Out of Our Minds

During my daily rounds of the blogosphere, I found this story that really got my pulse going:

New Book May Further the Rift Between Israeli Arabs And Jews
Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - An Israeli Arab organization distributed at Arab schools throughout northern Israel on Wednesday 20,000 copies of a booklet aimed at promoting Arab unity around the popular idea that the establishment of the modern State of Israel in 1948 was a catastrophe, or what is widely referred to in Arabic as the "nakba."

The booklet contains stories written by 150 Arab children in Israel, the Palestinian Authority-controlled territories, Syria and Lebanon that are harshly critical of and even hostile toward Israel.

It was produced by the Ibn Khaldun Association in northern Israel, whose director Asad Ghanem told Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper that he hoped the booklet would "reaffirm Palestinian consciousness, and maintain and reinforce it among future generations" of Israeli Arabs. Ghanem is also head of the political science department at Israel's Haifa University.

In remarks to Cybercast News Service, Israeli Arab affairs expert Dr. Mordechai Kedar, a research associate with the Begin-Sadat Center, stressed his view that Ghanem and other Israeli Arabs like him do not view the booklet as a threat to Israel.

"They see this book as designed to strengthen national awareness and to promote a connection between Palestinians who are Israeli and those living in other Arab countries in order to consolidate the Palestinian spirit," said Kedar.

That national awareness and struggle is more commonly known as the "Palestinian cause," which today is largely taken to mean the effort to establish a sovereign Palestinian Arab state in the Gaza Strip and the areas known collectively around the world as the "West Bank," but which many Israelis refer to by their biblical names of Judea and Samaria.

The problem for most Israelis is that the Palestinian cause as formulated by late PLO founder Yasser Arafat does not stop with Judea and Samaria. Even after signing the so-called "Oslo Accords" with Israel, Arafat repeatedly told Arab media that the PLO's "phased plan" remained in effect, and that the establishment of a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria would be only the first step toward the destruction of Israel.

Despite the threat inherent in the Palestinian cause and the "nakba" narrative that fuels it, Kedar said he remains convinced most Israeli Arabs and Jews want to "live together instead of fight each other." Unfortunately, Ghanem's booklet is poised to widen the rift between the two communities by further antagonizing the more hardened elements in Israeli society, whose reaction will be used by Islamists to further radicalize Israeli Arab youth.

This book "will definitely pour more oil on the fire against the Arabs within certain Israeli circles, which will in turn pour even more oil on the fire created by extremist elements on the Arab side," said Kedar.The publication of Ghanem's booklet comes at a time of already markedly increased tension between Israeli Arabs and Jews, a phenomenon that was highlighted last month as Israeli Jews and a slew of visiting foreign dignitaries celebrated Israel's 60th Independence Day while most of the nation's Arabs spoke out against the state or were cowed into silence by extremists.

Israeli media commentators have asserted that national ethnic divisions can be at least partially blamed on an Israeli government establishment that has beholden itself to the principles of political correctness and now refuses to be seen as interfering with its Arab minority by countering negative trends in that community.

Jerusalem Post columnist Carolyn Glick wrote earlier this year that "the natural pull of Israeli Arabs is toward the Palestinians," and that Israel has to make a concerted effort to win the hearts and minds of its Arab citizens, or risk facing an internal explosion in addition to numerous regional threats.

So the Israeli establishment wants to stick to politically correctness and allow free circulation of this piece of inflammatory propaganda (150 stories) rather than interfere (provoke riots) with our ever so hostile and treacherous Arab minority. But the same Israeli establishment does allow the Arab minority to interfere with the Israeli majority in a blatant attempt to shut us up. Said Israeli establishment has just given in to the extortion of a Yaffo-based terrorist sympathiser going by the name of Ibrahim Abu-Shindi, who regularly appears on Israeli TV in order to bash the State of Israel while pretending to work for peace. The man is even the director of an Arab-Jewish Community Center. Well, if it's peace he wants, I'll accept nothing less than the publication of the "bone of contention" poem written by one ten-year-old Israeli boy from Ness Ziona. Please also note that the State of Israel can only afford to publish 500 copies of the poetry contest booklet, while an Israeli Arab organization has the funds to come up with 20,000 copies of their revised "Arabian Nights". Good grief! Fortunately, I am not bound by any multi-crappy-culti PC nonsense. So here's the offending poem:

Ahmed's bunker has surprises galore: Grenades, rifles
are hung on the wall. Ahmed is planning another bomb!
What a bunker Ahmed has, who causes daily harm.
Ahmed knows how to make a bomb. Ahmed is Ahmed, that's
who he is, so don't forget to be careful of him.
We get blasted while they have a blast!
Ahmed and his friends could be wealthy and sunny, if only
they wouldn't buy rockets with all their money.


Anyway, in an extraordinary instance of poetic justice, a mishap seems to have befallen one of Ahmed's bunkers and it is no longer operational. Nor are the houses around it habitable.

