, Al-Nasser Hospital, the radiology department at Shifa' Hospital, Al-Aqsa University, and other places, including mosques, into centers for the detention, interrogation, and torture of Fatah members and members of other national Palestinian factions. Read more ...Source: MEMRI
By Dr. Sami Alrabaa Ahmed Al-Sarraf cited in Al-Qabas (June 2, 2007) some passages from a Kuwaiti school textbook taught at the first secondary grade. Here is an English translation of passages from the book, "Jurisprudence", p. 38: Who is, or who is not, punished in a Muslim society: • A Muslim who kills an apostate or someone who commits adultery against an infidel is not punished. • If a Muslim kills an infidel or a slave, he is not punished. • If a Muslim man, father, or grandfather kills someone from his offspring, he is not punished. I went through the school textbooks taught in Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. Here is an English translation of some passages from these books. Read more ...Source: Islam Watch
By Patrick Poole On December 29, aircraft of the Israeli Defense Forces bombed Hamas terror labs located at the Hamas-run Islamic University of Gaza (IUG) that the IDF said were used by IUG faculty members to make explosives for the terrorist group. The following day I reported exclusively here at Pajamas Media that the bombed terror labs were financed and built by the Dublin, Ohio-based Arab Student Aid International (ASAI). As I noted, ASAI is chaired by Saudi Prince Turki bin Abdul Aziz, half brother to Saudi King Abdullah, who is also the organization’s primary benefactor. In response to our reporting, the Columbus Dispatch published an article two weeks ago by reporter Dean Narciso quoting ASAI director Ishaq Y. Al-Qutub that they are considering taking legal action against their detractors - namely, Pajamas Media: “There has been a serious misunderstanding and misinterpretation of what we do,” he [Al-Qutub] said, adding that they eventually will consider legal action. Is it likely that ASAI will follow through on their legal threats? Not really. Read more ...Source: Pajamas MediaASAI
Latest recipient of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award
 By Lt.C. Allen West I recently read of the travails of my fellow IFPS board member Geert Wilders. A day later my attention was drawn to President Barack Hussein Obama signing an executive order to shut down operations at the Guantanamo detention facility. The irony struck me that here we have the new President seeking to extend US Constitutional protections to Islamic terrorists, the enemy. We plan to provide them legal rights under the equal protection clause. Yet in Holland, a fellow democracy, the government is ordering the criminal prosecution of an elected representative for exercising one of the Western world’s most precious freedoms, freedom of speech; and in this case, freedom of speech to discuss the jihadist ideology of the enemy. What is happening in Western civilization? Have we become so enamored with this illness called multiculturalism that we are embarrassed to honor and defend our own cultural principles? Can nothing be more shocking than to charge a member of the Dutch Parliament with “hate speech” for speaking the truth? Read more ...Source: Diana West
From correspondents in Gaza City January 29
An Israeli warplane has bombed an area of the Gaza Strip border known to contain smuggling tunnels to Egypt, witnesses and the Israeli military said.
"An aerial attack took place against a site used to manufacture weapons in an area of the city of Rafah following the firing of a rocket into southern Israel in the evening," an Israeli army spokesman said today.
Witnesses said the attack took place in eastern Rafah, an area known to contain smuggling tunnels, and that no one was injured.
Earlier the Israeli military said a rocket was fired from the Gaza Strip towards the town of Ofakim, which fell in an unpopulated area.
The rocket attack was claimed by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of moderate Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fatah faction.
Yesterday, the ruling Islamist movement Hamas said it had fired several mortar rounds at Israeli troops making an incursion into the Gaza Strip.
The first major violation of the truce which ended Israel's 22-day onslaught against Hamas in the Gaza Strip took place yesterday, when Palestinian militants killed an Israeli soldier in a bomb blast near the border.
Israel retaliated with gunfire that left one man dead, an air strike that wounded three and bombing raids on border smuggling tunnels. Source: The Australian
Mr Ban Ki-Moon
United Nations
Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General
United Nations, S-378
New York, NY 10017
Tel. 212-963-7162, Fax. 212-963-7055
The Honorable Secretary-General, Mr Ban Ki-moon!
Subject: Hamas leadership to be brought to trial for War Crimes
Your Excellency! We, the Take-A-Pen international public advocacy organization, request decisive action regarding a severe case of war crimes.
In the recent years and in the present ongoing military conflict the Hamas terrorist organization ruling in Gaza has committed a large number of diverse war crimes, as defined by International Law.
The form of warfare the Hamas movement inflicted both on the Gaza population and on Israel has caused much suffering and heavy losses and damage both to Israel's civilian population and to the entire Gaza Strip. The Hamas regime has fired 6,300 rockets targeting Israeli civilians. In Gaza the Hamas stored rockets and other weaponry and ammunition primarily in residential areas; in houses, mosques, and schools. Thousands of rocket and mortar grenade attacks were launched from within these areas, obliging Israeli military response which inevitably led to great suffering of the population and damage to property.
According to International Law any source of fire on civilian targets is a legitimate target itself. If that source of fire was located among civilians it still remains a legitimate target; and if that vicinity invites fire in return, causing casualties among the local population, these casualties are the full and sole responsibility of the party placing them deliberately in harm's way. In this case Hamas is fully responsible both for the deliberately targeted Israeli civilian casualties and for the civilian casualties of its own population used by Hamas as a human shield.
Your Excellency, Mister Secretary General! We demand that the Hamas leadership be brought to international justice without delay, and tried for the following war crimes:
- Shooting rockets and grenades purposely on civilian targets in Israel.
- Shooting these rockets from within Palestinian civilian compounds such as schools or in close proximity of hospitals or residential buildings.
- Storing weapons and ammunition in schools, mosques, public offices and buildings and the sort.
- Regularly using their own civilians as human shield; particularly children, often forced to be in the most dangerous spots.
- During fighting with the Israeli forces the Hamas fighters, who wore uniforms at the beginning, changed to civilian clothing or IDF uniforms and continued to fight.
- Hamas fighters have routinely hid among civilians in hospitals
- To the kidnapped Israeli soldier, Gilad Schalit, Hamas did not provide the most elementary rights of war prisoners, such as information given to the other side and Red Cross visits, rights Israel grants even to convicted Hamas terrorists.
- Children and minors were routinely used by Hamas for military tasks, both battle and auxiliary. The Hamas regime has also educated, indoctrinated and trained children and minors to murderous hatred, to will and techniques to kill.
- The Hamas leadership embezzled aid money received for the peaceful needs of Gaza's population and used these extensive funds for war efforts; weaponry, military equipment and constructions, and an enormous military build-up.
A failure to prosecute the Hamas leadership in International Court would, no doubt, lead to their war crimes growingly become normative behavior, and to more of the same humanitarian catastrophes, to millions of victims of oppression and killings undefended by the UN.
Mr Secretary General, we would appreciate your considered reply, which, with your permission, we would publish, along with this letter. We shall follow your relevant activities with great honor, high expectations, and deep moral support.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
Source: Petition Online
 By Herb Denenberg The United States, Britain, and much of the West is slowly surrendering its right to freedom of speech in the face of threats of violence from Islam and in the face of a systematic campaign to demonize and even criminalize any criticism of Islam, Islamofascism, Islam Jihadism and all the rest. This process is well along the way, and that’s why it has been so well described in Robert Spencer’s book Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs. Here’s one good example. You remember the violence set off by the publication of those Danish cartoons that some Muslims found objectionable. What happened when newspapers were called upon to reprint them, so the public could understand what was going on and why people were being killed by the Muslims rioting in protest? Here is a perfect test of speech, but nearly all papers refused to republish them, and that includes newspapers in the U.S. and Britain. Freedom of speech means nothing if people are afraid to exercise their rights. Mr. Spencer says this proves violence works. But it also is just one of many examples of how we have started surrendering our right to free speech to the Muslim extremists. When we surrender our most basic and important right, you can be sure we are well on the path of total surrender. We better understand what’s going on, and do something to reverse our course toward Dhimmihood, what the Muslims call the status of infidels in their midst forced to live as second-class citizens. Read more ...Source: The Bulletin
By Abul Kasem
Sura 8: al-Anfal (The Spoils of War)
8:9
Allah helped Muhammad with one thousand angels in succession (following one another: Gabriel led five hundred of them, and Michael led five hundred of them—ibn Kathir).
Contradiction: 3:125 says Allah helped Muhammad in Badr with five thousand angel soldiers.
Contradiction: 3:124 says Muhammad requested Allah to send three thousand angel fighters.
8:38
Allah will forgive unbelievers’ past if they accept Islam; if not, they will face the fate of their forefathers (i.e., exemplary punishment from Allah).
