Moderate Faisal Husseini Says Land of Israel Belongs to Islam, thus Lasting Peace Is Impossible

It is notorious by now that shortly after signing the ceremony for the Oslo Accords on the White House lawn, yasser arafat traveled to South Africa where he told a Muslim audience that these accords should be seen like the Hudaybiyyah truce accord that Muhammad, the Muslim prophet, made with the Meccans. It was meant to last ten years. But a couple of years later, after Muhammad felt that the Muslims were now sufficiently strong to defeat the Meccans, he and his men broke the truce and defeated the Meccans and captured Mecca.

What I did not know about is what Faisal Husseini told an Israeli reporter, Daniel Haik, two years after Oslo in 1995:

This celebrated [Arab] notable, nephew of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el Husseni, but more "moderate" in appearance, received me in his luxurious villa in one of the neighborhoods in the eastern part of Jerusalem. I especially remember one question that I asked him during the interview . . .: "Will the Palestinians agree to recognize the presence forever of a Jewish State in the Land of Israel that you call Palestine?" His answer was direct: "That will be impossible because we can never recognize a Jewish presence on land belonging to Islam." [HaGuesher, 1-17-2018 in French ici ]

There you have it. The motive for the Arab refusal of Israel has to do with Islam, with Islam's supposed ownership of the Land of Israel which the Muslims consider to belong to the Islamic nation or Umma in perpetuity by the principle of waqf. But the West and the so-called Leftists invented for themselves all sorts of other reasons and excuses for Arab intransigence. What is interesting here is that the "Leftists" always used to disqualify movements for being religious. It was on that ground that the Communists rejected Zionism. And here we have a frank declaration by a Palestinian Arab leader that the motive for denying Israel's right to exist in perpetuity is -- Islam, a religion. Yet that religious motive does not seem to bother the Left, not the social democrats, not the Marxist-Leninists so-called, nor any other species of Leftist that I am aware of.

Bear in mind that although Jews lived in Arabia in the days of Muhammad, and he fought battles against those Jews and massacred the Jewish Banu Qurayza tribe, Jews have been forbidden to live in Arabia [except for Yemen which was under different rulers] for more than 1000 years. Saudi Arabia maintained that law for many years although after the Six Day War of 1967 when Jews came there as representatives of important foreign powers [like Kissinger representing the USA], the law had to be waived.

As to the Land of Israel, Husseini was simply enunciating the old Islamic principle of waqf. Land that has been conquered by Muslims belongs to the Muslim community in perpetuity and cannot, must not, be alienated. Waqf land is sacred, inalienable property of the Muslim Umma, the Islamic nation. Of course, we know that vast areas in Europe and Asia and Africa were once conquered by Muslims.  Most of Spain and large parts of southern Italy, France, Greece, the Balkans, the Ukraine of today, and even Hungary were under Islamic domain for longer and shorter periods. Muslims no longer make a vocal call for that land to come back to Islam. This means that they recognize superior strength as do most people. However, jihadi extremists like the clerics who have guided Hamas, have said that Spain, etc, must come back to Islam. So the claim of waqf ownership of Spain, southern France, etc, is in abeyance but has not been cancelled in principle by the true, strict Islamists. This may seem odd to those aware that the Quran itself recognizes Jewish/Israelite ownership of the Land of Israel, sometimes called Holy Land or blessed land in the Quran. However, other Quranic verses seem to abrogate this recognition of Jewish ownership of the Land of Israel. And the waqf principle is above all. Hence, Islamists challenge not only the legitimacy of Israel but of many other countries.
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Quote in French original of Faisal Husseini's crucial response:
Ce sera impossible, car nous ne pourrons jamais reconnaître une présence juive sur cette terre appartenant à l'Islam [Daniel Haik in HaGuesher, 1-17-2018; p6]
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Socialist Mayor Stirs Up Hatred of Jews

Once upon a time, many Jews thought that socialists could be relied upon to treat them fairly. Didn't socialists support equal rights for Jews and oppose discrimination against them? This belief was naive in that it overlooked or was unaware of the strong anti-Jewish prejudices, even hatred, that prevailed against Jews on the part of socialist leaders and ideologues. But the belief did seem true for a long period from the end of the 19th century into the 1960s or even the 1970s in the United States and several western European countries.

However, by the year 2000, the favorable attitude towards Jews on the part of socialists seemed to have vanished. At that time, the two-headed government in France --a president of the "Right" & a cabinet headed by a socialist prime minister-- presided over  France2 TV, a state-owned broadcaster. This broadcasting agency repeatedly broadcast the faked video of Little Muhammad ad-Durah supposedly being shot by Israeli soldiers and being killed in a burst of blood at the Netsarim intersection in the Gaza Strip. When more of the video was seen in a Paris courtroom, the boy turned out not to have been killed and the burst of blood turned out to have been a red cloth in the boy's hand which he opened on cue from the director on site. The repeated showing of this hate video stirred up hatred for Jews among Arabs living in France. In this case, the responsibility for the video and its repeated broadcasting, as well as its worldwide distribution to whichever broadcaster would take it, belongs to both "right" and "left," both to the socialist cabinet and the "rightist" president, Jacques Chirac. None of the several French governments since the fall of 2000 has seen fit to repudiate the video hoax or to discipline any of those responsible for it at France2. That goes for Sarkozy's "right-wing" government after Chirac, and for Hollande's "leftist" government since 2012.

Now, France has witnessed the worst mass murder jihadi terrorist attacks in the current wave of jihadi atrocities since 2012, which I do not have to list. But Belgium too has suffered its share, albeit more modest than those in France. It is interesting that the long time socialist mayor of Molenbeek, next to Brussels, did his part to incite local Muslims against Jews. And this meant in the long run that he was inciting against the general Belgian population since we know that Jews are "the canaries in the coal mine," that when hate and terrorism start with Jews, they do not end with Jews. Here the Italian daily Il Foglio describes his role concisely:

Stirring up this great suspicion towards Israel and Jews was specifically the mayor of Molenbeek, the suburb that is today the epicenter of the jihadist campaign in Europe. It is also where Mehdi Nemmouche lived. He was the terrorist who carried out the slaughter at the Jewish Museum in the Belgian capital. This person is Philippe Moureaux, a socialist and  first citizen of Molenbeek from 1992 to 2012, a twenty-year period which led to him being called "the founder of Molenbeek."

"I am saddened at how the Jews now deny the right of the Muslims to diversity," Moureaux said [apparently regarding wearing the veil]. "Many have an interest in dividing us," Moureaux said after the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo. "They are trying to create hatred for the Arabs here in the West for the purpose of justifying the policies of the State of Israel."

--My Comment-- this is fairly blatant hatred of Jews and scapegoating of Jews, as if only Jews wanted to ban the veil, as if Muslims were not to blame for the Charlie Hebdo atrocity. See original below:

A fomentare questo grande sospetto nei confronti di Israele e degli ebrei è stato proprio il sindaco di Molenbeek, il sobborgo epicentro oggi della campagna jihadista in Europa, dove viveva anche Mehdi Nemmouche, il terrorista che ha realizzato la strage al Museo ebraico della capitale belga. Si tratta di Philippe Moureaux, socialista e primo cittadino di Molenbeek dal 1992 al 2012. Un ventennato che lo ha portato a essere chiamato “il fondatore di Molenbeek”.
“Mi rattrista come gli ebrei oggi neghino ai musulmani il diritto alla diversità”, ha detto Moureaux. “Molti hanno interesse a dividerci” ha detto poi Moureaux dopo l’attentato a Charlie Hebdo. “Stanno cercando di creare l’odio per gli arabi qui in occidente, al fine di giustificare le politiche dello stato di Israele”. [Il Foglio, 30 November 2015--qui]

Islamic Roots of Arab Terrorism -- Kamel Daoud

non sia giusto identificare islam con la violenza
Pope Francis [Papa Francesco], the other day

Just the other day, Pope Francis said that: It would be unjust to identify Islam with violence.

