The Glenn Beck Documentary: "The Revolutionary Holocaust: Live Free...Or Die"
 Michael Ledeen reports some interesting events from inside Iran: - “I have learned that the Deputy Commander of the Guards in the Greater Tehran area, Brigadier General Azizollah Rajabzadeh, is in intensive care following an axe attack to his cranium by one of his crack troops. This follows the shooting of General Ahmad Reza Radan by one of his men, about which I reported earlier.”
- Ledeen says that the assassination of the pro-Mousavi nuclear scientist is a foreshadowing of a greater crackdown on the way. “…Khamenei’s personal spokesman and representative to the Guards, Ali Saeedi, who, we hear from Scott Lucas at Enduring America, has reportedly declared that the the deaths of 75,000 people will be worthwhile if the Islamic Republic is thereby preserved.”
- Planet Iran’s report on the assassination says that two known members of Lebanese Hezbollah were photographed at the scene of the crime.
Also, on January 12, a senior Khamenei representative said on T.V. that “We have manufactured missiles that allow us, when necessary, to replace (sic) Israel in its entirety with a big holocaust.” World Threats
 Anne Frank's diary has been censored out of a school textbook in Lebanon following a campaign by the terror group Hezbollah claiming the classic work promotes Zionism. The row erupted after Hezbollah learned excerpts of "The Diary of Anne Frank" were included in the textbook used by a private English-language school in western Beirut. Hezbollah's Al-Manar television channel ran a report slamming the book for focusing on the persecution of Jews. "What is even more dangerous is the dramatic, theatrical way in which the diary is emotionally recounted," said the report aired last week and also published on the station's website. It questioned how long Lebanon would "remain an open arena for the Zionist invasion of education." A member of the school board, Jimmy Shoufani, told AFP the school dropped the textbook from its curriculum after the controversy erupted. He asked that the school not be identified. Hezbollah officials could not reached for comment. In the Al-Manar report, party MP Hussein Hajj Hassan had criticized the school for showing poor judgment in picking out its textbooks. "These respected, established schools are teaching the so-called tragedy this girl lived, and yet they are ashamed to teach the tragedy of the Lebanese people, the tragedy of the Palestinian people... the tragedy of the people of the south under the hands of Zionist occupation," he told Al-Manar. Paris-based organization Aladdin's Project, which fights Holocaust denial and first translated Anne Frank's diary into Arabic, issued a statement condemning Hezbollah's "intimidation campaign." Hezbollah fought a devastating war with the Jewish state in 2006. It has since refused to surrender its weapons arguing they are necessary to fight Israel, which withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000. The militant party last month also took aim at another textbook used in a leading private school in Beirut in which Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas are referred to as "terrorist organizations". The chapter in question is usually blanked out by Lebanon's censorship bureau, but an uncensored copy purchased by a student abroad apparently sparked the uproar.
 by Mohammed Salih Rawther
Anti-Semitism is not a burden of the Indian people
In August 2007, a group of elite Indian Muslims led by Hazrat Maulana Jameel Ahamed Ilyasi, the Chairman of All India Organisation of Imams and Mosques, visited Israel.
Though this news was reported, most of the media and political parties ignored the significance of this unprecedented visit. Maulana's visit and his comments afterwards should be given high importance and discussed globally, which can even stimulate the peace process in the Middle East. It is shameful the leftist media, especially in India, conceals the truth that nearly one-third of the population of Israel are Muslims and misleads global Muslims by placing Israel in the position of "Islam's eternal enemy". Imam Ilyasi's first comment after getting back to India was: "Muslims in Israel live better than in India." He was admitting the truth that Israel never discriminated against Muslims, but that the Islamic movements only made the situation worse. India is a country where such hypocrisy is prevalent, and accusations of "Israel partiality" may fall on anyone who merely smiles at a Jew in some airport. What is the logic behind agreeing that anything can be imported from that country - spy aircrafts, ammunition, breeding oxes, etc. - but they can't be spoken with? The vested interests in the media utilise heartbreaking e-mails from Gaza for their own gain; yet, if any world leader comes forward with authentic talk of peace, he will be accused of partiality for Israel. What a contradiction. The Indian Union Muslim League's ex-supremo, the late Janab Syed Mohammed Ali Shihab Thangal, said, "Israel is the dagger stabbed into the heart of the Muslim world." His statement is another clear picture of how Israel is being demonized among Indian Muslims. There is nobody to speak on behalf of Israel, because India has no "Jewish voter bank". During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was successful in appeasing the Middle Eastern peoples by promoting anti-Semitism, which already prevailed there. It was an easy thing for Indian Communists also, who ideologically depended on the Soviet Union, and so opposed America, to inject this hatred into Indian Muslims, who began to depend on Arabian countries for their livelihood. Impartially, it is ludicrous how intolerant the Muslim countries surrounding Israel became at the formation of Israel in 1948. Their savagery haunted the people of that country: Egypt, by allowing a regiment of guerillas to attack them; Jordan's and Syria's joint venture for diverting the Jordan River; Gamal Abdel-Nasser's thirst for Jews' blood; the PLO's fervour for wiping out a race. Their united forces were all set for combat. In 1967, the nation of Israel was a mere 20 years old. She had just begun life after two thousand years of exile. IDF's fighter planes were old and were nothing against Egypt's MIG-21 fighters from Russia.
