Wake-up call for Israel?
Joseph Farah
Posted: July 15, 20061:00 a.m. Eastern
This is a hard column for me to write.
It's difficult because what I need to say about the two-front terrorist attacks on Israel is nothing new.
I've said everything that needs to be said many times in as many new ways as I could imagine.
Suffice it to say I am not shocked by these developments. I am not even a little bit surprised. In fact, I predicted it.
I knew that Israel's evacuation of Gaza was not solving problems with terrorism but creating bigger problems for another day.
I knew that Israel's evacuation of Judea and Samaria was not solving problems with terrorism but creating bigger problems for another day.
I knew that Israel's unilateral evacuation of southern Lebanon was not solving problems with terrorism but creating bigger problems for another day – not to mention selling out the Jewish state's Christian friends in the region.
However, the point of this column is not to point out how smart I am. The point is to show how predictable it is that appeasement of evil aggression always leads to more evil aggression.
Indeed, I have become so weary of making these points over and over again that, a few months ago, I actually gave up on Israel – deciding it was a lost cause to defend people who were unwilling to be responsible with their own national security.
After all that, here we are.
Israel is battling on two fronts – Gaza and Lebanon – two territories from which it unilaterally withdrew its military presence in what could only be interpreted by its enemies as an unconditional retreat and surrender.
Likewise, Israel is on the verge of finalizing plans to do the same thing in the West Bank. If it had completed that operation, it would now be fighting on three fronts.
Maybe some good can still come out of this unmitigated policy disaster for Israel. Maybe some official are ready to realize and admit they made some tragic errors. Maybe it's not too late to reverse course. Maybe, if Israel begins to see its very survival is at stake, it will correct course, defend itself and, in the process, do all free people in the world a big favor at the same time.
What does Israel need to do now? It needs to do what I have been advocating from the beginning – defeat the bad guys, destroy them, kill them all.
Nothing short of this response will do anything more than buy time until the next barbaric assault on Jewish civilians by Hezbollah, which, I understand, translates in Farsi to "Hitlers in headscarves." As I've said before, it's time for Israel to make humus out of Hamas.
This is no joke.
Israel is not only tempting God with its own future with its policy of national surrender, it is endangering the rest of the world, encouraging the Islamo-fascists whose ultimate goal is a global khalifate.
I know Israel has faced tremendous pressure from the U.S. and the rest of the world. I know. I've been there defending Israel and indicting the rest of the world all along. But, at some point, as this generation of Israelis needs to understand, if the Jews of Israel don't care about their nation, if they don't care about paying for territory more than once with Jewish blood, if they don't care about the future viability of a Jewish state, no one else can be expected to care.
I still do care. For the life of me, I can't stop caring. In fact, the Bible commands me to care. I only wish the people of Israel had the same faith in those Hebrew prophets that I have.
Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate. His latest book is "Taking America Back." He also edits the weekly online intelligence newsletter Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, in which he utilizes his sources developed over 30 years in the news business.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Israel – out of control?
Joseph Farah
Posted: July 17, 20061:00 a.m. Eastern
If you rely on the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Associated Press for your news, it would be easy to get the impression that Israel is out of control – wantonly killing Lebanese and Palestinian civilians and provoking a larger conflict in the Middle East.
The lead headline in the Post yesterday, for instance, read: ''Israel intensifies assault on Beirut.''
Of course, if striking directly at the terrorists who launched hundreds of rockets at Israeli civilians in the previous three days and who struck inside Israel's border, kidnapping two soldiers and killing eight others means assaulting Beirut, I guess that would be accurate.
But Israel is hardly targeting Beirut. It is targeting Hezbollah, a terrorist organization in league with al-Qaida and sponsored by Syria and Iran – a terrorist group that is killing and maiming Israeli citizens by the score.
Here's the way the third paragraph of the Post story reads: ''In a war that has witnessed an escalation each day, the asymmetrical nature of the conflict was laid bare Saturday: For each attack by Hezbollah since it captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid, Israel has inflicted a far greater price. It has systematically dismantled the country's infrastructure, displaced thousands of residents and instilled a new sense of foreboding and fear in the now-deserted streets of this brash, confident city still shadowed by the legacy of Lebanon's 15-year civil war.''
What message is any thinking person supposed to take away from such an account? Israel is out of control.
But a few points need to be made about such commentary disguised as news reporting:
Hezbollah has been operating freely in Lebanon as a de facto government for years – even after Syria withdrew from the country. The government of Lebanon has done little or nothing to take control of entire regions of the country, including its international airport, in which Hezbollah has set up a military infrastructure with one goal in mind – attacking Israel. How is Israel supposed to respond to attacks directed from those regions?
Israel has the military might to destroy Lebanon in a day – an hour, 30 minutes. Has it occurred to anyone that the Jewish state is demonstrating incredible restraint in focusing its wrath on only Hezbollah targets?
Stories are quick to emphasize the death and injury toll of Lebanese and Palestinians, but you have to scour the reports to learn that hundreds of Israeli civilians have been hurt and killed in rocket attacks targeted at towns and cities in the Jewish state.
How should a civilized nation respond to terrorist attacks within its borders? How did the U.S. respond after Sept. 11, 2001? Should civilized nations respond with force only equal to that which was used by its enemies? Or is it legitimate and proper for civilized countries to respond with overwhelming force – to discourage future attacks, wipe out those responsible and deter future attacks?
Again, it is as if my colleagues – as well as the United Nations, the European leadership and much of the rest of the world – believe Israel is the real problem in the Middle East.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Blaming Israel for the current violence in the region is the equivalent of blaming the U.S. for the terrorist attacks of September 11 and its response to them.
Let's review the key developments in this war:
On July 12, Hezbollah launched Katyusha rockets and mortar fire at the Israeli town of Shlomi. The same day, the terrorist group boasted of seizing two Israeli soldiers in the Israeli town of Shtula – killing eight other soldiers.
Then, and only then, did Israel strike back by bombing roads, bridges, power stations and other Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah then began a much wider rocket assault on Israeli towns, including the port city of Haifa, some 20 miles south of the Lebanese border. It was in this series of attacks that wounded more than 300 Israeli civilians, while killing at least a dozen.
I suppose there are those who think Israel should only respond with like force. Israel, a tiny nation with 1 percent of the population of its enemies in the Mideast, cannot afford to trade corpses. And, even if it could, it would not be good national security policy.
Israel's enemies should be grateful this American of Lebanese and Syrian heritage is not calling the shots in Jerusalem. Israel finds itself in this crisis because it listened too closely to the voices of appeasement from around the world – including from my colleagues in the international establishment media.
Evacuating from southern Lebanon and Gaza and other territories Israel conquered in hard-fought combat with no concessions from its enemies was bad policy. Israel encouraged the attacks it is now enduring. It's long past time for Israel to draw a hard line in the sand and punish severely those who cross it.
Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate. His latest book is "Taking America Back." He also edits the weekly online intelligence newsletter Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, in which he utilizes his sources developed over 30 years in the news business.
Joseph Farah
Posted: July 17, 20061:00 a.m. Eastern
If you rely on the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Associated Press for your news, it would be easy to get the impression that Israel is out of control – wantonly killing Lebanese and Palestinian civilians and provoking a larger conflict in the Middle East.
The lead headline in the Post yesterday, for instance, read: ''Israel intensifies assault on Beirut.''
Of course, if striking directly at the terrorists who launched hundreds of rockets at Israeli civilians in the previous three days and who struck inside Israel's border, kidnapping two soldiers and killing eight others means assaulting Beirut, I guess that would be accurate.
But Israel is hardly targeting Beirut. It is targeting Hezbollah, a terrorist organization in league with al-Qaida and sponsored by Syria and Iran – a terrorist group that is killing and maiming Israeli citizens by the score.
Here's the way the third paragraph of the Post story reads: ''In a war that has witnessed an escalation each day, the asymmetrical nature of the conflict was laid bare Saturday: For each attack by Hezbollah since it captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid, Israel has inflicted a far greater price. It has systematically dismantled the country's infrastructure, displaced thousands of residents and instilled a new sense of foreboding and fear in the now-deserted streets of this brash, confident city still shadowed by the legacy of Lebanon's 15-year civil war.''
What message is any thinking person supposed to take away from such an account? Israel is out of control.
But a few points need to be made about such commentary disguised as news reporting:
Hezbollah has been operating freely in Lebanon as a de facto government for years – even after Syria withdrew from the country. The government of Lebanon has done little or nothing to take control of entire regions of the country, including its international airport, in which Hezbollah has set up a military infrastructure with one goal in mind – attacking Israel. How is Israel supposed to respond to attacks directed from those regions?
Israel has the military might to destroy Lebanon in a day – an hour, 30 minutes. Has it occurred to anyone that the Jewish state is demonstrating incredible restraint in focusing its wrath on only Hezbollah targets?
Stories are quick to emphasize the death and injury toll of Lebanese and Palestinians, but you have to scour the reports to learn that hundreds of Israeli civilians have been hurt and killed in rocket attacks targeted at towns and cities in the Jewish state.
How should a civilized nation respond to terrorist attacks within its borders? How did the U.S. respond after Sept. 11, 2001? Should civilized nations respond with force only equal to that which was used by its enemies? Or is it legitimate and proper for civilized countries to respond with overwhelming force – to discourage future attacks, wipe out those responsible and deter future attacks?
Again, it is as if my colleagues – as well as the United Nations, the European leadership and much of the rest of the world – believe Israel is the real problem in the Middle East.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Blaming Israel for the current violence in the region is the equivalent of blaming the U.S. for the terrorist attacks of September 11 and its response to them.
Let's review the key developments in this war:
On July 12, Hezbollah launched Katyusha rockets and mortar fire at the Israeli town of Shlomi. The same day, the terrorist group boasted of seizing two Israeli soldiers in the Israeli town of Shtula – killing eight other soldiers.
Then, and only then, did Israel strike back by bombing roads, bridges, power stations and other Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah then began a much wider rocket assault on Israeli towns, including the port city of Haifa, some 20 miles south of the Lebanese border. It was in this series of attacks that wounded more than 300 Israeli civilians, while killing at least a dozen.
I suppose there are those who think Israel should only respond with like force. Israel, a tiny nation with 1 percent of the population of its enemies in the Mideast, cannot afford to trade corpses. And, even if it could, it would not be good national security policy.
Israel's enemies should be grateful this American of Lebanese and Syrian heritage is not calling the shots in Jerusalem. Israel finds itself in this crisis because it listened too closely to the voices of appeasement from around the world – including from my colleagues in the international establishment media.
Evacuating from southern Lebanon and Gaza and other territories Israel conquered in hard-fought combat with no concessions from its enemies was bad policy. Israel encouraged the attacks it is now enduring. It's long past time for Israel to draw a hard line in the sand and punish severely those who cross it.
Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate. His latest book is "Taking America Back." He also edits the weekly online intelligence newsletter Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, in which he utilizes his sources developed over 30 years in the news business.
Is this World War III?
Joseph Farah
Posted: July 26, 20061:00 a.m. Eastern
Many commentators are suggesting the conflict raging in this world today – from the East to the West – is World War III.
Others, who count the Cold War as World War III, have suggested the challenge of radical Islam represents World War IV.
I disagree.
I think we've mis-numbered the global wars so far.
I see this conflict – one that has defined history for the last 1,400 years – as World War I. This is the real Great War. It's far bigger than the conflicts that took a few years to settle. And it's not going away anytime soon.
This war is so big, some people can't even see it.
You know the expression, "He can't see the forest for the trees"? That's what it is like for some people who look at this war. They see fighting. They see conflict. They see death and destruction. But they can't see what it's all about. They can't see that the root cause.
What is the root cause?
There exists a religious totalitarian ideology that seeks global hegemony.
What we see happening in the Middle East today is the struggle in a microcosm.
Radical Islamic jihadists seek to destroy Israel. Nothing short of the Jewish state's annihilation will satisfy them. In fact, even the destruction of Israel is simply a means to an end – a short-term goal, if you will. It is the first step in a long march to global domination.
Some secularists in the West look at Islam and dismiss the possibility that it could ever dominate the globe. But it has in the past. It conquered most of the world. And, this time, "most of the world" will not appease the jihadists.
But much of the world believes this evil ideology can be negotiated with. They believe it can be placated. They believe it can be bought off. They believe it can be reasoned with. They even believe that it might be enflamed by legitimate grievances.
Again, let's return to the microsm – the Middle East. There are no legitimate grievances. Israel did not steal anyone's land. Israel did not create a refugee crisis. Israel did not oppress the "Palestinian people." All that is nonsense that I have dealt with a thousand times with hard facts and real history.
The conflict between Islamic radicals and Jews in the Middle East is really very simple. The Islamic radicals want all the Jews dead. The Jews, meanwhile, want to live.
It is about as irreconcilable as a conflict gets.
No amount of land concessions will appease the beast. No amount of foreign aid will appease the beast. No amount of revisionist history will appease the beast.
Only death and destruction of all infidels will quench the beast's appetite for blood and power.
If you doubt what I am saying, please consider this: If the radical Islamic jihadists in the Middle East – the mullahs of Iran, their puppets in Hezbollah, the suicidal maniacs of Hamas and their patrons in Syria – had the power to destroy every Jew in Israel, they would do it. Does anyone doubt that for a minute?
On the other hand, the Jews of Israel do possess the power to destroy their enemies. Yet, there is no question in anyone's mind that they would never resort to such an option unless they were somehow faced with annihilation themselves.
Likewise, today, the West has the power to destroy every Islamic country in the world. It's not a consideration. Yet, everyone reading this column understands intuitively and intellectually that if the shoe were on the other foot, the West would be in big trouble.