Contradiction: Allah says in 3:20 if the unbelievers do not convert to Islam leave them alone, Muhammad's duty is only to convey the message.
Sura 9: al-Baraat (Immunity) or al-Tauba (Repentance)
9:23
Unbelieving father, brothers are not protectors of converts of Islam; Muslims should not take them as guardians.
Contradiction: 17:23, 31:15 say respect parents even if they are unbelievers. Source: Islam Watch
 By Jeffrey Imm A great man once warned that we "cannot sit idly by" and "not be concerned about what happens" in other places as injustice happens, equality is crushed, and liberties are threatened. He told us that: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." That great man dared to defy an ideology of identity-based supremacism, an ideology based on denying equality to all men and women, an ideology based on the lie that some are inherently superior to others simply based on their race, religion, creed, or national origin. That great man challenged a supremacist ideology whose "ugly record of brutality is widely known," and he did not fear to name it or protest against its oppression of others. As a result, he was threatened and charged by some with actions that would "incite to hatred and violence." Those against him felt that a line had to be drawn to stop his protestations and stop his message of defiance against supremacism. That man was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a man in America, who is still celebrated today and honored today as a courageous leader in defending equality and liberty. Read more ...Source: Anti-Jihad League of America
 Under international law (under the impetus of the U.N. resolution) nations would be able to seek extradition and trial abroad of persons who make statements critical or offensive anywhere in the worldBy Nat Hentoff On Inauguration Day, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, in a New York Times ad ("An Invitation to a New Partnership"), told "Dear President OBAMA" that Muslims "have compelling strategic and moral reasons to cooperate and peacefully co-exist with the United States in particular, and with the West in general." Many Muslims here and elsewhere want that partnership; but some, jihadists in the name of Islam, disagree violently. In its address to our new president, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (which has permanent status at the United Nations) made no mention of its own strategic skills that resulted, on Dec. 18, in the passage by the U.N. General Assembly of a nonbinding resolution (with strong advice to its members) that condemns "defamation of religion," especially Islam. Read more ... Source: Jewish World ReviewUnited Nations
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award
 January 28
THE Taliban has called on Barack Obama to close all "evil" US detention centres for militants, "completely withdraw" from Iraq and Afghanistan and "stop defending Israel".
The online message, a copy of which was obtained from the SITE Intelligence Group, called on the new US President to take these steps to reverse the “satanic policies” of his predecessor, George W Bush.
“Obama's move to close Guantanamo detention centre is a positive step for peace and stability in the region and the world,” said the message, which was posted on online jihadist forums.
“If Barack Obama sincerely wants real stability and peace in the world, he should not only close Guantanamo.
“Rather, he should void all those evil projects established in the light of Bush's satanic perspective of instability in the world.”
Mr Obama signed executive orders in his first week in office to ban torture, shut secret overseas CIA detention centres and close the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where some 245 detainees are still held.
The Guantanamo prison camp was established in 2002 as a means to hold detainees beyond the reach of US courts.
The US also holds approximately 600 detainees at the US airbase in Bagram, Afghanistan, the fate of which Obama has not yet decreed.
On Monday, Mr Obama gave his first formal interview as president, in which he told the Muslim world that “Americans are not your enemy”.
“We are going to follow through on many of my commitments to do a more effective job of reaching out, listening as well as speaking to the Muslim world,” he said in the interview with Al-Arabiya, a pan-Arab and Saudi-owned satellite television network.
“If Obama is right and, according to his words, wants to open a new page based on peaceful interaction built on mutual respect with the Islamic world, the first thing he has to do is to stop and annul all these (Middle East policy) procedures, which were created according to Bush's criminal policy,” the Taliban message said.
“He must completely withdraw all his forces from the two occupied Islamic countries (Afghanistan and Iraq), and to stop defending Israel against Islamic interest in the Middle East and the entire world.”
Living up to a key campaign promise, Obama has directed military planners to start formulating a proposal to get most US combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months.
He has also pledged to boost US forces in Afghanistan, amid deteriorating security.
The Pentagon has promised to deploy up to 30,000 additional forces to Afghanistan to combat the insurgency led by the Taliban and al-Qaeda, nearly doubling the 36,000-strong US force there.
Obama argued last week that the war in Afghanistan, which he called “the central front in our enduring struggle against terrorism and extremism,” could not be separated from the volatile border area with Pakistan, where al-Qaeda and Taliban elements have regrouped.
The Taliban issued a stern warning to Obama should he not heed their advice.
“It is imperative that Obama, before he gets hit with the same fate as the Communist empire, must find potential ways to carry a message of peace and stability to the world,” the message said.
The Soviet Union left Afghanistan in defeat in 1989 after a war that lasted more than nine years.
“Through this, he can also protect his people and his administration from the danger of elimination and decline.”
In the Al-Arabiya interview, Obama agreed that the highly personal tone of recent al-Qaeda messages seemed “nervous”.
“What that tells me is that their ideas are bankrupt,” he told the Dubai-based network. Source: The Australian
 January 28
CAN this be right? Last month I wondered aloud whether 2009 would differ from previous years and see a reinvigoration of the West’s commitment to free speech. Instead, with January not yet over, another assault on freedom of expression has arrived portending yet another year of stifled speech.
Last Wednesday, a Dutch court ordered the prosecution of far right-wing Dutch MP Geert Wilders for inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims in his film, Fitna. The three-judge appeals panel said: “The instigation of hatred in a democratic society constitutes such a serious matter (that it is necessary) to draw a clear boundary in the public debate.”
In response to many public complaints against Wilders, the court rejected the original view of Dutch prosecutors who, back in June, said: “That comments are hurtful and offensive for a large number of Muslims does not mean that they are punishable. Freedom of expression fulfils an essential role in public debate in a democratic society. That means that offensive comments can be made in a political debate.”
It’s too bad that the judges on the appeals court felt pressured to order a prosecution. In so doing, they exposed the West’s feeble commitment to free speech. This is not about supporting the views of Wilders, who in his short film, likens the Koran to Mein Kampf, caricatures the prophet Mohammed and includes footage of Muslim acts of violence and hatred. However, it would be remiss not to point out that Wilders damns Muslims using their own actions, showing, to take just one example, Muslim demonstrators wielding “God Bless Hitler” placards.
That aside, a significant distinguishing feature between Muslim countries and the West has been our belief in freedom of expression. It was no surprise that Wilders’s controversial film led to protests in Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and Indonesia. Muslim countries have a long and poor record when it comes to defending freedom of speech or allowing criticism of their faith. But when complaints in the heart of Enlightenment Europe lead prosecutors to put Wilders on trial, facing a jail term of two years for expressing his opinions, then the tyranny of thought police has truly taken hold in the West.
The Dutch MP with the flamboyant hair style has opinions that are surely offensive, perhaps hurtful and even hateful. You may say Wilders is wrong. Indeed, feel free to do so. But to prosecute a man for his offensive views is, on so many levels, even more wrong. Let me count the ways.
The Netherlands - often lauded as the home of Western civility - has mistaken tolerance for anesthesia. Eager to filter out jarring, uncomfortable views, putting us to sleep with consensus and anodyne niceness, Dutch authorities have strayed far from the true value of freedom of expression. They have forgotten progress rarely occurs without controversy. The best ideas - including those that are uncomfortable or even, at first glance, outlandish - are the ones that prevail when tested in the furnace of opposition.
It would be grand if Wilders’ colleagues in the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) and his other supporters backed him on free speech grounds rather than merely because they are opposed to Muslim immigration.
But if we truly value free speech we can’t always pick and choose our allies. Defending the expression of views we share is the easy bit. Our commitment to freedom of expression is only truly tested when we are asked to defend the expression of views by those with whom we disagree, no matter whether we find their views personally offensive.
So what say the political opponents of Wilders about his right to express his views? As so often is the case, not much. Or worse, they support the prosecution of his words and thoughts. The opportunity for short-term political advantage triumphs over long term principle with disturbing frequency.
Prosecute people for their offensive words and three things happen as sure as the sun rises in the morning. First, offensive opinions may be suppressed but that won’t make them go away. They are driven underground where they avoid the blowtorch of robust public debate and often become more powerful as they fester.
Exposing even the most offensive or hateful views to public scrutiny - whether you then argue with them or choose to ignore them - is the best way to defeat them. This was John Howard’s insight into Pauline Hanson. Her views might attract short-term support but would ultimately die naturally if exposed to the sunlight.
Second, when we prosecute people for their words, society unwittingly encourages those with hateful views to become heroes, martyrs to their cause. Though not prosecuted for her views, Hanson demonstrated this principle also in Australia. The attempt by urban elites to shut her down only strengthened her attractions in many parts of Australia.