Israel had few French-made small tanks and patchworked diesel engines fitted on Sherman tanks. Those also were nothing to face the Egyptian-Syrian-Jordanian tanks. Each and every section of Israel's defenses were near to nominal when compared with those of the enemies at that time. Almost all nations believed that Israel would be totally destroyed and its people slaughtered, as its enemies desired. The population which had just sacrificed six million human lives in Hitler's Holocaust might be wiped from the Earth within a quarter century. Braving all these conditions, Israel repulsed four Goliaths within a mere six days. The rivalry they still retain with the Jews is not the burden of the Indian people or any other, either Muslim or not. After Hitler's Holocaust and the Second World War the "right" to propagate anti-Semitism belongs to the Communists, who always claim they are "against all discriminations in the name of cast, creed, religion or anything else." Similar to Hamas' justifications, the Communists did not hesitate to accuse Israel and the Mossad for the havoc of the collapse of the Soviet Union and its Eastern European Communist dominions, which were actually discarded by their own dominated peoples. This time, the Communist-Islamist axis has become the sponsor of anti-Semitism. The majority of the media fails to try to understand Israel or even to write impartially. They are biased towards certain political parties that eye the Muslim voter bank. The lion's share of writers, cultural leaders, social workers, artists, etc. are under the yoke of "voter bank politics". The same attitude has spread among the public as well. Jews are not outsiders or strangers to India. They had trade with India from the days of Solomon's regime and beyond - in 605, 586 BCE, and 68,369 and 490 CE, for example - and many Jewish families came to live in India. The rulers and people received them, gave them a place and support for their livelihood. They were banished in India only by foreigners who came here. Independent India never drove away the Jews. When the Arab countries stood against India in its election to the United Nations Security Council, only Israel helped. How many critics remember when China and Pakistan attacked India, and Israel was the first to announce its support for our country? Israel was ready to cooperate and share its many gains in science with India, but the vested-interest politicians and pressure groups who control India did not allow diplomatic relations. Aside from India's position as second, behind Indonesia, in the size of its Muslim population (and fourth in its Shi'a-Muslim population), the Muslims in India have had real democratic freedom for 60 years. More than that, they have enjoyed more than a thousand years' security in India.
They have mingled with so many different peoples and might have kept a broad mind in religious matters. Thus, Imam Ilyasi is a much respected person not only by the nation's Muslims. His dedicated attempts to promote communal harmony are widely appreciated by Hindus as well. Though he faced some hurdles on his decision to visit Israel, he stuck to it and completed his mission with the other members of the delegation, and expressed appreciation for Israel's hospitality. Hazrat Imam Jameel Ahmed Ilyasi's Israel visit has become more relevant with time. Such mutual visits should be encouraged and treated with their deserved importance. Furthermore, such personalities as Ilyasi must be able to come to positions of prominence in their communities. These are the necessities for peace-loving peoples and the responsibility of the respective states.
Source: INN
 IRANIAN opposition supporters fought running battles with riot police and hardliners last night as tens of thousands mounted the first protest in two months against the re-election of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Protesters defied dire warnings from top officials against demonstrating during the annual mass display of solidarity with the Palestinians that is one of the set pieces of the Islamic regime. As Mr Ahmadinejad gave the keynote speech at Tehran University, renewing comments about Israel and the "myth" of the Holocaust that have sparked an international outcry, tens of thousands chanted "Death to the dictator" in nearby streets, witnesses said. Shouting slogans in support of the hardliner's main challenger in the June 12 election, Mir Hossein Mousavi, the protesters gathered in major squares around the capital before joining the annual march to the university. Hardline supporters of the regime among the more than 100,000 people who joined the Quds (Jerusalem) Day rally, mounted counter-demonstrations leading to repeated scuffles between the two sides, the witnesses said. Riot police, armed with batons, beat protesters who were pelting them with stones in the central Haft-e Tir Square, witnesses said. Police fired teargas to disperse the protesters, who were throwing stones and shouting: "Torture and rape are not effective any more", a witness said. The demonstrators were referring to opposition allegations of abuses against some of the more than 4000 activists and reformist politicians detained during the post-election disturbances. Plain-clothes militiamen also battled the protesters in the same square. "The plain-clothesmen on motorcycles rode into the crowd of opposition supporters as they were returning from the rally, detained several of them and beat them with batons," one witness said. The demonstrators continued to chant "Death to the dictator" and "Allahu Akbar (God is greatest)" as they were being beaten, the witness added.