This is the way it has always been – since Muhammad first got his demonic visions in the desert. Ever since then, radical adherents to his message have been on the march – beheading, converting by sword, wiping out entire villages, raping and pillaging. Sometimes they are set back – for years, decades, centuries. Sometimes they are on the ascendancy – for years, decades, centuries.
This isn't World War III or World War IV. This is World War I.
Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate. His latest book is "Taking America Back." He also edits the weekly online intelligence newsletter Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, in which he utilizes his sources developed over 30 years in the news business.
Joseph Farah
Posted: July 26, 20061:00 a.m. Eastern
Many commentators are suggesting the conflict raging in this world today – from the East to the West – is World War III.
Others, who count the Cold War as World War III, have suggested the challenge of radical Islam represents World War IV.
I disagree.
I think we've mis-numbered the global wars so far.
I see this conflict – one that has defined history for the last 1,400 years – as World War I. This is the real Great War. It's far bigger than the conflicts that took a few years to settle. And it's not going away anytime soon.
This war is so big, some people can't even see it.
You know the expression, "He can't see the forest for the trees"? That's what it is like for some people who look at this war. They see fighting. They see conflict. They see death and destruction. But they can't see what it's all about. They can't see that the root cause.
What is the root cause?
There exists a religious totalitarian ideology that seeks global hegemony.
What we see happening in the Middle East today is the struggle in a microcosm.
Radical Islamic jihadists seek to destroy Israel. Nothing short of the Jewish state's annihilation will satisfy them. In fact, even the destruction of Israel is simply a means to an end – a short-term goal, if you will. It is the first step in a long march to global domination.
Some secularists in the West look at Islam and dismiss the possibility that it could ever dominate the globe. But it has in the past. It conquered most of the world. And, this time, "most of the world" will not appease the jihadists.
But much of the world believes this evil ideology can be negotiated with. They believe it can be placated. They believe it can be bought off. They believe it can be reasoned with. They even believe that it might be enflamed by legitimate grievances.
Again, let's return to the microsm – the Middle East. There are no legitimate grievances. Israel did not steal anyone's land. Israel did not create a refugee crisis. Israel did not oppress the "Palestinian people." All that is nonsense that I have dealt with a thousand times with hard facts and real history.
The conflict between Islamic radicals and Jews in the Middle East is really very simple. The Islamic radicals want all the Jews dead. The Jews, meanwhile, want to live.
It is about as irreconcilable as a conflict gets.
No amount of land concessions will appease the beast. No amount of foreign aid will appease the beast. No amount of revisionist history will appease the beast.
Only death and destruction of all infidels will quench the beast's appetite for blood and power.
If you doubt what I am saying, please consider this: If the radical Islamic jihadists in the Middle East – the mullahs of Iran, their puppets in Hezbollah, the suicidal maniacs of Hamas and their patrons in Syria – had the power to destroy every Jew in Israel, they would do it. Does anyone doubt that for a minute?
On the other hand, the Jews of Israel do possess the power to destroy their enemies. Yet, there is no question in anyone's mind that they would never resort to such an option unless they were somehow faced with annihilation themselves.
Likewise, today, the West has the power to destroy every Islamic country in the world. It's not a consideration. Yet, everyone reading this column understands intuitively and intellectually that if the shoe were on the other foot, the West would be in big trouble.
This is the way it has always been – since Muhammad first got his demonic visions in the desert. Ever since then, radical adherents to his message have been on the march – beheading, converting by sword, wiping out entire villages, raping and pillaging. Sometimes they are set back – for years, decades, centuries. Sometimes they are on the ascendancy – for years, decades, centuries.
This isn't World War III or World War IV. This is World War I.
Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate. His latest book is "Taking America Back." He also edits the weekly online intelligence newsletter Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, in which he utilizes his sources developed over 30 years in the news business.
A world without Israel
Joseph Farah
Posted: July 28, 20061:00 a.m. Eastern
The world is full of Israel-haters.
I don't know why. It probably has something to do with anti-Semitism – and even more to do with lack of knowledge and understanding about the Middle East.
So, I thought it might be a good exercise to consider what the world would be like if Israel had never been reborn in 1948.
Let's suppose that United Nations vote to partition the Palestinian region into two – one Arab and one Jewish – went differently. Let's imagine the Soviet Union or some other nation that supported the Jewish state voted the other way. What would the Middle East be like today? What would the world be like?
Well, for starters, the blame-Israel-first crowd needs to remember that the bloodiest conflicts in the Middle East in the last 60 years would still have taken place – because they had nothing to do with the state of Israel.
For instance, does anyone doubt that the Iran-Iraq war, which killed more than 1 million people and featured the widespread use of chemical weapons, would still have taken place – even without an Israel on the map?
Not even Saddam Hussein or the Ayatollah Khomeini could suggest that Jews had anything to do with that little dust-up. It was simply the latest round in fighting between ancient enemies, a turf war between a Sunni Muslim dictator and a Shiite Muslim dictator.
But what might have happened to nearly 1 million Jews in Arab lands who found a home in Israel after 1948? Those million refugees often left hostile Arab lands with little more than the clothes on their back. They often risked their lives to flee. Today, those Jews, if they were lucky, would still be living under the yoke of Muslim tyranny, living in "dhimmi" status. Surely many would have been murdered in the kinds of pogroms that regularly occurred in Arab and Muslim countries while they still maintained Jewish communities.
We hear so much about the "Arab refugee crisis" that was created by the 1948 war between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The highest estimates of Arabs who fled Israel during that war are put at 500,000. They fled, most often, because they were instructed to do so by the Arab leaders who declared war on Israel at its very birth. Yet, nearly 60 years later, this refugee population hasn't decreased, it has increased exponentially!
Why?
Not because Israel has created any new Arab refugees. It is because the Arab nations have refused to settle the original refugees they encouraged into refugee status. They see them as critical pawns in their asymmetrical conflict with Israel.
One thing is certain. Without Israel, there would have been no Palestinian national movement. There would be no Palestinian Authority. There would be no future Palestinian state.
Why?
Because prior to the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel conquered what we call the West Bank and East Jerusalem, there was no such movement. Even though there was no Palestinian Arab state and never had been, no one had ever promoted one. When Jordan controlled the West Bank, the so-called "Palestinians" were not agitating for a homeland. They'd never had a country of their own and apparently never wanted one. Suddenly, when Israel captured the ancient Jewish lands of Judea and Samaria, the Arabs discovered their sense of Palestinian nationalism for the first time ever.
I can also promise you that if Israel had not unified Jerusalem and declared it the eternal capital of the Jewish state, it would not be considered the third-holiest site in Islam.
How do I know this?
Because during the time that East Jerusalem was under the administration of King Hussein of Jordan, prior to June 1967, not a single Arab leader ever visited – including the king himself. It would seem that if Jerusalem had always been so important to the Muslims, their leaders would have expressed some interest in it before Israel captured the city in war.
The modern Islamic jihad movement is thought to have been launched in earnest in 1979, when the Ayatollah Khomeini assumed power from the overthrown shah. At the time, Khomeini made clear that the real enemy – "the Great Satan," as he called it – was the United States of America, not Israel.
No one, of course, knows what might have happened or not happened if Israel had never been reborn. But it does seem clear that most of the bad things that happened in the Middle East in the last 60 years would have happened anyway. Could it be that, if the Jewish state had never been, many more horrible things might have happened?
Personally, I suspect so.
Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate. His latest book is "Taking America Back." He also edits the weekly online intelligence newsletter Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, in which he utilizes his sources developed over 30 years in the news business.
Joseph Farah
Posted: July 28, 20061:00 a.m. Eastern
The world is full of Israel-haters.
I don't know why. It probably has something to do with anti-Semitism – and even more to do with lack of knowledge and understanding about the Middle East.
So, I thought it might be a good exercise to consider what the world would be like if Israel had never been reborn in 1948.
Let's suppose that United Nations vote to partition the Palestinian region into two – one Arab and one Jewish – went differently. Let's imagine the Soviet Union or some other nation that supported the Jewish state voted the other way. What would the Middle East be like today? What would the world be like?
Well, for starters, the blame-Israel-first crowd needs to remember that the bloodiest conflicts in the Middle East in the last 60 years would still have taken place – because they had nothing to do with the state of Israel.
For instance, does anyone doubt that the Iran-Iraq war, which killed more than 1 million people and featured the widespread use of chemical weapons, would still have taken place – even without an Israel on the map?
Not even Saddam Hussein or the Ayatollah Khomeini could suggest that Jews had anything to do with that little dust-up. It was simply the latest round in fighting between ancient enemies, a turf war between a Sunni Muslim dictator and a Shiite Muslim dictator.
But what might have happened to nearly 1 million Jews in Arab lands who found a home in Israel after 1948? Those million refugees often left hostile Arab lands with little more than the clothes on their back. They often risked their lives to flee. Today, those Jews, if they were lucky, would still be living under the yoke of Muslim tyranny, living in "dhimmi" status. Surely many would have been murdered in the kinds of pogroms that regularly occurred in Arab and Muslim countries while they still maintained Jewish communities.
We hear so much about the "Arab refugee crisis" that was created by the 1948 war between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The highest estimates of Arabs who fled Israel during that war are put at 500,000. They fled, most often, because they were instructed to do so by the Arab leaders who declared war on Israel at its very birth. Yet, nearly 60 years later, this refugee population hasn't decreased, it has increased exponentially!
Why?
Not because Israel has created any new Arab refugees. It is because the Arab nations have refused to settle the original refugees they encouraged into refugee status. They see them as critical pawns in their asymmetrical conflict with Israel.
One thing is certain. Without Israel, there would have been no Palestinian national movement. There would be no Palestinian Authority. There would be no future Palestinian state.
Why?
Because prior to the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel conquered what we call the West Bank and East Jerusalem, there was no such movement. Even though there was no Palestinian Arab state and never had been, no one had ever promoted one. When Jordan controlled the West Bank, the so-called "Palestinians" were not agitating for a homeland. They'd never had a country of their own and apparently never wanted one. Suddenly, when Israel captured the ancient Jewish lands of Judea and Samaria, the Arabs discovered their sense of Palestinian nationalism for the first time ever.
I can also promise you that if Israel had not unified Jerusalem and declared it the eternal capital of the Jewish state, it would not be considered the third-holiest site in Islam.
How do I know this?
Because during the time that East Jerusalem was under the administration of King Hussein of Jordan, prior to June 1967, not a single Arab leader ever visited – including the king himself. It would seem that if Jerusalem had always been so important to the Muslims, their leaders would have expressed some interest in it before Israel captured the city in war.
The modern Islamic jihad movement is thought to have been launched in earnest in 1979, when the Ayatollah Khomeini assumed power from the overthrown shah. At the time, Khomeini made clear that the real enemy – "the Great Satan," as he called it – was the United States of America, not Israel.
No one, of course, knows what might have happened or not happened if Israel had never been reborn. But it does seem clear that most of the bad things that happened in the Middle East in the last 60 years would have happened anyway. Could it be that, if the Jewish state had never been, many more horrible things might have happened?
Personally, I suspect so.
Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate. His latest book is "Taking America Back." He also edits the weekly online intelligence newsletter Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, in which he utilizes his sources developed over 30 years in the news business.
Israel vs. Hezbollah, right vs. wrong
Joseph Farah
Posted: August 11, 20061:00 a.m. Eastern
How people view the conflict in Lebanon is a barometer for determining their ability to discern right from wrong.
If you hear someone fudge on this conflict, it is an indication of a moral failing, a weakness in their heart, a defect in their brain, a darkness in their very soul.
There is no better picture of evil in the world today that the terrorist organization Hezbollah. Founded by the mullahs in Iran, facilitated by two generations of dictators in Syria, it was Hezbollah that killed 241 U.S. Marines sent to Beirut to protect the Lebanese people. Collectively, its terrorist attacks – from Latin America to Asia – have probably killed more innocent people than have been murdered even by al-Qaida.
Hezbollah is bigger and better armed than al-Qaida. And it has maintained an operational alliance with Osama bin Laden's terror network for years.
Quite simply, Hezbollah seeks in the short term to kill all the Jews in the Middle East or scatter them abroad. In the long term, it seeks to impose a worldwide Shiite theocracy like the one currently enjoyed by the people of Iran.
In the other corner, we have Israel. It is hardly a flawless and perfect state. There is no such thing in the world and never has been. But it is a legitimate state founded where no other state existed by a consensus of world opinion following the murder of 6 million Jews in Germany's concentration camps. Israel served as a refuge for nearly 1 million Arab Jews persecuted throughout the Middle East – more, by the way, than even the most exaggerated claims of Arab Palestinian refugees displaced by the war of 1948.
As many other observers have pointed out, you don't need to know much about the complicated history of the Middle East to understand the difference between Israel and its enemies. If Israel's enemies – including Hezbollah – had the power to destroy Israel, it would do so in a heartbeat. Israel, however, actually possesses such awesome power and, of course, has never used it.
There is no moral murkiness here. The raw, unadulterated evil that is Hezbollah is on display for all to see. The basic decency and compassion of the Jewish state has been on display for nearly 60 years.
Yet, look around us and see how many people are still "confused." A recent Los Angeles Times poll showed most Democrats are incapable of making any distinctions between these two warring parties. Sadly, a third of Republicans are also unwilling or unable to distinguish good from evil when it comes to this conflict.
Looking outside the U.S., the picture of moral confusion is even worse. At least half the world is cheering on Hezbollah.
This has nothing to do with Israel's behavior or the behavior of the U.S. Nothing we or the Jews of Israel could do would change the opinion of those aligned with Hezbollah. Like the pharaoh in Egypt, their hearts have been hardened. It will take an act of God to get people like that to see the light – something to hope and pray for, perhaps, but not something any argument will change.
