 Churches are being firebombed in Malaysia, and for AP that is "similar" to a rum bottle being thrown at a mosque. "Rum bottle thrown at Malaysia mosque amid tension," from The Associated Press, January 16 (thanks to Pamela): KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Vandals threw a rum bottle at a mosque in the first attack on a Muslim house of worship after almost a dozen similar assaults on churches in Malaysia the past week, police said Saturday. Police have dismissed the attacks as vandalism, but they have caused disquiet in multiracial Malaysia and raised fears of more widespread religious tensions. One Sikh temple and 11 churches have been hit - most of them with molotov cocktails - since Jan. 8.... Maybe the molotov cocktails were made from rum. With thanks to JihadWatch
 A BBC report on how and what Muslims are teaching in private Islamic schools in the U.K. is very surprising and disheartening for natives of the United Kingdom, who have been living there for centuries before the migration of Muslims. The report can be found on Youtube. Dr. Sumaya Alyusaf, director of the King Fahad Academy, recognized that their books and curriculum, taught to Muslim children, say that Jews are monkeys and Christians are pigs. She confessed that these are the books that were taught in her schools. However, the arrogant and haughty Alyusaf, notwithstanding the advice of the interviewer, openly refused to withdraw those hatemongering books from her schools. To defend the Quran, she said that we should not see the misinterpretation of the specific verses that says Christians are pigs and Jews are monkeys, but we should see and consider the entire story in the chapter of the Quran. After that only would we understand the true soul of the Quran that it teaches humanity to mankind. This is real laughable and ridiculous answer by Dr. Alyusaf. The interviewer also raised the point that schools, overseen by the Fahd Academy, also teaches that those, who do not follow Islam, will be perished in Hellfire. Dr. Alyusaf denied this, but only to accept it in her next sentence that Islam emphasizes that whoever does not believe in Muhammad as the final messenger, he/she will find their abode in the Hell fire and the Quran testifies this many times. My advice and request to those high authorities of non-Muslim countries that they should open an organization on how to deal with Islam and truth about Islam. They can now openly tell to their students that Muslims are dogs; they should teach the true history of the real pirates of Arabia of the 7th and 8th centuries that ruled over the weak, oppressed women, and engaged in massive killings. How Muslims claim that women have equal rights in Islam even after practicing polygamy and distribution of less property share than their brothers inherited from their parents. I personally believe that now is the right time that Islam should be exposed naked before the world, before this virus spreads in the minds of otherwise innocent people, who might go to kill innocent people, even their own parents, siblings, and beloved ones. Islam Watch
 It is Christmas 2009, and instead of peace on earth and good will towards all, Muslims are busily blowing up churches and Christians all over the Islamic world. This is an awful reality but it is neither recent nor unexpected. Perhaps what is even more awful is the world’s silence and seeming passivity. We in the West who believe in religious tolerance have not stopped the persecution of Christians in Muslim countries.
In the name of political correctness, we have also “tolerated” the often aggressive demands for mosques, public prayer, minarets, and loudspeakers on our own soil even though there is absolutely no reciprocity towards Christianity (or any other non-Muslim religion) in most Arab and Muslim countries. For example, this year, in a church in Bellinzona (Ticino), in Switzerland, a Nativity scene displays Jesus surrounded by minarets! “The unusual scene is supposed to make people reflect about brotherhood and human rights, after 57% of the Swiss (and 68% in Ticino) recently voted against minarets on mosques. On the crib are verses from the Bible and the Koran on the topic of water.” First they came for the Jews … and indeed, most Jews, all 800,000 of us, fled the Arab and Muslim world in the 1940s and 1950s. No one stopped this “silent exodus” or really cared that it had happened. Individual Muslims and the Muslim governments happily, greedily, confiscated Jewish homes, factories, and farms; those Jews who were not slaughtered were allowed to leave with ten dollars in their pocket. Unlike the Palestinian refugees, the Jews and Israel took care of their own. Unfortunately, the Muslim world turned parasitically to the United Nations and to the world to fund the very Palestinians whom they would not allow to remain in their countries as refugees or citizens. As to our Christian brothers and sisters: Two days ago, in Mosul, Iraq, the Syrian Orthodox Church of St. Thomas, founded in 770 AD, was bombed — killing two civilians and wounding five others. This was the “sixth attack on Christians there in less than a month.” Ironically, according to their identity cards, the two murder victims were actually Muslims. However, according to Father Abdul Massih Dalmay of this church, “Christians are being targeted during Christmas time.” Father Dalmay feels that the government has not provided enough security for churches at this time and views this as “negligence on their part.” The Syrian Orthodox Parish of the Immaculate Virgin was attacked a week ago. An infant girl was killed and forty people were wounded. Father Faez Wadiha, of this church, says, with irony: “This is certainly a Christmas present for Mosul, a message of congratulations why we are celebrating a feast of love and peace. But we will pray in the streets, in homes, in shops. God is everywhere, not just in churches.” The Syrian Catholic Church of the Annunciation , the (Chaldean) Church of St Ephrem, and the St. Theresa Church were all bombed in Mosul in the last month. According to another Christian Father: “These attacks are aimed at forcing Christians to leave the country.” Some might say: There is an unwanted (and perceived as) Christian-American military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. These bombings are in retaliation …well, not so fast. There are other Muslim countries where there is no (unwanted) American military presence and where both Jews and Christians have lived long before Islam even came into being — countries in which Christians are now under siege. Let’s look at what’s happening to Christians who live in some Muslim countries today. Egypt For years now, Islamist “gangs” have been forcibly converting Christian children to Islam by drugging, kidnapping, gang-raping, photographing the rapes, blackmailing, and “marrying” the female child, as young as twelve, to Muslim men. The Egyptian police have been unwilling to stop this criminal activity. Recently, a Christian television channel broadcast a program about this in Arabic. Many Egyptians were shocked. Here is one of the kidnappers’ tactics: “The latest fraud mentioned on the TV program is that Muslim gangs who dress as Coptic priests, offer a car lift to Christian girls and then abduct them. ‘The Coptic Church has warned its congregation against letting any unknown person dressed as a priest into their homes or accepting a lift.’” (My thanks to John Peter Maher for this information). A substantial Christian population has always lived in Egypt. They have increasingly been bombed, tortured and murdered. For example, the Monastery of Abu Fana in Upper Egypt has existed since the 5th century — which clearly predates Islam by two centuries. Last year, Bedouin Muslims attacked the monastery, “destroying a small church and burning the monastery’s farm. Nine monks and monastery employees were wounded and four others were abducted.” Jeff Jacoby writes: “One of the [abducted] monks had his arm and legs broken,” the Egyptian lawyer and human-rights activist Nagib Gabriel later testified. “The other two were tied together with ropes, suspended from a tree, and severely beaten with hoses and sticks. Afterwards, they were placed — upside down and still tied together — on the back of a donkey and shoved off. The monks were further commanded to spit on the cross and proclaim the shahada [the Muslim credo that "there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet"], beaten every time they refused, and even threatened with death.” Pakistan For a long time now, Christians have been persecuted in Pakistan. Their female children have been kidnapped, forced to convert and forcibly married to Muslims; both priests and believers have been attacked, and often murdered. Earlier this month, in Sargodha, Pakistan (in or near the Punjab), a mob of Muslim villagers, armed with clubs, spades, and axes attacked a showing of a film on Jesus, injuring three part-time evangelists very seriously as well as four Christians in attendance. The mob destroyed their appliances and absconded with funds. The mob also turned on Christian villagers who tried to intervene. Apparently, the mob climbed “trees to get a clearer view of the screen. The eyewitnesses said that as soon as the Muslim attackers watched the resurrection and ascension of Christ, they became enraged because their version of Islam forbids portraying an image of a living thing and especially that of a prophet. ” As usual, the police refused to register a complaint.
 Not to mention the churches that have been attacked outright. Islamic Tolerance Alert. "Hundreds to worship outside churches amid tight security," by Yuli Tri Suwarni and Suherdjoko for the Jakarta Post, December 24: Fifteen police officers backed up by soldiers and local residents will guard every church across West Java during Christmas celebrations to prevent possible attacks, police said. Dozens of churches in the province have closed since 2004 after being stormed or attacked by hard-line Muslim mobs. In 2000, militants bombed churches across the archipelago on Christmas Eve. This week in Bandung, West Java, many Christians won't be able to celebrate Christmas in a church because they were denied permits to build their places of worship. West Java Church Federation (BKSG) leader John Simon Timorason said Wednesday the biggest obstacle was applying for a building permit to build a church, so local Christians eventually opted to hold Christmas prayers in shopping malls, hotels, restaurants, shops and homes. He said more than 60 percent of the 1,920 churches in West Java were built without permits because of difficulties in obtaining permits. Only 15 percent of churches have permanent buildings and have permits. "We face difficulties obtaining permits. Those equipped with permits, such as the churches in Purwakarta, Bekasi and Depok, had their permits revoked due to pressure from intolerant groups," Simon told The Jakarta Post. Last year, 77 families from the Pasundan Christian Church in Dayeuhkolot, Bandung, who were holding prayers at their preacher's house were evicted by a mob. Church caretaker Ranto Gunawan Simamora said, fearing violence, they had to hold mass in a chapel at the Immanuel Hospital on Jl. Kopo, Bandung. West Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Timur Pradopo said more than 10,000 personnel would provide security for Christmas mass in churches and other locations throughout the province. Timur said the police would also secure public places, such as shopping malls, hotels and tourist sites as part of Operation Lilin-Lodaya that starts Dec. 24 and runs for 10 days....
 In a discussion in the French parliament on French identity, Carl Pincemin, human resources consultant for CAC 40 companies, described how employees get religious menus, refusing to have halal meat offerend next to 'normal' meat dishes, which are considered impure.