And third, bringing actions such as those against Wilders creates some very perverse incentives. Prosecuting at the request of the thin-skinned rewards preciousness and indeed encourages it. With such returns for sensitivity we can expect increasing claims to protection from free speech and increasing censorship. The unwitting result is a society that has strayed so far from the correct understanding of free speech that The Wall Street Journal was right to suggest the Dutch have started importing Muslim standards of censorship.
The most generous interpretation of the Wilders prosecution is that good intentions have gone badly astray. But perhaps something more sinister is happening. Many in the West have a knack for dressing up their own occasional totalitarian tendencies in fine-sounding language.
The Dutch appeals court said that the prosecution of Wilders is justified on the grounds that his film was inciting violence. But it turns out that the only violence incited by Fitna, released on the internet in March 2008, was not against Muslims but by Muslims against the West.
In other words, the phrase “inciting violence” has been rendered meaningless, stretched to stifle views that merely offend. It may be sensible to prohibit words that genuinely incite violence. But the Wilders case shows how easy it is to use this test as camouflage to censor views that are uncomfortable. Writing about the increasingly vacuous claims of Islamophobia in Forbes magazine, Elisabeth Eaves suggested a good litmus test for whether a law makes any sense: “If the ‘crime’ in question can only be described using the word for an emotion, like ‘hate’ or ‘phobia,’ then we have wandered into thought-police territory.”
The Netherlands is a striking example of how a noble quest to produce a tolerant society can be hijacked by social engineers opposed to free speech. With our myriad vilification laws, Australia needs to heed the lessons from the Dutch before we make the same disastrous blunders. Source: The Australian
By Ibn al-Waleed In the last year the Scottish Islamic Foundation has made great strides towards becoming the Scottish version of the Muslim Council of Britain – albeit inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood rather than Jamaat-e-Islami. Osama Saeed, the SIF’s founder, has so far persuaded the Scottish National Party to give the group almost £400,000 of public funds. In return, Saeed has promised the SNP that – given enough money – he can persuade Scottish Muslims to embrace Scottish Nationalism and turn their backs on Labour – the traditional recipient of Scottish Muslims’ votes. What the Scottish government may have overlooked is that Osama Saeed, a former member of the Muslim Association of Britain, is a committed Muslim Brotherhood activist who will shamelessly use public money to promote his own bigoted form of Islamism. Read more ...Source: Harry's Place
 From correspondents in London January 28,
BRITAIN security and counter-terrorism minister, Lord Alan West, warned yesterday that the conflict in Gaza has set back the Government's attempts to tackle radicalism in Muslim communities.
"There is no doubt that when you see these pictures coming back, that in the mind of people making hate, there is a linkage between the US, Israel and the UK. Without a doubt it will have set us back," he said.
Lord West also dismissed the refusal by former prime minister Tony Blair to acknowledge the link between foreign policy and security threats.
"We never used to accept that our foreign policy ever had any effect on terrorism. Well, that was clearly bollocks," he said, according to widespread and concurring reports.
"They the Blair Administration were very unwilling to have any debate about how our foreign policy impacted on radicalisation."
Lord West, a former navy chief brought into government by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, said this view had changed since the new premier took over in June 2007.
Addressing architects in a seminar on ensuring buildings are resilient to terrorism, he said: "The business in Gaza has not helped us at all in our counter-radicalism strategy.
"We have key people in the Muslim community who we are in dialogue with, and they are quick to let us know there is an issue that is causing us a worry.
"They said it the conflict was coming over very badly.
"It fits in with the al-Qaeda message, so we have to be very quick to respond to that and we have been quick to make sure that for Friday prayers, it is clear what our position is."
Britain's communities secretary, Hazel Blears, said earlier this month that she was "very concerned" that Israel's military offensive in Gaza could be used by extremists to recruit vulnerable young people. Source: The Australian
 Correspondents in Jerusalem | January 28, 2009
AN Iranian freighter carrying weaponry for Hamas has been blocked by Egypt from entering the Suez Canal, amid concerns that Tehran is trying to supply the Palestinian militant group with missiles capable of striking Tel Aviv.
Reports yesterday said Israel was closely tracking the ship, which is docked in the Red Sea outside the Suez Canal after Cairo refused to permit it to cross the waterway to the Mediterranean.
The stand-off comes after a report to the Israeli Defence Ministry from the Pentagon said the US Navy had boarded another Iranian vessel and said it was carrying artillery shells and other weapons.
"This is a big test for the Egyptians," a senior Israeli defence official told The Jerusalem Post. "So far the Egyptians have prevented the ship from crossing the Suez and we hope it will stay that way."
Israeli defence officials told the paper Iran was trying to supply Hamas with new Grad-model Katyusha rockets and to replace high-grade explosives that were exhausted or destroyed by the Israeli Defence Force during this month's war in Gaza.
The IDF is concerned Iran will supply Hamas with long-range Fajr missiles capable of reaching Tel Aviv.
A US Navy task force fighting pirates in the Gulf of Aden has been instructed to track Iranian arms shipments to Gaza.
Reports last week said troops from the USS San Antonio boarded a former Russian cargo vessel that was flying a Cypriot flag and was reportedly carrying weaponry destined for Hamas.
The French have also dispatched a frigate to the Mediterranean to participate in the clampdown on the Gaza Strip and to prevent weapons shipments from reaching Hamas, the Post said.
Israeli defence officials told the paper that since the conclusion of Operation Cast Lead, large quantities of explosives, machine guns and other weaponry had arrived in the Sinai peninsula, but the Egyptians were taking measures to prevent them from being smuggled into Gaza.
The reports came as US President Barack Obama yesterday sent envoy George Mitchell to the Middle East with a brief to "engage vigorously" to achieve real progress.
Mr Mitchell is due to visit Israel, the Palestinian West Bank and Arab states. During his trip, which lasts until Tuesday, Mr Mitchell will also travel to Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Europe.
In the short run, the trip is aimed at bolstering a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip following the three-week Israeli military offensive, and tackling the humanitarian crisis there.
State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Mr Mitchell, who will report to Mr Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, would "not have contact with Hamas", which has been labelled a terrorist group since George W. Bush was in office.
Mr Mitchell, a Maronite Catholic whose mother was Lebanese, managed to bring together the leaders of Northern Ireland's religious communities with a mixture of compromise and talks to sign the historic Good Friday agreement in 1998.
But his efforts to help end the Israeli-Palestinian violence that erupted in 2000, after the collapse of the peace process brokered by former president Bill Clinton, proved fruitless.
He set off for the region as reports yesterday said Hamas had launched an internal probe into the failures of its military wing during the Gaza offensive.
Citing an unnamed top Hamas military commander, Jane's Defence Weekly magazine said a full report by the militant organisation would be critical of almost every decision taken by Hamas battlefield commanders during the 22-day assault, which ended last week.
The source quoted by Jane's said exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and his followers had effectively pushed for a conflict the military wing was not ready for. The report would highlight the losses of Hamas interior minister Said Siam and about 50 of Hamas's top explosives experts. Source: The Australian
 Souad SbaiRome, 27 Jan. (AKI) - At least 600 children are at risk of infibulation, an extreme form of female genital mutilation in Italy, according to conservative MP and president of Italy's Association of Moroccan Women, Souad Sbai.
"Every year in Italy there are 600 children, daughters of immigrants, that are at risk of infibulation and it all happens in total silence," said Sbai, while presenting a report by her organisation, Acmid-Donna.
"Here at Acmid-Donna have decided to sound the alarm about infibulation because unfortunately we have noticed that the practice has anything but ceased or been relegated to marginal communities of immigrants in Italy."
Sbai also spoke about the number of infibulated children after the approval of the 2006 Consolo law, enacted to prevent and prohibit female genital mutilation.
"We are particularly concerned about the rising number of infibulated children even after the Consolo law," she said.
However, Sbai said that the law was not enough to stop the cruel practice of female genital mutilation.
"Besides laws, we need to take strong action to oppose this tribal and wicked practice which has nothing to do with religions and is tied only to African cultural traditions," she said.
Sbai also accused Egyptian and Somali imams of influencing the immigrant community and the importance of making public opinion aware of the problem by starting a preventative policy.
Infibulation - the most extreme form of female circumcision is common in many parts of North and Sub-Saharan Africa, especially in Somalia, parts of Kenya and Ethiopia.