It's disturbing to me to see so many people living in moral confusion – moral darkness. It's worse to think so many Americans are falling into this abyss. It's even more shocking to see so many Israelis incapable of understanding the stakes in this conflict.
There are a lot of people getting weak in the knees right now.
It's not without precedent.
It happened before in 1939.
The dangers we face in the world today are comparable to what the world faced back then – maybe worse.
Today, the Nazis are those claiming to be the original Aryans. In fact, that's a derivation of the name of their country – Iran. They speak openly of wanting to destroy all the Jews. They are working feverishly on the development of nuclear weapons – something Hitler could only dream about.
It's not a time for going wobbly. It's not a time for moral confusion. It's not a time for myopia in distinguishing right from wrong.
Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate. His latest book is "Taking America Back." He also edits the weekly online intelligence newsletter Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, in which he utilizes his sources developed over 30 years in the news business.
Joseph Farah
Posted: August 11, 20061:00 a.m. Eastern
How people view the conflict in Lebanon is a barometer for determining their ability to discern right from wrong.
If you hear someone fudge on this conflict, it is an indication of a moral failing, a weakness in their heart, a defect in their brain, a darkness in their very soul.
There is no better picture of evil in the world today that the terrorist organization Hezbollah. Founded by the mullahs in Iran, facilitated by two generations of dictators in Syria, it was Hezbollah that killed 241 U.S. Marines sent to Beirut to protect the Lebanese people. Collectively, its terrorist attacks – from Latin America to Asia – have probably killed more innocent people than have been murdered even by al-Qaida.
Hezbollah is bigger and better armed than al-Qaida. And it has maintained an operational alliance with Osama bin Laden's terror network for years.
Quite simply, Hezbollah seeks in the short term to kill all the Jews in the Middle East or scatter them abroad. In the long term, it seeks to impose a worldwide Shiite theocracy like the one currently enjoyed by the people of Iran.
In the other corner, we have Israel. It is hardly a flawless and perfect state. There is no such thing in the world and never has been. But it is a legitimate state founded where no other state existed by a consensus of world opinion following the murder of 6 million Jews in Germany's concentration camps. Israel served as a refuge for nearly 1 million Arab Jews persecuted throughout the Middle East – more, by the way, than even the most exaggerated claims of Arab Palestinian refugees displaced by the war of 1948.
As many other observers have pointed out, you don't need to know much about the complicated history of the Middle East to understand the difference between Israel and its enemies. If Israel's enemies – including Hezbollah – had the power to destroy Israel, it would do so in a heartbeat. Israel, however, actually possesses such awesome power and, of course, has never used it.
There is no moral murkiness here. The raw, unadulterated evil that is Hezbollah is on display for all to see. The basic decency and compassion of the Jewish state has been on display for nearly 60 years.
Yet, look around us and see how many people are still "confused." A recent Los Angeles Times poll showed most Democrats are incapable of making any distinctions between these two warring parties. Sadly, a third of Republicans are also unwilling or unable to distinguish good from evil when it comes to this conflict.
Looking outside the U.S., the picture of moral confusion is even worse. At least half the world is cheering on Hezbollah.
This has nothing to do with Israel's behavior or the behavior of the U.S. Nothing we or the Jews of Israel could do would change the opinion of those aligned with Hezbollah. Like the pharaoh in Egypt, their hearts have been hardened. It will take an act of God to get people like that to see the light – something to hope and pray for, perhaps, but not something any argument will change.
It's disturbing to me to see so many people living in moral confusion – moral darkness. It's worse to think so many Americans are falling into this abyss. It's even more shocking to see so many Israelis incapable of understanding the stakes in this conflict.
There are a lot of people getting weak in the knees right now.
It's not without precedent.
It happened before in 1939.
The dangers we face in the world today are comparable to what the world faced back then – maybe worse.
Today, the Nazis are those claiming to be the original Aryans. In fact, that's a derivation of the name of their country – Iran. They speak openly of wanting to destroy all the Jews. They are working feverishly on the development of nuclear weapons – something Hitler could only dream about.
It's not a time for going wobbly. It's not a time for moral confusion. It's not a time for myopia in distinguishing right from wrong.
Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate. His latest book is "Taking America Back." He also edits the weekly online intelligence newsletter Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, in which he utilizes his sources developed over 30 years in the news business.
How Israel causes Mideast conflict
Joseph Farah
Posted: September 5, 20061:00 a.m. Eastern
Many have suggested Israel is the root cause of conflict in the Middle East.
In the past I have defended the Jewish state from this charge. I have made the case that, if anything, Israel has bent over backward to make peace. But in doing so, could Israel actually be making things worse?
I believe so. The truth is that Israel has compromised too much. It has not retaliated strongly enough. And its Arab population is the freest in the Arab world.
Ironically, I'm not the only one who believes this. Israel's most ardent adversaries – the very people who want to destroy the Jewish state at any cost – agree with me. And I can prove it to you.
Who would you say is Israel's most implacable foe? Would you agree that it is al-Qaida – the terrorist group that attacked the U.S. Sept. 11, 2001, and is now openly organizing in Gaza?
What would you say if I told you al-Qaida believes God gave the Jewish people an eternal covenant with the "Promised Land"? Would you say I was nuts? How about if I told you al-Qaida believes this contract between God and the Jewish people has been abrogated only because Israel has not been determined enough to defeat its enemies in obedience to God? Would it change your opinion of the Middle East dynamic if you learned that al-Qaida believes Israel's compromises with and concessions to its enemies persuades al-Qaida that it is unworthy of fulfilling God's covenant with the Jews?
I'm not going to give you my opinion about this. I'm going to give you al-Qaida's verbatim analysis.
But before I do, let me summarize it for you:
Israel's "sin" is in not fearing God. Israel lacks the faith to fight for the land God bequeathed it. The Jews are willing to compromise with God's promise by giving up the land of Israel piece by piece. That's what al-Qaida believes, according to a report it issued just over a year ago.
Here are translated excerpts from that Arabic-language al-Qaida report from July 2005 threatening imminent attacks on the Jewish state:
God decided to test the Jews when they were still an oppressed people while still captive in Egypt. God seeks to lead them to the path of faith and victory and therefore urges them to conquer the Land of Israel. But the Jews are unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices to achieve the goal.
To this day, the Jews have not learned that God grants victory only to those who struggle for victory.
Throughout the generations, Jews, unlike Muslims, showed that they do not fear God or recognize Him as the moving force in the universe. Instead, they are more concerned with what man thinks.
For this reason, the Jews find it easier to break the covenant between God and Abraham, which awarded the land of Israel to the Jews forever. (Genesis 15:18)
In the Internet magazine Zerwat al Sanam, meaning "Tip of the Camel's Hump," the al-Qaida author of this screed, Abu Zubeida al-Baghdadi, concludes that Israel's willingness to compromise with its enemies gives the Arabs an opportunity to be God's vehicle to destroy the Jews.
The report goes on to suggest the best timing to launch attacks against Israel to fulfill God's will. It also makes clear that the real enemy, beyond the Jews, is the West.
This analysis is wholly in line with the Quran, which states in the Table, Sura 5:20: "Bear in mind the words of Moses to his People. He said: 'Remember, my People, the favor which God has bestowed upon you. He has raised up prophets among you, made you kings, and has given you that which He has given to no other nation. Enter, my People, the holy land which God has assigned for you. Do not turn back, and thus lose all."
The voices of international appeasement continue to advise Israel to accommodate the enemies who seek to destroy the Jews and Western civilization. It has not worked and it will not work. In fact, as al-Qaida's warped theologians illustrate, it will have just the opposite of the intended effect. Compromise will always convince Israel's enemies that it is weak, disobedient to God, unworthy of His promises and ripe for destruction.
And that's why I, too, believe Israel remains its own worst enemy. That is how Israel continues to worsen conflict in the Middle East, to make escalating violence inevitable, to engender more contempt and hate from its enemies.
How? By not obeying God – by not believing in the Divine promises that made it a nation and by putting its faith in man rather than the Creator of the universe.
If Israel truly wants to understand its enemies, if it truly wants their respect, it is pushing all the wrong buttons.
Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate. His latest book is "Taking America Back." He also edits the weekly online intelligence newsletter Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, in which he utilizes his sources developed over 30 years in the news business.
Joseph Farah
Posted: September 5, 20061:00 a.m. Eastern
Many have suggested Israel is the root cause of conflict in the Middle East.
In the past I have defended the Jewish state from this charge. I have made the case that, if anything, Israel has bent over backward to make peace. But in doing so, could Israel actually be making things worse?
I believe so. The truth is that Israel has compromised too much. It has not retaliated strongly enough. And its Arab population is the freest in the Arab world.
Ironically, I'm not the only one who believes this. Israel's most ardent adversaries – the very people who want to destroy the Jewish state at any cost – agree with me. And I can prove it to you.
Who would you say is Israel's most implacable foe? Would you agree that it is al-Qaida – the terrorist group that attacked the U.S. Sept. 11, 2001, and is now openly organizing in Gaza?
What would you say if I told you al-Qaida believes God gave the Jewish people an eternal covenant with the "Promised Land"? Would you say I was nuts? How about if I told you al-Qaida believes this contract between God and the Jewish people has been abrogated only because Israel has not been determined enough to defeat its enemies in obedience to God? Would it change your opinion of the Middle East dynamic if you learned that al-Qaida believes Israel's compromises with and concessions to its enemies persuades al-Qaida that it is unworthy of fulfilling God's covenant with the Jews?
I'm not going to give you my opinion about this. I'm going to give you al-Qaida's verbatim analysis.
But before I do, let me summarize it for you:
Israel's "sin" is in not fearing God. Israel lacks the faith to fight for the land God bequeathed it. The Jews are willing to compromise with God's promise by giving up the land of Israel piece by piece. That's what al-Qaida believes, according to a report it issued just over a year ago.
Here are translated excerpts from that Arabic-language al-Qaida report from July 2005 threatening imminent attacks on the Jewish state:
God decided to test the Jews when they were still an oppressed people while still captive in Egypt. God seeks to lead them to the path of faith and victory and therefore urges them to conquer the Land of Israel. But the Jews are unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices to achieve the goal.
To this day, the Jews have not learned that God grants victory only to those who struggle for victory.
Throughout the generations, Jews, unlike Muslims, showed that they do not fear God or recognize Him as the moving force in the universe. Instead, they are more concerned with what man thinks.
For this reason, the Jews find it easier to break the covenant between God and Abraham, which awarded the land of Israel to the Jews forever. (Genesis 15:18)
In the Internet magazine Zerwat al Sanam, meaning "Tip of the Camel's Hump," the al-Qaida author of this screed, Abu Zubeida al-Baghdadi, concludes that Israel's willingness to compromise with its enemies gives the Arabs an opportunity to be God's vehicle to destroy the Jews.
The report goes on to suggest the best timing to launch attacks against Israel to fulfill God's will. It also makes clear that the real enemy, beyond the Jews, is the West.
This analysis is wholly in line with the Quran, which states in the Table, Sura 5:20: "Bear in mind the words of Moses to his People. He said: 'Remember, my People, the favor which God has bestowed upon you. He has raised up prophets among you, made you kings, and has given you that which He has given to no other nation. Enter, my People, the holy land which God has assigned for you. Do not turn back, and thus lose all."
The voices of international appeasement continue to advise Israel to accommodate the enemies who seek to destroy the Jews and Western civilization. It has not worked and it will not work. In fact, as al-Qaida's warped theologians illustrate, it will have just the opposite of the intended effect. Compromise will always convince Israel's enemies that it is weak, disobedient to God, unworthy of His promises and ripe for destruction.
And that's why I, too, believe Israel remains its own worst enemy. That is how Israel continues to worsen conflict in the Middle East, to make escalating violence inevitable, to engender more contempt and hate from its enemies.
How? By not obeying God – by not believing in the Divine promises that made it a nation and by putting its faith in man rather than the Creator of the universe.
If Israel truly wants to understand its enemies, if it truly wants their respect, it is pushing all the wrong buttons.
Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate. His latest book is "Taking America Back." He also edits the weekly online intelligence newsletter Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, in which he utilizes his sources developed over 30 years in the news business.
Israel to blame?
Joseph Farah
Posted: October 3, 20061:00 a.m. Eastern
A tenured professor at the University of Chicago recently claimed Israel was to blame for the Sept. 11 attacks and for the U.S. war in Iraq.
The assertions by John Mearsheimer were met with an amen chorus from colleagues at New York University and Columbia.
"The Israel lobby was one of the principal driving forces behind the Iraq war, and in its absence we probably would not have had a war," he explained. Later, he said al-Qaida's "animus to the United States … stemmed from U.S. foreign policy toward Israel."
Imagine what a peaceful world in which we would live if we could only rid ourselves of that annoying little Israel. That is the essence of what we hear throughout much of academia. That is the essence of what we hear at the United Nations. That is the essence of what we hear from the so-called "international community." That is the essence of what we hear from a vast segment of the world press.
While it is an undeniable truth that Israel is on the front lines of the global Islamic jihad, surrounded as it is by hostile neighbors and active terrorist organizations sworn to its destruction, I would love to hear one of these anti-Israel twits explain what the Jewish state has to do with the following conflicts:
Afghanistan – Far from Israel, the Taliban and al-Qaida are battling U.S. coalition forces in an effort to re-establish their Islamic dream state – the one that actually gave us Sept. 11.
Algeria – Far from Israel, Islamic guerrillas continue to attack a government dominated by fellow Muslims.
Bosnia – Far from Israel, it's now a home for Islamic terrorists thanks to the international community that handed it over to Muslim rule.
Central Asia – Far from Israel, Islamic radicals are trying to spread Shariah law in states formerly part of the Soviet Union.
Chad – Far from Israel, unrest is growing largely because of a refugee crisis started by the radical Islamic regime in neighboring Sudan.