Clearly they want separate dining halls and do not want to sit anymore next to people who are eating pork, said Jacques Myard UMP deputy. Others create the eqivalent of a religious union: they demand recognition of Muslim holidays, places of worship at work, and want the serving women to cover their arms.
These demands in the name of Islam, from the most simple to the most extravagant, put the management in an awkward situation. Anthropologist Dounia Bouzar says that some are afraid of being called Islamophobes if they refuse, and so they yield to intolerable practices. For example, accepting that male employees don't go through an assessment interview anymore with their female boss. While others, on the other hand, suppress all manifestations of faith, even if they don't disturb the smooth operation of the company.
André Gerin (PCF), president of the parliamentary commission on the full veil, says that hospitals are also having problems. The deputies visited the maternity ward in Lyon, where the staff feels abandoned.
There are 4-5 incidents a week in the obstetrics department, says Gerin. In October a midwife called in to help during a difficult birth was beaten up by the husband, said a hospital official. CPR had to be administrated before they could go ahead with the birth.
The entire department is traumatized and in more and more cases they need to find their way between religious requirements and violence from some people. Husbands insist that their wives be seen by female doctors. Many refuse anesthesia for fear it that a man would show up, says the staff.
As they did in 2004, when chief gynecologists denounces these pressures to the Stasi commission (which later decided to ban the headscarf). Since then there's a charter saying that one can't choose a doctor in the public healthy system. But the staff are left to their own devices to manage those conflicts, says André Gérin.
The mayors of the suburbs are concerned about the increase of religious demands. After the pork-free meals in school, the requests for menus without meat or halal, there are demands for special hours reserved for women in swimming pools and gyms.
Source: Le Figaro (French), h/t NRP
See also:
* France: Companies confronted by religious demands
* France: Anti-Muslim backlash hurts Jews With thanks to Islam in Europe
 Switzerland's ban on building minarets will fuel xenophobia and risks making Jews the next target of religious intolerance, according to European rabbis meeting in Moscow. The Conference of European Rabbis condemned the outcome of last Sunday's Swiss referendum in a resolution passed during their two-day meeting, international relations director Philip Carmel told Reuters on Thursday. "We don't have a situation of the extreme right in Europe attacking Jews because they are content to attack Muslims," he said. "But the Swiss example is classic: it's not just Muslims who are going to be targeted by the extreme right." Swiss voters approved a ban on building new minarets in a referendum, defying the government and parliament which had rejected the right-wing initiative as violating the Swiss constitution, freedom of religion and a cherished tradition of tolerance. Speaking after the conference ended, Carmel said any movement towards xenophobia or extreme nationalist sentiment was "bad for Jews", adding: "The growth of the far right legitimizes xenophobic opinion." The Conference, which represents over 800 rabbis in more than 40 countries, was concerned that Jews might be the next targets of a rise in right-wing sentiment aroused by the minaret ban, he said. Rabbis said they were delighted by the revival of Jewish life in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union, where their faith was relentlessly persecuted, leading to an exodus of tens of thousands. They said the growth of Muslim extremism in Western Europe's capitals was making life difficult for Jewish communities there. Jonasan Abraham, a London rabbi, said it was "tragic to think that it's safer now to walk the streets of Moscow as a Jew than in many Western European capitals where you feel hostility". In some European cities, Jews were living under tight security at schools and synagogues because of the threat from Islamic fundamentalists, the rabbis said. "You can't talk about the Holocaust in certain classrooms because the Muslim children will stand and complain about why it is being discussed," Carmel said. The rabbis called for European governments to combat Muslim extremism by making a commitment not to engage in dialogue with fundamentalist organizations and their representatives. "Because of the lack of structure of umbrella Muslim groups, politicians have a tendency to prefer dialogue with those who seem to be the loudest but they are not necessarily representative," Carmel said. YNet
 The comment by a Vatican spokesman followed criticism from across Europe. On Sunday voters in Switzerland voted yes to a referendum which bans the building of minarets on top of mosques used by the country's small Muslim minority. Earlier on Monday the French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said he was "scandalised" by the Swiss decision and said it represented a "show of intolerance" by France's neighbour. He said it was a "negative" move because banning the construction of Muslim mosque towers amounts to "oppressing a religion". He told France's RTL radio: "I hope that the Swiss will go back on this decision rather quickly." Muslim groups in Switzerland and abroad condemned the vote as anti-Islamic. In staunchly secular France, legislators are holding discussions that could lead to a ban on the burka - the face-covering Islamic veil. Telegraph