Italy's 2006 Consolo law banned genital mutilation, also making it a crime for parents who attempt to sidestep the law by sending their daughters abroad. Source: AKISouad Sbai
Latest recipient of The MASH Award
 By Bill West Last week, the Wall Street Journal offered an op-ed article detailing the difficulties facing the Obama Administration in closing the Guantanamo detention center: what to do with those detainees and how to handle terrorism suspects captured in the future on foreign battlefields by our military and intelligence services. The article notes that a possible option to solve these problems would be the Congressional creation of a new "National Security Court." Such a court would be a hybrid of federal civilian criminal courts, U.S. military courts and the Guantanamo-based military commissions. This concept has been around for a couple of years now. It was initially proposed by Andrew McCarthy, the former senior Assistant U.S. Attorney in New York who successfully prosecuted Omar Abdel Rahman, the "Blind Sheikh," as well as the perpetrators of the first World Trade Center attack. The concept appears to have substantial merit. Theoretically, such a court would be able to try cases against terrorist enemy combatants utilizing both overt evidence and, under tightly controlled circumstances, classified intelligence evidence. The creation of a National Security Court would require the proverbial act of Congress. Read more ...Source: IPT News
 By Joe Kaufman Both the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) present themselves as mainstream Muslim organizations, yet in reality they are part of a radical Muslim movement which exists for the purpose of doing harm to America and Western interests abroad. Part of their success lies in getting people and organizations to endorse them and their operatives, thus providing them with a veil of legitimacy. Among their ‘validators’ are one of the most popular and influential evangelical preachers and the President himself. ISNA, said to be the largest Muslim organization in North America, has its roots in the extremist Muslim Brotherhood overseas, the same group responsible for the formation of Hamas and most other international terror entities. Given this bit of information, it is interesting that Ingrid Mattson, the President of ISNA, would be invited to speak at the National Prayer Service for the inauguration of U.S. President Barack Obama. While her words at the event were few and entirely innocuous, her mere presence was a profound challenge to America’s war on terrorism. Prior to Mattson speaking, an Associated Press story was released, entitled ‘Obama prayer leader from group US linked to Hamas.’ ISNA had recently been named by the U.S. Justice Department as a co-conspirator for a federal trial dealing with the financing of millions of dollars to the terror group. During the trial, proof was presented of ISNA’s relationship to a Brotherhood document calling for the destruction of the West. At the end of the trial, all of the defendants were found guilty on all charges. Only two weeks before the AP story came out, Hamas had called for attacks on Jews worldwide. Read more ...Source: FrontPage Magazine
 Ethiopian soldiers on truck during a farewell
ceremony which took place at the presidential
palace, Mogadishu, Somalia, 13 Jan. 2009The Somali insurgent group al-Shabab has seized control of Baidoa, home of the country's parliament.
Witnesses say al-Shabab took over Baidoa Monday just hours after Ethiopian troops who supported the Somali government finished withdrawing from the town and the country.
Residents had reported heavy fighting ahead of the takeover. There has been no word on casualties.
Most Somali parliament members are currently in neighboring Djibouti for a special session that began Sunday.
Today, the lawmakers voted to double the size of parliament, to 550 members, in line with a peace deal the government reached in October with moderate Islamists.
Hardline groups such as al-Shabab have rejected that deal.
On Sunday, Ethiopian troops completed their pullout from Somalia after fighting the Islamists for more than two years in support of the Somali government.
Many Somalis were concerned the withdrawal would cause a power vacuum, and lead to more fighting. Various Islamist groups have taken control over much of the country in recent months, leaving the government in charge of only Baidoa and parts of the capital, Mogadishu.
The government has been hampered by infighting that led to the resignation of President Abdullahi Yusuf last month.
The lawmakers meeting in Djibouti are scheduled to elect a new president within days, after the new parliament members are seated.
A moderate Islamist group, the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia, will take 200 of the new seats.
The alliance's leader, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, is on a long list of candidates looking to become Somalia's next president. Source: VOA News
 The Archbishop of Canterbury has joined widespread criticism over a BBC decision not to run a Gaza aid appeal after more than 50 MPs backed a move to increase pressure on the broadcaster. By Urmee Khan The decision has also angered sections of the public: at least 11,000 people have complained to the Corporation over its refusal to broadcast the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) Gaza Crisis Appeal. The DEC, which includes the British Red Cross, Oxfam, Save the Children and 10 other charities, plans to launch its appeal on Monday. All the main broadcasters including, ITV, Channel 4 and Five have agreed to air a two-minute appeal. The BBC's refusal to broadcast the appeal has been widely criticised across the spectrum from parliamentarians to religious groups and broadcasters. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, said: "My feeling is that the BBC should broadcast an appeal." However, the BBC continues to refuse to transmit the appeal because executives believe it might dent its reputation for impartiality. It also believes Gaza may not be stable enough to allow aid to be delivered. Sir Michael Lyons, the chairman of the BBC Trust, has written to Mark Thompson, the corporation's Director General, defending Mr Thompson's right not to broadcast the appeal. Read more ...Source: TelegraphH/T: Weasel ZippersRowan Williams
Latest recipient of the Demented Priest Award
By Rawan Khalid KUWAIT: There cannot be a democracy without a free press, explained MP Saleh Al-Mulla. The Kuwait Journalists Association (KJA) organized a seminar, on Sunday, titled 'The responsibility of the Media in Protecting the Society from the Implications of Conflicts and Crises.' Key speakers included former Minister of Information Dr. Anas Al-Rashid, author Zayed Al-Zaid, and MP Saleh Al-Mulla. The media holds a great responsibility to the public, Al-Mullah stated in a speech at the seminar, adding that this is the case especially when facing crises and this can only happen through transparency. In addition, he praised the local press and its role in revealing the facts of cases such as the fourth refinery and the Dow chemical partnership. Read more ...Source: Kuwait Times
Jimmy Carter told the "Today Show" that sure, Hamas can be trusted. The former Democratic president also said that "some people" think Hamas is a terrorist group. YNet News reported on Carter's latest outrage: Hamas can be trusted, former US President Jimmy Carter said Monday, in an interview on NBC's 'Today' show. Carter spoke with NBC's Meredith Vieira about his perspective on the Middle East conflict, and his new book, "We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land."
According to the former president, Hamas never deviated from their commitments as per the ceasefire agreement. He said that, during his meetings with Hamas leaders in Damascus and Gaza, he was promised that Hamas would honor agreements between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israel, as long as they were supported by public referendum.
Hamas did bad things. I'm not defending them. But they did adhere to the ceasefire fully, Carter maintained. He added that Israel has a choice between a one-state solution – which is, for Israel, a catastrophe, and a two-state solution, which everyone would support. Read more ... Source: Gateway PunditJimmy Carter
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award
The Bahraini parliament has ratified a bill for the establishment of a national human rights commission, to deal with strengthening and preserving human rights.