India – Far from Israel, Islamic radical groups regularly set off bombs, while India contests with neighboring Islamic Pakistan for control of Kashmir.
Indonesia – Far from Israel, Islamic terrorists are a constant threat in the most heavily populous Muslim state in the world.
Kosovo – Far from Israel, Islamic radicals burn down churches and persecute Christians.
Nigeria – Far from Israel, Muslims in the north fight for more control over the government and the nation's vast oil reserves.
Philippines – Far from Israel, Islamic guerrillas in the south are fighting for their own country and, of course, the forced expulsion of non-Muslims.
Russia – Far from Israel, Islamic terrorists have attacked airliners, schools and other civilian targets in their fight for an independent, Islamic Chechnya.
Somalia – Far from Israel, tribal fighting continues in another former playground of Osama bin Laden. Islamic radicals fight for Shariah law to bring order.
Sudan – Far from Israel, Muslims in the north slaughter Christians, animists and even other Muslims in a war that has already killed millions.
Thailand – Far from Israel, a small population of Muslims in the south, totaling only about 3 percent, fight for a separate Islamic state. A recent military coup installed the country's first Muslim leader, who suspended the constitution.
Uganda – Far from Israel, Muslim rebels in the north, aided by Sudan, have challenged the government.
Maybe political science professors can tie Islamic terrorist acts against Egypt's government, inside Lebanon and targeting the Saudi kingdom to Israel – because it's in the neighborhood.
Maybe they can persuade some people that the U.S. invasion of Iraq had something to do with Israel, though Saddam Hussein posed little real threat to the Jewish state.
But, how, I wonder, do these geniuses discount the raging Islamic jihad on the march from the East to the West? Do they really think all of this bloodshed is about a tiny, fictional nation of Palestine? Who really believes any of this global fighting will stop if and when Israel ceases to exist?
Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate. His latest book is "Taking America Back." He also edits the weekly online intelligence newsletter Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, in which he utilizes his sources developed over 30 years in the news business.
Joseph Farah
Posted: October 3, 20061:00 a.m. Eastern
A tenured professor at the University of Chicago recently claimed Israel was to blame for the Sept. 11 attacks and for the U.S. war in Iraq.
The assertions by John Mearsheimer were met with an amen chorus from colleagues at New York University and Columbia.
"The Israel lobby was one of the principal driving forces behind the Iraq war, and in its absence we probably would not have had a war," he explained. Later, he said al-Qaida's "animus to the United States … stemmed from U.S. foreign policy toward Israel."
Imagine what a peaceful world in which we would live if we could only rid ourselves of that annoying little Israel. That is the essence of what we hear throughout much of academia. That is the essence of what we hear at the United Nations. That is the essence of what we hear from the so-called "international community." That is the essence of what we hear from a vast segment of the world press.
While it is an undeniable truth that Israel is on the front lines of the global Islamic jihad, surrounded as it is by hostile neighbors and active terrorist organizations sworn to its destruction, I would love to hear one of these anti-Israel twits explain what the Jewish state has to do with the following conflicts:
Afghanistan – Far from Israel, the Taliban and al-Qaida are battling U.S. coalition forces in an effort to re-establish their Islamic dream state – the one that actually gave us Sept. 11.
Algeria – Far from Israel, Islamic guerrillas continue to attack a government dominated by fellow Muslims.
Bosnia – Far from Israel, it's now a home for Islamic terrorists thanks to the international community that handed it over to Muslim rule.
Central Asia – Far from Israel, Islamic radicals are trying to spread Shariah law in states formerly part of the Soviet Union.
Chad – Far from Israel, unrest is growing largely because of a refugee crisis started by the radical Islamic regime in neighboring Sudan.
India – Far from Israel, Islamic radical groups regularly set off bombs, while India contests with neighboring Islamic Pakistan for control of Kashmir.
Indonesia – Far from Israel, Islamic terrorists are a constant threat in the most heavily populous Muslim state in the world.
Kosovo – Far from Israel, Islamic radicals burn down churches and persecute Christians.
Nigeria – Far from Israel, Muslims in the north fight for more control over the government and the nation's vast oil reserves.
Philippines – Far from Israel, Islamic guerrillas in the south are fighting for their own country and, of course, the forced expulsion of non-Muslims.
Russia – Far from Israel, Islamic terrorists have attacked airliners, schools and other civilian targets in their fight for an independent, Islamic Chechnya.
Somalia – Far from Israel, tribal fighting continues in another former playground of Osama bin Laden. Islamic radicals fight for Shariah law to bring order.
Sudan – Far from Israel, Muslims in the north slaughter Christians, animists and even other Muslims in a war that has already killed millions.
Thailand – Far from Israel, a small population of Muslims in the south, totaling only about 3 percent, fight for a separate Islamic state. A recent military coup installed the country's first Muslim leader, who suspended the constitution.
Uganda – Far from Israel, Muslim rebels in the north, aided by Sudan, have challenged the government.
Maybe political science professors can tie Islamic terrorist acts against Egypt's government, inside Lebanon and targeting the Saudi kingdom to Israel – because it's in the neighborhood.
Maybe they can persuade some people that the U.S. invasion of Iraq had something to do with Israel, though Saddam Hussein posed little real threat to the Jewish state.
But, how, I wonder, do these geniuses discount the raging Islamic jihad on the march from the East to the West? Do they really think all of this bloodshed is about a tiny, fictional nation of Palestine? Who really believes any of this global fighting will stop if and when Israel ceases to exist?
Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate. His latest book is "Taking America Back." He also edits the weekly online intelligence newsletter Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, in which he utilizes his sources developed over 30 years in the news business.
The Way We Live Now
Israel proves there is a military solution to terrorism.
BY BRET STEPHENS Sunday, October 17, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
JERUSALEM--I bought my wife a skirt and blouse at a Benetton outlet the other day--in Ramallah. I was shopping at the Plaza Mall, a gleaming, two-story affair, which opened about a year ago at a reported cost of $10.2 million, and which also boasts a sporting-goods store, an espresso bar, a burger joint called McChain's and an American-style supermarket. Nice place: I wish my local Israeli grocery were as clean and appetizing.
Later that evening, I met up with some Israeli friends at a restaurant called Shakra, in downtown Jerusalem. It took 20 minutes to find a parking space, and it was another 30 minutes before we were seated. Like every other restaurant here, there was a guard posted at the door. But inside, the atmosphere was loud and easy, and by midnight customers were standing on barstools--just slightly drunk--belting Joan Jett's "I Love Rock 'n' Roll."
Of course Palestine is not the Plaza Mall, nor is Israel the bar at Shakra. Indeed, to watch the news from the region over the past two weeks is to see a rather different picture: of young Israeli children killed by Palestinian rocket fire; of heavy fighting in the Gaza Strip; of multiple coordinated terror attacks on Israeli targets in the Sinai.
Yet for most Israelis, and for many Palestinians too, the violence of the intifada--which entered its fifth year this month--seems to be in recession. Anyone who visits Jerusalem today will not see the ghost town it was in 2002, when Israel was absorbing an average of one suicide bombing a week. And anyone who visits Ramallah will find what is, by (non-Gulf state) Arab standards, a calm and economically prospering city, where the only Israeli-made ruin is the Palestinian Authority headquarters, deliberately kept that way as a monument of Arafatian agitprop.
How did things improve so dramatically, and so quickly, for Palestinians and Israelis alike? Begin by recalling Israel's assassination, in late March, of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. At the time, the action was all but universally condemned as reckless and counterproductive. "By granting Yassin the martyrdom he craved, the Israelis have provided a motive for new suicide attacks," went an editorial in the normally pro-Israel Daily Telegraph of London. "More young Palestinians will fall in love with death, and more Israeli civilians will die with them."
Yet what followed for Israel were nearly six consecutive terror-free months. This wasn't because the Palestinian terror groups lacked for motivation to carry out attacks. It was because they lacked for means. The leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Yasser Arafat's own al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades had to spend their time figuring out how to survive, not on planning fresh attacks. The Israeli army incarcerated terror suspects in record numbers--some 6,000 now sit in Israeli prisons--which in turn helped yield information for future arrests. Most importantly, the security fence has begun to make the Israeli heartland nearly impenetrable to Palestinian infiltrators. (August's double suicide bombing in Beersheba happened precisely because there is still no security fence separating that town from the Palestinian city of Hebron, from where the bombers were dispatched.)
Taken together, these measures prove what a legion of diplomats, pundits and reporters have striven to deny: that there is a military solution to the conflict. This is true in two senses. First, a sufficiently strong military response to terrorism does not simply feed a cycle of violence (although a weak military response does); rather, it speeds the killing to a conclusion. That makes it possible for Israelis and Palestinians to resume a semblance of normal life. Second, a military solution creates new practical realities, and new strategic understandings, from which previously elusive political opportunities may emerge.
Look at Israel. Although the security fence is internationally seen as "Sharon's Wall," in his first two years in office the prime minister tacitly opposed the fence's construction for the simple reason that it implied some kind of border running through the supposedly indivisible Land of Israel. But the security fence's proven success has forced Ariel Sharon to alter his view: In today's world of asymmetrical conflict, Israel's security rests less on holding the geographic high ground than it does on physically separating Israelis from the hostile population in their midst. And once the goal becomes getting as many Israelis as possible to live on one side of the line, and as many Palestinians as possible to live on the other, then the dismantling of at least some of the settlements becomes necessary. The only real issue is how to evacuate these settlements without either provoking domestic Israeli unrest or sending a signal of weakness to the enemy--and, of course, how to win parliamentary approval for it.
Now look at the Palestinian Authority. As most serious observers now acknowledge, this intifada did not begin as a spontaneous popular outburst of rage at Mr. Sharon's walk on the Temple Mount four years ago. It was a premeditated and opportunistic move by Yasser Arafat to reassert his revolutionary credentials among Palestinians while winning by force what few concessions Israel had left to offer after the debacle at Camp David.
He failed on both counts. Israel turned its back on dovish Ehud Barak in favor of hawkish Mr. Sharon. And Palestinians, as well as Arabs generally, have turned their back on Arafat. "The PA under Mr. Arafat has started crumbling," wrote Ahmed Al-Jarallah in the Arab Times. "The Palestinians themselves have started questioning the need for its existence. Mr. Arafat should quit his position because he is the head of a corrupt authority. There is no point for him to remain in politics. He has destroyed Palestine."
Last summer, domestic discontent with Arafat nearly turned to outright revolt. This, too, was a direct and positive result of Israel's military policy: By locking up Arafat in his compound and making him look weak, he became weak. By weakening Arafat, while simultaneously decimating Hamas, it gave rise to a cohort of comparatively more pragmatic leaders ready to give up on this intifada the moment they can. Above all, by showing Palestinians that the suffering they inflicted was the suffering they incurred, it forced a quiet rethink about the utility of violence as a political tool.
The larger question for Palestinians is where the cause of their national movement is headed: For 35 years, it has been synonymous with the person of Arafat; absent him, there isn't that much that binds a Gazan to a Jeninian save an overarching Arab identity and a mutual hatred of Israel. In the post-Arafat era, watch out for Palestinian politics to move in non-Palestinian directions: probably pan-Arab; possibly Islamist; hopefully, with a bit of statesmanship and a spell of calm, Western.
As for Israel, these past four years have also brought its share of lessons. Tactically, Israeli security forces learned, after a shaky start, how to suppress a massive terrorist-guerrilla insurgency, a remarkable accomplishment U.S. military planners would do well to study. Strategically, a majority of Israelis concluded that while peace with this generation of Palestinian leaders is impossible, separation from them is essential. And morally, Israel learned that even the most fractious democracy can stand up to a prolonged terrorist assault, and choose not to yield.
It's a choice made easier when you know there is no alternative.
Mr. Stephens, until recently editor in chief of the Jerusalem Post, is a new member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board.
This is what a suicide bombing looks like - Cafe Moment, Jerusalem, March 9th, 2002. There is nothing "honorable" or "heroic" about such attacks, they are plain massacres. The perpetrator looks for a place packed with unsuspecting people, civilians, preferably women and children, preferably young. The world does not call them terrorists, they are freedom fighters, or at best militants.
I have chosen these pictures because I knew someone who was murdered there - Avi Rahamim. He was 29 years old. He often went to the Moment Cafe, because it attracted young people and he was looking for a bride. Avi was soft-spoken, smart, shy, polite... a sweet young man. His identical twin brother, Yaron, is married to our friends' daughter.
Israel proves there is a military solution to terrorism.
BY BRET STEPHENS Sunday, October 17, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
JERUSALEM--I bought my wife a skirt and blouse at a Benetton outlet the other day--in Ramallah. I was shopping at the Plaza Mall, a gleaming, two-story affair, which opened about a year ago at a reported cost of $10.2 million, and which also boasts a sporting-goods store, an espresso bar, a burger joint called McChain's and an American-style supermarket. Nice place: I wish my local Israeli grocery were as clean and appetizing.
Later that evening, I met up with some Israeli friends at a restaurant called Shakra, in downtown Jerusalem. It took 20 minutes to find a parking space, and it was another 30 minutes before we were seated. Like every other restaurant here, there was a guard posted at the door. But inside, the atmosphere was loud and easy, and by midnight customers were standing on barstools--just slightly drunk--belting Joan Jett's "I Love Rock 'n' Roll."
Of course Palestine is not the Plaza Mall, nor is Israel the bar at Shakra. Indeed, to watch the news from the region over the past two weeks is to see a rather different picture: of young Israeli children killed by Palestinian rocket fire; of heavy fighting in the Gaza Strip; of multiple coordinated terror attacks on Israeli targets in the Sinai.