On other occasions, Francis has said that social-economic conditions like poverty and unemployment lead or cause terrorism. Yet, here comes an Arab-Muslim writer, Kamel Daoud, a columnist with a daily paper in Oran, Algeria, and he tells us just how profound is the tie between Islam and jihad terrorism. The frustrated Arab who is poor and out of work is attracted by jihad, by death as a mujahid, a shahid. That sort of death will bring him to Paradise where he will enjoy his 72 perpetual virgins and live in material prosperity and luxury. For millions of Muslims, Paradise beyond this life has taken the place of the socialist/communist utopia.

Aha, but this would be jihadi martyr wants material prosperity and abundant sex in his paradisiacal afterlife, which he does not have in this life, the dunya. So is the Pope right after all about material and socio-economic causes? No, because many quite prosperous Muslim young men have undertaken jihadi murder attacks. Think of Bin Laden, the son of a billionaire. Think of Muhammad Atta of 9/11 fame or illfame. Think of the group of prosperous young Muslims in Dhaka, Bangladesh, who massacred a group of foreigners within the last two weeks. Furthermore, do you hear of poor people generally who are not Muslims who blow themselves up, also killing other poor people, killing women and children and elderly people out of frustration with their socio-economic condition? Of course not. Only do this kind of thing. They are following the Islamic precept of "Killing and being killed, the highest joy in Islam." Both Arafat the Sunni and Khomeini the Shiite stated this principle.

Paradise, the New Muslim Utopia

Lire en français (Read in French)

Contributing Op-Ed Writer
By KAMEL DAOUD AUG. 2, 2016

Credit Edel Rodriguez

ORAN, Algeria — Future writing project: a topography of paradise in the medieval Muslim imagination. But not only medieval, for among Muslims today paradise is also at the center of political discourse, sermons and the contemporary imagination. Paradise as a goal for the individual or the group has gradually replaced the dreams of development, stability and wealth promised by postwar decolonization in the so-called Arab world. These days, one imagines happy tomorrows only after death, not before.

“Paradise decks itself in delights,” an editorial writer mused in an Algerian Islamist newspaper during the most recent Ramadan, the month of fasting. The declaration was followed by descriptions of the charms, the delights, the joys that await the faithful after death. This fantasy of paradise, amply depicted as a place of pleasures, with sex and wine, golden adornments and silk apparel, is the opposite of earthly life — and of the frustrations experienced in Arab countries afflicted by economic failures, wars and bloody dictatorships.

Firdaus (a remote ancestor of the word “paradise,” derived from the Persian) was promised by the Quran and has been abundantly described in religious literature for centuries. But in recent years, paradise has also become the country dreamed of by the poor, the unemployed, the believer — and the jihadist, thanks to certain religious elites who promote it as a means of recruitment.

This is a fascinating renewal of the concept of happiness that was dominant a half-century ago. Back then, the countries of the Maghreb and the Middle East — born out of decolonization often violently wrested from occupying forces that had imposed on them war, poverty and misery — advocated for a vision of the future based on independence, egalitarianism, development, wealth creation, justice and coexistence.

That vision of utopia within human reach, which was taken up by the socialist or communist elites and even some monarchies, was a shared political dream, and it gave legitimacy to those new regimes in the eyes of both their own peoples and foreign governments. Decolonization was the era of grand slogans about the advancement of peoples and modernization through massive infrastructure projects.

But that dream has aged badly, because of the bloody-mindedness of those authoritarian regimes and the political failures of the left in the Arab world.

Today, one has to be a Muslim – by faith, culture or place of residence – in order to experience the full weight of the new post-mortem utopia of the Islamosphere circulating on the internet and the media. It conditions people’s imaginations, political speech, coffee-shop daydreams and the desperation of the younger generations. Paradise has come back into fashion, described in mind-boggling detail by preachers, imams and Islamist fantasy literature.
Its main selling point: women, who are promised in vast numbers as a reward for the righteous. The women of paradise, the houris, are beautiful, submissive, languorous virgins. The idea of them feeds a barely believable form of erotico-Islamism that drives jihadists and gets other men to fantasize about escaping the sexual misery of everyday life. Suicide bombers or misogynists, they share the same dream.

What about the women allowed into the eternal garden? If men can have dozens of virgins, what of the women, especially considering the machismo of those earthbound dream-makers? The preachers’ responses can be amusing: The woman’s heavenly reward is to be her husband’s happy wife throughout eternity, the two of them destined to enjoy perpetual conjugal felicity, at the symbolic age of 33 and in good health. And if the woman is divorced? A preacher replies that she will be remarried to a dead man who was also divorced.

Curiously, this dream of a Muslim paradise finds itself confronted with another dream at once antagonistic and similar: the West. Generating passion or hatred for the Muslim believer and the jihadist alike, the West and its indulgences represent another facet of the post-mortem Muslim paradise. One dreams of going there, whether as migrant or as martyr. One dreams of going to the West and of living and dying there, or of subjugating and destroying it.

The new Muslim utopia weighs heavily on today’s Arab world. What motivates the masses, gives sense to their despair, lightens the weight of the world and compensates for sorrow no longer is the promise of a rich and happy country, as was the case after decolonization; it’s a vision of paradise in the afterlife. But this fantasy of eternal bliss also causes uneasiness: For however much one wishes to ignore this, the fact remains that in order to get to heaven, one first has to die.

Kamel Daoud, a columnist for Quotidien d’Oran, is the author of the novel “The Meursault Investigation.” This essay was translated by John Cullen from the French.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/opinion/paradise-the-new-muslim-utopia.html?ref=opinion

Obama Is Negotiating with Hitler's Iranian Spiritual Heirs

Other than developing a nuclear bomb in violation of Iran's commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the NPT, what else is Iran doing in violation of international law and of all decency? Our last post showed threats made by the present ayatollah government of Iran against the Jews of Israel. These threats violate UN Charter, Article 2:4. Some of these show an uncanny resemblance to Hitler's threats to annihilate the Jews, as shown in the previous post. So on those grounds alone there seems to be something wrong in negotiating with Iran as if somehow an agreement with the present ayatollahs' regime could bring about a peaceful resolution of Iran's quest for The Bomb in violation of the NPT. Part of the problem with Obama's negotiating stance --and that of the P5+1 powers as a whole-- is that they seldom if ever speak of the treaty violation embodied in the very quest by the ayatollahs' regime for a nuclear weapon.

Nevertheless, it would be helpful to display the threats that the present Iranian regime has made in order to properly appreciate the nature of the regime and its purposes. The threats were not only against Israel:

"Israel will disappear and the Western countries that defend it would do well to abandon it so that they themselves are not overwhelmed by the rage of hundreds of millions of Muslims. If the rage of the peoples of the region becomes a storm, it will not be contained within the boundaries of Lebanon and Palestine but will crash down on you too. Think of your own long term interests in the region. This is our final word."
[Muhammad Ahmadinejad 20 October 2006, quoted by Carlo Panella in Fascismo Islamico (Milan: Rizzoli 2007), pp 23-24. Also in Le Monde, 22-23 Octobre 2006; p4]

For those who want to check, here is the quote above as translated into Italian by Carlo Panella:

"Israele scomparirà e i Paesi occidentali che lo difendono faranno bene ad abbandonarlo per non essere essi stessi travolti dalla rabbia di centinaia di milioni di musulmani. Se la rabbia dei popoli della regione diventa una tempesta, non sarà contenuta nei confine del Libano e della Palestina, ma si abbaterà anche su di voi. Pensate ai vostri interessi a lungo termine nella regione. Questa è la nostra ultima parola." [Mohammed Ahmadinejad, 20 ottobre 2006, citato da Carlo Panella in Fascismo Islamico (Milan: Rizzoli 2007), pp 23-24]

Let's examine what Ahmadinejad said above. He made these threats against the Western countries, although the United States had helped the Khomeini regime take power in 1979 when Ahmadinejad was just a junior regime thug leader. France too had helped Khomeini by letting him take refuge in France before he came back to Iran. The US role was described by George Lenczowski in a piece in American Spectator circa 1981. A-jad threatens a storm against the Western countries, although some had helped the regime take power in Iran. He threatens Western interests in the Middle East, but he suggests that these interests will be protected if only the Western states collaborate in destroying Israel. This is explicit in another part of A-jad's statement of the same date. Addressing the UK and the USA, he says: "You . . .  brought into the Middle East this Israeli people of terrorists and enemies of religion [ie, of Islam]. You helped it to subdue the peoples of the region. The best thing now is for you yourselves to take it away." [Panella, op cit, p24]. The remark: "This is our final word," has a strong odor of Hitler's bombastic threats and ultimatums.