I am pleased to see that the saga of Ahmad's bunker, the innocent little poem, has made it to several blogs:
B'nai Elim
Double Tapper
Esser Agaroth
Freerepublic
Infidel Blogger's Alliance
Muqata

Shira bat Sarah

Stop Raping Israel

Stronger than Death

The Amboy Times

Woman Honor Thyself

This just in from France

The original contents of this post have been removed as it has come to my attention that this is one of those unstoppable "pass it on to all your friends" chain letters. Not that the contents were untrue or inaccurate. The problem was that the events described therein were not so recent, rather an account of anti-Semitic violence perpetrated in Europe in 2002, at the height of the second intifada (which by the way gained momentum in the wake of al-Dura mother of all hoaxes, but was carefully planned in advance). Six years is not such a long time, and the death toll exacted by the dead or not dead? boy, who, after being pronounced dead several times by director/cameraman Talal-abu-Rahma, still manages to raise his head from father's crotch, probably overwhelmed by the consequences of daily servings of hummus with fava beans coupled with faulty bodily hygiene, surely warrants a reminder of what we went through as far away in time as six years ago. I mean, if Arabs commemorate things that DID NOT happen 60 years ago (Merry Nakba and Many Many Returns of the Day once again!), why can we not commiserate with what our fellow Jews were subjected to in this decade?
So, without further ado, for all those not sharing in the opinion that the e-mail was a hoax and the contents no longer relevant, here's the link to the original post (to certify authenticity) and why not? the entire text for the convenience of all those who stumbled onto this page (my comments in brackets):

The canary in Europe's mine
By Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe, April 28, 2002

The rocks have been lifted all over Europe, and the snakes of Jew-hatred are slithering free.
In Belgium, thugs beat up the chief rabbi, kicking him in the face and calling him "a dirty Jew." Two synagogues in Brussels were firebombed; a third, in Charleroi, was sprayed with automatic weapons fire.
In Britain, the cover of the New Statesman, a left-wing magazine, depicted a large Star of David stabbing the Union Jack. Oxford professor Tom Paulin, a noted poet, told an Egyptian interviewer that American Jews who move to the West Bank and Gaza "should be shot dead." A Jewish yeshiva student reading the Psalms was stabbed 27 times on a London bus. Antisemitism, wrote a columnist in The Spectator, "has become respectable . . at London dinner tables." She quoted one member of the House of Lords: "The Jews have been asking for it and now, thank God, we can say what we think at last." (When the Queen will have to wear her hijab or else, and the muezzin will call the "fidels" to prayer from the top of Big Ben will it be politically correct to say that "the Brits have been asking for it and so forth?")
In Italy, the daily paper La Stampa published a Page 1 cartoon: A tank emblazoned with a Jewish star points its gun at the baby Jesus, who pleads, "Surely they don't want to kill me again?" In Corriere Della Sera, another cartoon showed Jesus trapped in his tomb, unable to rise, because Ariel Sharon, with rifle in hand, is sitting on the sepulchre. The caption: "Non resurrexit."
In Germany, a rabbinical student was beaten up in downtown Berlin and a grenade was thrown into a Jewish cemetery. Thousands of neo-Nazis held a rally, marching near a synagogue on the Jewish sabbath. Graffiti appeared on a synagogue in the western town of Herford: "Six million were not enough."
In Ukraine, skinheads attacked Jewish worshippers and smashed the windows of Kiev's main synagogue. Ukrainian police denied that the attack was anti-Jewish.
In Greece, Jewish graves were desecrated in Ioannina and vandals hurled paint at the Holocaust memorial in Salonica.
In Holland, an anti-Israel demonstration featured swastikas, photos of Hitler, and chants of "Sieg Heil" and "Jews into the sea."
In Slovakia, the Jewish cemetery of Kosice was invaded and 135 tombstones destroyed.
But nowhere have the flames of antisemitism burned more furiously than in France.
In Lyon, a car was rammed into a synagogue and set on fire. In Montpellier, the Jewish religious center was firebombed; so were synagogues in Strasbourg and Marseille; so was a Jewish school in Creteil. A Jewish sports club in Toulouse was attacked with Molotov cocktails, and on the statue of Alfred Dreyfus in Paris, the words "Dirty Jew" were painted. In Bondy, 15 men beat up members of a Jewish football team with sticks and metal bars. The bus that takes Jewish children to school in Aubervilliers has been attacked three times in the last 14 months. According to the police, metropolitan Paris has seen 10 to 12 anti-Jewish incidents per day since Easter.
Walls in Jewish neighborhoods have been defaced with slogans proclaiming "Jews to the gas chambers" and "Death to the Jews." The weekly journal Le Nouvel Observateur published an appalling libel: It said Israeli soldiers rape Palestinian women, so that their relatives will kill them to preserve "family honor." The French ambassador to Great Britain was not sacked - and did not apologize - when it was learned that he had told guests at a London dinner that the world's troubles were the fault of "that shitty little country, Israel." (In fact, it has been proven subsequently that Israeli soldiers do not rape Arab women out of sheer racism - if you're a Jew, damned if you do, damned if you don't do, you know, why you do the things you do when you do what you do the way you do when you're a Jew; or if you are an Israeli soldier you might as well be Druze or Bedouin, if you don't rape you'll be counted as a Jew).
"At the start of the 21st century," writes Pierre-Andre Taguieff, a well-known social scientist, in a new book, "we are discovering that Jews are once again select targets of violence. . . . Hatred of the Jews has returned to France."
But of course, it never left. Not France; not Europe. Antisemitism, the oldest bigotry known to man, has been a part of European society since time immemorial. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, open Jew-hatred became unfashionable; but fashions change, and Europe is reverting to type. (If memory serves, did Europe not witness its own destruction along with the annihilation of European Jewry?)
To be sure, some Europeans are shocked by the re-emergence of Jew-hatred all over their continent. But the more common reaction has been complacency. "Stop saying that there is antisemitism in France," President Jacques Chirac scolded a Jewish editor in January. "There is no antisemitism in France." The European media have been vicious in condemning Israel's self-defense against Palestinian terrorism in the West Bank (it all starts when Israel strikes back); they have been far less agitated about anti-Jewish terror in their own backyard.
They are making a grievous mistake. For if today the violence and vitriol are aimed at the Jews, tomorrow they will be aimed at the Christians.
A timeless lesson of history is that it rarely ends with the Jews. Militant Islamist extremists were attacking and killing Jews long before they attacked and killed Americans on Sept. 11. The Nazis first set out to incinerate the Jews; in the end, all of Europe was ablaze (nice to see memory still serving).
Jews, it is often said, are the canary in the coal mine of civilization. When they become the objects of savagery and hate, it means the air has been poisoned and an explosion is soon to come. If Europeans don't rise up and turn against the Jew-haters, it is only a matter of time until the Jew-haters rise up and turn against them (I sincerely hope not).