The parliament also approved a bill banning the serving of wine on flights by Bahrain's national carrier. Source: Source: Al-Quds Al-Arabi, London, January 24, 2009 H/T: MEMRI
On December 27, 2008, the Islamist news organization Islamonline.net (IOL), which is overseen by prominent Sunni sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, announced that it had opened an office in Washington, D.C. Following is information about the new office, and about Sheikh Al-Qaradhawi's connection to it: IOL "Aims to Contribute to Projecting Much-Needed True Image of Muslims" According to the announcement, the new Washington office, located in the National Press Building, was opened "in an effort to reach out to its wider audience and larger readership." IOL English managing editor Muhammad Zidan said, "This new office stands as a step forward in realizing part of the aims and objectives of IOL - that is, promoting awareness about important events in the Arab, Muslim and larger world, in addition to providing services to Muslims and non-Muslims in several languages." Read more ...Source: MEMRI
As international attention is focused on Gaza, Taliban militants are enforcing Islamic shari'a in the SwatValley of Pakistan's North WestFrontierProvince (NWFP). Since January 15, 2009, the Taliban have enforced a complete ban on female education in the Swat district. The forced Islamization in the Swat district, which was once compared to Switzerland for its picturesque valley, has been underway in recent months, and was stepped up after the Pakistani government released Islamist leader Maulana Sufi Muhammad last year under a deal with the militants. The Taliban in the district are led by Maulana Sufi Muhammad and his son-in-law Maulana Fazlullah. Some 400 private schools have been shut down, depriving about 40,000 girls of their right to education. Additionally, about 84,000 female students enrolled in government-run schools are unlikely to get an education, despite the Pakistani government's pledge to reopen the schools beginning March 1, 2009. At least 10 girls' schools that tried to open after the January 15, 2009 deadline by the Taliban were blown up by the militants in the town of Mingora, the headquarters of the Swat district. The Taliban have also made it compulsory for men to wear caps and have banned shaving, beginning January 25, 2009. In parts of the North WestFrontierProvince, the Taliban are already operating Islamic shari'a courts, while the state of Pakistan is paralyzed and the international community is focused on Gaza. In a report, the Pakistani daily The News expressed concern that while the Pakistani religious and political parties and civil society groups are turning out in large numbers in the streets of Pakistan to protest against Israel, no one is bothered about the people of the Swat district. Following are excerpts from the report published by The News: " The People [of Swat] Have Been Unfortunate Not to Get Due Attention of the Government, Politico-Religious Parties, and Civil Society - Who Have Been Crowding the Streets to Protest the Killing of Palestinians." Read more ...Source: MEMRI
 A Palestinian aid worker from an Islamic charity distributes
food aid to residents as they line-up in a devastated area of Gaza.Gaza Strip - The Palestinian Authority must end its peace talks and security coordination with Israel if it ever expects to reconcile with Hamas, one of the militant group's senior officials said Sunday. Osama Hamdan also vowed that Hamas will continue to bring in arms to the Gaza Strip despite an Israeli blockade of the coastal territory. Hamdan's remarks are bound to complicate Arab efforts to reconcile the militant group, which controls Gaza, and the Fatah faction, led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, ruling the West Bank. Hamdan is Hamas' representative in Lebanon and is close to top Damascus-based leader Khaled Mashaal. His tough conditions came a week after Israel ended a devastating 23-day war to stop Hamas rocket fire that Palestinian officials say killed about 1,300 people. Thirteen Israelis were also killed. Read more ...Source: Fox NewsHamas
Latest recipients of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award
 By Joseph Loconte London TWENTY YEARS AGO THIS month an Islamic organization in Great Britain staged a 1,000-strong rally of rage: with BBC cameras rolling, Muslim protestors burned copies of The Satanic Verses, the 1988 work by British novelist Salman Rushdie criticizing Mohammed. Death threats and a fatwa from the Iranian government anathematizing Rushdie forced the author into hiding. "I have come to feel that what happened with The Satanic Verses was a kind of prologue," he later told The Times, "and that now we're in the main event." The effort to silence criticism of Islam has become a main event not only in Muslim lands, but increasingly in the democratic West. Last month the London-based Centre for Social Cohesion released a report cataloguing the plight of European Muslims and ex-Muslims who have dared to challenge the forces of extremism. The study, Victims of Intimidation: Freedom of Speech Within Europe's Muslim Communities, recounts the careers of 27 leading detractors. All of them -- politicians, journalists, academics, and artists -- have experienced "significant and credible threats of violence" from Islamists and radical Muslims because of their criticism of Islam. Mansur Escudero, an Islamic leader in Spain, has felt the wrath of extremists despite his aggressive advocacy for Muslim immigrant groups. Escudero was the secretary-general of the country's largest Muslim organization when the Madrid train bombings, orchestrated by an al Qaeda terrorist cell, killed 191 people and wounded over 1,700. His organization, the Islamic Commission, eventually issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden and calling him an apostate - probably the first Muslim group to do so. Read more ...Source: The Weekly Standard
  Prince Alwaleed bin Abdulaziz Alsaud, chairman of Alwaleed bin Talal Foundation, has funded the Centres for Islamic Studies at Cambridge & Edinburgh Universities through a $30 million endowment.
The endowment will be shared by the centres equally ($15 million for each university). They will carry out both research and public engagement designed to enhance understanding between the Muslim world and the West. They will also get new directors.
Cambridge University’s general board has approved the appointment of professor Yasir Suleiman as the first director of its centre.
The centre will enable the development of a constructive and critical awareness of the role of Islam in wider society, initially through research programs on Islam in the United Kingdom and Europe, and Islam and the media.
It will also run various public programs, such as public lectures, conferences and summer schools, designed to promote understanding of Islam in the wider world.
The centre at Edinburgh University will be headed by professor Hugh Goddard, professor of Christian-Muslim Relations from the University of Nottingham.
'It is paramount for both Islam and the West to reach mutual ground for pro-active dialogue, respect, acceptance and tolerance,' said Alwaleed.
'We are determined to continue building the bridge between Islam and the West for peace and humanity,' he added. Source: TradeArabia News Service
By Nonie Darwish Dutch MP Geert Wilders is being prosecuted in Holland for "inciting hatred and discrimination" and for insulting Muslims by comparing Islam to Nazism. But how can Muslims be offended with such a comparison when one of the most prominent 20th century Muslim scholars made a similar comparison?In his book Islamic Law and Constitution, Sheikh Abul Ala Maududi wrote: "It [Islamic State] seeks to mould every aspect of life and activity…In such a state no one can regard any field of his affairs as personal and private. Considered from this aspect, the Islamic State bears a kind of resemblance to the Fascist and Communist states." Maududi’s characterization of the Muslim State was intended to be negative and was never challenged by any Muslim scholar or institution as inaccurate or unfair. Many Muslims are offended by Wilders’ questioning -- and any questioning, criticism or exploration of Muslim scriptures -- because Muslims themselves are not allowed to do that. Under Islamic Law, a Muslim will be considered an apostate if he questions or denies any thing in the Quran, Hadith, or Islamic Shari'a law. Muslims who have been brought up never to question Islam are suddenly answering questions asked in the West by stifling freedom of speech. Of course, Islam denotes this territory as the Dar Al Harb, or house of war. Read more ...Source: FrontPage Magazine
Palestinian civilians have accused Hamas of forcing them to stay in homes from which gunmen shot at Israeli soldiers during the recent hostilities in Gaza, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported Thursday. More than 1,250 Palestinians were reportedly killed during Israel's offensive against Hamas in the coastal territory. Israel has been harshly criticized for the large number of civilians among the Palestinian dead, of whom they numbered more than half according Gaza officials. But the Italian paper also quoted a doctor at Gaza City's Shifa Hospital as disputing the number of Palestinians said to have been killed in the campaign. "It's possible that the death toll in Gaza was 500 or 600 at the most, mainly youths aged 17 to 23 who were enlisted by Hamas - who sent them to their deaths," he said. Read more ...Source: Haaretz
"You're not allowed to insult anyone's beliefs in the Netherlands, even if those beliefs insult you and everything you stand for." "Whenever we heard the words 'human rights' in connection with Islam, we're about to be confronted with another piece of ugly opportunism that spits in the face of genuine human rights and insults everyone's intelligence." "What kind of justice system is it where the truth is inadmissible as evidence?" "You're being chewed up and spat out, is what's happening to you people. Look at what you're doing: you're prosecuting a man who is under twenty-four hour protection from attack by violent Muslim, yet he's the criminal for expressing an opinion. Lewis Carroll couldn't have written this one any better." "Nobody should be compelled to respect an ideology that doesn't respect them. And Islam respects nobody. It claims dominion. Respect doesn't come into it. You submit. That's the deal." Read more ...Source: Pat Condell - YouTubeH/T: Jihad WatchPat Condell
Latest recipient of The MASH Award
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- A radical Pakistani Taliban cleric is demanding that a group of more than 50 Swat Valley dignitaries appear in his Islamic "court," local media says.
Maulana Fazullah, commander of the local Taliban militia in the northwestern Pakistan region, wants its provincial and federal lawmakers, dignitaries, elders and their families to present themselves in his sharia court within a week or be hunted down, the Press Trust of India, quoting local media, reported Sunday.
The Taliban has destroyed nearly 200 girls' schools and targeted shops selling CDs and DVDs in the former tourist area. Its Islamic courts have directed men to wear skull caps and stop shaving their beards, PTI says.