Yet for most Israelis, and for many Palestinians too, the violence of the intifada--which entered its fifth year this month--seems to be in recession. Anyone who visits Jerusalem today will not see the ghost town it was in 2002, when Israel was absorbing an average of one suicide bombing a week. And anyone who visits Ramallah will find what is, by (non-Gulf state) Arab standards, a calm and economically prospering city, where the only Israeli-made ruin is the Palestinian Authority headquarters, deliberately kept that way as a monument of Arafatian agitprop.
How did things improve so dramatically, and so quickly, for Palestinians and Israelis alike? Begin by recalling Israel's assassination, in late March, of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. At the time, the action was all but universally condemned as reckless and counterproductive. "By granting Yassin the martyrdom he craved, the Israelis have provided a motive for new suicide attacks," went an editorial in the normally pro-Israel Daily Telegraph of London. "More young Palestinians will fall in love with death, and more Israeli civilians will die with them."Yet what followed for Israel were nearly six consecutive terror-free months. This wasn't because the Palestinian terror groups lacked for motivation to carry out attacks. It was because they lacked for means. The leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Yasser Arafat's own al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades had to spend their time figuring out how to survive, not on planning fresh attacks. The Israeli army incarcerated terror suspects in record numbers--some 6,000 now sit in Israeli prisons--which in turn helped yield information for future arrests. Most importantly, the security fence has begun to make the Israeli heartland nearly impenetrable to Palestinian infiltrators. (August's double suicide bombing in Beersheba happened precisely because there is still no security fence separating that town from the Palestinian city of Hebron, from where the bombers were dispatched.)
Taken together, these measures prove what a legion of diplomats, pundits and reporters have striven to deny: that there is a military solution to the conflict. This is true in two senses. First, a sufficiently strong military response to terrorism does not simply feed a cycle of violence (although a weak military response does); rather, it speeds the killing to a conclusion. That makes it possible for Israelis and Palestinians to resume a semblance of normal life. Second, a military solution creates new practical realities, and new strategic understandings, from which previously elusive political opportunities may emerge.
Look at Israel. Although the security fence is internationally seen as "Sharon's Wall," in his first two years in office the prime minister tacitly opposed the fence's construction for the simple reason that it implied some kind of border running through the supposedly indivisible Land of Israel. But the security fence's proven success has forced Ariel Sharon to alter his view: In today's world of asymmetrical conflict, Israel's security rests less on holding the geographic high ground than it does on physically separating Israelis from the hostile population in their midst. And once the goal becomes getting as many Israelis as possible to live on one side of the line, and as many Palestinians as possible to live on the other, then the dismantling of at least some of the settlements becomes necessary. The only real issue is how to evacuate these settlements without either provoking domestic Israeli unrest or sending a signal of weakness to the enemy--and, of course, how to win parliamentary approval for it.
Now look at the Palestinian Authority. As most serious observers now acknowledge, this intifada did not begin as a spontaneous popular outburst of rage at Mr. Sharon's walk on the Temple Mount four years ago. It was a premeditated and opportunistic move by Yasser Arafat to reassert his revolutionary credentials among Palestinians while winning by force what few concessions Israel had left to offer after the debacle at Camp David.
He failed on both counts. Israel turned its back on dovish Ehud Barak in favor of hawkish Mr. Sharon. And Palestinians, as well as Arabs generally, have turned their back on Arafat. "The PA under Mr. Arafat has started crumbling," wrote Ahmed Al-Jarallah in the Arab Times. "The Palestinians themselves have started questioning the need for its existence. Mr. Arafat should quit his position because he is the head of a corrupt authority. There is no point for him to remain in politics. He has destroyed Palestine."
Last summer, domestic discontent with Arafat nearly turned to outright revolt. This, too, was a direct and positive result of Israel's military policy: By locking up Arafat in his compound and making him look weak, he became weak. By weakening Arafat, while simultaneously decimating Hamas, it gave rise to a cohort of comparatively more pragmatic leaders ready to give up on this intifada the moment they can. Above all, by showing Palestinians that the suffering they inflicted was the suffering they incurred, it forced a quiet rethink about the utility of violence as a political tool.
The larger question for Palestinians is where the cause of their national movement is headed: For 35 years, it has been synonymous with the person of Arafat; absent him, there isn't that much that binds a Gazan to a Jeninian save an overarching Arab identity and a mutual hatred of Israel. In the post-Arafat era, watch out for Palestinian politics to move in non-Palestinian directions: probably pan-Arab; possibly Islamist; hopefully, with a bit of statesmanship and a spell of calm, Western.
As for Israel, these past four years have also brought its share of lessons. Tactically, Israeli security forces learned, after a shaky start, how to suppress a massive terrorist-guerrilla insurgency, a remarkable accomplishment U.S. military planners would do well to study. Strategically, a majority of Israelis concluded that while peace with this generation of Palestinian leaders is impossible, separation from them is essential. And morally, Israel learned that even the most fractious democracy can stand up to a prolonged terrorist assault, and choose not to yield.
It's a choice made easier when you know there is no alternative.
Mr. Stephens, until recently editor in chief of the Jerusalem Post, is a new member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board.
This is what a suicide bombing looks like - Cafe Moment, Jerusalem, March 9th, 2002. There is nothing "honorable" or "heroic" about such attacks, they are plain massacres. The perpetrator looks for a place packed with unsuspecting people, civilians, preferably women and children, preferably young. The world does not call them terrorists, they are freedom fighters, or at best militants.
I have chosen these pictures because I knew someone who was murdered there - Avi Rahamim. He was 29 years old. He often went to the Moment Cafe, because it attracted young people and he was looking for a bride. Avi was soft-spoken, smart, shy, polite... a sweet young man. His identical twin brother, Yaron, is married to our friends' daughter.
Friday, October 13, 2006
Condom away, by all means!
FROM JOSEPH FARAH'S G2 BULLETIN
Author sees Islam's 20-year plan for U.S.Arab-American author outlines secret 20-year strategy to undermine country
Posted: August 4, 20031:00 a.m. Eastern
Editor's note: Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin is an online, subscription intelligence news service from the creator of WorldNetDaily.com – a journalist who has been developing sources around the world for the last 25 years.
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
A refugee from the Muslim Middle East thinks he has discovered Islam's 20-point plan for conquering the United States by 2020 – a plan revealed in the latest issue of Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
Anis Shorrosh, author of ''Islam Revealed'' and ''The True Furqan,'' is a Christian Arab-American who emigrated from Arab-controlled Jerusalem in January 1967.
''The following is my analysis of Islamic invasion of America, the agenda of Islamists and visible methods to take over America by the year 2020,'' Shorrosh says. ''Will Americans continue to sleep through this invasion as they did when we were attacked on 9/11?''
1. Terminate America's freedom of speech by replacing it with statewide and nationwide hate-crime bills.
2. Wage a war of words using black leaders like Louis Farrakhan, Rev. Jesse Jackson and other visible religious personalities who promote Islam as the religion of African-Americans while insisting Christianity is for whites only. What they fail to tell African-Americans is that it was Arab Muslims who captured them and sold them as slaves. In fact, the Arabic word for black and slave is the same, ''Abed.''
3. Engage the American public in dialogues, discussions, debates in colleges, universities, public libraries, radio, TV, churches and mosques on the virtues of Islam. Proclaim how it is historically another religion like Judaism and Christianity with the same monotheistic faith.
4. Nominate Muslim sympathizers to political office to bring about favorable legislation toward Islam and support potential sympathizers by block voting.
5. Take control of as much of Hollywood, the press, TV, radio and the Internet as possible by buying the related corporations or a controlling stock.
6. Yield to the fear of the imminent shut-off of the lifeblood of America – black gold. America’s economy depends on oil and 41 percent of it comes from the Middle East.
7. Yell ''foul, out-of-context, personal interpretation, hate crime, Zionist, un- American, inaccurate interpretation of the Quran'' anytime Islam is criticized or the Quran is analyzed in the public arena.
8. Encourage Muslims to penetrate the White House, specifically with Islamists who can articulate a marvelous and peaceful picture of Islam. Acquire government positions and get membership in local school boards. Train Muslims as medical doctors to dominate the medical field, research and pharmaceutical companies. (Ever notice how numerous Muslim doctors in America are, when their countries need them more desperately than America?) Take over the computer industry. Establish Middle Eastern restaurants throughout the U.S. to connect planners of Islamization in a discreet way.
9. Accelerate Islamic demographic growth via:
Massive immigration (100,000 annually since 1961).
Use no birth control whatsoever – every baby of Muslim parents is automatically a Muslim and cannot choose another religion later.
Muslim men must marry American women and Islamize them (10,000 annually). Then divorce them and remarry every five years – since one can't legally marry four at one time. This is a legal solution in America.
Convert angry, alienated black inmates and turn them into militants (so far 2,000 released inmates have joined al-Qaida worldwide). Only a few ''sleeper cells'' have been captured in Afghanistan and on American soil.
10. Reading, writing, arithmetic and research through the American educational system, mosques and student centers (now 1,500) should be sprinkled with dislike of Jews, evangelical Christians and democracy. There are currently 300 exclusively Muslim schools in the U.S. which teach loyalty to the Quran, not the U.S. Constitution. In January of 2002, Saudi Arabia’s Embassy in Washington mailed 4,500 packets of the Quran and videos promoting Islam to America's high schools – free of charge. Saudi Arabia would not allow the U.S. to reciprocate.
11. Provide very sizeable monetary Muslim grants to colleges and universities in America to establish ''Centers for Islamic studies'' with Muslim directors to promote Islam in higher-education institutions.
12. Let the entire world know through propaganda, speeches, seminars, local and national media that terrorists have hijacked Islam, when in truth, Islam hijacked the terrorists.
13. Appeal to the historically compassionate and sensitive Americans for sympathy and tolerance towards Muslims in America who are portrayed as mainly immigrants from oppressed countries.
14. Nullify America's sense of security by manipulating the intelligence community with misinformation. Periodically terrorize Americans with reports of impending attacks on bridges, tunnels, water supplies, airports, apartment buildings and malls.
15. Form riots and demonstrations in the prison system demanding Islamic Sharia as the way of life, not America's justice system.
16. Open numerous charities throughout the U.S., but use the funds to support Islamic terrorism with American dollars.
17. Raise interest in Islam on America's campuses by insisting freshman take at least one course on Islam.
18. Unify the numerous Muslim lobbies in Washington, mosques, Islamic student centers, educational organizations, magazines and papers by Internet and an annual convention to coordinate plans, propagate the faith and engender news in the media.
19. Send intimidating messages and messengers to the outspoken individuals who are critical of Islam and seek to eliminate them by hook or crook.
20. Applaud Muslims as loyal citizens of the U.S. by spotlighting their voting record as the highest percentage of all minority and ethic groups in America.
Shorrosh is a member of the Oxford Society of Scholars, has traveled in 76 countries, and is a lecturer and producer of TV documentaries. ''Islam Revealed'' is a bestseller now in its eighth printing. His forthcoming 10th book, from which the 20-point plan is abridged, is titled ''Islam: A Threat or a Challenge.''
''The True Furqan'' is also available for viewing on Islam-Exposed.org. Shorrosh's new website is Focusing-on-Islam.com.
Etbah al-Yahud!
College Film Festival: Kill the Jews
By Tatiana Menaker
FrontPageMagazine.com
December 17, 2003
I don't think it is news to anyone that San Francisco State University has long been a major center of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic propaganda. As a student at SFSU, I can attest to it personally.
I recently attended the university film festival "Exploring the Israeli-Palestinian Issue through Film." Nearly all the films presented were poorly made. One Israeli-made documentary, at least, was honestly described in the program as "amateur." I don't know what was scarier for me: the images on the screen or the atmosphere in the auditorium.
One British journalist, resembling the picture of Dorian Gray with all his vices on his face, couldn't hide his vampiric thirst for Jewish blood behind the mask of impartiality. And you’d have to be pretty gullible to believe all the staged fraud in his "documentary". Scene: an Arab woman shows that Israeli soldiers left plastic bags full of dog feces after a military raid. The bag looks like it contains the work of 50 dogs or an elephant.
Can you imagine an Israeli soldier carrying a loaded gun with ammunition on a dangerous military raid, scraping dog-droppings and dragging the bag all the way from Israel (Arabs don't keep dogs because they consider them unclean animals) to the occupied territories in order to leave it in some unknown house? Yes, this is a major insult for all Arabs, so let's just stage it for the film! This “dog-shit insult” was exhibited in another British "documentary" together with accusations of Israelis using poison gas.
Watching these films, I saw that Palestinian Arabs have become professional victims and actors in the "Israelis-and-Jews-Are-Horrible-Child-Murderers” series. These films are constantly shown in Europe and especially in the Middle East due to heavy demand and plentiful funding. Many years ago one famous writer said that Europe would never forgive Jews for what it did to them during the Holocaust. For Europeans, the image of a bad Israel is a relief from their Holocaust guilt complex, if indeed they ever had one.
Another scene: a demonstration by twenty truant school boys with a Palestinian flag while cameramen are constantly bustling into the scene and obstructing the view. The mere presence of cameramen and journalists in such crowds shows that the situation is far from bad. In Chechnya, after the real military raids, when Russians carpet-bomb the cities, dead bodies are strewn on the streets and nobody picks them up. Have you ever seen any pictures in newspapers or films? No journalist is crazy enough to show up in Grozny. It's quite a bit different to relax in a Jerusalem Mariott, taking showers and enjoying good Israeli dinners, feeling like a hero after photographing the stone-throwing operations of underage truants.
An absurd reality emerges from these "documentaries." You see smiling, camera-friendly children, well fed by UNRWA. An Arab woman, well-practiced at TV interviews, complains that her last interview was poorly edited. Boys who quit school in the second grade enthusiastically pose for cameras, throwing Molotov cocktails and heavy rocks from slings. Palestinian Arabs travel on donkeys and in donkey drawn carts.