 Islamic Tolerance Alert from Modern, Moderate Turkey -- and another demonstration of how unsuited the country is to enter the European Union. Letting them in would not encourage change; it would only reward their refusal to change. "Turkish Military Planned Attacks on Christians," from the Assyrian International News Agency Senior Turkish military officers had made extensive plans to terrorize non-Muslims in Turkey. In the large Ergenekon1 scandal recently a well-planned terrorist operation was revealed. The operation which is called "Kafes Operasyonu Eylem Plani", in English meaning "the execution of the cage - operation" was to eliminate the remaining small group of Christians living in Turkey today. The plan was revealed when police arrested Levent Bektas, a major in the Turkish army. The evidence seized reveals more than 27 officers and senior military officers involved in the conspiracy against Christians. In order to identify key persons among the Christians and then kill them, this terrorist network has broken into a Greek church congregation compound and stolen computers. The purpose of this was to access the congregation's member lists. "When our office was emptied of computers and files, church members were very concerned. Since the murder of the monk Santoro, the journalist Hrant Dink and the brutal murder of three publishing workers in Malatya, Christians are living in constant fear," said lawyer Kezban Hatemi, representing the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Istanbul. On November 28, 2007, the Syriac Orthodox monk Daniel Savci in Turabdin was kidnapped in southeastern Turkey. The monk resides in the St. Gabriel monastery, which Turkish authorities are trying to confiscate. A few days later the monk was found beaten. Shortly after, the police arrested some village guards, a state-sanctioned militia subordinate to the Turkish army, for the kidnapping. Many people with insight into the situation interpret the kidnapping as a direct threat to the remaining Assyrians in Turabdin. Christians were attacked across the country. To implement the strategic attacks, the country"s Christian population was mapped out and 939 key persons from different parts of the country were identified as potential targets. The fully detailed operation consists of four phases: preparation, spreading propaganda, shape opinion and execute. The newspaper Taraf, which has been able to access the information, has published several articles about this. On its website www.taraf.com.tr it is described in detail how the plan to attack the Christians was to be implemented. Below are some points that constitute the plan"s main lines. * Christians are mapped * Famous and wealthy Christian businessmen kidnapped * Systematic fires and looting of Christian businesses * The Armenian newspaper AGOS be subjected to several explosions * Murder patrols executing attacks against selected individuals * Christian cemeteries subjected to explosions * Churches and institutions belonging to Christians subjected to explosions * Put the blame on imaginary militant organizations Read it all. With thanks to JihadWatch
 by Tarek Heggy The Fuel of Intolerant Islam
Many have attributed the spread of religious extremism today in countries like Egypt, for example, to external factors, such as foreign incitement and foreign financing of extremist movements in general, and of fundamentalist Islamic groups in particular.
This attribution is extremely dangerous: by presenting the issue of religious extremism as a security problem - to be dealt with by the police and other security bodies – it removes it from the realm of problems amenable to political solutions.
Those who are quick to point an accusing finger at external forces should realize that if Egypt had been a haven of social tolerance, brotherhood and peace, it would not have been susceptible to interference from abroad. This means that other local factors have created a favorable climate for such attempts to succeed.
Over the last few decades, many societies in Islamic countries were subjected to various types of despotic rulers, governing their countries with an iron fist in a setting of widespread autocracy. The most dangerous of the many negative effects of political oppression is the impediment of social mobility: it impairs the opportunity for the most qualified citizens to rise to leading positions in various fields.
The disappearance of a healthy process of social mobility makes for a static situation in which inept and mediocre persons come to occupy top positions by dint of accepting, indeed, of supporting, oppression through unquestioning loyalty to their superiors.
 ZURICH -- An emotional debate over the role of Islam in Switzerland is heating up as a referendum approaches that would ban the construction of minarets on mosques. On Nov. 29, the Swiss will vote on a referendum to ban the construction of minarets, an initiative promoted by the right-wing Swiss People's Party, who argue that a minaret is a symbol of Islamic intolerance. Minarets are tower-like structures capped with crowns; while the structure has no special religious significance, it is often used for the call to prayer for Muslims. The debate comes in a country that has prided itself on integrating its large immigrant population and that largely avoided the clashes over the rights of Muslim minorities seen elsewhere in Europe. Business and political interests are especially worried about a possible backlash from the Muslim world. For example, Swiss watchmaker Swatch Group Ltd. is worried that its relations with Muslim countries -- an important destination for its goods -- will be imperiled if the initiative passes.
"The brand 'Swiss' must continue to represent values such as openness, pluralism and freedom of religion," said Hanspeter Rentsch, member of the executive group management board at Swatch. "Under no circumstances must it be brought in connection with hatred, animosity towards foreigners and narrow-mindedness." The Swiss People's Party gathered twice the required signatures needed to call a vote. Its campaign used posters depicting a woman in a burqa in front of a row of minarets shaped like missiles. Some cities, such as Basel, have banned the posters, while Zurich and others have allowed them in the name of free speech. The party, the country's largest political group and a fierce critic of immigration, drew international criticism for a campaign poster two years ago showing a white sheep kicking a black sheep out of Switzerland. A national poll by state-owned media group SRG shows that 53% of voters oppose the ban and 34% support it. Muslim leaders, who have taken a low-key approach to the controversy, are nonetheless worried. "This initiative gives a message that Muslims are not welcome here," says Elham Manea, a lecturer in political science at the University of Zurich. "If it passes, it raises the possibility of radicalization of some young people. It would be a big disappointment." Some say that even defeating the referendum won't dissolve the tension. "It won't end with this," says Hisham Maizer, head of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Switzerland. "The debate about Islam in Switzerland has just begun." The controversy is unusual in a country where 20% of the population are counted as foreigners, and which has taken a pragmatic approach to integrating its immigrants.