There, I put the quote (which referred only to the violence in France and was calling for a boycott of things French) in its original context. Hope the people at the hoax-watch are satisfied.

Not without my daughter a la Egyptienne

Yehudith Silberstein
Ma'ariv, June 19, 2007

The whole world is condemning Israel for racism, war crimes, apartheid, oppression, the death of Jesus, all the wars in the world, the sinking of the Titanic, and I suppose we may have had something to do with with the dinosaurs' extinction as well. So I can't quite figure out why Sudanese refugees are seeking asylum in Israel, why Gaza residents are not ashamed to admit that Hamas is worse than IDF, actually even worse than the Nazis, while I thought the title was reserved solely for us, or while other Gaza residents stranded at the Erez crossing are clamoring to be allowed into the West Bank. Go to Egypt! Leave us alone! Get on with your lives! Let us get on with ours! Anyway, before I whip myself into a frenzy over Hamastan and Fatahland, there's this pretty little story in today's paper, a variant of films we've already seen, such as Not without my daughter, or Desperate rescue. What I mean is that with all the badmouthing we are attracting, people are still turning to us for help. Like this Polish woman held hostage by her Egyptian in laws. Let me give you a bit of an intro: Muslim men require that their wives (four allowed, but who's counting) convert to Islam. The happy bride only needs to say a couple of times something like la-la-la -y-la-la-la and she's ready to wed, go to bed and start procreating. Now she and her children are the husband's property. Oh, she may be allowed to sod off, but the children must remain in the father's custody to be brought up as allah-fearing Muslims without ever again seeing their heart-broken loving mama, who is usually written off . The in laws play along and so do the authorities, as women, especially gullible white girls who still think of Arabs as tall, dark and handsome petrodollar princes, have no rights in Islam. But they do in Israel, even foreign women. The following drama unravelled at the Taba border crossing between Egypt and Israel.

Ten years ago an Egyptian man and a Polish girl met in the US, fell in love and got married. Eight years later, Sara, their little girl was born. But the couple was growing apart, so the husband asked his wife to go live with his parents in Egypt. He stayed in the US and travelled to Egypt every now and then to see them. The young woman couldn't get used to life in Egypt and wanted to take her daughter and leave. The husband wouldn't hear of it. He gave her back her Polish passport (gave her back her passport, the woman was a prisoner!) and said she was free to leave whenever she wished, but Sara would have to remain in Egypt. Two years later (two years, it's a prison term) the woman called her sister in Poland and asked her to help her take Sara out of Egypt.
A few days ago the sister flew to Egypt with her eight-year-old son and the two sisters left for the Sinai with their children. Sunday morning (two days ago), the women gave the little girl a haircut and dressed her up as a little boy. The aunt took Sara pretending she was her son and went to the Taba border crossing, where she told the Egyptian border guards that she and her son wanted to pay a short visit to Israel.
Once in Eilat, they spent the night in a hostel. Yesterday morning they took a taxi and asked to be driven to Taba. When they reached the border crossing, the aunt gave the driver 270 NIS (~65 USD), entrusted him with a bag, asked him to wait and went to the border terminal. The driver waited for hours, but the woman didn't return. Not knowing what to do, the taxi driver took the little girl home with him.
At 1 p.m. the mother arrived at the Israeli terminal of the Taba crossing. During the routine security check, the Israelis became suspicious and took her to the police station. It didn't take long for the woman to confess that she is a Polish citizen who had been held against her wish in Egypt and that the previous day her sister had smuggled Sara into Israel. She also told them her sister had left the little girl in the care of a taxi driver and showed them his business card. The driver was contacted and asked to bring the little girl to the police station. All the while the sister and her son were being questioned by the Egyptian police on the other side of the border.
Sara's mother was questioned by the Israeli border police all through the night. Initially, the police wanted them to return to Egypt, but began looking for a solution when they understood how dangerous the situation was. They involved the Polish embassy, the US embassy and the Israeli Foreign Ministry. The police was reluctant to handle the case on their own, because of the possibility of being accused of assisting in kidnapping a minor from her family and allowing her to be smuggled into Israel. While the mother was waiting for the official decision, the female officers took Sara girl for a walk in the park. And the little girl, with her cropped golden hair, smiled and laughed, obviously unaware of the drama unfolding around her.