Unfortunately, some of Ahmadinejad's demagoguic lies are widely believed nowadays, so much so as to be what Max Nordau called "conventional lies of civilization." For the record, Jews have always lived in the Middle Easten region and in the Land of Israel in particular since the beginnings of the Jewish/Israelite people thousands of years ago. About half of Israel's Jewish population migrated from Muslim-ruled lands, including Iran where Jews were oppressed. So much for the UK and USA bringing Jews into the Middle East. Next, since Israel became independent in 1948 --which was opposed by the UK & USA-- they have usually favored and encouraged the Arab states and PLO against Israel. As of now, the USA and the EU to which the UK belongs contribute something like a billion dollars per year to the budget of the Palestinian Authority. One may add the millions donated by the EU and its member states to so-called non-governmental organizations besmirching Israel and undermining it in public opinion.

Finally, A-jad threatened Europe in particular. "The Americans are far away but you are the neighbors of the peoples of this region. . .  [If you support Israel, you must expect] the hatred of the peoples of the world. . . if the hurricane is unleashed, its effects will not be limited to the borders of Palestine and they will strike you."
[quoted in Panella, op cit, pp 24-25; also Le Monde, 22-23 Octobre 2006; p4]

This is the nature of the regime that Obama claims will restrain itself and keep an agreement if he conducts proper negotiations with it. Can Obama not know the thuggish, fascistic nature of the regime in Teheran?

France Is Rewarded for Its Pro-PLO Vote at the UN -- 12 Murdered

Unfortunately, sometimes our dismal and dreary predictions come true. My last blog post last week foresaw that France would be "rewarded" for its outrageous pro-PLO vote at the UN Security Council.

What we don't know is how the Arabs/Muslims in France will reward Hollande. Now, that France has voted at the Security Council in favor of an outrageous pro-PLO/PA Arab proposed resolution, maybe the days to come will bring more Muslim and Arab rewards for France. [here]

Now we see that terrorists, apparently professional killers, went into the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical weekly that several years ago published an issue mocking Muhammad and more recently published a cartoon mocking him. The attack was well-planned and the attackers knew things that were not generally known. The offices of Charlie Hebdo had been firebombed several years ago after the issue on Muhammad was published. The attackers knew the new address which was not supposed to be public knowledge. They also seemed to know that there was going to be an editorial staff meeting in the offices at the time that they attacked. They went around the office asking, Are you so-and-so [names of cartoonists, writers, editors, etc]? Those who answered, Yes, were shot and killed. Before entering the offices, the policeman guarding the entrance was shot. One of the terrorists came up to him as he lay on the ground and made sure he was dead with additional shots.

The terrorists made their motives clear. They screamed, Revenge for the Prophet Muhammad & Allahu Akbar.

On the way out, the terrorists commandeered a car, perhaps a police car. They fled from the offices of Charlie Hebdo on Boulevard Richard Lenoir in the 11th borough [arrondissement] of Paris to the 19th borough. The last that I heard was that they were surrounded by police in one of the suburbs, banlieues, of Paris.

President François Hollande arrived at the scene of the crime and was joined by other high officials. He said some of the expected platitudes, including a promise to pursue and catch the culprits. Will he understand that this event was a reward for voting in the UN Security Council in favor of setting up another Arab state to be called "Palestine," whereas the Palestinian Authority was not willing to agree that this state to be would exist at peace with Israel and that it would foreswear any future claims against Israel and would acknowledge that the Israel was a Jewish national state?

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Here are relevant links in French [ici] One of the attackers shouts that he took revenge for the sake of "the Prophet Muhammad" & "Charlie Hebdo is killed"
The cartoonists/writers who were murdered [ici]
François Hollande, president of France, calls this event "an act of exceptional barbarity"[ici]
Javier Solana, chief foreign affairs officer of the European Union, receives Arab/Muslim demands to censor European publications that are said to insult Islam [here]. Solana reminds  me very strongly of Pierre Laval. Solana traveled to Arab capitals to receive demands in the wake of the Muhammad Cartoons controversy and riots in late 2005 and early 2006.

Hamas' Strategy & France's Betrayal

How she sits forlorn.
The  City teeming with people
Became like a widow; . . . .
She  weeps and wails at night
With a tear on her cheek.
She has no comforter
Out of all her lovers.
All her friends betrayed her,
They became her enemies
Book of Lamentations, chap 1
ספר איכה א

Prime Minister Netanyahu thought that French president Hollande was his friend and Israel's friend. Compared to some earlier presidents of France like De Gaulle, Chirac and Giscard d'Estaing, that may be true. But Muslims, most of them considering themselves Arabs, make up around 20 % of France's population. In the years since the Oslo War (also called the Second Intifada) was instigated by Arafat, French Arabs and other French Muslims, have performed several murders of Jews in supposed retaliation for the hoax "killing" of young Muhammad al-Durah by Israeli forces at Netzarim Junction in Gaza on 30 September 2000. This hoax was produced by French and Palestinian Arab journalists working for France2, the French state TV network. The al-Durah hoax has never been officially repudiated or apologized for by France. President Hollande is not responsible for that hoax but he has not acted to alleviate its effect on public opinion, which has been mainly to agitate the French Muslims into more hatred of Jews than they had before.  And it incited them to act out their hatreds by burning synagogues, attacking and murdering Jewish individuals, etc.

How does this connect with Hamas and its strategy?

Hamas has felt emboldened since the US Government accepted and approved the Hamas-PLO-PA-Fatah unity government for the Palestinian Authority several months ago. It intensified its agitation for Arabs in Judea-Samaria and elsewhere to attack Jews and kidnap Jews. It also intensified the shooting of rockets and mortars at Israel. The first five months of 2014 saw more rockets and mortars shot at Israel than all of 2013.  In March, when talk began of a unity government for the Palestinian Authority between the PLO/Fatah and Hamas, the numbers went up to 64 rockets and one mortar, close to the number of 78 for all 2013. The numbers went down in April and May, perhaps not to disrupt American approval of the  unity govt, but shot up again in June, the month when Hamas members from the Hebron area kidnapped and murdered three Jewish teenagers, an act approved by Hamas although it disclaimed responsibility for it. The agitation by Hamas leaders and Muslim clerics associated with Hamas for such kidnappings is not cited often enough. In June the number of rockets shot up again to 62 and the mortars numbered 3. [numbers are from Maqor Rishon, 18 July 2014]

Hamas wanted to provoke Israel into a war. Hamas wanted to make it impossible for Israel to avoid a war. That is part of the strategy. In the war, Hamas' leaders would be safe in their underground tunnels and bunkers, while their rank and file subjects would be subject to legitimate Israeli military action to stop the firing of rockets aimed at Israel's civilian population. Hamas built a vast network of tunnels and bunkers crisscrossing throughout the Gaza Strip and going under the frontier under Israeli communities, under their fields, courtyards, schools and homes. Hamas used the tunnels and bunkers to store its vast arsenal of rockets and for attack purposes (intending to send terrorists to pop up out of the ground and kill and kidnap Israeli civilians and soldiers which has several times occurred) and as shelters for its leadership.