About 400,000, or roughly 5%, of Swiss residents are Muslim. Most are of Turkish or Balkan origin, with a small minority from the Arab world. Read more here,,,, Source: WSJ
 A survey conducted by a private research company has shown that a great majority of the public does not want atheists, Jews or Christians for neighbors and also disapproves of their employment at top state institutions, the Radikal daily reported yesterday.
Conducted by the Frekans research company as part of a project to promote the Turkish Jewish community and its culture, the poll gauged Turks' views on different ethnic and religious groups in Turkey, the Jewish community in particular. Fifty-seven percent of 1,108 people surveyed in the poll said they did not want to have atheist neighbors, while 42 percent said they did not want Jewish neighbors and 35 percent of respondents were reluctant to have Christian neighbors. Furthermore, when asked whether they would feel uncomfortable if people from Turkey's non-Muslim communities were employed by top state institutions, 57 percent of respondents expressed discomfort with the idea of someone from these groups being employed by the National Intelligence Organization (MİT), while 55 percent stated that they did not want non-Muslims to be members of the judiciary or the police force. When participants were asked whether they have close friends who are Alevi, Kurd, atheist, Greek, Armenian or Jewish, 64 percent stated that they had a Kurdish friend, while 53 percent said they had a friend from the Alevi community. The participants were also asked how they defined themselves. Fifty-one percent of respondents said they defined themselves as “citizens of the Turkish Republic,” while 19 percent described themselves as “Muslim” and another 19 percent identified themselves as “Turkish.” Two percent defined themselves as Kurdish. Source: Today's Zaman
 Bruce Welt Whether or not Islam is of the devil is impossible to know. What is well known is that wherever Islam and Islamic Sharia law control society there is abhorrent abuse of women and intolerance of "infidel" non-Moslems, homosexuals and others. Contrary to the good-natured, letter-writing defenders of Islam, opposition to Islam does not require hatred of Moslems.
Similarly, opposition to communism does not require hatred of Chinese or Cubans. Islam means "submission" and when Islam forms the rule-of-law in society, submission to Allah and recognition of Mohammed as his sole and final prophet becomes the ultimate law. Islam does not permit recognition of other religions, which is why countries like Saudi Arabia bars open non-Islamic religious symbols or worship. It is also why non-Moslems have been and continue to be mercilessly persecuted to the verge of extinction in many Islamic countries, including those that receive copious amounts of U.S. aid money (e.g. Coptic Christians of Egypt). Islam is a religious and political ideology that, in its currently broadly practiced form in the Islamic world, is antithetical to western values.
Islam cherishes submission to Allah and his prophet, not free-speech, tolerance and equality. With that said, Moslems, like all people, should be judged by their deeds alone, not their religion or private beliefs. It is not bigotry to oppose communism, fascism or Islam, but it is bigotry to hate people because of their religion or race. Source: Europe News
By Matthew Coutts When the landlady of my Toronto apartment building said an outraged neighbour had filed a complaint about me over an apparently inappropriate hallway interaction with his wife, my mind raced through the countless conversations I've had with fellow tenants, none of which seemed a possible source of offence. It turns out, it wasn't a salacious transaction that had caused the complaint, but rather a neighbourly and -- to me -- entirely forgettable greeting, little more than a brief "good morning" as I passed my neighbours on the way to work. Still, it was enough of an affront for the man -- once a doctor somewhere in the Middle East, my landlady clarified -- to feel I had broken a cultural taboo. The incident started an awkward feud which has involved warnings not to repeat my indiscretion and one face-to-face shouting match, which included allusions to my impending death. I expect the battle will wage on, as we appear to be stuck at an impasse. Read more ...Source: National PostH/T: Jihad Watch
Time reporter blames Israel and the West for Muslim intolerance.  Pope Benedict’s visit to Israel this week has increased media attention on the plight of Christians in the Middle East and their declining numbers. But while the visit should serve as an opportunity for an honest look at Christian flight, one reporter blamed Israel and the West instead.In an article describing Christian apprehensions over Pope Benedict’s visit, Time magazine’s Andrew Lee Butters calls the presence of Christians in the region “a reminder of the multi-sectarian and tolerant history of Arab and Islamic culture.” However, this tolerance is threatened, he writes, “from the rise of religious extremism.” At this point, one would assume Butters would delve into largely overlooked issues such as
But instead, Butters points his finger in the opposite direction: “Clash-of-civilizations pundits and Western leaders like the Pope often ignore how the West helped spark such intolerance, especially through its one-sided support of Israel.”
Butters would be hard pressed to prove that Europe has been “one-sided” in its support for Israel. More importantly, however, Butters’ statement implies that Muslims are not responsible for their actions because the West backs Israel’s right to exist in peace with its neighbors. In fact, Butters goes even further, calling Israel’s creation “a disaster for Christians in the Middle East.”