World Cancer

Ben-Dror Yemini
Ma'ariv, May 25, 2007


Many a newspaper editor around the world is having a hard time trying to figure out how to present the images pouring in from the Middle East. How to explain the "heavy shelling of militant strongholds". How to explain the dismal reality revealed by every picture: thousands of Palestinian refugees - yes, they are refugees once again - fleeing their refugee camp because of the bombardment. This is a very difficult task, because the same sentence, the same headline, the same news piece, must justify somehow these "hard measures" taken again the inhabitants of those refugee camps, i.e. turning homes into piles of rubble and forcing men and women to pack their belongings and run for their lives.

I have no doubt that the legions of enlightened leftist liberal editors are facing a difficult task these days. Up until a few days ago everything was neatly black and white. If there are piles of rubble as a result of shelling, and if the Palestinians are moaning and groaning, there's the habitual culprit: Israel. Only Israel, always Israel. Except a few days ago, the International Herald Tribune front page sported the usual picture of a Palestinian woman weeping inside the remains of her Palestinian home after it was destroyed by a wicked Israeli attack (much like this one). Yes, the favorite deceiving picture. Those who failed to read the small font caption, and I guess the majority of readers did fail, will never know that in fact the woman was weeping due to the reaction to a Qassam salvo. A reaction to the Israeli homes that have been reduced to piles of rubble. A reaction to the thousands of Israelis who have become refugees. Their photographs - people and homes - never make any page of the major newspapers. Only the Israeli reaction gets published. Just like the spontaneous generation, Israelis suddenly fancy destroying Palestinian homes. A peculiar kind of delight favored by a state that is gradually being perceived by most Westerners as "the greatest danger to peace on earth". Except this perception has been generated by an industry of lies, not by reality.

Except now the plot is getting thicker. The long rows of refugees seen during the past days and weeks and the scores of bodies they left behind are Palestinians alright. But they are not from Gaza. And now this is becoming really confusing. Because at long last, on prime time, money time, the Palestinians are involved in two conflicts: in Gaza and in Naher-el-Bared, a refugee camp close to Tripoli, Lebanon. In both instances, messengers of the islamist cancer are the cause of continuous suffering. In both cases those who get hurt must react. Therefore, surprise, surprise! Despite the incessant rocket salvos raining on Israel, despite thousands of Israeli refugees, our response is moderate and restrained. Very restrained, even. In Lebanon, on the other hand, where there are no Lebanese refugees, where state sovereignty is not being threatened, where there is no damage to write home about, in Lebanon the response is brutal. Civilian centers are being shelled just because a handful of terrorists have taken refuge inside. Many pay the price for the crimes of few. Houses turn to dust. Civilians become refugees.

We feel no pleasure seeing so many Palestinians suffer. But we have the right to remind everyone that this the islamist cancer at work, a cancer that cancer knows no boundaries. Let us not forget that the vast majority of victims of this islamist cancer are Muslims themselves.

And the West? The industry of lies will keep pointing its finger at Israel. Israel must be scapegoated somehow. Once it was the Jew responsible for all the evils in the world. Now the onus is on the State of Israel. Does it matter that radical islam preceded Zionism and is in no way connected to Israel? Make no mistake, anti-semites never let facts get in their way. Neither do those who want to destroy Israel.

It cannot be empahsized strongly enough: Muslims are the majority of victims caused by the islamist cancer. Most Muslims, according to every conceivable study, oppose radical islam. But they tend to understand its reasons, an even justify its actions sometimes. Just like their friends in the academia, deceiving mass media and industry of lies, both in the Arab world and in the West. Take for instance the Muslim communities across the USA - their live better than any other Muslims in the world. They have integrated, they have good incomes, yet 60% of them don't believe that Muslims were behind 9/11. And if not Muslims, then it is not hard to guess whodunit. Needless to say how these crazy opinions are born.

The industry of lies can be proud of itself, no doubt. The enlightened liberal media may not have been prepared for this result, but they are responsible for it. They are the wheels that set it in motion.

Pogrom in the Holy Land

There are nights when I just can't sleep. So I read, watch tv (in search of a good movie) or just wander about the net. Every now and then I strike gold. Take this account for instance. Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire. Jews and Arabs living side by side. No love lost between them.