The Pakistani army launched an offensive against the Taliban in the Swat Valley in October 2007, but despite several claims it had cleared Swat of militants, the Taliban are in control of most of its major towns and villages, the news agency said. Source: UPI
 Never forget Sandeela Kanwal!By Robert Spencer "Begner hopes the state doesn't make this about Islam or ethnicity. This death could have happened, he says, in any culture, with any family." Why does the mainstream media believe it necessary always to exonerate Islam from any responsibility for violence committed by Muslims in the name of Islam? Who decided that this must be done, and on what grounds, and why do they all fall into lockstep without question? NPR and the others are only enabling the murders of more women like Sandeela Kanwal. Why? Murders happen anywhere, among all groups, but this is not just a murder, it is an honor killing, and it simply isn't true that "this death could have happened...in any culture, with any family." If that were true, then where are the Christian honor killings, as one of the NPR commenters on this article said: "It would be the same part of the story is a christian said God told him to kill his daughter"? All right, put up or shut up: where are those Christians whom God is telling to kill their daughters? Read more ...Source: Jihad Watch
 Execution in the PABy Gil Ronen A Palestinian Authority (PA) court has sentenced a 28-year-old PA policeman to death for allegedly spying for Israel, and the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel thinks the United States envoy to the Middle East should be aware of this human rights violation. The convict, a resident of the El Aroub neighborhood, was found guilty of assisting the IDF in the elimination of a terrorist in 2002, during the siege of the Church of Nativity. The convict served in the Presidential Guard in Bethlehem at the time. In addition, he allegedly assisted the IDF to arrest other terrorists. In an urgent letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the Legal Forum for Israel says: “We do not know whether the man really is a collaborator with Israel, but in any case, he does not deserve death. You, as the person in charge of Israel's security, should make it clear that Israel will not allow the sentence to be carried out. Israel must intervene, enter the Palestinian area in Hevron and extricate the man unless the PA agrees to commute his sentence.” Back to Arafat's styleThe Forum calls the sentence “unimaginably cruel” and notes that the PA has not executed people for the last seven years. “The return to the uncivilized norms that typified the rule of Yasser Arafat is dangerous and shows that whoever trusts the PA and gives it weapons and armored cars is behaving irresponsibly,” it added. The Forum demands that the matter be brought up before President Barack Obama and his envoy to the region, Sen. George Mitchell, because they “place trust” in the PA and wish empower it. Read more ...Source: INNH/T: Jihad Watch
January 26
As special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell heads off to the region to begin work on negotiating a cease fire between Israel and the Palestinians, President Obama has sat for his first formal TV interview with the Arabic cable TV network Al-Arabiya, ABC News has learned.
The interview was taped this evening and is set to air at 11 pm ET, as Mitchell is in the air and on his way to the region.
Based in Dubai, Al-Arabiya estimates that it has a potential audience exceeding 23 million in the Gulf region. Source: ABC Newsblogs
 Ernst Hirsch Ballin By Rob Kievit Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin rejects demands by two parties to bar a radical Islamic preacher from speaking in the Netherlands. Mr Hirsch Ballin wrote to parliament on Thursday that the preacher, American citizen Khalid Yasin, is free to enter the country and address audiences. The justice minister adds that Mr Yasin will risk prosecution if it turns out that his speeches incite hatred. He emphasises that everyone in the Netherlands has freedom of speech, provided they respect the rule of law. The two major parties of the governing coalition, Labour and Christian democrat CDA, together with the opposition populist right-wing Freedom Party, had asked for a ban. They cited earlier utterances by Mr Yasin, who according to the Freedom Party is "a terrorist" and "an evil man". Labour had asked the justice minister to verify reports that Mr Yasin preaches radical Islam and intolerance between muslims and non-muslims. The Christian democrats wrote to the minister that they feared Mr Yasin would issue calls to violence. Read more ...Source: Radio NetherlandsH/T: Jihad WatchErnst Hirsch Ballin
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award
 LONDON, Jan 23 (APP)‑The British Parliament has cancelled the showing of a controversial film “Fitna” by the right‑win Dutch MP Geert Wilders following vociferous protest by the Muslim community. The screening was to take place on January 29 at the House of Lords. The decision to cancel the showing was taken on Friday when Lord Nazir Ahmed had a meeting with the Government Chief Whip of the House of Lords and Leader of the House of Lords, together with representatives from the Muslim Council of Britain, British Muslim Forum and other representatives from the British Muslim community. The film has created huge controversy around the world, especially in Europe. The decision by the Amsterdam Appeals Court, the second‑highest legal authority in the country, overturns an earlier ruling by the Dutch Prosecution Service, which last June dismissed hundreds of complaints against Wilders on the grounds that his utterances had been made “in the context of public debate”, a position that was endorsed by the Dutch Prime Minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, a Christian Democrat. But on Thursday, the appeals court argued that the criminal prosecution did not conflict with Wilders’ right to freedom of expression and said it based its decision on the standards set by the European Court of Human Rights. The Far-right Dutch politician will now be put on trial for his public statements against Islam. As a result of the meeting at the House of Lords not going ahead, all protests and demonstrations have now been cancelled Lord Ahmed termed the decision as “a victory for the Muslim community.” Read more ...Source: APPH/T: Atlas Shrugs Nazir Ahmed
Latest recipients of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award
Atlas reader and godsend, Norman, has been scouting locations in Canada for an appropriate memorial to Aqsa Parvez near where she lived. I was leaning towards planting trees in Israel until Norman suggested this, "an arboretum on the grounds of the University of Guelph. Guelph is not far from Mississauga where a lot of kids from Mississauga go." Yes, yes, a place in Canada, near where Aqsa lived where lots of young people go. Perfect. It's gorgeous. Read more ...Source: Atlas Shrugs
 By Geert Wilders & Robert Spencer Wednesday, January 21, was a black day for freedom, and the beginning of an all-out assault on free speech in the Netherlands. The Amsterdam Court of Appeals ordered the prosecution of Geert Wilders (one of this article’s co-authors) for his statements about Islam. To participate in public debate is now a dangerous activity. This is the Netherlands today—and it could be the entire Western world tomorrow. The prosecution of Wilders was unexpected, though in retrospect one can see that something like it has been in the offing for a while. The year 2008 marked 60 years since the United Nations first promulgated its Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet instead of celebrating this notable anniversary by reaffirming human rights, the world in 2008 saw certain fundamentally important human rights nearly disappear under intense pressure from Islamic countries that oppose freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the equality of all people before the law. Islamic efforts to create exceptional privileges for Muslims in the area of human rights have been advancing for quite some time, and they made great strides in 2008. Now, with the Amsterdam court’s judgment, we see the outcome of such efforts. Read more ...Source: NRO
During the transition, aides to President Barack Obama indicated he wanted to travel to a Muslim capital and deliver a speech early in his administration. Improving relations to the Muslim world is a goal he stated Tuesday in his inaugural address: "To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West, know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy." In anticipation of the President's planned speech, the Investigative Project on Terrorism asked two anti-Islamist Muslims for their input about what he should say. Their essays reflect their opinions and not necessarily those of the IPT. Read more ...Source: IPT News
 By Avi Issacharoff
Officials in Egypt are attempting to persuade Hamas to accept Israel's current offer of a truce in Gaza before a far less accommodating government under Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu is elected, the pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat reported Monday.
The newspaper quoted the officials as telling Hamas that surveys in Israel show the opposition leader is likely to come to power in February's general election, adding that he would form a coalition with "extremist parties."
They reportedly said that Hamas stands to "lose everything" under these circumstances.
Hamas' Gaza spokesman Ayman Taha, meanwhile, has said recently that Israel has offered his Palestinian Islamist group a 10-year cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.
Egypt is also demanding a truce of a number of years' duration. But Taha said the group would agree to a cease-fire of no more than between one year and 18 months. Another Hamas spokesman, Ismail Radwan, said a long-term cease-fire "kills" the right to resistance by the Palestinians.
Also Monday, the London-based newspaper Al-Hayat reported that Israel has offered Hamas a cease-fire for an unlimited amount of time and the opening of Gaza's borders in return for abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
According to the report, Hamas rejected the offer on the grounds that it linked the opening of the border crossings to Shalit's release.
Shalit was kidnapped by Gaza militants in a 2006 cross-border raid. He is believed to be still held in the Strip.
Hamas and Israeli officials have also indicated that much of the discussion has centered on control of the border crossings in and out of Gaza. Hamas wants the blockade on Gaza lifted. Israel wants assurances that weapons smuggling into the Gaza strip will stop.
"Hamas listened to the Israeli proposal presented by [Defense Ministry official] Amos Gilad, and with it a proposal for a ceasefire for a year and a half, but Hamas presented a counterproposal of one year only," Ayman Taha told reporters in Cairo after talks with Egyptian intelligence officials.
The Hamas delegation met with the heads of Egyptian intelligence on Sunday who transmitted to them Israel's positions. Jerusalem has not yet clarified what stance it had presented.
Meanwhile, Taha reiterated the group's calls for a lifting of the blockade imposed on the impoverished and devastated Gaza Strip by Israel and Egypt as a condition for the truce. "[Hamas] called for a complete lifting of the blockade and an opening of all the crossings," Taha said.
Hamas proposed to Egyptian mediators that European and Turkish monitors be present at the border crossings, but rejected the presence of Israeli monitors, saying Israeli monitoring was "a large part of the problem," according to Taha.
Asked if Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's forces would be present at the crossings, Taha said: "Hamas is the existing government in Gaza."
Hamas wrested control of the Gaza Strip from Abbas's Fatah faction in fighting in 2007. Egypt has ruled out opening the Rafah crossing in the absence of the Palestinian Authority and European Union observers.
Commenting on the talks, Hamas's representative in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, told Al Jazeera satellite television on Sunday that Hamas was unwilling to alter its positions to Israel's benefit.