Many of the Palestinian refugees who fled or were forced from their homes in 1948 — never to be allowed back — were Christians. The flood of Palestinian refugees into Lebanon helped spark a civil war between Muslims and Christians there. And the ongoing occupation of the West Bank is strangling the life out of those Christian communities that are left.
Blaming Israel for the civil war in Lebanon ignores the complex political arrangements in Lebanon at the time and the destabilizing effect of the PLO inside Lebanon’s borders. He also neglects to mention what might be strangling the life out of the 2,000 Christians living in Gaza. But Butters doesn’t stop there. He also holds Israel responsible for Muslim abuses of Christians in Egypt:
The ongoing Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories has also helped fuel the rise of Islamic extremism, especially in countries that have unpopular peace agreements with Israel. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition to the American-backed Mubarak dictatorship, waged a small-scale terror campaign against both the government and the country's Coptic Christians during the 1990s.
According to Butters, therefore, the Muslim Brotherhood isn’t ultimately responsible for “small-scale terror” against the Christians it carries out. It’s really Israel’s presence in the Palestinian territories that is behind it all.  The BBC’s Tim Franks also covered the decline of Arab Christians in Bethlehem. In his article, Franks quoted several Palestinians who claim that Christians are leaving the city because of Israel’s security barrier. However, Franks also acknowledges that there could be another reason for the exodus. Privately, some Christians in Bethlehem say another factor sometimes motivates their decision to leave - concern about the rise of radical Islam - but they are unwilling to put such views on the record.
Indeed, Frank’s admission is consistent with finding from Justus Reid Weiner, who has researched the plight of Christians in the Palestinian territories extensively. According to Weiner, Arab Christians rarely speak about their situation in public: The human rights crimes against the Christian Arabs in the disputed territories are committed by Muslims. Yet many Palestinian Christian leaders accuse Israel of these crimes rather than the actual perpetrators. This motif has been adopted by a variety of Christian leaders in the Western world. Others who are aware of the human rights crimes choose to remain silent about them.
The media has an obligation to report the truth. Insist that reporters tell the whole story when they cover the plight of Christians in the Middle East.
Andrew Lee Butters
Time
Latest recipients of the Yellow Rag Award
 By Alan Caruba On Monday, April 20, the United Nations will convene Durban II, a conference which purports to encourage efforts to end the scourge of racism that has driven much of the history of mankind.Like everything that emanates from that disgusting international organization, it has no intention of living up to its Declaration on Human Rights. If it did, it is unlikely that Iran’s Mamoud Ahmadinejad would receive a warm welcome, nor that Iran would have been the vice-chair of the preparatory committee led by Libya’s representative.When Ahmadinejad spoke at the UN General Assembly last September, he said: “The dignity, integrity and rights of the European and American people are being played with by a small, but deceitful number of people called Zionists. Although they are a miniscule minority, they have been dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers as well as the political decision-making centers of some European countries and the U.S. in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner.”For Ahmadinejad, all of the Arab nations of the Middle East, and a large number of European nations, everything wrong with the world is conveniently explained by blaming the Jews. Durban I, held in South Africa, was such a hate-fest of anti-Semitism that the U.S. representatives withdrew and refused to participate. Under the Obama administration, some of our diplomats tentatively attended planning sessions of Durban II despite knowing that it was going to be a repeat of Durban I. In doing so they signaled a degree of legitimacy for this most vile conclave. The Obama administration has decided to renew its membership in the UN Human Rights Council, something the Bush administration refused to do. The previous UN Human Rights Commission was so vile that it had to be “reformed” into the present Council, but its membership includes the African and Asian groups, neither of which is famous for anything other than repression, corruption, and racism. Member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference hold a majority in each of these groups, giving it the balance of power. Neither the U.S. vote, nor that of its “Western European and Others” group play any role in ameliorating the abject racism of the Council. Durban II intends to criminalize any “defamation of Islam” based on a Pakistani proposal that only mentions Islam by name and ignores the other religions of the world such as Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and, of course, Judaism.Islam regards all other faiths as “infidels” or unbelievers and the Koran explicitly says they should be subjugated and that their adherents can be killed, especially if they are Jews. It is a crime in Islamic nations to speak ill of Islam and the punishment is death. Converting to another religion will get you killed as well. In a statement to the April 17 meeting of the preparatory committee held in Geneva, Switzerland, Anne Bayefsky of Eye on the UN, said, “The eyes of millions of victims of racism, xenophobia and intolerance are upon YOU, the representatives of states and the United Nations. And instead of hope you have given them despair. Instead of truth you have handed them diplomatic double-talk. Instead of combating anti-Semitism, you have handed them a reason for Jews to fear UN-driven hatemongering on a global scale.” When it convenes on April 20th, the birth date of Adolph Hitler in 1889, his spirit will dominate the proceedings of Durban II. The good news is that no U.S. diplomats will attend. One hopes other nations whose people suffered and died as the result of his genocidal hatred will not attend either. Durban II is yet another example of the Islamic jihad, its centuries old war on all other faiths. Those that deny its existence will continue to suffer its consequences.