Alexander William Kinglake
Eothen (1898)

CHAPTER XXVI - THE PROPHET DAMOOR
For some hours I passed along the shores of the fair lake of Galilee; then turning a little to the westward, I struck into a mountainous tract, and as I advanced thenceforward, the lie of the country kept growing more and more bold. At length I drew near to the city of Safed. It sits as proud as a fortress upon the summit of a craggy height; yet because of its minarets and stately trees, the place looks happy and beautiful. It is one of the holy cities of the Talmud, and according to this authority, the Messiah will reign there for forty years before He takes possession of Sion. The sanctity and historical importance thus attributed to the city by anticipation render it a favourite place of retirement for Israelites, of whom it contains, they say, about four thousand, a number nearly balancing that of the Mahometan inhabitants. I knew by my experience of Tabarieh that a “holy city” was sure to have a population of vermin somewhat proportionate to the number of its Israelites, and I therefore caused my tent to be pitched upon a green spot of ground at a respectful distance from the walls of the town.
When it had become quite dark (for there was no moon that night) I was informed that several Jews had secretly come from the city in the hope of obtaining some assistance from me in circumstances of imminent danger; I was also informed that they claimed my aid upon the ground that some of their number were British subjects. It was arranged that the two principal men of the party should speak for the rest, and these were accordingly admitted into my tent. One of the two called himself the British vice-consul, and he had with him his consular cap, but he frankly said that he could not have dared to assume this emblem of his dignity in the daytime, and that nothing but the extreme darkness of the night rendered it safe for him to put it on upon this occasion. The other of the spokesmen was a Jew of Gibraltar, a tolerably well-bred person, who spoke English very fluently.
These men informed me that the Jews of the place, who were exceedingly wealthy, had lived peaceably in their retirement until the insurrection which took place in 1834, but about the beginning of that year a highly religious Mussulman called Mohammed Damoor went forth into the market-place, crying with a loud voice, and prophesying that on the fifteenth of the following June the true Believers would rise up in just wrath against the Jews, and despoil them of their gold and their silver and their jewels. The earnestness of the prophet produced some impression at the time, but all went on as usual, until at last the fifteenth of June arrived. When that day dawned the whole Mussulman population of the place assembled in the streets that they might see the result of the prophecy. Suddenly Mohammed Damoor rushed furious into the crowd, and the fierce shout of the prophet soon ensured the fulfilment of his prophecy. Some of the Jews fled and some remained, but they who fled and they who remained, alike, and unresistingly, left their property to the hands of the spoilers. The most odious of all outrages, that of searching the women for the base purpose of discovering such things as gold and silver concealed about their persons, was perpetrated without shame. The poor Jews were so stricken with terror, that they submitted to their fate even where resistance would have been easy. In several instances a young Mussulman boy, not more than ten or twelve years of age, walked straight into the house of a Jew and stripped him of his property before his face, and in the presence of his whole family. 43 When the insurrection was put down some of the Mussulmans (most probably those who had got no spoil wherewith they might buy immunity) were punished, but the greater part of them escaped. None of the booty was restored, and the pecuniary redress which the Pasha had undertaken to enforce for them had been hitherto so carefully delayed, that the hope of ever obtaining it had grown very faint. A new Governor had been appointed to the command of the place, with stringent orders to ascertain the real extent of the losses, and to discover the spoilers, with a view of compelling them to make restitution. It was found that, notwithstanding the urgency of the instructions which the Governor had received, he did not push on the affair with the vigour that had been expected. The Jews complained, and either by the protection of the British consul at Damascus, or by some other means, had influence enough to induce the appointment of a special commissioner - they called him “the Modeer” - whose duty it was to watch for and prevent anything like connivance on the part of the Governor, and to push on the investigation with vigour and impartiality.
Such were the instructions with which some few weeks since the Modeer came charged. The result was that the investigation had made no practical advance, and that the Modeer as well as the Governor was living upon terms of affectionate friendship with Mohammed Damoor and the rest of the principal spoilers.
Thus stood the chance of redress for the past, but the cause of the agonising excitement under which the Jews of the place now laboured was recent and justly alarming. Mohammed Damoor had again gone forth into the market-place, and lifted up his voice and prophesied a second spoliation of the Israelites. This was grave matter; the words of such a practical man as Mohammed Damoor were not to be despised. I fear I must have smiled visibly, for I was greatly amused and even, I think, gratified at the account of this second prophecy. Nevertheless, my heart warmed towards the poor oppressed Israelites, and I was flattered, too, in the point of my national vanity at the notion of the far-reaching link by which a Jew in Syria, who had been born on the rock of Gibraltar, was able to claim me as his fellow-countryman. If I hesitated at all between the “impropriety” of interfering in a matter which was no business of mine and the “infernal shame” of refusing my aid at such a conjecture, I soon came to a very ungentlemanly decision, namely, that I would be guilty of the “impropriety,” and not of the “infernal shame.” It seemed to me that the immediate arrest of Mohammed Damoor was the one thing needful to the safety of the Jews, and I felt confident (for reasons which I have already mentioned in speaking of the Nablus affair) that I should be able to obtain this result by making a formal application to the Governor. I told my applicants that I would take this step on the following morning. They were very grateful, and were, for a moment, much pleased at the prospect of safety which might thus be opened to them, but the deliberation of a minute entirely altered their views, and filled them with new terror. They declared that any attempt, or pretended attempt, on the part of the Governor to arrest Mohammed Damoor would certainly produce an immediate movement of the whole Mussulman population, and a consequent massacre and robbery of the Israelites. My visitors went out, and remained I know not how long consulting with their brethren, but all at last agreed that their present perilous and painful position was better than a certain and immediate attack, and that if Mohammed Damoor was seized, their second estate would be worse than their first. I myself did not think that this would be the case, but I could not of course force my aid upon the people against their will; and, moreover, the day fixed for the fulfilment of this second prophecy was not very close at hand. A little delay, therefore, in providing against the impending danger would not necessarily be fatal. The men now confessed that although they had come with so much mystery and, as they thought, at so great a risk to ask my assistance, they were unable to suggest any mode in which I could aid them, except indeed by mentioning their grievances to the consul-general at Damascus. This I promised to do, and this I did.
My visitors were very thankful to me for the readiness which I had shown to intermeddle in their affairs, and the grateful wives of the principal Jews sent to me many compliments, with choice wines and elaborate sweetmeats.
The course of my travels soon drew me so far from Safed, that I never heard how the dreadful day passed off which had been fixed for the accomplishment of the second prophecy. If the predicted spoliation was prevented, poor Mohammed Damoor must have been forced, I suppose, to say that he had prophesied in a metaphorical sense. This would be a sad falling off from the brilliant and substantial success of the first experiment.
43 It was after the interview which I am talking of, and not from the Jews themselves, that I learnt this fact.