Ordinary Gaza Arabs could not use the tunnels as bomb shelters. They did not have bomb shelters. Hamas did not build bomb shelters for civilians. So in the kind of war that Hamas provoked Israel into, many of their own Gaza civilians would die. Which Hamas surely knew in advance. But that was a strategy. The deaths of civilians would be filmed and photographed and shown around the world. And Israel would have a terrible image from all that. Indeed Hamas would see to it that foreign news photographers, reporters and film cameramen would not film rocket launchers set up in civilian locations, such as next to hospitals and schools, including UNRWA schools, and in homes and apartments, nor the storage of rockets in UNRWA schools, in mosques and other civilian locations.

The cameramen and photographers were intimidated by Hamas into not filming or photographing these violations of the laws of war. Some who violated Hamas' rules for news coverage have been forced to leave Gaza. Oddly, although forbidding filming of rocket launchers in civilian locations, Hamas also shot rockets from near journalists during live broadcasts, leading to the reporter fleeing in fear. Such events have been seen several times on TV, although the rocket launchers themselves did not appear on screen. For instance, Hamas shot rockets from near France24 reporter Gallagher Fenwick during a live broadcast, which I and other TV viewers saw. Fenwick fled in fear and then told what had happened. But the rockets and the launcher were not seen. Other examples have been broadcast too, one involving a woman reporter for an Arab network. These shootings invited Israeli retaliation, thus they endangered the journalists. But in general journalists toe the Hamas line and present scene after scene of civilian suffering in Gaza. The numbers of civilian deaths are supplied by Hamas government  agencies, such as the Gaza Health Ministry, as well as by international bodies known to be hostile to Israel, such as UNRWA and the Red Cross [international committee of the Red Cross, a Swiss govt agency] which in any event get their numbers from Hamas.

 This picture of the war deliberately produced by Hamas and its media collaborators and psywar advisors has been shown worldwide leading to numerous demonstrations and riots, as in Paris and other places in France. In France, Islamist fanatics have been joined by so-called anti-capitalists, self-styled true blue Marxists. The Bolsheviks showed their fondness for aggressive Muslims as far back as 1917.   France has seen several cases where supposed protest demonstrations against the Gaza War have turned into anti-Jewish riots, attacking synagogues in Paris, Sarcelles and elsewhere, or have turned into plain riots, and where Islamist demonstrators have attacked and tried to disrupt pro-Israel demonstrations.

These riots could  not have failed to make an impact on French policy. Curiously,  in cases where demonstrations had been banned by the legal and police authorities, the organizers who called for going ahead with the demonstrations despite the ban have not been arrested. And the so-called New Anti-Capitalist Party was  guilty of calling for violation of the law in that way, which is also called sedition. But the party leaders were not arrested as far as I know. Since Hollande's govt has failed to solve France's economic problems, which are probably not solvable without drastic reforms in the labor laws, among other reforms, which would be opposed by the trade unions, part of his political base and constituency, he does not want to lose any more popular or institutional support, and certainly not from the "Left." Therefore he does not enforce the law against the "New Anti-Capitalist Party."

Now the Hamas strategy was to have large numbers of its own people killed in legitimate Israeli acts of self-defense. And the scenes of death and destruction would be seen worldwide and produce anger against Israel and pressure for foreign intervention of various sorts, especially intervention by great powers, the UN, etc. Meanwhile, Hamas was committing the double war crime of attacking Israeli civilians while using its own civilians as human shields.

Hamas' strategy has succeeded. Today, August 4, France capitulated to the Islamist-cum-"marxist" mobs and pro-Hamas agitprop. Hollande himself called Israel's actions in Gaza a "massacre", comparing Israel's war of self-defense to massacres in Iraq and Syria. And his foreign minister, Fabius, advocated imposing a settlement on Israel and the Arabs, despite what either side may want. Actually, several state members of the EU and EU functionaries have been speaking of an imposed settlement for a long time. They really mean a settlement or "peace" imposed on Israel because many of the Euro politicians and foreign ministries and the EU's own foreign affairs commission in Brussels hate Israel which represents their own bad conscience over the Holocaust, and would like to turn the moral tables on the Jews by showing that the Jews/Zionists are really Nazis. And then their own consciences would be clean and they would have validated the Nazi genocide of the Jews ex post facto. This is important not only to Germany but to many EU states, almost all of which took part in the Holocaust directly or indirectly.

Hamas itself has a Nazi-like ideology aimed at mass murder of the Jews. But somehow the oh so clever Europeans, and some Americans too, can't read the Hamas charter, several times translated into English and other languages. Or they have read it and they like what it has to say.

UPDATINGS 5 August 2014
Interesting article on Hamas strategy by Prof Gregory Rose [here]

Film by Indian NDTV news crew shows rocket being assembled and fired near residential buildings and hotels in Gaza [here].
I hope that the fellows who made the film stay safe and are not harassed for having told the truth which sometimes seems so elusive for the Western press.
I just found out that the Indian news team left Gaza. Here is a report from them after leaving.

8 August 2014
Statement by Colonel Richard Kemp on Hamas tactics of sacrificing its own civilians and on the IDF's efforts to spare civilian life [here ]. Statement delivered at the UN Human Rights Commission  in Geneva.
11 August 2014
Hamas training manual explains the importance of  using human shields [here]&[here]&[here]

Is Islamism Fascism? -- Martin Kramer Presents the Analyses for of Manfred Halpern, Maxime Rodinson, & Said Amir Arjomand

Can we really, honestly describe Islamism as fascistic or a form of fascism?

Martin Kramer quotes Manfred Halpern:

The neo-Islamic totalitarian movements are essentially fascist movements. They concentrate on mobilizing passion and violence to enlarge the power of their charismatic leader and the solidarity of the movement. They view material progress primarily as a means for accumulating strength for political expansion, and entirely deny individual and social freedom. They champion the values and emotions of a heroic past, but repress all free critical analysis of either past roots or present problems.

Halpern continued:

Like fascism, neo-Islamic totalitarianism represents the institutionalization of struggle, tension, and violence. Unable to solve the basic public issues of modern life—intellectual and technological progress, the reconciliation of freedom and security, and peaceful relations among rival sovereignties—the movement is forced by its own logic and dynamics to pursue its vision through nihilistic terror, cunning, and passion. An efficient state administration is seen only as an additional powerful tool for controlling the community. The locus of power and the focus of devotion rest in the movement itself. Like fascist movements elsewhere, the movement is so organized as to make neo-Islamic totalitarianism the whole life of its members.

See Martin Kramer here. Kramer also quotes Maxime Rodinson & Said Amir Arjomand to the same effect.

I would point out that Joseph Schumpeter writes about Arab imperialism as one form of the phenomenon in his book on the subject.

Many researchers have written books and articles on Arab-Nazi collaboration:

Daniel Carpi, Elias Cooper, Martin Cuppers, Zvi El-Peleg, Jonathan C Friedman, Klaus Gensicke, Elliott A Green, Sylvia Haim, Lukasz Hirszowicz, Elie Kedourie, Majid Khadduri (1960), Mathias Kuentzel, Bernard Lewis, Klaus-Michael Mallmann,Rafael Medoff, Robert Melka, Milos Mendel, Joseph Nevo, Francis Nicosia, Monte Penkower, Anwar Sadat (1957), Joseph Schechtman, George H Stein, Simon Wiesenthal, & David Yisraeli.

Obama White House Promotes Islamism in Egypt & Turkey

UPDATING 1-8&9&10-2011 at bottom

It has been obvious since Obama's inauguration, if not before, that his policy, foreign and domestic, was going to be openly pro-Muslim. His inauguration speech told us that the American people were made up of "Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus." This was a new departure in that Jews have long been and most likely were still at that time a larger group in the American population than Muslims were. Interviews that he gave after his inauguration confirmed this impression and his pro-Muslim stance was openly expressed in speeches in Ankara and Cairo. The Cairo speech was full of groundless flattery for Islam's supposedly beneficial impact on the world and its culture. But historical falsifications to flatter the Islamic ego were no problem for someone who had already bowed down low before the Saudi king.