 Cardinal George PellBarney Zwartz
THE West has become scared to criticise Islam and accepts death threats by Muslim extremists as normal, Cardinal George Pell has suggested in a speech in England.
The outspoken Catholic Archbishop of Sydney said laws intended to promote tolerance were being used to stifle debate, which was "fermenting intolerance under the surface".
In the March 6 speech at Oxford University, he also attacked a global campaign of "bullying and intimidation" by secular groups trying to drive Christians from public debate and stop churches providing schools, hospitals and welfare.
"Many in the West have grown used to practising self-censorship when it comes to Islam, just as we seem to accept that ex-Muslims who criticise Islam and extremism, such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, require round-the-clock police protection," he said.
"You can be persecuted for hate speech if you discuss violence in Islam, but there is little fear of a hate-speech prosecution for Muslim demonstrators with placards reading 'Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas'."
He said the expense and time of defending frivolous hate-speech allegations and the anxiety from "being enmeshed in a legal process straight out of Kafka" stifled robust discussion.
"No one in the West today would suggest that criticism of Christianity should be outlawed," he said. "The secular and religious intolerance of our day needs to be confronted regularly and publicly."
Some secularists wanted a one-way street, and sought to drive Christianity not only from the public square but from providing education, health care and welfare to the wider community. "Modern liberalism has strong totalitarian tendencies," he said.
Cardinal Pell said a Californian referendum that rejected same-sex marriage had been a focus for demonstrations, violence, vandalism and intimidation of Christians.
He said "this prolonged campaign of payback and bullying" would have received much more attention if same-sex marriage supporters had been the victims.
It was strange how some of the most permissive groups easily became repressive despite their rhetoric about diversity and tolerance, he said.
"Opposition to same-sex marriage is a form of homophobia and therefore bad, but Christianophobic blacklisting and intimidation is passed over in silence," he said.
Cardinal Pell said discrimination laws had been used to redefine marriage and the family. Children could now have three, four or five parents, relegating the idea of a child being brought up by his natural mother and father to nothing more than a majority preference.
He said last year's Victorian law decriminalising abortion made a mockery of conscientious objection, which had been attacked as merely a way for doctors and nurses to impose their morality on their patients.
Cardinal Pell said Christians urgently needed to deepen public understanding about religious freedom. Source: The Age Cardinal George Pell
Latest recipient of The MASH Award
 By TOM GROSS | From today's Wall Street Journal Europe
Last week in Mumbai we witnessed as clear a case of carefully planned mass terrorism as we are ever likely to see.
The seven-venue atrocity was coordinated in a highly sophisticated way. The terrorists used BlackBerrys to stay in touch with each other during their three-and-half-day rampage, outwitting the authorities by monitoring international reaction to the attacks on British, Urdu and Arabic Web sites.
It was a meticulously organized operation aimed exclusively at civilian targets: two hospitals, a train station, two hotels, a leading tourist restaurant and a Jewish center.
There was nothing remotely random about it. This was no hostage standoff.
The terrorists didn't want to negotiate. They wanted to murder as many Hindus, Christians, Jews, atheists and other "infidels" as they could, and in as spectacular a manner as possible. In the Jewish center, some of the female victims even appear to have been tortured before being killed.
So why are so many prominent Western media reluctant to call the perpetrators terrorists? Why did Jon Snow, one of Britain's most respected TV journalists, use the word "practitioners" when referring to the Mumbai terrorists? Was he perhaps confusing them with doctors?
Why did Britain's highly regarded Channel 4 News state that the "militants" showed a "wanton disregard for race or creed" when exactly the opposite was true: Targets and victims were very carefully selected. Why did the "experts" invited to discuss the Mumbai attacks in one show on the state-funded Radio France Internationale, the voice of France around the world, harp on about Baruch Goldstein (who carried out the Hebron shootings in 1994), virtually the sole case of a Jewish terrorist in living memory?
Unfortunately in recent years we have become used to leftist media burying their heads in the sand about the threat that Islamic fundamentalism poses, in much the same way as they once refused to report accurately on communist atrocities. But now even conservative media may be doing it too.
What is the motivation of journalists in trying to mangle language -- such as going out of their way to refer to terrorists as "militants," as one Mumbai story on yesterday's Times of London Web site seemed to do? Do they somehow wish to express sympathy for these murderers, or perhaps make their crimes seem almost acceptable? How are we going to effectively confront terrorists when we can't even identify them as such?
But then the terrorists in Mumbai didn't need to make any public announcements. They knew that many deluded Western journalists and academics will do that job for them, explaining that the West is to blame, especially the Zionists.
We have started seeing this already on the BBC -- the world's largest TV and radio network, which broadcasts in dozens of different languages around the world and is lavishly funded by the British taxpayer.