The opposition leader was forced to abandon his plans to take part in the rally after an angry crowd of hardliners shouting "Death to the hypocrite Mousavi" attacked his car, the official IRNA news agency said.
Former president Mohammad Khatami, a key supporter of Mr Mousavi whose 1997-2005 term of office saw a thaw in relations with the West, was also assaulted by hardliners before being rescued by riot police.
Mr Khatami's brother Mohammad Reza Khatami said the former president was "not hurt".
"Some people shouted slogans against him," the brother said. "He is home now. He is not hurt and he is fine."
There were also reports of clashes at Quds Day events in other major cities, as the unrest over the presidential election flared up again for the first time since July 19 in a sign of the seriousness of the challenge facing the regime.
Members of the Basij Islamic militia attacked and detained demonstrators in Tabriz in the northwest and in Isfahan south of the capital.
The wave of protests came despite a threat from the Revolutionary Guards Corps to crush any renewed attempt to contest the official election results giving Mr Ahmadinejad a landslide victory.
In his Quds Day address, the hardline President again described -- in his usual hysterically inaccurate and grossly insulting way -- the mass extermination of Jews during World War II as a "myth" and said Israel was on its way to collapse.
"They (Western powers) launched the myth of the Holocaust. They lied, they put on a show and then they support the Jews," he said to chants of "Death to Israel" from his supporters among the crowd.
"The pretext for establishing the Zionist regime is a lie ... a lie which relies on an unreliable claim, a mythical claim, and the occupation of Palestine has nothing to do with the Holocaust.
"This regime's days are numbered and it is on its way to collapse. This regime is dying."
Similar comments made by Mr Ahmadinejad shortly after his first election as president in 2005 sparked an international outcry and prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to describe Iran as an "existential threat" to the Jewish state.
Then Mr Ahmadinejad said Israel was "doomed to be wiped off the map".
The pro-reform camp claims Mr Mousavi was the rightful winner of the election and that the government faked the balloting in Mr Ahmadinejad's favour.
For a month after the June balloting, thousands of opposition supporters held street demonstrations against the vote fraud but were met with a heavy government crackdown. Source: The Australian
 by Daniel Greenfield
Myth 1: "Israel was created because Europe felt guilty about the Holocaust." This left wing myth has been widely repeated, most recently by Desmond Tutu. While blatantly false on a level that even the most serious anti-Israel historian can recognize, it persists because its function is to delegitimize as the product of post-war colonial guilt, rather than longstanding Israeli national aspirations. Israel was not created in 1947. By 1947, Israel already was a functioning country with a language, culture, agriculture, universities, newspapers and military forces which proved capable of defending against the armies of several Arab nations. The only thing that happened after the Holocaust was a UN vote in 1947 was for a partition plan that was never implemented because the Arab world instead chose to try and destroy Israel. Israel however would have declared independence and fought for its own survival, with the same exact outcome, regardless of UN Resolution 181. This vote is often described as creating Israel, but it was more accurately an attempt to settle the borders of Israel that failed because of Arab genocidal hostility that expressed itself not only toward Israel, but toward the Jews living in Arab lands. Nor did post-war European colonialism create Israel. Britain, which was the colonial power in the region, was against Israel's independence and abstained in the UN vote. The majority of votes for Resolution 181 came from non-European countries, primarily in Latin America and Eastern Europe, such as Bolivia, Brazil, Panama, Peru and Poland, Ukraine and the Soviet Union. 7 European countries voted Yes, most of them Northern European states such as Sweden and Denmark, which experienced only a limited impact of the Holocaust. 12 Latin American countries voted Yes. Twice the number. And all of them countries that had their own national aspirations and had fought against colonialism. Post-Holocaust guilt was not the reason Resolution 181 passed. Less than a third of the 33 votes came from countries where the Holocaust had taken place. The reasons were varied and different. Some Latin American countries identified with Israel's national aspirations and some sought economic ties. Truman was influenced by the desire for Jewish votes in an upcoming election. The Soviet Union wanted to sabotage Britain's colonial program. The motives of different countries were varied and complex. Iran for example voted against the resolution and yet became the second country to recognize the new State of Israel. Left wing activists may insist that Resolution 181 was a racist act, but in fact half the countries who voted for it were non-white, and most of the countries who voted for it were non-European. Therefore the myth that Israel was created after the Holocaust by guilty Europeans, a myth that has been bandied about by everyone from Desmond Tutu to Wallace Shawn to Barack Obama is just that, a myth. Israel would have existed regardless of the Holocaust or UN Resolution 181, which was voted for primarily by non-European countries in any case. Those who repeat