The other side of the coin of flattering Muslims was a harsh attitude toward Israel and the rights of Jews, particularly the right to settle throughout the Land of Israel, enshrined in international law in the mandate that the League of Nations gave to the UK to administer this country.

Now, with the Egyptian crisis, we see that Washington, led by Obama, has been pushing the Egyptian govt to bring the Muslim Brotherhood, tantamount to a fascistic organization & Nazi collaborators as far back as the 1930s, into Egypt's government. The Obama crowd coyly referred to the MB as "non-secular" forces in Egyptian society. The Obama crowd doesn't want to acknowledge that the disease, Mubarak's tyranny, could be less bad than the cure, a government in which the Muslim Brotherhood has major influence. David Horovitz, editor of the Jerusalem Post, perceives the dangers involved in Obama's pro-Muslim Brotherhood moves in Egypt:

. . . the White House's subsequent reported moves to legitimate Egypt's Islamists -- whose outlook conflicts utterly with the democratic agenda -- make no sense, and suggest a frighteningly superficial understanding of the Muslim Brotherhood's intentions and potential achievements.

Far from learning the lessons of the Islamists' skilled subversion of other pro-democracy movements, working with potential leaders of an Egyptian transition to minimize the risk of such a process recurring, and making publicly plain that there will be no ongoing American alliance with an Egypt in which an unreformed Islamist movement has even a marginal role in government, the White House seems to be actively encouraging a transitional outreach to the Muslim Brotherhood [JPost 2-6-2011]

Fiamma Nirenstein has called Obama a "bull in the Mideast china shop." That description is fitting. We could also call him and Hilary "little children playing with matches." The fires that they might set could burn away not only tyrannical regimes in Arab lands. The Muslim Brotherhood in power would be in position to cause wars between Arabs and Israel, between Arabs and Arabs, and between Arabs and European states on the other side of the Mediterranean.

Besides striving to get the Muslim Brotherhood a seat in Egypt's government, Obama & Co. have been urging the European Union over the past two years to accept Turkey as a member, although Turkey has been moving more and more in an Islamist direction ever since Erdogan's AKP party took over the country in late 2002. Obama's collaboration with Turkey was also involved in the fake "Gaza Freedom Flotilla" which sought to end the blockade of the Hamas regime in Gaza [they too are Islamists]. A few weeks after the dramatic event on the Turkish Islamist-run ship, the Mavi Marmara, one of Obama's political friends in DC gave the Woodrow Wilson public service award to the Turkish foreign minister, Davutoglu. [on the Mavi Marmara & the pro-Hamas "Freedom Flotilla," see posts on this blog from late May through June].

Fiamma Nirenstein points out that the results of the Turkish referendum in September 2010 clearly show that Turkey is moving closer to Iran than to Europe [unless maybe Europe is going in the same direction?]. Yet, she goes on, Western political elites in Brussels at the EU headquarters and in Washington perceive the increase in power for the Islamist govt of Erdogan as "democratization" and such like Good Things. [here in English translation below the Italian original].

Other articles from the Italian press on the same issue [qui]

What the Muslim Brotherhood stands for in its own words [here]

Barry Rubin on Obama's role in the Egyptian crisis [here]

Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini on the prospect of a MB takeover of Egypt [from the Italian ANSA press service]:

EGYPT: ITALY'S FM, NO TO RADICAL ISLAMISM IN POWER

31 January , 11:08

(ANSAmed) - BRUSSELS, JANAURY 31 - "We do not want a solution that leads to radical Islamism finding itself in power". This is according to the Italian Foreign Minister, Franco Frattini, who has arrived at the EU Council in Brussels for talks on the Egyptian crisis. [Frattini added] "this would not be democracy". [ANSAmed here]

It seems like Obama's radical stance demanding inclusion of the MB in a transitional govt and the immediate departure of Mubarak, a stance since softened, had Italy --and no doubt some other EU states-- spooked. This is despite Frattini's diplomatic pretense that Italy, the EU and the USA all shared the same position. Angela Merkel too expressed apprehension that radical Islamists might take over Egypt. Her foreign minister Westerwelle had joined the USA-UK position that Mubarak had to get out right away, contradicting her. But Westerwelle too, like the French leaders, was probably just being diplomatic by showing a unified position with the USA.
- - - - - - - -
UPDATING 2-8-2011 Barry Rubin on foolishness about the uprising in Egypt [here]. Interfaith, freedom revolutions don't always work out in favor of freedom, as in the Young Turks' uprising in 1908.
2-8-2011 ANSA, Italian Press Agency -- The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance of the EU issued a report on Turkish ill treatment of minorities, mentioning particularly the Kurds and the Rom [Gypsies] [qui].
2-9-2011 Jeff Jacoby on the inacceptability of the Muslim Brotherhood in any position of power in Egypt [here]
Lee Smith on the dangers the MB and of one of its co-thinkers, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, exiled from Egypt for years and a "popular" star on al-Jazeera TV. Qaradawi's incitement of hatred and his disingenuous doubletalk are "popular" on the Qatari station [here]
George Jonas on al-Barada`i, the MB and Obama [here]
2-10-2011 Michael Young on how the structure of the present Egyptian regime cannot be overlooked or bent to Obama's current whims [here]

Hamas Regulates Ladies' Lingerie

Another scene of mass deprivation in Gaza. This photo appeared on Yahoo next to a sensational, spicey story about Hamas' interest in Ladies' Lingerie as a possible demonstration of immodesty and immorality. The photo is of interest too as it shows a sidewalk formed of checkered, smooth paving stones, something you might expect to find on Rodeo Drive in LA or on Fifth Avenue in New York. The Via Condotti in Rome has nothing like it, as I noted the last time that I visited there.


Click here for photo in larger format.

Hamas targets women's underwear in modesty drive
28 July 2010

GAZA (Reuters) – The Islamist rulers of the Gaza Strip have ordered lingerie shops to display more modesty.

A week after banning women from smoking water pipes in public places, the Hamas-run police force has told stores selling women's underwear to remove scantily-clad mannequins and any posters of racy undergarments.

"These measures have stemmed from complaints and pressure by ordinary people. They have to do with upholding our traditions," police spokesman Ayman Al-Batniji said Wednesday.

Hamas leaders have repeatedly denied any intention to impose Islamic law on the Gaza Strip, home to 1.5 million Palestinians.

But Hamas police have broken up a hip-hop concert in the territory and tried -- unsuccessfully -- to force women lawyers in court and female school students to wear traditional Muslim clothing, a step that drew a public backlash.

Hamas's modesty moves were widely seen by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as attempts to mollify more conservative Islamic factions that have accused the movement of failing to uphold Islamic Sharia.
- - - - - - end of article - - - see original article here - - -

This article needs little comment, although I do point again to the photo as a sign of prosperity or maybe just some petit bourgeois inclinations on the part of the good burghers of Gaza City. There may well be some economic deprivation in Gaza. But is it Israel's fault?

- - - - - - - - -
MORE ON GAZA
An Egyptian reporter tells us that Gaza is in the midst of economic good times [here], especially for the wealthy and the nouveau riche [source MEMRI].
And getting back to the Turkish Thug Armada supported by the "free gaza movement" run by Obama's friends and sympathizers [like Jodie Evans, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, etc], here is what some say in Gaza:
"Gaza Health Ministry Officials Complain that Medical Donations Supplied by Aid Convoys Are Past Their Expiry Date or Otherwise Useless" [see video here source MEMRI]. Remarkably, I was told this back in early June by an Israeli army official of the COGAT [the unit that inspects and supervises delivery of supplies to Gaza]. He said that COGAT had inspected the "humanitarian supplies" brought on the Turkish Thug Armada which its ignorant supporters in the West called "the Gaza Freedom Flotilla," and that the medications supplied had either expired back in April or were about to expire in July. Now we are in July, actually near its end. And what do we hear? Gaza health officials echo the words of the COGAT representative.