"The Israelis must understand that they will not achieve through politics what they failed to do militarily," Hamdan said.
Israel launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip in late December with the declared aim of ending Hamas rocket attacks on its southern communities. About 1,300 Palestinians, at least 700 of them civilians, were killed during the 22-day offensive, while Israel put its death toll at 10 soldiers and three civilians.
Hamas official Hamdan also said Sunday that Fatah movement must end peace negotiations with Israel before any reconciliation talks can take place.
The remarks were bound to complicate Arab efforts to reconcile Hamas, which controls Gaza, and the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
Speaking at a rally in Beirut Sunday, Hamdan - a close ally of Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal - said that the group welcomed Palestinian dialogue, but any reconciliation should be based on a resistance program to liberate territory and regain rights.
He also demanded that the PA end security coordination with Israel, and maintained that the Israeli-Palestinian peace process had ended.
"Those who committed mistakes must correct their mistakes through a clear and frank declaration to stop security coordination with the [Israeli] occupation, release [Hamas] prisoners and later end negotiations [with Israel] because the peace process is irreversibly over," said Hamdan.
"It's time for us to talk about a reconciliation based on a resistance program to liberate the [occupied] territory and regain rights," he added.
Asharq Al-Awsat also reported Saturday that Hamas had suggested representatives of the Palestinian Authority be stationed at the Rafah crossing, but that they be residents of Gaza, not the West Bank.
Israel has been allowing some supply convoys into Gaza, though its borders remain largely closed. The Israel Defense Forces says more than 125 trucks a day - on some days nearly 200 - have entered Gaza since fighting ended on January 17th, but aid workers say the numbers are not enough. Source: Haaretz
 "The One-State Solution" by Muammar al-Gaddafi. More ...Source: New York Times H/T: Weasel ZippersThe New York Times
Latest recipient of the Yellow Rag Award
January 26, 2009
ISRAEL will grant legal protection for soldiers who fought in the three-week war in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said today amid accusations of war crimes.
“The commanders and soldiers sent to Gaza need to know that they are completely safe from different tribunals and Israel will help and protect them,” he said.
Olmert confirmed he had appointed Justice Minister Daniel Friedman to chair an inter-ministerial committee “to co-ordinate Israel's efforts to offer legal defence for anyone who took part in the operation.
“He will formulate questions and answers relating to the army's operations, which self-righteous people ... might use to sue officers and soldiers,” the Prime Minister said.
Israel's military censor has already banned the publication of the identity of the unit leaders who fought against militants of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on the Gaza Strip for fear they may face war crimes charges.
Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki said the Israeli government's move would unlikely halt war crimes probes.
“The decision is not going to prevent governments and human rights organisations around the world to really seek clear legal cases against all Israeli leaders who are responsible for the death and destruction of the Palestinian people,” he told journalists.
“More efforts will be seen in the future” to bring cases to justice, he said, adding “there is no immunity against legal actions.”
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday demanded that those responsible for bombing UN buildings in the Palestinian territory should be made accountable and accused Israel of using excessive force.
UN schools and the main aid headquarters where tonnes of food was stocked were bombed.
Eight Israeli human rights groups have called on the Israeli government to investigate the scale of the casualties, describing the number of dead women and children as “terrifying.”
Israel insists troops did their best to limit civilian casualties in a heavily-populated area, and blamed Hamas for hiding behind civilians to fire rockets at southern Israel.
Gaza medics put the Palestinian death toll at 1,330 with at least another 5,450 people wounded. About 65 per cent of the dead were civilians, including 437 children.
Ten Israel soldiers and three civilians died during Operation Cast Lead which ended last Sunday with a ceasefire.
Amnesty International, meanwhile, has said it was “undeniable” that Israel had used white phosphorus in crowded civilian areas, contrary to international law, charging that this amounted to a war crime. Source: The Australian
By Ulrike Putz in Beit Lahia, Gaza
In the Gaza Strip people are returning home -- or to the rubble that was once their home. Many are blaming Hamas for the destruction because the militants hid among civilians and attracted Israeli fire. Yet no one dares to speak out openly.
What is left over when a person is hit by a tank shell. Blood, tissue, bone splinters, splatters on the wall.
And anger.
Mohammed Sadala's rage is aimed at the man, whose remains he found in his bedroom: a Hamas fighter. He and a comrade broke into the home which had long stood empty after the Sadala family fled. The Hamas men shot at the approaching Israelis from the balcony. The soldiers fired back, killing the militants and destroying the house of the 10-strong family in the process.
When Sadala came back to survey the scene he found his property in ruins: the younger children's bedroom was burnt out, while the living room and hallway were strewn with bullet holes and blackened by soot from the fire. In the bedroom lay the corpses: one had bled to death, the other was hit by a tank shell.
Beside the bodies lay the assault rifle which they had used to try to stop the tanks.
"I used to support Hamas because they fought for our country, for Palestine," says Sadala. Hamas stood for a new start, for an end of corruption, which had spread like cancer under the moderate Fatah. In the 2006 elections Hamas won the majority with their message of change, said Sadala, who earned a living in the building business. Gesticulating wildly, the 52-year-old surveyed the ruins of the bedroom: "That is the change that they brought about. We were blasted back 2,000 years."
Through the hole in the wall of his house, Sadala sees a landscape in gray and brown. This is where a neighbourhood had stood, his neighbourhood. Now there is a snake of sand around the bomb crater. It is impossible to tell where the streets once stood. Family houses have turned into piles of debris. People have built refuges using cloth and rubble. They stand alongside dead donkeys and sheep, whose stomachs swell up. No one here has time to remove rotting corpses.
The people from Beit Lahia are starting from zero again: children load wood from broken trees onto their back. Their mothers bend over fires and bake bread. Young women carry water in petrol canisters. Only the men stand around looking numb, smoking, staring blankly. Many people here, like Sandala, had placed their hopes in Hamas -- now they are gazing into nothing, ideologically as well as materially.
And it is not just buildings that lie in rubble in the Gaza strip, it is the livelihoods of many thousands of people. In Arabic societies a home is usually everything a family possesses. Often several brothers build a house for the entire family. Living at close quarters has its advantages: when the costs of building the house are paid off, there is more money left over to feed the dozens of family members.
Everything is lost now.
"When Hamas came to power, they came to our aid with packages of groceries," says Abu Abed. The 60-year-old's sons, all of whom are trained hospital nurses, have been without work for years. That is true of many in the Gaza Strip. Now Abu Abed stands before the rumble of the house where he lived with four generations of his family. All that remains are the ground floor pillars. The Israeli navy had its eye on the building from the very beginning of the war. After all, its clear view of Gaza City and the sea would have provided a good base for Hamas.
"I've changed my mind about Hamas," Abu Abed says. "I can't support any party that wages a war that destroys our lives." He is particularly pained by the fact that Hamas is still selling the cease-fire as a victory.
"Who has won here?" he asks and points to the debris that was once his home.
One of his neighbors weighs in: "Many people are now against Hamas but that won't change anything," he says. "Because anyone who stands up to them is killed."
Since they took power Hamas has used brutal force against any dissenters in the Gaza Strip. There were news agency reports that during the war they allegedly executed suspected collaborators with Israel. The reign of terror will go on for some time, says the neighbor who doesn't want to give his name. "There will never be a rebellion against Hamas. It would be suicide."
Others swallow their anger. Hail's house is just a few streets away and only suffered light damage. There are a few bullet holes in the living room walls and all of the window panes are broken. Hail also found out after the cease-fire that the militants had used his house as a base for their operations. The door to his house stood open and there were electric cables lying in the hallway. When Hail followed them they led to his neighbor's house which it seems Hamas had mined.
As Hail, in his mid-30s, sat on his porch and thought about what to do a man came by: He was from Hamas and had left something in Hail's home. He let him in and the man then emerged with a bullet proof vest, a rocket launcher and an ammunitions belt. An hour later a fighter with Islamic Jihad called to the door, then disappeared onto the roof and reappeared with a box of ammunition. "The abused civilians' homes for their own purposes. That is not right," Hail says with disgust while trying to remain polite.
In contrast to many of their neighbors the Sadala family is doing comparatively well. They have all survived and the house could theoretically still be repaired. Mohammed Sadala is of another opinion: "There is no way," he says. What happened in his bedroom cannot be covered up just by cleaning. The worst is that he now knows who died in the room. It was Bilal Haj Ali. Sadala knows this because the young mans brothers came to visit a few days ago. They wanted to see the place where Bilal became a martyr. "I did let them in but I hardly spoke a word with them," he says.