the myth are therefore demonstrating either extreme ignorance or extreme deceptiveness. Myth 2: "European Nations Gave the Jews a Land Already Inhabited by a People." This is one of the more common myths that seeks to strike at the legitimacy of the creation of the modern state of Israel, and treats the Jews as a foreign body within the land. This is a continuation of the anti-semitic stereotypes of the Jews as eternal wanderers and eternal foreigners. The fact of the matter is that Jews had an ongoing presence in the land going back thousands of years, that was only interrupted by massacres and expulsions, after which the Jews population would once again attempt to reestablish itself. Greek, Roman, Arab and Ottoman colonialism expelled Jewish populations and attempted to replace them with their own populations in order to gain a foothold in the land. Unlike them however the Jews remained the land's indigenous population. Throughout history Jews struggled to achieve independence with armed revolts from Roman and Byzantine rule. The last such revolt took place somewhat more than a thousand years before the creation of the modern State of Israel, rather than two thousand as most people believe. Jewish attempts to revive the State of Israel were repeatedly and brutally suppressed, in at least one case by outright genocide. Nor was that the only genocide that Jews in Israel experienced.
 Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt has cancelled a planned trip to Israel this Friday, against the background of Israeli anger at the Swedish government's refusal to condemn an article in a Swedish newspaper accusing IDF soldiers of killing Palestinians and harvesting their organs. While Swedish officials told The Jerusalem Post late last week that the visit was in doubt, Israeli diplomatic officials said Saturday night that the visit had definitely been cancelled. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was considering not meeting Bildt unless he condemned the article in the tabloid Aftonbladet, something the Swedish government - citing freedom of the press - had adamantly refused to do. Netanyahu gave vent to Israel's disappointment over the matter during a meeting last week in Jerusalem with visiting EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. During that meeting, Netanyahu said that no one was expecting the Swedes to restrict freedom of the press, but that it was reasonable to expect the government to speak out against the type of defamation that in the past had led to the mass murder of Jews. Sweden currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU, and Bildt's failure to visit here will have an impact on the country's ability during its term as president to have any real say on the diplomatic process. Ironically, while the Swedes continued to refuse to condemn the article, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos said Saturday in Stockholm that he regretted the Spanish newspaper El Mundo's decision to run an interview Saturday with Holocaust denier David Irving as part of a retrospective on the start of World War II 70 years ago. "The foreign minister, while maintaining the most absolute respect for freedom of expression, regrets that space was given to a historian who denies one of the biggest tragedies for humanity in modern history," a spokesman for Moratinos said. "These types of statements deeply hurt the Jewish people." Read more here,,,, Source: JPost
 An Arab organisation is to be put on trial in the Netherlands over its publication of a cartoon deemed offensive to Jews, prosecutors say. The cartoon, published by the Arab European League (AEL) on its website, questions the Holocaust. It said the decision to prosecute illustrated bias against Muslims. It said the same standards were not applied to the Dutch MP Geert Wilders, who made a film including cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Last month prosecutors said they would not put the far-right MP on trial for distributing the controversial Danish cartoons, which caused a storm of protest after their publication in 2005. However, he is still being investigated separately for inciting hatred against Muslims by making statements comparing Islam to Nazism. But Dutch prosecutors said the AEL cartoon was "discriminatory" and "offensive to Jews as a group... because it offends Jews on the basis of their race and/or religion". The cartoon shows two men standing near a pile of bones at "Auswitch" (sic). One says "I don't think they're Jews". The other replies: "We have to get to the six million somehow." Read more here,,,, Source: BBC News H/T: GH
 Hamas slammed the United Nations Sunday, saying the organization planned to teach Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip about the Holocaust, but the UN agency which runs schools in the enclave would not confirm any change, Reuters reported. Calling the Nazi genocide of the Jews "a lie invented by the Zionists," Hamas wrote in an open letter to a senior UN official that he should withdraw plans for a new history book in the UN schools. A spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which educates some 200,000 refugee children in Gaza, said the Holocaust was not on its current curriculum. He would not comment on Hamas's statement that it was about to change, Reuters said. Hamas said it believed UNRWA was about to start using a text for 13-year-olds that included a chapter on the Holocaust. In an open letter to local UNRWA chief John Ging, the movement's Popular Committees for Refugees said: "We refuse to let our children study a lie invented by the Zionists." UNRWA spokesman Adnan Abu Hasna said: "There is no mention of the Holocaust in the current syllabus." Asked if UNRWA planned to change that, he declined to comment. Hamas's official spokesman in Gaza, Sami Abu Zuhri, said he did not want to discuss the history of the Holocaust but said: "Regardless of the controversy, we oppose forcing the issue of the so-called Holocaust onto the syllabus, because it aims to reinforce acceptance of the occupation of Palestinian land." Source: JPost