End the "End Israeli Apartheid" Farce

While the civilized world was busy celebrating Mardi Gras, the Venice Carnival, the Rio de Janeiro Carnaval, the carnival parades in Germany, heart bleeding, brainwashed academics and uneducated but enthusiastic useful idiots (I sometimes wonder why useful? why not just plain idiots?) in such distinguished cosmopolitan locations as Oxford, Toronto and New York, indulged in unrestrained vitriolic antisemitic Israel-bashing hatefests. I will not post any links, they are simply not worth the trouble.
The guest speakers, as one might guess, are our own Arab MK's (fifth columnists!!!) who are invited year after year to "expose Israeli genocidal policies" and "debunk Israeli democracy". They do that with impunity, I mean return and rant year after year. What does this make of their allegations of genocide? I mean genocide reads mass killings in my book. If Israel was indeed genocidal, it would obviously start with those trying to expose these crimes. I mean we are not exactly famous for being the village idiot. Or are we? With all those Nobel prizes under our belts? And where does that leave our non-existent democracy? In a non-democratic state would these fat-assed traitors (I mean take a look at Arafat's ex-advisor, Ahmad Tibi, yes Doctor of Medicine from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and the despicable Azmi Bishara who travels to Syria every other week to suck up to Assadboy and to sell, nay, donate military and state secrets he may be privy to as a member of the Israeli parliament) ever make it home from the airport after delivering a bloodthirsty speech accusing his own country of the most abominable crimes? And I mean year after year? I guess this kind of behavior is tolerated only in non-democratic genocidal Israel. And these pathetic excuses for Israeli Arabs (I guess I should include Zahalka here, please note his Ph.D. in Pharmacy from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem - I guess he shares his chemistry skills - read explosive materials expertise - with his friends from the Fatah and Hamas) are Israeli citizens enjoying not only the inflated salaries of our MK's in general, but also generous National Insurance handouts. Why, Mr. Bishara even needed an urgent kidney transplant, or gone to heaven he would have, and guess what. For this noble task he chose the apes, dogs and pigs dressed up as Jewish doctors in an Israeli hospital (obviously built over a previous Arab village that had been bulldozed into oblivion by the IDF). Why, Azmi, baby, Germany not good enough for you? How about Syria? Egypt? Jordan? Why trust war criminal Israeli (Allah forbid) Jewish doctors with your precious earthly body? The thought that they might seize the opportunity to dispatch you to the right of the prophet (ooops, you are a Christian, aren't you?), well then, to the right of your heavenly father, never crossed your lecturing and researching mind? I mean you never thought someone in Israel might wish to pay you back for never missing an opportunity to besmirch your state and country in the vilest possible way and to call for Arab and international support for the Palestinian struggle. Strange genocidal policies, strange non-democratic practices at work in Israel. I believe you are free to relinquish your citizenship and privileges and move to Gaza. Or Ramallah or Jenin. Or Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, for all I care. But wait, dummkopf, don't you know that under islamic law you are a dhimmie? "Convert to islam, pay that stupid tax, whatever they call it, or die, infidel!" That's why you'd rather stay in Israel and commute to Syria. 'Cause if you moved to Syria and badmouthed the regime or the military (not that there is anything to complain about in that perfect little state) or the local Baby Doc, well, I guess you'd be feeding the fish or the lions or the hyenas. While still alive. That goes for all of these clowns, who forget that their oral orifice is not their anus (at least Tibi should know what that is, being a gynecologist) and should refrain from letting crap passing their lips (at least on its way out).
Talking about biting the hand that feeds.