The Not So Peaceful "peace activists" and the Legality of Stopping Blockade Runners in International Waters

UPDATINGS 6-2 & 7-16-2010at bottom

The purpose of the peace process is peace of mind for antisemites.

Here's a pix of one of those peaceful peace activists in the Gaza pro-terrorism flotilla. Note the wide-bladed knife in his right hand. Yet, some people in the West think that the circa 800 passengers on the pro-terrorism convoy were all Nobel Prize winners [shame on that Corrigan woman!] and 80 year-old "Holocaust survivors." It is questionable just in what way that woman was a Holocaust survivor. She got out of Germany before the war.

This photo was on ynet
[here]. Our bloodthirsty knifewielder appears more clearly and larger with his knife on the ynet, nrg, and Point of No Return sites. This throwback to the Middle Ages is a prominent activist in the Yemeni flotilla delegation who were three MPs from the Al-Islah party, an Islamist party that is close to the Muslim Brotherhood. Our ferocious hound in the photo is one, Sheikh Muhammad Al-Hazmi. He was photographed on the deck of the Mavi Marmara brandishing his large curved dagger, having just arrived in a time machine from the 7th century.

But, despite the evidence,

. . . Bulent Yildirim, President of IHH, in response to Israeli military preparations said, “Let them do whatever they want in order to prepare for our arrival. We are not even carrying one little jackknife. We are purely a civilian and humanitarian initiative. We are not involved in politics . . . . We are not doing anything of criminal nature. . . [here].

Actually, the violent ambush of the naval commandos took place only on the largest ship, the Turkish Mavi Marmara with an estimated 600 passengers. The other ships did not violently resist. Note that Arab/Muslim passengers chanted the Judeophobic battle cry,

Khaybar Khaybar ya Yahud,
Jaysh Muhammad sa ya`ud.

Khaybar Khaybar O Jews,
The army of Muhammad will return for sure.

This is meant to intimidate Jews, threatening them with the fate of the Jews of the Khaybar oasis in northern Arabia who were slaughtered, enslaved, and dispossessed by Muhammad's Muslim forces after a 7th century attack of aggression. The governments now ruling northern Arabia, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, do not allow Jews to live in their territory.

As with any Israeli effort at self-defense, taking over the pro-Hamas flotilla sent on its way by the Islamist govt of Turkey has met a huge mass of Eurohypocrisy, especially European hypocrisy, although the Turks too are quite capable of hypocrisy.

Now let us look at the main body sponsoring the "peace for terrorists" convoy. It is the IHH (The Foundation for Human Rights and Humanitarian Relief [the initials IHH are based on the Turkish name = Insan Hak ve Hurriyetleri Insani Yardim Vakfi]), which now operates under Turkish govt supervision.

Here are some disturbing facts about IHH, the prominent 'NGO' among the Flotilla organizers and participants: (compiled by Josh Hantman)

1. Famed French counter-terrorism magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere found that in the mid 1990's the IHH president conspired to recruit members for jihad. CIA reports have linked them with extremist groups in Algeria and Iran.

2. Jean-Louis Bruguiere also testified to a U.S. Court that the IHH played a "central role" in the attempted Al Qaida Millenium bomb plot targeting LAX, the main airport in LA.

3. During the Iraqi war, IHH funneled funds to insurgents in a Sunni dominated area of central Iraq. These were funds used to kill American soldiers in Iraq.

4. In December 1997, Turkish authorities began a criminal investigation into IHH when sources revealed to them that the IHH had purchased semi-automatic weapons from Islamic militant groups. Inside the bureau an array of items were found: "firearms, explosives, bomb-making instructions and a jihadi flag."

5. The IHH continue to cooperate closely with Hamas, including joint press conferences and close collaboration regarding the Flotilla. As early as this morning (May 30^th), from within the Flotilla itself we heard the possessed cries of the 'peace activists' chanting repeatedly: "Khaybar Khaybar ya Yahud". This chant refers to the battle which took place in Khaybar oasis, 150 km north of Medina in Saudi Arabia, in 628. It refers to a battle – led by Muhammad – which resulted in the slaughtering of 100 Jews combined with the humiliation and surrender of the rest, including the imposition of the infamous poll tax on non-Muslims.

To this day the battle is regarded as a model which Islamic extremists desire. According to this model, the Jews have a right to live under Muslim regimes but in return they have to pay taxes. If the Jews go beyond "rules of the game", the meaning is clear. The anti-Semitic chants echoing through the Flotilla this morning were just the tip of the iceberg.

Many of the assertions above are documented in these two files below.
A Danish think tank [research group] provides data on IHH [here pdf].

The Investigative Project supplies data on IHH based in part on a prosecution of Islamists in the United States [here]

Ties between Hamas and IHH are shown and detailed here on the Hurry Up, Harry blog. Note the delirium of the Turkish crowd yearning for an intifada battle with Israel [see video on blog post]. Before the Six Day War the mob in Cairo was likewise delirious in anticipation of war with Israel which the mobs hoped would be the final victory over the Jews. For those who were not around at the time --and for those who forgot-- the mobs in Cairo were carrying large cloth posters with the skull & crossbones painted on them. They were yearning for death, at least for the Jews.

The San Remo Manual of international law regarding armed conflicts at sea shows that Israel was justified to board these blockade-running pro-terrorist boats at sea, even beyond international waters. Clause 67(a) says:
"67. Merchant vessels flying the flag of neutral States may not be attacked unless they:

"(a) are believed on reasonable grounds to be carrying contraband or breaching a blockade, and after prior warning they intentionally and clearly refuse to stop, or intentionally and clearly resist visit, search or capture;"

UPDATING6-2-2010 Researcher Evan Kohlmann, author of the study for the Danish think tank linked to above, updates his research [here]
Youssef Ibrahim of the New York Sun, formerly of the NYTimes, smells the stench of antisemitism [here]

Lee Smith explains Israel's strategic dilemma in regard to blockading Hamas-misruled Gaza:

"UNIFIL is supposed to be preventing arms shipments to Hezbollah [in Lebanon according to Security Council resolution 1701], but is not doing the job or else the Israeli navy would not have had to apprehend the Francop [a weapons-carrying ship from Iran to Hizbullah]. There is no UNIFIL for Gaza and hence wiithout a blockade the Iranians and Syrians could send basically anything they wanted, including many weapons they can't get through the tunnels, not least of all because the Egyptians don't want, for instance, scuds on their border either. Moreover, the blockade is what will ensure that Iran cannot harden its nuclear program by sending nuclear material to Gaza - as it may very well to Lebanon."

Lee Smith is author of the new book about the Middle East, The Strong Horse.

- - - - - - - - - - -

UPDATING 7-16-2010 New York Times finally reports on the ties of the IHH, the backers of the Turkish Thug Armada, to the AK Party of Turkish prime minister Erdogan and how those returning from the armada adventure were welcomed home by high officials after the incident occurred [here]

Western Great Powers Give Iran One Last Chance on Its Nuclear Program -- in 2003!!

UPDATING 1-4 & 11 & 12 & 13 & 20 & 3-3 & 4 & 4-21-2010

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

One of the good things about reading old newspapers is that, if you're still alive and kicking and the world still spinning on its axis, then the terrible things that the old paper reported are really not all that bad. You can look back at the horrors and crimes of the past and take satisfaction in still being alive. Another thing is that old newspaper articles can illuminate what is happening now as you read. I found a good example of that in a report from September 10, 2003, in Avvenire, that I came across just lately. Germany, Great Britain and France, I learned, wanted to give Iran a "last chance" to prove that it was fulfilling its commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT] and was not developing nuclear weapons. And these powers had persuaded the United States to agree that the IAEA [international atomic energy agency] should give Iran one last chance. US ambassador Kenneth Brill, who sits on the IAEA's council of governors, announced that the US had been persuaded by other member states sitting on the council of governors

"to give Iran a last chance to stop its evasions."
[ I had at first translated Brill's statement fromthe Italian translation back into English. I have since found the original English text (quoted just above) here & here]

So the Agency governors decided that Iran has "till the end of October, 2003," to prove that it is not in non-fulfillment of its obligations under the NPT. That's very reassuring to read now in the first days of 2010. After all, the same thing, the same last chance, several times repeated, has been given to the Iranians and is being given again. So the "last chance" was given over and over. Yet, I and whoever reads this is still alive. So maybe things aren't so bad.