 It is a sign of the corrosiveness of the anti-Zionist agenda that even some of the most admirable and well-regarded of international luminaries feel no compunction these days about using the greatest crime against the Jewish people as a convenient weapon against the Jewish state. Holocaust inversion has now entered the mainstream. No-one, it seems, is immune from its temptations.Enter former anti-apartheid campaigner, Nobel laureate, and Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu who has used an interview with the liberal-Left Israeli newspaper Haaretz today to make some typically ill considered remarks of his own: "The lesson that Israel must learn from the Holocaust is that it can never get security through fences, walls and guns,” he was quoted by the paper as saying. "... in South Africa, they tried to get security from the barrel of a gun. They never got it. They got security when the human rights of all were recognized and respected." This is crass even by Tutu’s standards when talking about Israel. But it was nothing compared to the truly disturbing comments made earlier this week by Virgin Atlantic boss and international NGO financier Richard Branson. Asked to draw on his business and public relations skills to advise Israel on how to improve its image, he said: "I think it’s something similar to what happened after 9/11. You know after 9/11 the world had enormous sympathy for America, and you know that sympathy was somehow lost. And obviously after the Second World War, the world had enormous sympathy for the Jewish people. Over a number of decades, that sympathy has been lost ... You’ve got a great country, but you’ve just got to hold the hands of your neighbors, and then you’ll get back on top again." I have remarked on a number of occasions on how submersion in the anti-Zionist agenda leads otherwise reasonable and sane individuals to say things which make them look ridiculous. But “you’ve just got to hold the hands of your neighbours, and then you’ll get back on top again.”? Don’t these people ever think about what they are saying? The mind boggles. Read more here ... Source: Robin Shepherd Desmond Tutu
Latest recipient of the Demented Priest Award
Richard Branson
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award
 The famous photo of Adolf Hitler sitting with Grand
Mufti Hajj Muhammad Amin al-HusseiniThe publicly funded Multicultural Center's (Werkstatt der Kulturen) decision to remove educational panels of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Muhammad Amin al-Husseini, who was an ally of Adolf Hitler, from a planned exhibit, sparked outrage on Thursday among a district mayor, the curator of the exhibit, and the Berlin Jewish community. The curator, Karl Rössler, told The Jerusalem Post that it is a "scandal" that the director of the Werkstatt, Philippa Ebéné, sought to censor the exhibit. "One must, of course, name that al-Husseini, a SS functionary, participated in the Holocaust," said Rössler. The exhibit covers the "The Third World during the Second World War" and three exhibit panels of 96 are devoted to the mufti's collaboration with the Nazis. The grand mufti delivered a talk to the imams of the Bosnian SS division in 1944, and was a key Islamic supporter of Nazi Germany's destruction of European Jewry. Ebéné denied that there was an "agreement " reached with the local German-Muslim community to shut down the exhibit. She termed media queries regarding an agreement as "Eurocentric." She told the Post that the exhibit was intended as a "homage to soldiers from African" countries who fought against the Nazis. When asked about her opposition to the inclusion of the mufti panels, she asked, "was there ever a commemoration event in Israel to honor the [African] soldiers?" Rössler was notified last Friday that Ebéné wanted to take out the panels dealing with the grand mufti, but he rejected her demand to remove them. Meanwhile, the exhibit in its uncensored version has been relocated to the UferHallen gallery. Read more here ... Source: JPost
 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left,
and 'Bild' newspaper chief editor, Kai Diekmann, right,
look at Auschwitz blueprints.August 27 BERLIN — Architectural plans for the Auschwitz death camp that were discovered in Berlin last year were handed over to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday for display at Israel's Holocaust memorial. The 29 sketches of the death camp built in Nazi-occupied Poland date as far back as 1941. They include detailed blueprints for living barracks, delousing facilities and crematoria, including gas chambers, and are considered important for understanding the genesis of the Nazi genocide. The sketches are initialed by the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, and Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoess. "There are those who deny that the Holocaust happened," Netanyahu said. "Let them come to Jerusalem and look at these plans, these plans for the factory of death." The Axel Springer Verlag, publisher of the mass circulation Bild newspaper, obtained the plans from a private person who said he found them when cleaning out a flat in what was formerly East Berlin. The company and Germany's federal archive have confirmed blueprints' authenticity. Read more here ... Source: FoxNews