Considering that Israel has more computers per capita than the US, it is no wonder that "humiliation" is the second most repeated word in these films. When your people are staring into a donkey's ass while other people across the street are looking at a computer screen, it is a humiliation.
The tragedy of Palestinian Arabs is that they are forced to compare themselves with the superbly developed civilization of Israel instead of, for example, the outskirts of Cairo, where barely dressed, malnourished, unschooled children with rotten teeth are crawling in the dust around mud huts with no sewage system.
It is understandable that the mere existence of Israel in such close proximity is unbearable. What is strikingly serious in all these films is that if one were to count the most often used words, these words would be "humiliation" and "Kill the Jews!" Even in the most peaceful and idealistic documentary, made by a Jewish director, a young boy asked what he wants to do when he grows up is prompted by his father: "Kill the Jews!" When asked to draw a picture of his future he draws himself killing Israelis.
The same Gaza strip "documentary" accuses Israelis of using poison gas. Again the same plastic bag with dog shit; and a mutilated child who blew himself up with an unknown device he found (perhaps his own parents made some makeshift bombs -- as often happens to Arabs who blow themselves up in the bomb making process, losing eyes and limbs).
The film implicitly blames Israelis for his terribly mutilated body. Wow! Poison gas, dog shit, mutilated children! In comparison, matzo soaked in the blood of Christian newborns sounds almost like a compliment. This was a great experience for a Soviet Jew, who ran away from her own anti-Semitic country! In comparison with this storm of anti-Jewish hatred, Soviet anti-Semitism was like a light breeze.
The situation in the auditorium was far worse. A Jewish meshugene, a professor of social science, who hadn't combed her hair since the fall of the Soviet Union, addressed another socialist lady as "comrade Robertson". This "comrade", an aged hippie DBA professor from the Philosophy Department (I can only imagine the quality of her teaching), is the faculty patron for pro-Palestinian and anti-American mobs on campus.
The Communist Jew in her soap-box speech called for the end of Israeli occupation and said that not all Jews are as bad as the ones shown in these films. For instance, her friend, a Jewish doctor, works in Sweden for the Palestinian cause. It's an old tune: I am the good Jew; it's the other Jews who are bad, so kill them first.
She thinks that if not for Israel, if not for this terrible capitalist America and this terrible president Bush supporting Israel, there would be no anti-Semitism, and no hatred toward Jews; all we need is just to destroy Israel, create a secular Arab state instead and live happily with our Palestinian comrades in a socialist paradise. She was so hysterical in her hatred toward Israel that even the Palestinians in the audience were bewildered. And concerning that socialist paradise: I just came from one, and I would love to send her there.
The General Union of Palestinian students attended the festival dressed in Arab headscarves sometimes wrapped around their hips. They had a couple of very passionate speakers seasoned in a multitude of anti-Israeli meetings, which are organized on campus so frequently that an innocent visitor would think that he had landed in some Syrian university run by Hamas. Actually the visitor wouldn't be entirely mistaken. Palestinian students are the only group, which for almost twenty years had an office and a full-time salaried non-student coordinator on campus. It would be interesting to find out who funded the group.
Our Judenrat, represented by the Chair of the Jewish Studies Department and Director of Hillel, was no match for them. On the first day, they mumbled some half-ass response; on the other days they were silent like fish - or absent. They were helpless. They hadn’t prepared for confrontation, even though everyone knows what happens at such events.
Only one Christian convert to Judaism was truly eloquent in defending Israel. I sincerely said that Jews should learn from the Arabs how to treat their own traitors in a time of war.
It could be that the festival had good intentions. Professor of History Jerald Combs was an excellent moderator, but the Jewish voices presented in the documentaries (as in the audience) were mostly anti-Israel, or voices of doubt at best. But the festival, as usual, turned out to be a full-blown anti-Israel "Free Palestine" meeting supported by Israel haters from Jewish Voice for Peace. If I myself were not a Jew with much experience of Soviet anti-Semitic propaganda, I would have left this festival as an accomplished Israel hater and a vicious anti-Semite.
Today we have a new event: "Solidarity in Struggle: Cuba to Palestine. Your fist for the Liberation of Palestine." At this rate, the Organic Food Movement will be promoting the liberation of Palestine too.
And what exactly do they mean by the "Liberation of Palestine"? It’s Israel they’re talking about. To liberate Palestine you need to exterminate five million Jews. So is this what SFSU students are struggling for? Do you remember that it was anti-Semitic propaganda and anti-Jewish riots in German universities that actually triggered the beginning of the Holocaust?
Nathan Scharansky, an Israeli minister, can hardly be described as a person easily susceptible to panic. A dissident and political prisoner, he was not scared to stand alone against the KGB in a Soviet Gulag. But after touring six American Universities last month, he wrote that the situation “on campuses in the United States and Canada is more serious than we think. And this is truly frightening."So Jewish students are subjected to constant malicious anti-Semitic attacks disguised as pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist rallies, at which the participants get so excited that they often start screaming Nazi-like slogans.
A female Jewish SFSU student, falsely accused by a Palestinian activist and a Muslim advisor of hate speech, was punished by the University administration. Would anyone punish a black person today based on the accusation of KKK members? Taxpayer-funded university newspapers consistently talk about Palestinian Arabs, the only group chosen from among so many at war with the chosen people. Do we forget Martin Luther King's famous warning that if you see anti-Zionism it is always anti-Semitism?
The late KGB Chief Yuri Andropov once said: "We won the war in Vietnam on the streets of Washington." The Arab Palestinian movement was created by the KGB. I know: I worked with Arabs back in Russia. They are using the same KGB-taught propaganda strategy that was used in organizing protests against the Vietnam War, which seduced childish professors together with their immature students. Unfortunately, our civilization is losing a war on its university campuses once again.
By Tatiana Menaker
FrontPageMagazine.com
December 17, 2003
I don't think it is news to anyone that San Francisco State University has long been a major center of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic propaganda. As a student at SFSU, I can attest to it personally.
I recently attended the university film festival "Exploring the Israeli-Palestinian Issue through Film." Nearly all the films presented were poorly made. One Israeli-made documentary, at least, was honestly described in the program as "amateur." I don't know what was scarier for me: the images on the screen or the atmosphere in the auditorium.
One British journalist, resembling the picture of Dorian Gray with all his vices on his face, couldn't hide his vampiric thirst for Jewish blood behind the mask of impartiality. And you’d have to be pretty gullible to believe all the staged fraud in his "documentary". Scene: an Arab woman shows that Israeli soldiers left plastic bags full of dog feces after a military raid. The bag looks like it contains the work of 50 dogs or an elephant.
Can you imagine an Israeli soldier carrying a loaded gun with ammunition on a dangerous military raid, scraping dog-droppings and dragging the bag all the way from Israel (Arabs don't keep dogs because they consider them unclean animals) to the occupied territories in order to leave it in some unknown house? Yes, this is a major insult for all Arabs, so let's just stage it for the film! This “dog-shit insult” was exhibited in another British "documentary" together with accusations of Israelis using poison gas.
Watching these films, I saw that Palestinian Arabs have become professional victims and actors in the "Israelis-and-Jews-Are-Horrible-Child-Murderers” series. These films are constantly shown in Europe and especially in the Middle East due to heavy demand and plentiful funding. Many years ago one famous writer said that Europe would never forgive Jews for what it did to them during the Holocaust. For Europeans, the image of a bad Israel is a relief from their Holocaust guilt complex, if indeed they ever had one.
Another scene: a demonstration by twenty truant school boys with a Palestinian flag while cameramen are constantly bustling into the scene and obstructing the view. The mere presence of cameramen and journalists in such crowds shows that the situation is far from bad. In Chechnya, after the real military raids, when Russians carpet-bomb the cities, dead bodies are strewn on the streets and nobody picks them up. Have you ever seen any pictures in newspapers or films? No journalist is crazy enough to show up in Grozny. It's quite a bit different to relax in a Jerusalem Mariott, taking showers and enjoying good Israeli dinners, feeling like a hero after photographing the stone-throwing operations of underage truants.
An absurd reality emerges from these "documentaries." You see smiling, camera-friendly children, well fed by UNRWA. An Arab woman, well-practiced at TV interviews, complains that her last interview was poorly edited. Boys who quit school in the second grade enthusiastically pose for cameras, throwing Molotov cocktails and heavy rocks from slings. Palestinian Arabs travel on donkeys and in donkey drawn carts.
Considering that Israel has more computers per capita than the US, it is no wonder that "humiliation" is the second most repeated word in these films. When your people are staring into a donkey's ass while other people across the street are looking at a computer screen, it is a humiliation.
The tragedy of Palestinian Arabs is that they are forced to compare themselves with the superbly developed civilization of Israel instead of, for example, the outskirts of Cairo, where barely dressed, malnourished, unschooled children with rotten teeth are crawling in the dust around mud huts with no sewage system.
It is understandable that the mere existence of Israel in such close proximity is unbearable. What is strikingly serious in all these films is that if one were to count the most often used words, these words would be "humiliation" and "Kill the Jews!" Even in the most peaceful and idealistic documentary, made by a Jewish director, a young boy asked what he wants to do when he grows up is prompted by his father: "Kill the Jews!" When asked to draw a picture of his future he draws himself killing Israelis.
The same Gaza strip "documentary" accuses Israelis of using poison gas. Again the same plastic bag with dog shit; and a mutilated child who blew himself up with an unknown device he found (perhaps his own parents made some makeshift bombs -- as often happens to Arabs who blow themselves up in the bomb making process, losing eyes and limbs).
The film implicitly blames Israelis for his terribly mutilated body. Wow! Poison gas, dog shit, mutilated children! In comparison, matzo soaked in the blood of Christian newborns sounds almost like a compliment. This was a great experience for a Soviet Jew, who ran away from her own anti-Semitic country! In comparison with this storm of anti-Jewish hatred, Soviet anti-Semitism was like a light breeze.
The situation in the auditorium was far worse. A Jewish meshugene, a professor of social science, who hadn't combed her hair since the fall of the Soviet Union, addressed another socialist lady as "comrade Robertson". This "comrade", an aged hippie DBA professor from the Philosophy Department (I can only imagine the quality of her teaching), is the faculty patron for pro-Palestinian and anti-American mobs on campus.
The Communist Jew in her soap-box speech called for the end of Israeli occupation and said that not all Jews are as bad as the ones shown in these films. For instance, her friend, a Jewish doctor, works in Sweden for the Palestinian cause. It's an old tune: I am the good Jew; it's the other Jews who are bad, so kill them first.
She thinks that if not for Israel, if not for this terrible capitalist America and this terrible president Bush supporting Israel, there would be no anti-Semitism, and no hatred toward Jews; all we need is just to destroy Israel, create a secular Arab state instead and live happily with our Palestinian comrades in a socialist paradise. She was so hysterical in her hatred toward Israel that even the Palestinians in the audience were bewildered. And concerning that socialist paradise: I just came from one, and I would love to send her there.
The General Union of Palestinian students attended the festival dressed in Arab headscarves sometimes wrapped around their hips. They had a couple of very passionate speakers seasoned in a multitude of anti-Israeli meetings, which are organized on campus so frequently that an innocent visitor would think that he had landed in some Syrian university run by Hamas. Actually the visitor wouldn't be entirely mistaken. Palestinian students are the only group, which for almost twenty years had an office and a full-time salaried non-student coordinator on campus. It would be interesting to find out who funded the group.
Our Judenrat, represented by the Chair of the Jewish Studies Department and Director of Hillel, was no match for them. On the first day, they mumbled some half-ass response; on the other days they were silent like fish - or absent. They were helpless. They hadn’t prepared for confrontation, even though everyone knows what happens at such events.
Only one Christian convert to Judaism was truly eloquent in defending Israel. I sincerely said that Jews should learn from the Arabs how to treat their own traitors in a time of war.
It could be that the festival had good intentions. Professor of History Jerald Combs was an excellent moderator, but the Jewish voices presented in the documentaries (as in the audience) were mostly anti-Israel, or voices of doubt at best. But the festival, as usual, turned out to be a full-blown anti-Israel "Free Palestine" meeting supported by Israel haters from Jewish Voice for Peace. If I myself were not a Jew with much experience of Soviet anti-Semitic propaganda, I would have left this festival as an accomplished Israel hater and a vicious anti-Semite.
Today we have a new event: "Solidarity in Struggle: Cuba to Palestine. Your fist for the Liberation of Palestine." At this rate, the Organic Food Movement will be promoting the liberation of Palestine too.
And what exactly do they mean by the "Liberation of Palestine"? It’s Israel they’re talking about. To liberate Palestine you need to exterminate five million Jews. So is this what SFSU students are struggling for? Do you remember that it was anti-Semitic propaganda and anti-Jewish riots in German universities that actually triggered the beginning of the Holocaust?
Nathan Scharansky, an Israeli minister, can hardly be described as a person easily susceptible to panic. A dissident and political prisoner, he was not scared to stand alone against the KGB in a Soviet Gulag. But after touring six American Universities last month, he wrote that the situation “on campuses in the United States and Canada is more serious than we think. And this is truly frightening."So Jewish students are subjected to constant malicious anti-Semitic attacks disguised as pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist rallies, at which the participants get so excited that they often start screaming Nazi-like slogans.
A female Jewish SFSU student, falsely accused by a Palestinian activist and a Muslim advisor of hate speech, was punished by the University administration. Would anyone punish a black person today based on the accusation of KKK members? Taxpayer-funded university newspapers consistently talk about Palestinian Arabs, the only group chosen from among so many at war with the chosen people. Do we forget Martin Luther King's famous warning that if you see anti-Zionism it is always anti-Semitism?