Now, what sort of regime was in power in Iran that the West was treating so leniently? It was a very Judeophobic regime. It was a regime that hated Israel. It was also a regime that had come to power with the help of the Carter administration in the United States, that is, with the help of president jimmah carter and his national insecurity advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, both of them fervent haters of Israel.

Then, the Iranian Islamist regime, at first headed by Ayatollah Khomeini, had sent assassins abroad to kill Iranian opponents of the regime, Ali Akbar Tabatabai, Shapur Bakhtiar, and others. There is a list of 58 assassination attempts --mostly successful-- outside Iran, perpetrated by Islamic Republic agents. The list includes names of places and victims, intended and unintended, of assassination. The victims were mostly Iranians living abroad, opponents of the regime, but included several non-Iranians, among them translators of Salman Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses, as well as collateral victims. The murders were perpetrated on orders of the regime. The total number of victims is several more than 58 [here]. Some of the victims were murdered in the United States and France, although both states had done much to make Khomeini's return to Iran possible. That is not very nice international behavior. But Iran didn't care about offending and the West did not seem especially offended, not even states where such murders had been perpetrated by Iranian agents.

We cannot forget the countless people killed by the regime within Iran, although we don't know their names. On the other hand, the death sentence issued by Khomeini against the novelist Salman Rushdie was notorious. Rushdie has been living in hiding from Iranian assassins for more than 20 years. His offense was Islamic blasphemy, which Khomeini, Ahmadinajad and their gang wanted to forbid even in non-Muslim countries. It's curious how few Western intellectuals were willing to stand up for Rushdie's freedom of speech, even while he was living in Britain. Rushdie's life is still in danger. None of this brought the Western great powers to strongly oppose the Iranian regime. After all, the United States and France had served as midwives for the regime of Ayatollah Khomeini and his gang.

The Judeophobia of the Khomeini regime and its Lebanese satellite, Hizbollah, known at first in the West as "The Party of God" [the literal translation of Hizbollah], is notorious. A Hizbollah paper in Lebanon wrote, in reaction to the French elections of 1987 [or 1988?] that "The Jewish microbe is everywhere" [Le microbe juif est partout]. This was because the elections did not turn out as Hizbollah/Iran had wanted, for which they blamed the Jewish voters in France. [This was published in LeFigaro at that time].

But the really strong expressions of hatred of Jews [stronger even than those before] appeared on 20 October 2006 when Ahmadinajad warned

"Israel will disappear . . . [because of] the rage of hundreds of millions of Muslims"

He described the Israeli people as

terrorists and enemies of religion [= Islam].
[quoted by Carlo Panella in Fascismo Islamico (Milan: Rizzoli 2007), pp 23-24.

This is a case of projection where Islamic fanatics project their own character on others, particularly on their designated enemies. Ahmadinajad also lied in that same speech about Britain and the United States creating Israel, a lie that fit in conveniently with what walt-mearsheimer were saying at the time. All this was known about Ahmadinajad and his regime in 2006, yet the "last chances," which were being given already in 2003, continued to be given. US secretary of state, Colin Powell, appointed by George W Bush, declared himself "open to dialogue" with Iran in 2003 [Corriere della Sera, 31 December 2003]. Likewise, candidate, later president, Barak Hussein Obama, declared that he was eager for dialogue, smart diplomacy, and negotiations with Iran in the years 2008 and 2009. So last chances go back more than six years from now, as does openness to dialogue.

This was all notwithstanding the Iranian boasts over the years of military advances, specifically in long-range rocket development, as well as in nuclear development. These rockets can reach Europe, not to mention Israel. What have all the attempts to placate Islamist Iran achieved? Iran recently declared that it would develop ten new uranium enrichment sites [International Herald Tribune, 30 November 2009].

The Iranian government responded defiantly Sunday [11-29-2009] to an international call for a halt in its uranium enrichment work by vowing to do the opposite, as it approved a plan to build ten additional enrichment facilities.
[IHT, 11-30-2009]

It sure as hell looks like the major Western powers want Iran to have The bomb. We forecast in June 2007 that that was the case. Unfortunately, it looks more and more as if we were right.

We will leave for another time the consideration of the motives for Western appeasement of Islamic fundamentalist Iran.
- - - - - - - - - - -

For previous articles on this issue on the Emet m'Tsiyon blog see here & here & here & here
- - - - - - - - - - -
UPDATINGS 1-12-2010 more links to articles on this issue: Jonathan Tobin on Commentary's Contentions blog [here]
Rick Richman follows up on Tobin [here]. So after more than six [6] years of missed "deadlines" or deadlines that never died, Obama and his partners in facilitating an Iranian bomb are still missing their own deadlines.
1-13-2010 Iranians believe that the Iranian regime murdered the recently assassinated Iranian physicist in Teheran, using some of their Hizbollah agents [here].
1-20-2010 The Saudis are worried about increasing Iranian hegemony in the Middle East, according to Lee Smith [He quotes the following words from a pre-Obama American official] : “'. . . what the Saudis were really concerned about. The number one issue in Riyadh is Iran.' . . .
'. . . the Saudi line,' the former [American] official said, 'was this: ‘Americans, are you going to do anything about our number one issue? If not, we will go our own road.’” [here]
Rick Richman [Commentary blog, 3-3-2010] points out the fatuousness of Obama's Iran bomb policy, guided perhaps by Zbig Brzezinski's mad dreams of "deterrence" of a bomb-equipped Iran [here]. Zbig of course wants the mad mullahs to have the bomb. Why not? He helped them take power as Carter's national insecurity advisor. When Carl Foreman's film, Dr Strangelove, came out in the early sixties, the character of Strangelove was widely believed to be based on Henry Kissinger. Actually, Zbig fits the bill just as well as Dr K does. He too loves the bomb.
3-4-2010 More good cheer from Washington and New York on the Iranian bomb threat, by Emmanuele Ottolenghi [here]
4-21-2010 Jennifer Rubin thinks that the Obama crowd is still procrastinating about The Iranian Bomb[here].

Ignoramus Western Journalists and Commentators View Hizbullah Romantically as the "Real" Lebanon

Western observers both living inside and outside of Lebanon often delight in seeing Hizbullah as the real, the authentic, the truly Third Worldish Lebanon, a land of austerity, hatred of the West, incorruptible hatred of Israel and Jews, swift and sure punishment of religious backsliders, enemies of bourgeois Western civilization, etc. This Authentic Lebanon is contrasted with the Lebanon of bourgeois prosperity & luxury, adoption of features of Western culture, insufficient hatred of Israel, free market economy, and the like. Michael Young perceptively complains about the wilful blindness about Lebanon so often compulsively demonstrated and deployed by Western observers, journalists, commentators, diplomats, policy analysts, politicians, etc.

Hizbullah also benefits from the underlying contempt among many Westerners for the baroque Lebanese system itself, all nods and winks and clandestine compromises. Here is a party that can build institutions, that means what it says and says what it means, and that in many respects defines itself against the duplicity of the traditional politicians. More interestingly, it speaks for a once marginalized community, so that it presents several ingredients to spur Western sympathy and appreciation: a social cause, methodicalness in the pursuit of its objectives, an institutional structure transcending the narrow retail politics of most Lebanese leaders, rhetorical precision, and purported honesty.