Enough of hate speech. And it isn't even hate, more like anger and contempt at our laws and judiciary system turning a blind eye to such severe transgressions: colluding with the enemy while at war, inciting violence against your own armed forces (IDF is there to protect all Israelis, even traitors), and generally working to dismantle your own state - I mean you do not want a change of government, you want the end of the "Zionist regime", i.e. you want to be Judenrein. And that is in complete contradiction to the UN resolution recognizing the formation of Israel as a JEWISH STATE. Not a binational state, A JEWISH STATE with an Arab MINORITY. You can have your Fallasteen in Gaza - there, no more Jews in Gaza since the pullout. Plus some hefty West Bank chunks. There is your Arab state, your Palestine. The UN provided there could be a Jewish minority in your Arab state, but take my word for it, we shall spare you the discomfort. Not to mention that by our our mere pig/ape/dog presence/breath we might pollute your pure environment. So why not move to Gaza already and work to make it better? Or at least inhabitable? Free of tribal rivalry and frantic bloodshed?
Alternatively you want the Jews for slaves, dhimmies. Please do hold your breaths, though! Oxygen is becoming a rare commodity what with the global warming and all that.

Back to Apartheid now. Well, this is what I call Apartheid (courtesy of lgf):


And this is the Jordanian older brother (in Hebrew and Arabic), with an explicit warning for Israeli vehicles:
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
THIS ROAD IS CLOSED.
It is a Jordanian road. Any (Israili) car travelling on this road will be burned (or will be shot at. I can't be sure, the Hebrew here is a bit odd and my Arabic is practically non-existent).
(December 3, 1950, I believe following the 1949 armistice.) How about this for trying to keep your neighbor's car out of harm's way (well, road in this case)?

BANNED!

1989 - ayatollah khomeini condemns Muslim novelist Salman Rushdie to death because he was offended by some paragraph in The Satanic Verses. Muslim zealots immediately burn copies of the book in the streets of Bradford, Yorkshire. Salman Rushdie is still in hiding.

2002 - Michel Houellebecq stands trial in Paris for labelling islam a "stupid" religion in Platform (great read!).

2004 - Theo van Gogh is murdered in the streets of Amsterdam because he dared expose the abuse of Muslim women by Muslim men in Europe.

2006 - Muslims might even move to ban Dante! and Mozart!

Michelle Malkin has a very good piece on some of the above (and more) plus the Danish cartoons.

What more can be said about the Muslim reaction to the Pope quoting a piece of history?

And today Ynet reports that Robert Redeker is fleeing for his life, while only two weeks ago Egypt seized the editions of Le Figaro and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, respectively, for publishing articles that denounce islam, the former by Redeker himself, philosopher and high school teacher, the latter by German historion Prof. Egon Flaig (The Balkans, darlings, the Balkans, among other things and places). Read more about both on Michelle Malkin's site. HUH? No more freedom of speech? No more freedom of press? No more freedom of thought? Is everybody to suck up to islam and put up with muslim tantrums whenever they feel offended (by the way, when do they NOT feel offended?). But it is ok for them to plan the enslavement of the entire planet while we remain calm and politically correct. Or risk becoming racists.


Should any Francophones stumble upon this site, here's the original.
Voici le texte intégral du philosophe Robert Redeker* publié sous forme de tribune dans le journal Le Figaro du 19 septembre 2006 sous le titre "Face aux intimidations islamistes, que doit faire le monde libre ?". La publication de ce texte avait conduit à la confiscation du quotidien français par les autorités tunisiennes pour insulte à l’islam.

"LES REACTIONS suscitées par l’analyse de Benoît XVI sur l’islam et la violence s’inscrivent dans la tentative menée par cet islam d’étouffer ce que l’Occident a de plus précieux qui n’existe dans aucun pays musulman : la liberté de penser et de s’exprimer.

L’islam essaie d’imposer à l’Europe ses règles : ouverture des piscines à certaines heures exclusivement aux femmes, interdiction de caricaturer cette religion, exigence d’un traitement diététique particulier des enfants musulmans dans les cantines, combat pour le port du voile à l’école, accusation d’islamophobie contre les esprits libres.

Comment expliquer l’interdiction du string à Paris-Plages, cet été ? Étrange fut l’argument avancé : risque de «troubles à l’ordre public». Cela signifiait-il que des bandes de jeunes frustrés risquaient de devenir violents à l’affichage de la beauté ? Ou bien craignait-on des manifestations islamistes, via des brigades de la vertu, aux abords de Paris-Plages ?

Pourtant, la non-interdiction du port du voile dans la rue est, du fait de la réprobation que ce soutien à l’oppression contre les femmes suscite, plus propre à «troubler l’ordre public» que le string. Il n’est pas déplacé de penser que cette interdiction traduit une islamisation des esprits en France, une soumission plus ou moins consciente aux diktats de l’islam. Ou, à tout le moins, qu’elle résulte de l’insidieuse pression musulmane sur les esprits. Islamisation des esprits : ceux-là même qui s’élevaient contre l’inauguration d’un Parvis Jean-Paul-II à Paris ne s’opposent pas à la construction de mosquées. L’islam tente d’obliger l’Europe à se plier à sa vision de l’homme.