The young men took photos of the remains of their brother with their mobile phones. "But they didn't want to clean it up," Sadala says. "I told them not to show their faces here ever again." Source: Spiegel Online
 Many Muslims do not want to integrate MUSLIMS want to create their own communities and remain segregated from British society. A shocking 44% think they should be free to develop along separate lines. But critics claim Muslims will create their own ghettos if they are left to their own devices. The poll found religion has replaced race as the biggest equality issue, with six in 10 Brits thinking it is more divisive. Mass tension has grown following terror attacks from Muslim fanatics, including the 7/7 Tube bombings in 2005. The war in Iraq has also added to divisions leaving many communities split. But critics are fuming Muslims are refusing to fit into our way of life. English Democrats’ chairman Robin Tilbrook said: “As far as I’m concerned, what we want to be about is having an integrated society. “If people don’t want to integrate, they shouldn't be here. “It’s not at all right to have what’s really a sort of ghetto situation developing – it’s going to lead to trouble. Read more ...Source: Daily StarH/T: Weasel Zippers
 Rome, 22 Jan. (AKI) - An Italian Minister said on Thursday that immigrants who did not want integrate must be deported from the country. "We must fight everything that is related to violence, because our will is to integrate, however, in order to integrate we must expel all those that do not want to take part in it," said Andrea Ronchi, Minister of Department for European Community Policies. Ronchi made the remarks during a roundtable with members of the Italian Islamic Religious Community (COREIS) in the northern Italian city of Milan. During the meeting, Ronchi attacked the UCOII, the largest Muslim umbrella group in Italy, accusing it of supporting terrorism. According to Ronchi, the UCOII "supports terrorism and fundamentalism." "For example, I have always been a supporter of a register of the imams and muslim prayers in the Italian language. I also enthusiastically support the initiative by Rome's Grand mosque to publish on its website all sermons preached there ," said Ronchi. Read more ...Source: AKIH/T: Weasel ZippersAndrea Ronchi
Latest recipient of The MASH Award
 CAIRO - A galaxy of Muslim scholars thinkers, political activists and academics have penned an open letter to US President Barack Obama urging him to begin his reign by remedying injustices inflicted on Arabs and Muslims for peace to prevail and America to restore its image. It listed the injustices that need to be alleviated in order to end hostilities and promote peace in the world. "the resistance in some Muslim countries is a result of the aggression, injustice and tyranny practiced or sponsored by the United States, and such resistance is not the cause of violence and terrorism as some circles in America like to claim. Therefore, if such resistance troubles you and you wish peace to spread over, you have to end occupation and return to the peoples their rights and sovereignty.
"... the events of the 11th of September 2001 were nothing but fabricated drama by some influential forces in America in coordination with Israeli Mossad. They have done all that in order to find a reason to trigger the third world war that they have already planned for and decided its goals and targeted fields." The signatories include Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS), Rashid Al-Ghannoushi, Secretary General of Al-Nahdha Movement in Tunisia, Qazi Hussein Ahmad, leader of Pakistan's Jamaat-e-Islami, and Ali Sadruddin Al-Bayanoni, head of Syria's Muslim Brotherhood. Source: Islam online H/T: Weasel ZippersAli Sadruddin Al-Bayanoni
Qazi Hussein Ahmad
Rashid Al-Ghannoushi
Yusuf al Qaradawi
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A government advisory committee has come out against a proposal to introduce elements of the Muslim legal system, Sharia, in Switzerland.
The president of the Federal Anti-Racism Commission, Georg Kreis, said there was no support for the system to be established.
He told the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper that although the author of the idea, Christian Giordano, had published a guest article on the subject in the commission's official publication, his views were not shared by the members.
Giordano, a social anthropologist at Fribourg University, said he wanted to generate debate on the issue and his article had been misunderstood.
The piece stirred considerable controversy, particularly among human rights and women's groups.
Islamic organisations in Switzerland have described the proposal as unrealistic and objectionable. Source: Swiss Info
Barry Cohen | January 26, 2009
I'VE not had the pleasure of meeting Israel's foreign affairs spokesman Yigal Palmor but he became my favourite diplomat after describing recent criticism of Israel as "unqualified bullshit". I wonder what he really thinks?
Since Israel decided that 60 rockets a day was more than any country should have to tolerate, the global media has accused Israel of every evil imaginable. They have been aided and abetted by, supposedly, non-political UN Relief and Works Agency officials who are more extreme in their anti-Israeli venom than Hamas terrorists.
The "bullshit" is exemplified by a Sydney Morning Herald headline from last week: "Israel kept UN aid out of Gaza." Israel has been accused of crimes against humanity for refusing to permit the passage of food, medical supplies, oil, electricity (used to make rockets) and other essentials required to destroy Israel.
The precedence, undoubtedly, was that set by Britain and the US during World War II. We all know how accommodating they were in ensuring Germany and Japan were well supplied with food and fuel.
There are times when one fears for one's sanity when listening to such rubbish. How many thousands more rockets must Israelis endure before they are permitted to defend themselves? What happens as the rockets become bigger and more accurate?
The few who concede Israel has the right to defend itself then argue that the rockets aren't very accurate. Some consolation if you have to run for air-raid shelters 60 times a day. Unlike Hamas, Israel protects its citizens by building air-raid shelters.
Imagine for a moment the reactions of the good burghers of Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney if rockets were fired into their neighbourhood. Contemplate what they would say to Kevin Rudd. "Wipe the bastards out" for openers. That has not been Israel's response. After 10,000 rockets over eight years, it has been remarkably restrained. However, when Hamas resumed attacks Israel decided enough was enough.
When three years ago Israel unilaterally handed Gaza over to the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Fatah had the opportunity, once again, to negotiate a permanent peace with Israel and the creation of a Palestinian state. Hamas preferred war, bloodshed and martyrdom. Having been democratically elected Hamas claimed a mandate. Israel, it appears, was expected to endorse the mandate that called for its own destruction.
To understand the minds of those Israel is dealing with, consider the statement of Hamas supremo, Khaled Meshaal. From the safety of Damascus, he described the recent war in which 1300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died, as an "unequivocal victory". And a defeat?
The word in vogue to describe Israel's destruction of rocket sites, weapons stores and Hamas terrorists has been "disproportionate": a word not much used during the London Blitz, which resulted in the deaths of 67,000 British civilians. Arthur Harris, commander-in-chief of bomber command, decided to "proportionally" flatten German cities: 600,000 German civilians died.
In the Pacific the US lost 1700 civilians, mostly at Pearl Harbor, while Australia lost 700, primarily in Darwin. The US response was to "proportionately" bomb Japanese cities killing 580,000 civilians. Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki remember it well.
Had Hamas decided not to deliberately place their civilian population, arms and combatants inside schools, hospitals and mosques, far fewer innocents would have been killed and injured.
What happens now? Hamas claims it will continue to bombard Israel while one Israeli soldier remains in Gaza, ignoring the fact that three years ago Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. The rocket attacks increased.
So where to now? The most oft repeated cliche regarding the Israel-Palestine dispute is that it's a very complex matter. I beg to differ. The Islamic world and the Palestinians in particular must accept that Israel will always exist. Not through the next truce or ceasefire but forever.
Israel's critics demand that it negotiate with Hamas, Hezbollah and Fatah, to create a Palestinian state, conveniently forgetting that Israelis have tried repeatedly to do so without success. How do you negotiate with those who, at the end of the negotiations, say:"No matter what we agree to we will destroy you"?
It's a cliche to say that the Arabs can lose a hundred wars and survive while Israel cannot lose one. If the Palestinians are encouraged to believe that eventually they will triumph no one should be surprised that after each defeat they regroup, rearm and plan the next onslaught.
Yasser Arafat taught the Palestinians to believe that even if they lost a battle they would win the propaganda war. With their friends in the left-liberal media how could it have been otherwise? They must be convinced they can never destroy Israel.
Since its founding in 1948 Israel's proud boast has been that it has never asked any other country to fight its battles. It has had considerable support from the US but that support has not been one way. Israeli intelligence, military technology and scientific know-how has been Israel's payback. Israel is also the US's only reliable ally in the Middle East. It is almost certain that if Israel were under savage attack and in danger of going under, the US would come to its aid. There is, however, no formal agreement, pact or treaty to support that unstated undertaking. Which suggests the question, "Why not?"
The only way, to deter Israel's enemies is for the US to say unequivocally that it would never allow Israel to be destroyed. Most Westerners find it impossible to comprehend the mind of those Islamic fundamentalists who welcome death and martyrdom, particularly if it is achieved in an attempt to destroy Israel. On the assumption that not all Palestinians want to go to Paradise before the last possible moment, a declaration by the US and a formal agreement that it would intervene if Israel was under serious threat would | |