And then there is authenticity. Hizbullah is widely seen as representing a truer Lebanon than the Lebanon of confused identities lying outside the party's realm. Remember how the media in 2005 translated the emancipation movement against Syria. For three weeks after the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the story was that of a liberal Lebanon revolting against an illiberal Syria and its Lebanese peons, a rare occasion during the post-Civil War period when that narrative dominated. However, its fragility was highlighted on March 8, when Hizbullah organized its mass demonstration at Riad al-Solh square. Suddenly, interpretations shifted. The "real Lebanon" had spoken, observers said, and it had spoken with verve, so that the anti-Syrian demonstrators of the weeks before, with their Occidental pretensions and designer clothes, were now dismissed as creations of the Western media. Then March 14 came, confusing the observers further and resurrecting the liberal plot line, if not for very long.

The irony is that the very attributes that make many Westerners so belittle the
Lebanese political and social order in Hizbullah's favor are actually present in Hizbullah in more concentrated ways. The Lebanese system is archaic, undemocratic and sectarian? Well then what do you call a Shiite Leninist organization, led by a leader who will probably remain in office for life, that calls itself the Party of God? And what reaction do one's Western liberal instincts provoke when that centralized religious party glorifies violent self-sacrifice and makes permanent armed struggle a centerpiece of its ideological mindset, mainly on behalf of an autocratic clerical regime in Iran, its Lebanese authenticity notwithstanding? As for corruption, those who see Hizbullah as spotless should learn a trifle more about the party's illicit networks, or those of individuals close to the party. In that regard, we can say that Hizbullah is as Lebanese as anyone else.
[Beirut Daily Star, 4-16 -2009].

Of course, the notion of Hizbullah as being opposed to Western policy is false and always has been. The Hizb was set up by the Khomeini regime in Iran which was helped to take power precisely by the US Carter Administration of cursed memory זכרונו לקללה . It must be said that "leftist" politicians in the West are usually the readiest to praise and sympathize with the Hizb. But essentially, "leftists" like Massimo d'Alema do not necessarily oppose the mainstream policy of the UK, US, & EU regarding Lebanon --or that regarding Iran for that matter [on d'Alema (former Communist foreign minister of Italy under Prodi), vedere qui & qui] .

Consider that if reports on Lebanon are falsified, whether out of prejudice which cannot or does not want to understand or perceive the reality of the country, or out of conscious lying in order to suit a newspaper's or magazine's or TV network's or government's political prejudices, then reports about Israel can be falsified for the same reasons. And even more so --a fortiori-- on account of traditional Western Judeophobia.

Just by the way, all this loving misunderstanding of Hizbullah is adding up to Western recognition of the Hizb's rightful rule over Lebanon. Who would have thought?

Lebanon: The West is ready to deal and negotiate with Hizbullah, in case it wins the parliamentary elections in June, according to the Hizbullah number 2, Shaykh Na`im Kassem. Hassan Nasrallah's right hand man stated that "the Western countries are falling all over each other to talk to us and will do it more so in the future." He insisted that his party did not fear being boycotted by the international community as was the case with Hamas in 2006.[GuysenNews 4-16-2009]

Liban : l'Occident est prêt à traiter avec le Hezbollah, en cas de victoire aux législatives de juin, selon son n°2, le cheikh Naïm Kassem. Le bras droit de Hassan Nasrallah a déclaré que ''les pays occidentaux se bousculent pour nous parler et le feront davantage à l'avenir''. Il a insisté sur le fait que son parti ne craignait pas d'être
boycotté par la communauté internationale comme ce fut le cas avec le Hamas en 2006. [GuysenNews 4-16-2009]

Now isn't this just heartwarming news? The Western powers are going to be oh so liberal, kind, democratic, generous and peace-loving as to work with the Hizbullah IslamoNazis!! It seems that they have come a long way since their 1938 negotiations with Hitler that brought about World War 2 only because Hitler had misunderstood his peace accord with that nice Mr Chamberlain!!

Background to Mumbai -- More than 1370 years of Arab & Muslim assaults on India

UPDATING 11-30-2008 at bottom

The Mumbai terrorist assault of the past few days can be added to previous Islamist atrocities, including the Mumbai commuter trains [2006], the London bus & subway bombings of 2005, the Madrid commuter train bombings [2004], and Bali and Istanbul and Baghdad [over and over], and last but not least, 9-11. Since the usual suspects and other culprits have already started the "root causes" game, that is, that the "real" cause is either Israel or Indian discrimination against Muslims or whatever, it is necessary to go back into history in order to see that Arab and other Muslim assaults on India go back to the earliest days of Islam. Andrew Bostom provides the historical perspective so often missing in the Mainstream Mass Media. An excerpt from Bostom's article follows below:

Rarely understood, let alone acknowledged, however, is the history of brutal jihad conquest, Muslim colonization, and the imposition of dhimmitude shared by the Jews of historical Palestine, and the Hindus of the Indian subcontinent. Moreover, both peoples and nations also have in common, a subsequent, albeit much briefer British colonial legacy, which despite its own abuses, abrogated the system of dhimmitude (permanently for Israel and India, if not, sadly, for their contemporary Muslim neighboring states), and created the nascent institutions upon which thriving democratic societies have been constructed. Sir Jadunath Sarkar (d. 1958), the preeminent historian of Mughal India, wrote with admiration in 1950 of what the Jews of Palestine had accomplished once liberated from the yoke of dhimmitude. The implication was clear that he harbored similar hopes for his own people.

"Palestine, the holy land of the Jews, Christians and Islamites, had been turned into a desert haunted by ignorant poor diseased vermin rather than by human beings, as the result of six centuries of Muslim rule. (See Kinglake's graphic description). Today Jewish rule has made this desert bloom into a garden, miles of sandy waste have been turned into smiling orchards of orange and citron, the chemical resources of the Dead Sea are being extracted and sold, and all the amenities of the modern civilised life have been made available in this little Oriental country. Wise Arabs are eager to go there from the countries ruled by the Shariat. This is the lesson for the living history." [1] [quote from Sarkar]

Earlier, I reviewed at length the legacy of Muslim jihad conquest and imposition of the Shari'a in historical Palestine. The current essay provides a schematic overview of the same phenomena in India, focusing on the major periods of Muslim conquest, colonization, and rule.

A Millennium of Jihad and Dhimmitude on the Indian Subcontinent

The 570 year period between the initial Arab Muslim razzias (ordered by Caliph Umar) to pillage Thana (on the West Indian coast near Maharashtra) in 636—637 C.E., and the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate (under Qutub—ud—din Aibak, a Turkish slave soldier), can be divided into four major epochs: (I) the conflict between the Arab invaders and the (primarily) Hindu resisters on the Western coast of India from 636—713 C.E.; (II) the Arab and Turkish Muslim onslaughts against the kingdom of Hindu Afghanistan during 636—870 C.E.; (III) repeated Turkish efforts to subdue the Punjab from 870 C.E. to 1030 C.E. C.E. highlighted by the devastating campaigns of Mahmud of Ghazni (from 1000— 1030 C.E.); and finally (IV) Muhammad Ghauri's conquest of northwestern India and the Gangetic valley between 1175 and 1206 C.E. [2]
[read more of this article in the American Thinker]
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See more by Bostom on the ideological background of Judeophobia among Indian Muslims.
Srdja Trifkovic on the history of Arab & Islamic assaults on India.
Andrew Bostom's response to the philistine conventional media coverage of the Mumbai atrocity. He reviews much of the history of jihad in India and draws parallels with the oppression of Jews in the Land of Israel. Here are Bostom's comments on media coverage in a letter sent to me:

The "coverage" of the Mumbai massacre(s) has been an appalling spectacle of IGNORANCE, denial, and scapegoating--of the victims. If Hindus and Jews (and in the end, all potential non-Muslim victims of jihad) don't realize their shared predicament--targeting by jihad hatred-- after these events, then they never will, possibly hastening their separate destruction.

Destruction of these peoples means the end of civilization. The MSM seem quite comfortable with such an eventuality.
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Coming: More on Obama's lies about the economy, Part II of "Barak Obama's Evil Genius," propaganda analysis, psychological warfare, etc.