August 19 Dutch prosecutors declined on Tuesday to put far-right MP Geert Wilders on trial for distributing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed. But they found that a Holocaust-denying cartoon in a separate case was punishable. The prosecution service had received complaints about Wilders reproducing controversial Danish cartoons of the prophet on his website, as well as their display on a television programme. It had also received complaints about two cartoons published on the website of the Arab-European League (AEL) lobby group, one of which allegedly shows Jews denying that the Nazi Holocaust happened. The Danish cartoons and their reproduction were not punishable, the prosecution service said in a statement. "The cartoons are about the Prophet Mohamed, but don't say anything about Muslims. None of the cartoons are offensive towards Muslims or contribute to hatred, discrimination or violence against Muslims." The Holocaust cartoon "is punishable because it offends Jews on the basis of their race and/or religion." The AEL has agreed to remove the cartoon from its Dutch website, said the statement. "If it complies, charges will be provisionally dropped." The Mohammed cartoons originally appeared in Danish newspapers in September 2005, sparking protests across the Muslim world. Five people died in Pakistan in protests in February 2006. In a separate investigation, Wilders faces prosecution for inciting hatred against Muslims by making statements comparing Islam to Nazism. He made a 17-minute film, Fitna, which UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called "offensively anti-Islamic". The screening of the film last year prompted also protests in Muslim nations. Source: Sydney Morning Herald
 Morocco's "First Servant," King Mohammed VI and
Princess Lalla Salma at the royal theater in MarrakechFrom the western edge of the Muslim world, the King of Morocco has dared to tackle one of the most inflammatory issues in the Middle East conflict - the Holocaust. At a time when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's dismissal of the Holocaust has made the biggest headlines, King Mohammed VI has called the Nazi destruction of the Jews "one of the most tragic chapters of modern history," and has endorsed a Paris-based program aimed at spreading the word among fellow Muslims. Many in the Islamic world still ignore or know little about the Holocaust. Some disbelieve it outright. Others argue that it was a European crime and imagine it to be the reason Israel exists and the Palestinians are stateless. The sentiment was starkly illustrated in March after a Palestinian youth orchestra performed for Israeli Holocaust survivors, only to be shut down by angry leaders of the West Bank refugee camp where they live. "The Holocaust happened, but we are facing a similar massacre by the Jews themselves," a community leader named Adnan Hindi said at the time. "We lost our land and we were forced to flee." Like other moderate Arab leaders, King Mohammed VI must tread carefully. Islamic fervor is rising in his kingdom, highlighted in 2003 by alQaida-inspired attacks in Casablanca on targets that included Jewish sites. Forty-five people were killed. The king's acknowledgment of the Holocaust, in a speech read out in his name at a ceremony in Paris in March, appears to further illustrate the radically different paths that countries like Morocco and Iran are taking. Morocco has long been a quiet pioneer in Arab-Israeli peace efforts, most notably when it served as a secret meeting place for the Israeli and Egyptian officials who set up President Anwar Sadat's groundbreaking journey to Jerusalem in 1977. Read more here,,,, Source: JP
 Iranian riot police on a street of Tehran on June 20, 2009.An Iranian student protester in Tehran made a passionate plea for help from the world community this morning in a phone call to CNN’s “American Morning.” For safety reasons, CNN can only identify the student by his first name, Mohammad. He’s been a part of the protests and a target of the violence there. Below is an edited transcript of the interview. John Roberts: What is the scene like on the streets? Are there more demonstrators out there on the streets? Or is it much quieter than it has been in recent days? Mohammad: Hello. Actually I participated in Saturday’s demonstrations in parts of Tehran. What I saw, I saw thousands of security officers that tried to break up the crowd. They used canisters and batons and water cannons against us. They attacked us. And we also in response attacked them. We attacked them by throwing stones. And we built trenches in the streets and actually defended too. Roberts: So there was quite a large confrontation going on there over the weekend. But can you tell us what the scene is like on the streets today? Mohammad: Today was a long day in Tehran. And yesterday there weren’t any organized rallies in Tehran. Because we take orders from our leader Mr. Karroubi and Mr. Mir Hossein Moussavi. The connections, the communication is very difficult, more than even you can imagine in Tehran. But I myself haven’t received any orders from our leaders yet. But as soon as I get any order, I will participate in any demonstration that they tell us. Read more ...Source: CNNH/T: Infidels Are Cool
 Hopeful ... young guests wait for Barack Obama to make his speech at Cairo University / AP
PRESIDENT Barack Obama has vowed to forge a "new beginning'' for Islam and the US in a landmark speech to the world's 1.5 billion Muslims.