Comme jadis avec le communisme, l’Occident se retrouve sous surveillance idéologique. L’islam se présente, à l’image du défunt communisme, comme une alternative au monde occidental. À l’instar du communisme d’autrefois, l’islam, pour conquérir les esprits, joue sur une corde sensible. Il se targue d’une légitimité qui trouble la conscience occidentale, attentive à autrui : être la voix des pauvres de la planète. Hier, la voix des pauvres prétendait venir de Moscou, aujourd’hui elle viendrait de La Mecque ! Aujourd’hui à nouveau, des intellectuels incarnent cet oeil du Coran, comme ils incarnaient l’oeil de Moscou hier. Ils excommunient pour islamophobie, comme hier pour anticommunisme.

Dans l’ouverture à autrui, propre à l’Occident, se manifeste une sécularisation du christianisme, dont le fond se résume ainsi : l’autre doit toujours passer avant moi. L’Occidental, héritier du christianisme, est l’être qui met son âme à découvert. Il prend le risque de passer pour faible. À l’identique de feu le communisme, l’islam tient la générosité, l’ouverture d’esprit, la tolérance, la douceur, la liberté de la femme et des moeurs, les valeurs démocratiques, pour des marques de décadence.

Ce sont des faiblesses qu’il veut exploiter au moyen «d’idiots utiles», les bonnes consciences imbues de bons sentiments, afin d’imposer l’ordre coranique au monde occidental lui-même.

Le Coran est un livre d’inouïe violence. Maxime Rodinson énonce, dans l’Encyclopédia Universalis, quelques vérités aussi importantes que taboues en France. D’une part, «Muhammad révéla à Médine des qualités insoupçonnées de dirigeant politique et de chef militaire (...) Il recourut à la guerre privée, institution courante en Arabie (...) Muhammad envoya bientôt des petits groupes de ses partisans attaquer les caravanes mekkoises, punissant ainsi ses incrédules compatriotes et du même coup acquérant un riche butin».

D’autre part, «Muhammad profita de ce succès pour éliminer de Médine, en la faisant massacrer, la dernière tribu juive qui y restait, les Qurayza, qu’il accusait d’un comportement suspect». Enfin, «après la mort de Khadidja, il épousa une veuve, bonne ménagère, Sawda, et aussi la petite Aisha, qui avait à peine une dizaine d’années. Ses penchants érotiques, longtemps contenus, devaient lui faire contracter concurremment une dizaine de mariages».

Exaltation de la violence : chef de guerre impitoyable, pillard, massacreur de juifs et polygame, tel se révèle Mahomet à travers le Coran.

De fait, l’Église catholique n’est pas exempte de reproches. Son histoire est jonchée de pages noires, sur lesquelles elle a fait repentance. L’Inquisition, la chasse aux sorcières, l’exécution des philosophes Bruno et Vanini, ces mal-pensants épicuriens, celle, en plein XVIIIe siècle, du chevalier de La Barre pour impiété, ne plaident pas en sa faveur. Mais ce qui différencie le christianisme de l’islam apparaît : il est toujours possible de retourner les valeurs évangéliques, la douce personne de Jésus contre les dérives de l’Église.

Aucune des fautes de l’Église ne plonge ses racines dans l’Évangile. Jésus est non-violent. Le retour à Jésus est un recours contre les excès de l’institution ecclésiale. Le recours à Mahomet, au contraire, renforce la haine et la violence. Jésus est un maître d’amour, Mahomet un maître de haine.

La lapidation de Satan, chaque année à La Mecque, n’est pas qu’un phénomène superstitieux. Elle ne met pas seulement en scène une foule hystérisée flirtant avec la barbarie. Sa portée est anthropologique. Voilà en effet un rite, auquel chaque musulman est invité à se soumettre, inscrivant la violence comme un devoir sacré au coeur du croyant.

Cette lapidation, s’accompagnant annuellement de la mort par piétinement de quelques fidèles, parfois de plusieurs centaines, est un rituel qui couve la violence archaïque.

Au lieu d’éliminer cette violence archaïque, à l’imitation du judaïsme et du christianisme, en la neutralisant (le judaïsme commence par le refus du sacrifice humain, c’est-à-dire l’entrée dans la civilisation, le christianisme transforme le sacrifice en eucharistie), l’islam lui confectionne un nid, où elle croîtra au chaud. Quand le judaïsme et le christianisme sont des religions dont les rites conjurent la violence, la délégitiment, l’islam est une religion qui, dans son texte sacré même, autant que dans certains de ses rites banals, exalte violence et haine.

Haine et violence habitent le livre dans lequel tout musulman est éduqué, le Coran. Comme aux temps de la guerre froide, violence et intimidation sont les voies utilisées par une idéologie à vocation hégémonique, l’islam, pour poser sa chape de plomb sur le monde. Benoît XVI en souffre la cruelle expérience. Comme en ces temps-là, il faut appeler l’Occident «le monde libre» par rapport au monde musulman, et comme en ces temps-là les adversaires de ce «monde libre», fonctionnaires zélés de l’oeil du Coran, pullulent en son sein."

* Robert Redeker est philosophe. professeur au lycée Pierre-Paul-Riquet à Saint-Orens de Gammeville. Prochain ouvrage à paraître: "Dépression et philosophie" (éditions Pleins Feux).

(if the Dome of the Rock is so holy to them, how come they put it in direct line of fire of their bottoms?)