The late KGB Chief Yuri Andropov once said: "We won the war in Vietnam on the streets of Washington." The Arab Palestinian movement was created by the KGB. I know: I worked with Arabs back in Russia. They are using the same KGB-taught propaganda strategy that was used in organizing protests against the Vietnam War, which seduced childish professors together with their immature students. Unfortunately, our civilization is losing a war on its university campuses once again.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
St. George and St. Tony
I found this little story on ynet and loved it. That's why I want to share it with you.St. George and the dragon, a fable
David Verveer Published: 07.31.06, 11:49
Once upon a time, in a country far far away, lived an evil dragon who terrorized the inhabitants of a quiet village. The trouble began when they decided to fight back.
As the fable goes, St. George journeyed for many months by land and by sea, until he came to a nice small town, on the slopes of a mountain range. Here he met a journalist who told him that everyone in the town was in great distress, for a dragon, named Hizbullah had long ravaged the town.
Every day, said the journalist, the dragon demands a sacrifice of Israelis. And when the brave fathers of the town finally refused to supply additional sacrifices, the dragon started firing rockets on the town.
Actually in this fable, our hero, St. George Bush, did not visit the town himself, but sent his first lieutenant, the fair lady Condoleezza Rice. But why confuse the reader with dry and boring facts, when we are talking about fables?
The people of the town, which we call "Israelis," decided to kill the dragon, or at least to remove him from the mountain, above the town, and started to send by air and land the brave Israeli Dragon-slaying Forces (let us call them IDF).
Now, the world got exited. Trying to kill an innocent dragon, whose only fault is his hunger for terror, being one of the last species of his kind (other known dragons are al-Qaeda operating worldwide, and Hamas, a small but very mean dragon living in Palestine), was not acceptable.
The world environmentalists started shouting that this dragon has the right to defend his natural environment, and it is his holy duty to fight Israelis, how dare those people to go against the environment!
St. George, St. Tony
But, this is not all, as we forgot to mention the innocent bystanders, of poor Lebanese inhabitants, living with the dragon. The dragon hides in the Lebanon villages, and spears fired by the IDF fall also on the Lebanese. True, the Israelis requested the Lebanese to flee north, but the Lebanese ignored this request and were hurt.
Killing dragons might be somehow acceptable, but killing these nice little innocent, peace loving Lebanese, was too much for the world. This massacre has to end, claimed most world leaders (many of them, with blood on their hands from fighting and killing elsewhere).
The only ones remaining with the Israelis were St. George Bush and St. Tony Blair, both insisting on giving the Israelis sufficient time in order to kill the dragon.
Happily ever after…
In the original fable, our hero, St. George, killed the dragon, married the princess (we have no princess here), and lived happily ever after, but after checking the origin of the fable, we discovered that the original hero, St. George, was beheaded, after failing to die from a bucket of poison that he was forced to drink. This happened in the same region, but 1,700 years ago. Poor George!
In the new and not yet to be finished fable, George Bush finishes high and dry his term, Condoleezza continues to spread her charm for still a long time, the Israelis fight their no ending war against the dragons, with verbal and material help from some allies, but none the less, continue daily to sacrifice the to hungry dragon.
Generally fables try to convey a message to the readers, telling them that in fable land, the good eventually win from the bad. In our fable, I am not too sure, that we can reach the same conclusions.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Daniel Pearl
Daniel, you shall not be forgotten!
I would like to take a moment to honour the memory of Daniel Pearl, a brave journalist who would have turned 43 today, had he not been kidnapped and beheaded by islamoterrorists four years ago, for being American, Jewish, and investigating the funding of a terrorist group. The man responsible for his murder is, what a surprise! Omar Sheikh, a London-born student-turned-kidnapper of the London School of Economics.
Daniel was accused of being a Mossad agent, he was forced to speak against Israel and America by his captors who then proceeded to slay him. This is stomach-turning footage. The site still posting Daniel's execution blames Israel as the root of all evil on Earth. That of course entitles brainwashed extremists to take leave of their humanity and act as monsters in order to glorify their evil god, whose name is not worth mentioning.
The Chicago Tribune has the story of the HBO production of Daniel Pearl's life and untimely death at the hands of jihadists.
Daniel was accused of being a Mossad agent, he was forced to speak against Israel and America by his captors who then proceeded to slay him. This is stomach-turning footage. The site still posting Daniel's execution blames Israel as the root of all evil on Earth. That of course entitles brainwashed extremists to take leave of their humanity and act as monsters in order to glorify their evil god, whose name is not worth mentioning.
The Chicago Tribune has the story of the HBO production of Daniel Pearl's life and untimely death at the hands of jihadists.
One wonders, however, why other journalists, who are neither American nor Jewish, are being targetted by the same criminal groups (or their ilk), as EUreferendum so aptly reports.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
lettres persanes
I was going to keep it serious, but this is SO GOOD, I just couldn't keep my hands off it. Whoever thought Ramadan was about fasting and being pious might want to re-think:
Khameini: Don't masturbate during Ramadan
Iran's supreme leader answers questions on masturbation and other topics on his website
Yaakov Lappin
Published: 10.04.06, 19:55 (on ynet)
Khameini: Don't masturbate during Ramadan
Iran's supreme leader answers questions on masturbation and other topics on his website
Yaakov Lappin
Published: 10.04.06, 19:55 (on ynet)
Deliberate masturbation during the month of Ramadan renders a fast invalid, Iranian Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Khameini has ruled.
Khameini, who is Iran's most powerful political and religious figure, was asked on his website :
"If somebody masturbates during the month of Ramadan but without any discharge, is his fasting invalidated?"
"If he do not intend masturbation and discharging semen and nothing is discharged, his fasting is correct even though he has done a harām (forbidden) act. But, if he intends masturbation or he knows that he usually discharges semen by this process and semen really comes out, it is a haram intentional breaking fasting," the Iranian leader said, posting the reply on his website:
Another reader asked: "Once in the holy month of Ramadan, I forgot to brush my teeth, and some tiny bits of food remained in my mouth. I swallowed the bits unintentionally. Do I have to perform the qada (repent) for that day's fast?"
"If you did not know that some bits of food remained between the teeth, or you did not know that they would reach the throat, and they were swallowed unknowingly and unintentionally, then you are not liable to make (repent) of the fast," said Khameini.
'Drink water while standing'
On the website, Khameini also tells Iranians that only jockeys are permitted to gamble on horse races.
He is also asked whether it is permissible for a man to marry a woman only in order to be able to live in his wife's country. "Can a man conclude a marriage contract for a year with a European girl after getting her agreement with the purpose of going to her country?" A reader asked.
"There is no problem in that if they are serious in contracting marriage and it is done with her father's permission if she is virgin," Khameini ruled.
The Iranian leader also told readers they were allowed "to drink water while standing" at night. It was "not permissible" to take part in meetings attended by both men and women, he told another reader.
"In Islam's view, rulers and governments exist just to serve people and carry out works in the interest of the public and this is what God demands us, as authorities, to fulfill," Khamenei was quoted Tuesday telling Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
But the talkbacks are even better. Take the tour if you need a really good laugh.
Now, having sorted out the playful hand issue, what CAN man do if he gets the itch during the month-long Ramadan fast? Would a tiny bit of bestiality, [dealt with by Khomeini in his Little Green Book (of Horrors)] be considered haram?
"If one commits an act of sodomy with a cow, a ewe, or a camel, their urine and their excrements become impure, and even their milk may no longer be consumed. The animal must then be killed as quickly as possible and burned, and the price of it paid to its owner by him who sodomized it."
"The meat of horses, mules, or donkeys is not recommended. It is strictly forbidden if the animal was sodomized while alive by a man. In that case, the animal must be taken outside the city and sold." (Is then sodomizing a dead animal permitted?)
"It is forbidden to consume the excrement of animals or their nasal secretions. But if such are mixed in minute proportions into other foods their consumption is not forbidden." (Are those secret Persian cuisine ingredients?)
"If a man (God protect him from it!) fornicates with an animal and ejaculates, ablution is necessary."
"A man can have sex with sheep, cows and camels and so on. However, he should kill the animal after he has his orgasm. He should not sell the meat to the people in his own village; however, selling the meat to the next door village should be fine." (Never buy meat from someone who doesn't live in your village!)
"A man can have sex with sheep, cows and camels and so on. However, he should kill the animal after he has his orgasm. He should not sell the meat to the people in his own village; however, selling the meat to the next door village should be fine." (Never buy meat from someone who doesn't live in your village!)
How come animal rights activists are keeping a low profile on this one?
(The Little Green Book, Sayings of Ayatollah Khomeini, Political, Philosophical, Social and Religious, ISBN number 0-553-14032-9, page 47. )
(I wonder whether the French had any idea of what the naughty ayatollah was up to when they offered him asylum and helped him topple the Shah... ha ha ha!).
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!
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?)
so what else is new?
September 3, 1969. Residents of Kiryat-Shmona inspect a road damaged by a Katyusha fired from Lebanon. Only there was no Hezbollah back then, just the PLO. La meme Jeannette autrement coiffee...
July 26, 2006
During the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah, 1000 rockets landed in Kiryat-Shmona alone, according to Ynet.
Western media claiming to report only damage inflicted to civilians and urban areas, obviously thinks that residential neighborhoods, shopping malls and factories in Israel are justified military objectives. But I don't.
Monday, October 02, 2006
God Bless America!
(Robin Williams, wearing a shirt that says "I love New York" in Arabic)
You gotta love Robin Williams...... Even if he's nuts! Leave it to Robin Williams to come up with the perfect plan. What we need now is for our UN Ambassador to stand up and repeat this message. Robin Williams' plan... (Hard to argue with this logic!)
I see a lot of people yelling for peace but I have not heard of a plan for peace. So, here's one plan.
1) The US will apologize to the world for our "interference" in their affairs, past & present. You know, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Tojo, Noriega, Milosevic, Hussein, and the rest of those "good ole boys", we will never "interfere" again.
2) We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting with Germany, South Korea, the Middle East, and the Philippines. They don't want us there. We would station troops at our borders. No one allowed sneaking through holes in the fence.
3) All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and leave. We'll give them a free trip home. After 90 days the remainder will be gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of whom or where they are. They're illegal!!! France will welcome them.
4) All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 days unless given a special permit!!!! No one from a terrorist nation will be allowed in. If you don't like it there, change it yourself and don't hide here. Asylum would never be available to anyone. We don't need any more cab drivers or 7-11 cashiers.
5) No foreign "students" over age 21. The older ones are the bombers. If they don't attend classes, they get a "D" and it's back home baby.
6) The US will make a strong effort to become self-sufficient energy wise. This will include developing nonpolluting sources of energy but will require a temporary drilling of oil in the Alaskan wilderness. The caribou will have to cope for a while.
7) Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries $10 a barrel for their oil. If they don't like it, we go someplace else. They can go somewhere else to sell their production. (About a week of the wells filling up the storage sites would be enough.)
8) If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world, we will not "interfere." They can pray to Allah or whomever, for seeds, rain, cement or whatever they need. Besides most of what we give them is stolen or given to the army. The people who need it most get very little, if anything.
9) Ship the UN Headquarters to an isolated island someplace. We don't need the spies and fair weather friends here. Besides, the building would make a good homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens.
10) All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way, no one can call us "Ugly Americans" any longer. The Language we speak is ENGLISH... learn it... or LEAVE... Now, isn't that a winner of a plan?
The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses." She's got a baseball bat and she's yelling, 'you want a piece of me?'
(I was tipped off to this one by a dear friend of mine, but I have a hunch they would rather remain anonymous. )
Sunday, October 01, 2006
And Australia!
Muslims out of Australia !
CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA: Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia, as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks. A day after a group of mainstream Muslim leaders pledged loyalty to Australia at a special meeting with Prime Minister John Howard, he and his ministers made it clear that extremists would face a crackdown.
Treasurer Peter Costello, seen as heir apparent to Howard, hinted that some radical clerics could be asked to leave the country if they did not accept that australia was a secular state and its laws were made by parliament. "If those are not your values, if you want a country which has Sharia law or a theocratic state, then Australia is not for you," he said on national television. "I'd be saying to clerics who are teaching that there are two laws governing people in Australia, one the Australian law and another the Islamic law, that is false. If you can't agree with parliamentary law, independent courts, democracy, and would prefer Sharia law and have the opportunity to go to other country which practices it, perhaps, then, that's a better option," Costello said. Asked whether he meant radical clerics would be forced to leave, he said those with dual citizenship could possibly be asked to move to the other country.
Education Minister Brendan Nelson later told reporters that Muslims who did not want to accept local values should "clear off" : "If you want to be an Australian, if you want to raise your children in Australia, we fully expect those children to be taught and to accept Australian values and beliefs," he said. "We want them to understand our history and our culture, the extent to which we believe in mateship and giving another person a fair go, and basically if people don't want to support and accept and adopt and teach Australian values then, they should clear off."
Separately, Howard angered some Australian Muslims on Wednesday by saying he supported spy agencies monitoring the nation's mosques.
The issue of the integration of Muslims into Australian society prompted controversial remarks by some Australian cabinet ministers, such as this exchange between Treasurer Peter Costello and host Tony Jones on the Lateline television news program on 23 August 2005:
TONY JONES: Now, over the past 24 hours you've been repeating the notion that migrants, evidently Islamic migrants, who don't like Australia, or Australian values, should think of packing up and moving to another country. Is that a fair assessment?
PETER COSTELLO: What I've said is that this is a country, which is founded on a democracy. According to our Constitution, we have a secular state. Our laws are made by the Australian Parliament. If those are not your values, if you want a country which has Sharia law or a theocratic state, then Australia is not for you. This is not the kind of country where you would feel comfortable if you were opposed to democracy, parliamentary law, independent courts and so I would say to people who don't feel comfortable with those values there might be other countries where they'd feel more comfortable with their own values or beliefs.