In what may be a defining moment of his presidency, Mr Obama laid out a new blueprint for US Middle East policy, vowing to buckle mistrust, forge a state for Palestinians and defuse a nuclear showdown with Iran.
In the Great Hall of Cairo University, Mr Obama warned the US bond with Israel, the source of much Arab distrust of the United States, was unbreakable, and rejected "ignorant'' rants by those who deny the Nazi Holocaust.
But, in a sharp break from the policies of his predecessor George W. Bush, Mr Obama also rebuked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's refusal to halt settlement expansion on the West Bank.
"I have come here to Cairo seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world,'' Mr Obama said in a speech shown on television and on social networking sites.
"So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace."
Letting divides fester would "promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity", he said.
"This cycle of suspicion and discord must end," he said, vowing to fight "negative stereotypes" of Islam wherever they appear.
"But that same principle must apply to Muslim perceptions of America."
The US President, laying out a staggeringly ambitious foreign policy to match the audacity of his sweeping domestic program, spoke directly, and without adornment on the chasms between the US and Muslims.
Specifically targeting young Muslims, perhaps not bound to past traditions, Mr Obama said: "I know there are many - Muslim and non Muslim - who question whether we can forge this new beginning.''
"Some are eager to stoke the flames of division, and to stand in the way of progress. Some suggest that it isn't worth the effort - that we are fated to disagree, and civilisations are doomed to clash.
"There is so much fear, so much mistrust. But if we choose to be bound by the past, we will never move forward.''
Mr Obama called on Israelis and Palestinians to revive stalled peace talks, demanding Palestinians halt violence and Israelis to ease the plight of those trapped in the occupied territories.
"Too many tears have flowed. Too much blood has been shed,'' he said.
"America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own."
He called on both sides to live up to obligations under the stalled "roadmap'' for Middle East peace.
"Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's,'' he said.
"The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.''
The US president also renewed his offer for dialogue with arch-US foe Iran, over, after a decades-long Cold War style conflict.
"It will be hard to overcome decades of mistrust, but we will proceed with courage, rectitude and resolve,'' Mr Obama said.
"But it is clear to all concerned that when it comes to nuclear weapons, we have reached a decisive point.
"This is not simply about America's interests. It is about preventing a nuclear arms race in the
Middle East that could lead this region and the world down a hugely dangerous path.'' Source: The Australian
By पुनित मदान | 07 May, 2009 - Puneet Madan on the inaugural Human Rights Coalition Against Radical Islam Rally in New York on May 3, 2009:
We are a multi-lingual, multi-cultural, multi-religious, multi-ethnic group that have gathered in Times Square, New York, today (May 3, 2009) under the Human Rights Coalition Against Radical Islam (HRCARI) banner to reaffirm the most basic of principles that our ancestors stood for when, over six decades ago, they established the United Nations, the cornerstone of a hoped-for global democracy. In doing so, they hoped to ensure that never again would humankind face the persecution it suffered during the tragedies of the mid-20th century. The establishment of the United Nations was to be the beginning of a new era in which people of different religion, cultures, castes, and color would together create a new global society, a humanistic society, finally overcoming the fascism and imperialism of the times past.
HRCARI reaffirms the most basic principles human rights: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to vote, and the assurance that all human beings are equal, regardless of his social, cultural, gender, racial, sexuality or religious status.
For many in our world, democracy is considered the essence of human freedom. However, for others, the term “democracy” has come to imply only the right to vote. This is exemplified in the many Islamic countries that hold elections, even while exhibiting nary a trace of freedom. The most famous recent example of elections without the "essence of democracy" include the 2006 election of Hamas in the Palestinian Territories. The reality is that freedom, as a concept, has been defined straight out of existence. While most people in the world define freedom and human rights according to the universalistic notions set forth in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UNUDHR), and other documents such as the United States’ Declaration of Independence, radical Muslims have defined “freedom” to mean the freedom they enjoy to exploit human suffering and dignity, a "freedom", they believe, is granted them by their age-old religious scripture. They are, in short, demanding that the democratic, freedom-loving world be tolerant to their intolerance. In the 1930s, when Jews were forced to wear arm bands in Nazi Germany, the world ignored their plight. One of the excuses for ignoring Jewish suffering during the Holocaust was a perceived need to be "sensitive" to the plight of Nazi Germany. It is still an open question why and how the world ignored and appeased the Nazi threat for as long as it did, until action was finally taken. But it is clear that by ignoring the Nazi threat, the world permitted a massive human tragedy, the Holocaust, to happen. The United Nations was founded in the wake of that tragedy in order to prevent another Holocaust.