You would be hard pressed to find any talk of radical Islam on the BBC in recent days, or mention of the fact that Islamists think India should be a Muslim country. Instead the BBC continues to try to persuade its massive global audience that "it is a local Indian problem," that "the subcontinent has a history of unrest," and so on.
Even the Pakistani angle has been presented as some kind of local Pakistan-India dispute rather than as a problem with radical Islam -- this despite the fact that according to numerous reports the Mumbai terrorists themselves were screaming "Allah Akbar" (Allah is the Greatest) as they murdered "the Jews and the infidels" in line with bin Ladenist ideology.
For some time, many have argued that an element of anti-Semitism has distorted the way the BBC covers the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But now, following the Mumbai events, we can perhaps see that anti-Semitism may even be at work in the way the BBC covers foreign news in general. For much of the Mumbai siege, the BBC went out of its way to avoid reporting that the Jewish community center was one of the seven targets. At one point viewers were told that "an office building" had been targeted (referring to the Jewish center as such).
Then on Friday morning, TV pictures of Indian commandos storming the besieged Jewish center were broadcast by networks around the world. Heavily armed commandos, their faces covered by balaclavas, rappelled from helicopters onto the roof while Indian sharpshooters in buildings opposite opened fire and a helicopter circled overhead. Huge crowds of onlookers could be seen looking aghast as they watched from nearby streets.
While Sky News and other channels were gripped by these dramatic pictures, BBC World was not, almost pretending there was no siege at the Jewish center -- even though by then it was one of only two sites that remained under attack in Mumbai. Had the terrorists chosen to besiege a church or mosque instead, can you imagine the BBC ignoring it this way?
Meanwhile -- perhaps even more disgracefully -- a New York Times report on the last day of the siege stated: "It is not known if the Jewish center was strategically chosen, or if it was an accidental hostage scene."
Has the New York Times learned anything since the Holocaust, when, even after the war ended in the spring of 1945, the paper infamously refused to report that the Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Germans and so on killed in the camps had been Jews, and killed as Jews?
Dozens of eyewitness accounts by local Indians said the gunmen shouted "Allah Akbar" from the Jewish center. It is housed in a nondescript block and is not obviously marked from the outside as a Jewish center. It is the one Jewish building in a densely crowded city of millions. And the Times, the self-proclaimed paper of record, wants to let readers think it might have been an accidental target?
Even the Times's British equivalent, the Guardian, began its news story: "The inclusion of the headquarters of an ultra-orthodox Jewish group was obviously intended to send its own message." Does the New York Times think that the seeking out and murder by Muslim terrorists of the only New York rabbi in Mumbai and his wife was "an accidental target"?
There was nothing accidental about any of the seven sites that the terrorists attacked.
And it was no accident that Mumbai was hit.
It is the most multireligious city in India -- with Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Parsees and Jews living in relative harmony.
Mr. Gross is a former Middle East correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph. Source: Wall Street Journal
 By Savo Heleta
Saudi Arabia is a country that uses special police force, called the "Society for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice," to make sure that only "one narrow sect of Islam predominates in the kingdom."
Yet, this country will lead an upcoming discussion at the United Nations on religious tolerance.
Human rights organizations are "crying foul that Saudi Arabia is being given the platform of the United Nations to promote religious tolerance abroad while it actively combats anything similar at home."
Saudi Arabia does not allow its citizens and a large "expatriate community, including tens of thousands of Christians, from any public worship outside Islam. The more than two million Saudi Shiites face widespread discrimination in worship, education and employment."
Ali Al-Ahmed, a Shiite Muslim dissident from Saudi Arabia based in the United States said that this is like "apartheid South Africa having a conference at the UN on racial harmony."
On the other hand, the US president, George Bush, who will attend the discussion, has voiced his full support for Saudi Arabia's role.
This is not the first time that failed and repressive states lead UN discussions on development and human rights.
In May 2007, Zimbabwe, the country that cannot sustain itself and with inflation at that time of 2,200 percent (currently a few million percent), was chosen to lead the UN Commission on Sustainable Economic Development.
African leaders chose Zimbabwe as their candidate to lead perhaps the most important UN commission and help the world meet the human needs of the present and prepare for the future.
Many will blame the UN for these and other failures, forgetting that the UN is only an umbrella organization of sovereign states that decide what the UN can and cannot do. Above all, the five permanent members of the Security Council – China, United States, Britain, France, and Russia – have the veto power to overturn any decision taken by the UN General Assembly or requested by a UN member.
The permanent members found nothing wrong with Zimbabwe leading the discussion on world's sustainable economic development or Saudi Arabia preaching about religious tolerance.
What’s wrong with the world? Source: Gather.com
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Copyright Muslims Against Sharia 2008. All rights reserved.
E-mail: info AT ReformIslam.org
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Churches are being firebombed in Malaysia, and for AP that is "similar" to a rum bottle being thrown at a mosque. "Rum bottle thrown at Malaysia mosque amid tension," from The Associated Press, January 16 (thanks to Pamela):
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