TONY JONES: It sounds like you're inviting Muslims who don't want to integrate to go to another country. Is it as simple as that?
PETER COSTELLO: No. I'm saying if you are thinking of coming to Australia, you ought to know what Australian values are.
TONY JONES: But what about if you're already here and you don't want to integrate?
PETER COSTELLO: Well, I'll come to that in a moment. But there are some clerics who have been quoted as saying they recognise two laws. They recognise Australian law and Sharia law. There's only one law in Australia, it's the Australian law. For those coming to Australia, I think we ought to be very clear about that. We expect them to recognise only one law and to observe it. Now, for those who are born in Australia, I'd make the same point. This is a country which has a Constitution. Under its Constitution, the state is secular. Under its constitution, the law is made by the parliament. Under its Constitution, it's enforced by the judiciary. These are Australian values and they're not going to change and we would expect people, when they come to Australia or if they are born in Australia, to respect those values.
TONY JONES: I take it that if you're a dual citizen and you have the opportunity to leave and you don't like Australian values, you're encouraging them to go away; is that right?
PETER COSTELLO: Well, if you can't agree with parliamentary law, independent courts, democracy and would prefer Sharia law and have the opportunity to go to another country which practises it, perhaps then that's a better option.
TONY JONES: But isn't this the sort of thing you hear in pubs, the meaningless populism you hear on talkback radio? Essentially, the argument is if you don't like it here, you should go back home.
PETER COSTELLO: No. Essentially, the argument is Australia expects its citizens to abide by core beliefs - democracy, the rule of law, the independent judiciary, independent liberty. You see, Tony, when you come to Australia and you go to take out Australian citizenship you either swear on oath or make an affirmation that you respect Australia's democracy and its values. That's what we ask of people that come to Australia and if they don't, then it's very clear that this is not the country - if they can't live with them - whose values they can't share. Well, there might be another country where their values can be shared.
TONY JONES: Who exactly are you aiming this at? Are you aiming it at young Muslims who don't want to integrate or are you aiming it at clerics like Sheikh Omran or Abu Bakr both from Melbourne?
PETER COSTELLO: I'd be saying to clerics who are teaching that there are two laws governing people in Australia, one the Australian law and another the Islamic law, that that is false. It's not the situation in Australia. It's not the situation under our Constitution. There's only one law in Australia. It's the law that's made by the Parliament of Australia and enforced by our courts. There's no second law. There's only one law that applies in Australia and Australia expects its citizens to observe it.
CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA: Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia, as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks. A day after a group of mainstream Muslim leaders pledged loyalty to Australia at a special meeting with Prime Minister John Howard, he and his ministers made it clear that extremists would face a crackdown.Treasurer Peter Costello, seen as heir apparent to Howard, hinted that some radical clerics could be asked to leave the country if they did not accept that australia was a secular state and its laws were made by parliament. "If those are not your values, if you want a country which has Sharia law or a theocratic state, then Australia is not for you," he said on national television. "I'd be saying to clerics who are teaching that there are two laws governing people in Australia, one the Australian law and another the Islamic law, that is false. If you can't agree with parliamentary law, independent courts, democracy, and would prefer Sharia law and have the opportunity to go to other country which practices it, perhaps, then, that's a better option," Costello said. Asked whether he meant radical clerics would be forced to leave, he said those with dual citizenship could possibly be asked to move to the other country.
Education Minister Brendan Nelson later told reporters that Muslims who did not want to accept local values should "clear off" : "If you want to be an Australian, if you want to raise your children in Australia, we fully expect those children to be taught and to accept Australian values and beliefs," he said. "We want them to understand our history and our culture, the extent to which we believe in mateship and giving another person a fair go, and basically if people don't want to support and accept and adopt and teach Australian values then, they should clear off."
Separately, Howard angered some Australian Muslims on Wednesday by saying he supported spy agencies monitoring the nation's mosques.
Quote: "IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT. Take It Or Leave It. I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali, we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians." "However, the dust from the attacks had barely settled when the 'politically correct' crowd began complaining about the possibility that our patriotism was offending others. I am not against immigration, nor do I hold a grudge against anyone who is seeking a better life by coming to Australia." "However, there are a few things that those who have recently come to our country, and apparently some born here, need to understand." "This idea of Australia being a multicultural community has served only to dilute our sovereignty and our national identity. And as Australians, we have our own culture, our own society, our own language and our own lifestyle." "This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trials and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom" "We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society ... Learn the language!" "Most Australians believe in God. This is not some Christian, right wing, political push, but a fact, because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture." "We will accept your beliefs, and will not question why. All we ask is that you accept ours, and live in harmony and peaceful enjoyment with us." "If the Southern Cross offends you, or you don't like "A Fair Go", then you should seriously consider a move to another part of this planet. We are happy with our culture and have no desire to change, and we really don't care how you did things where you came from. By all means, keep your culture, but do not force it on others. "This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this. But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our Christian beliefs, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you take advantage of one other great Australian freedom, 'THE RIGHT TO LEAVE'." "If you aren't happy here then LEAVE. We didn't force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country YOU accepted."
One of the recommendations at Prime Minister John Howard's terrorism summit was for Islamic schools to be encouraged to denounce extremism and teach about Australian traditions and culture. The Minister says it is important for all groups to be integrated into the Australian community, whatever their religion.
Origins: The July 2005 London Tube bombings raised domestic terrorism concerns in countries with large immigrant Muslim populations, such as Australia. The following month, Australian prime minister John Howard held a two-hour summit with moderate Muslim leaders in Canberra to work on a national strategy for addressing intolerance and the promotion of violence, during which issues such as the curriculum of Islamic schools and suggested measures for vetting imams were discussed. The Christian Science Monitor noted of the event:
As other governments have found, however, deciding who represents the Muslim community can be a delicate matter. Large sections of the youth, as well as conservative and more critical clerics, have been left out of Howard's summit - meaning some of the government's more aggressive proposals may meet resistance. But the groups who attended the meeting hailed it as a successful first step in an ongoing dialogue.
"We determined along with the prime minister that there must be more communication between the government and Islamic schools where it comes to teaching common values like democracy, fairness, tolerance and so on, and radicals will be reacted to, whenever they make inflammatory remarks," says Ali Roude, the acting president of the New South Wales Islamic Council.
"It's much worse for us now, because 7/7 showed the world that the enemy is to be found within" instead of 9/11 when the terrorists were all foreigners [said the spokesperson for Lebanese Muslims in Australia]. "Now they are suspicious of all of us, and it's very serious, but the prime minister is only playing politics."
But some Muslims here have a growing sense that they are being defined within the media by the voices of the extremists, and that an intervention by the government and moderate Muslims to counter such elements would be useful.
"So far it was OK to do your own thing. But if the media is focusing on the extreme elements, we need to do something about it," says Chabaan Omran, a senior member of the Federation of Australian Students and Youth, an organization that gives religious advice and teaching to young people. "Muslims need to interact more with mainstream Australia."
This might sit well with recent calls from ordinary Australians asking Muslims to assimilate. But Mr. Omran is worried about the connotations of the word "assimilate," and talks more of "positive integration without undermining our religion."
Prime Minister Howard also publicly announced his intent to have Australian intelligence agencies target mosques and Islamic schools in an effort to "stamp out homegrown terrorism and extremists":
Prime Minister John Howard said on top of trying to promote Australian values in Islamic schools, the Government would monitor what was said in certain schools and mosques to ensure they did not foster terrorism.
Asked whether he was prepared to "get inside" mosques and schools to ensure there was no support for terrorism, Mr Howard was blunt.
"Yes, to the extent necessary," Mr Howard told Southern Cross radio.
"I have no desire nor is it the Government's intention to interfere in any way with the freedom or practice of religion.
"We have a right to know whether there is, within any section of the Islamic community, a preaching of the virtues of terrorism, whether any comfort or harbour is given to terrorism within that community."
Origins: The July 2005 London Tube bombings raised domestic terrorism concerns in countries with large immigrant Muslim populations, such as Australia. The following month, Australian prime minister John Howard held a two-hour summit with moderate Muslim leaders in Canberra to work on a national strategy for addressing intolerance and the promotion of violence, during which issues such as the curriculum of Islamic schools and suggested measures for vetting imams were discussed. The Christian Science Monitor noted of the event:
As other governments have found, however, deciding who represents the Muslim community can be a delicate matter. Large sections of the youth, as well as conservative and more critical clerics, have been left out of Howard's summit - meaning some of the government's more aggressive proposals may meet resistance. But the groups who attended the meeting hailed it as a successful first step in an ongoing dialogue.
"We determined along with the prime minister that there must be more communication between the government and Islamic schools where it comes to teaching common values like democracy, fairness, tolerance and so on, and radicals will be reacted to, whenever they make inflammatory remarks," says Ali Roude, the acting president of the New South Wales Islamic Council.
"It's much worse for us now, because 7/7 showed the world that the enemy is to be found within" instead of 9/11 when the terrorists were all foreigners [said the spokesperson for Lebanese Muslims in Australia]. "Now they are suspicious of all of us, and it's very serious, but the prime minister is only playing politics."
But some Muslims here have a growing sense that they are being defined within the media by the voices of the extremists, and that an intervention by the government and moderate Muslims to counter such elements would be useful.
"So far it was OK to do your own thing. But if the media is focusing on the extreme elements, we need to do something about it," says Chabaan Omran, a senior member of the Federation of Australian Students and Youth, an organization that gives religious advice and teaching to young people. "Muslims need to interact more with mainstream Australia."
This might sit well with recent calls from ordinary Australians asking Muslims to assimilate. But Mr. Omran is worried about the connotations of the word "assimilate," and talks more of "positive integration without undermining our religion."
Prime Minister Howard also publicly announced his intent to have Australian intelligence agencies target mosques and Islamic schools in an effort to "stamp out homegrown terrorism and extremists":
Prime Minister John Howard said on top of trying to promote Australian values in Islamic schools, the Government would monitor what was said in certain schools and mosques to ensure they did not foster terrorism.
Asked whether he was prepared to "get inside" mosques and schools to ensure there was no support for terrorism, Mr Howard was blunt.
"Yes, to the extent necessary," Mr Howard told Southern Cross radio.
"I have no desire nor is it the Government's intention to interfere in any way with the freedom or practice of religion.
"We have a right to know whether there is, within any section of the Islamic community, a preaching of the virtues of terrorism, whether any comfort or harbour is given to terrorism within that community."
The issue of the integration of Muslims into Australian society prompted controversial remarks by some Australian cabinet ministers, such as this exchange between Treasurer Peter Costello and host Tony Jones on the Lateline television news program on 23 August 2005:
TONY JONES: Now, over the past 24 hours you've been repeating the notion that migrants, evidently Islamic migrants, who don't like Australia, or Australian values, should think of packing up and moving to another country. Is that a fair assessment?
PETER COSTELLO: What I've said is that this is a country, which is founded on a democracy. According to our Constitution, we have a secular state. Our laws are made by the Australian Parliament. If those are not your values, if you want a country which has Sharia law or a theocratic state, then Australia is not for you. This is not the kind of country where you would feel comfortable if you were opposed to democracy, parliamentary law, independent courts and so I would say to people who don't feel comfortable with those values there might be other countries where they'd feel more comfortable with their own values or beliefs.
TONY JONES: It sounds like you're inviting Muslims who don't want to integrate to go to another country. Is it as simple as that?
PETER COSTELLO: No. I'm saying if you are thinking of coming to Australia, you ought to know what Australian values are.
TONY JONES: But what about if you're already here and you don't want to integrate?
PETER COSTELLO: Well, I'll come to that in a moment. But there are some clerics who have been quoted as saying they recognise two laws. They recognise Australian law and Sharia law. There's only one law in Australia, it's the Australian law. For those coming to Australia, I think we ought to be very clear about that. We expect them to recognise only one law and to observe it. Now, for those who are born in Australia, I'd make the same point. This is a country which has a Constitution. Under its Constitution, the state is secular. Under its constitution, the law is made by the parliament. Under its Constitution, it's enforced by the judiciary. These are Australian values and they're not going to change and we would expect people, when they come to Australia or if they are born in Australia, to respect those values.
TONY JONES: I take it that if you're a dual citizen and you have the opportunity to leave and you don't like Australian values, you're encouraging them to go away; is that right?
PETER COSTELLO: Well, if you can't agree with parliamentary law, independent courts, democracy and would prefer Sharia law and have the opportunity to go to another country which practises it, perhaps then that's a better option.
TONY JONES: But isn't this the sort of thing you hear in pubs, the meaningless populism you hear on talkback radio? Essentially, the argument is if you don't like it here, you should go back home.
PETER COSTELLO: No. Essentially, the argument is Australia expects its citizens to abide by core beliefs - democracy, the rule of law, the independent judiciary, independent liberty. You see, Tony, when you come to Australia and you go to take out Australian citizenship you either swear on oath or make an affirmation that you respect Australia's democracy and its values. That's what we ask of people that come to Australia and if they don't, then it's very clear that this is not the country - if they can't live with them - whose values they can't share. Well, there might be another country where their values can be shared.
TONY JONES: Who exactly are you aiming this at? Are you aiming it at young Muslims who don't want to integrate or are you aiming it at clerics like Sheikh Omran or Abu Bakr both from Melbourne?
PETER COSTELLO: I'd be saying to clerics who are teaching that there are two laws governing people in Australia, one the Australian law and another the Islamic law, that that is false. It's not the situation in Australia. It's not the situation under our Constitution. There's only one law in Australia. It's the law that's made by the Parliament of Australia and enforced by our courts. There's no second law. There's only one law that applies in Australia and Australia expects its citizens to observe it.
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