Ironically the same story repeated itself in 1999, when the Taliban forced Afghan Hindus and Sikhs to wear orange armbands. They also were responsible for the genocide of the Hazara Muslims in Northern Afghanistan. Let loose, the Taliban grew into a global threat by 2001, and we are still living under the shadow of that threat. Today, the media and politicians are attempting to claim there is a “moderate Taliban.” The term “moderate Taliban” is an oxymoron in itself. Once again we are making deals and compromising the very definition of the “universal human dignity” in order to be “sensitive” towards the demands of perpetrators of genocide. Read more here... Source: Islam Watch
 Alan M. Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Last week I came face to face with evil, as I stood just a few feet away from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. We were both staying in the same hotel in Geneva. He was there to be the opening speaker at Durban II, a review and reprise of Durban I, the United Nations sponsored conference on racism that had turned into a racist hate fest against the Jewish people and the Jewish state. I was there - along with Elie Wiesel, Irwin Cotler and others who have devoted their lives to combating bigotry - to try to prevent a recurrence of Durban I. I first set eyes on Ahmadinejad when he walked into the hotel and waved in the general direction of where my wife and I were standing. We looked back contemptuously as my wife let out an audible hiss. He was about to be welcomed to Geneva by the Swiss President who made a special visit to the hotel in order to greet a man who denies the Holocaust while threatening another one, this time with nuclear weapons. When the Swiss President was widely criticized for his warm and uncritical embrace of one of the worlds most evil and dangerous tyrants, he offered two justifications. First, ... More »
THE Holocaust remains the sole issue blocking agreement on the final declaration of a UN conference on racism, diplomats said. Negotiators in Geneva are working against the clock to finalise a fresh declaration, with urgency added by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's stated intention to attend the proceedings, which start on Monday. "There is just one lingering point, the question of the Holocaust. All the others are settled," a Western diplomat said yesterday after talks between ambassadors to prepare for the five-day Durban Review Conference. Iran wants a reference to past injustices to be linked to a paragraph calling for the Holocaust - in which Nazi Germany killed six million European Jews during World War II - never to be forgotten, said an Iranian diplomat involved in the negotiations. But European diplomats dismissed that suggestion as "unacceptable", as they succeeded in rejecting two other thorny issues - the notion of a direct link between foreign occupation and racism, and the stereotyping of religions. Both references - regarded by European UN member nations as "red lines" that would determine their presence at the conference - were deemed too explicit towards Israel and the defamation of religious faiths. In the revised draft, "foreign occupation" was shifted to another part of the declaration where it would no longer pose a problem, while the reference about stereotyping would be about individuals, not religions, a diplomat said. The Durban Review Conference will review progress and assess the implementation of the Durban Declaration and Program of Action, adopted in the South African city in 2001. That declaration aimed to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, but the US and Israel walked out over a push to link Zionism with racism. Source: The Australian
 Recently, I was privileged to receive an advance copy of the first time English translation, released today, of Grigoris Balakian’s epic personal memoir of the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1918, “Hai Koghkotan,” “The Armenian Golgotha,” originally published in Vienna, in 1922. The 1922 volume 1, and the second volume (which apparently “fell into a void for lack of funding,” was found among Grogoris Balakian’s sister Rosa Antreassian’s post-humous papers in 1956, and published in Paris in 1959) are presented in a very accessible, elegant English translation by Grigoris Balakian’s grandnephew, Professor Peter Balakian—an accomplished scholar of the Armenian Genocide himself—with the able assistance of two colleagues, Anahid Yeremian, and Aris Sevag. Modern genocide historians who have been wont to re-examine the disintegrating Ottoman Empire’s World War I jihad genocide against its Armenian minority through the prism of The Holocaust, often cite a comment by Hitler that the mass killings of the Armenians served the Nazi leaders as an “inspirational” precedent for predictable impunity. During August of 1939, Hitler gave speeches in preparation for the looming invasion of Poland which admonished his military commanders to wage a brutal, merciless campaign, and assure rapid victory. Hitler portrayed the impending invasion as the initial step of a vision to “secure the living space we need,” and ultimately, “redistribute the world.” In an explicit reference to the Armenians, “Who after all is today speaking of the destruction of the Armenians?,” Hitler justified their annihilation (and the world’s consignment of this genocide to oblivion) as an accepted new world order because, “The world believes only in success.” Read more ...Source: FrontPage Magazine
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