----------------------------------------------------------------
RACE HATE ON THE RISE.
( From THE AUSTRALIAN (25/11/06) quoting in brief the local press in Russia.)
“Ethnic criminal groups and the xenophobia they engender could destroy multi-ethnic Russia unless they are defeated by the justice system, education and successful development.”
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
cf.: Australia and the world,- e.g. Muslim gangs in Sydney and Jihadists around the world. Everyone is becoming xenophobic.
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BUT CONSIDER THIS:
Who would put up in the Western world with 20% of the population being Arab Muslims with equal rights and representation in Parliament?
Only Israel.
Who is accused of “Ethnic Cleansing”?
Only Israel.
Who is constantly accused of “Human Rights Violations” at the UN?
Only Israel.
Who has Arabs in their Parliament who openly support enemy States?
Only democratic Israel.
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http://www.obsessionthemovie.com/12min.htm
See: the film OBSSESSION
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Re “EURABIA”?
[But European Muslims can't become French or Dutch or Italian or German. Even if they qualify for a passport, they remain second-class citizens. On a good day. And they're supposed to take over the continent that's exported more death than any other? ]
http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/print.php?url=http://www.nypost.com/seven/11262006/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_eurabia_myth_opedcolumnists_ralph_peters.htm
NEW YORK POST
THE 'EURABIA' MYTH
By RALPH PETERS
November 26, 2006 -- A RASH of pop prophets tell us that Muslims in Europe are reproducing so fast and European societies are so weak and listless that, before you know it, the continent will become "Eurabia," with all those topless gals on the Riviera wearing veils.
Well, maybe not.
The notion that continental Europeans, who are world-champion haters, will let the impoverished Muslim immigrants they confine to ghettos take over their societies and extend the caliphate from the Amalfi Coast to Amsterdam has it exactly wrong.
The endangered species isn't the "peace loving" European lolling in his or her welfare state, but the continent's Muslims immigrants - and their multi-generation descendents - who were foolish enough to imagine that Europeans would share their toys.
In fact, Muslims are hardly welcome to pick up the trash on Europe's playgrounds.
Don't let Europe's current round of playing pacifist dress-up fool you: This is the continent that perfected genocide and ethnic cleansing, the happy-go-lucky slice of humanity that brought us such recent hits as the Holocaust and Srebrenica.
THE historical patterns are clear: When Europeans feel sufficiently threatened - even when the threat's concocted nonsense - they don't just react, they over-react with stunning ferocity. One of their more-humane (and frequently employed) techniques has been ethnic cleansing.
And Europeans won't even need to re-write "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" with an Islamist theme - real Muslims zealots provide Europe's bigots with all the propaganda they need. Al Qaeda and its wannabe fans are the worst thing that could have happened to Europe's Muslims. Europe hasn't broken free of its historical addictions - we're going to see Europe's history reprised on meth.
The year 1492 wasn't just big for Columbus. It's also when Spain expelled its culturally magnificent Jewish community en masse - to be followed shortly by the Moors, Muslims who had been on the Iberian Peninsula for more than 800 years.
Jews got the boot elsewhere in Europe, too - if they weren't just killed on the spot. When Shakespeare wrote "The Merchant of Venice," it's a safe bet he'd never met a Jew. The Chosen People were long-gone from Jolly Olde England.
From the French expulsion of the Huguenots right down to the last century's massive ethnic cleansings, Europeans have never been shy about showing "foreigners and subversives" the door.
And Europe's Muslims don't even have roots, by historical standards. For the Europeans, they're just the detritus of colonial history. When Europeans feel sufficiently provoked and threatened - a few serious terrorist attacks could do it - Europe's Muslims will be lucky just to be deported.
Sound impossible? Have the Europeans become too soft for that sort of thing? Has narcotic socialism destroyed their ability to hate? Is their atheism a prelude to total surrender to faith-intoxicated Muslim jihadis?
The answer to all of the above questions is a booming "No!" The Europeans have enjoyed a comfy ride for the last 60 years - but the very fact that they don't want it to stop increases their rage and sense of being besieged by Muslim minorities they've long refused to assimilate (and which no longer want to assimilate).
WE don't need to gloss over the many Muslim acts of barbarism down the centuries to recognize that the Europeans are just better at the extermination process. From the massacre of all Muslims and Jews (and quite a few Eastern Christians) when the Crusaders reached Jerusalem in 1099 to the massacre of all the Jews in Buda (not yet attached to Pest across the Danube) when the "liberating" Habsburg armies retook the citadel at the end of the 17th century, Europeans have just been better organized for genocide.
It's the difference between the messy Turkish execution of the Armenian genocide and the industrial efficiency of the Holocaust. Hey, when you love your work, you get good at it.
Far from enjoying the prospect of taking over Europe by having babies, Europe's Muslims are living on borrowed time. When a third of French voters have demonstrated their willingness to vote for Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front - a party that makes the Ku Klux Klan seem like Human Rights Watch - all predictions of Europe going gently into that good night are surreal.
I have no difficulty imagining a scenario in which U.S. Navy ships are at anchor and U.S. Marines have gone ashore at Brest, Bremerhaven or Bari to guarantee the safe evacuation of Europe's Muslims. After all, we were the only ones to do anything about the slaughter of Muslims in the Balkans. And even though we botched it, our effort in Iraq was meant to give the Middle East's Muslims a last chance to escape their self-inflicted misery.
AND we're lucky. The United States attracts the quality. American Muslims have a higher income level than our national average. We hear about the handful of rabble-rousers, but more of our fellow Americans who happen to be Muslims are doctors, professors and entrepreneurs.
And the American dream is still alive and well, thanks: Even the newest taxi driver stumbling over his English grammar knows he can truly become an American.
But European Muslims can't become French or Dutch or Italian or German. Even if they qualify for a passport, they remain second-class citizens. On a good day. And they're supposed to take over the continent that's exported more death than any other?
All the copy-cat predictions of a Muslim takeover of Europe not only ignore history and Europe's ineradicable viciousness, but do a serious disservice by exacerbating fear and hatred. And when it comes to hatred, trust me: The Europeans don't need our help.
The jobless and hopeless kids in the suburbs may burn a couple of cars, but we'll always have Paris.
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Ralph Peters' latest book is "Never Quit the Fight."
-------------------------------------------------------
NEW YORK POST is a registered trademark of NYP Holdings, Inc. NYPOST.COM, NYPOSTONLINE.COM, and NEWYORKPOST.COM are trademarks of NYP Holdings, Inc.
Copyright 2006 NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Why I am backing Israel. (Lorna Fitzsimons, The Guardian)
Why I'm backing Israel
http://zionism-israel.com/israel_news/2006/11/why-im-backing-israel.html
Why I'm backing Israel
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1955804,00..html
The left and the Islamists portray me as a Zionist neocon,
but it takes two sides to make a peace deal .
Lorna Fitzsimons
Friday November 24, 2006
The Guardian
Some said I should have my head examined after I agreed to become the chief executive of a pro-Israel advocacy group, the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre. But people said the same when I joined Labour in the mid-80s.
There is never a wrong time to do the right thing and if, like me, you are convinced of Israel's cause, then why not support Israel and why not now? I have always been a practical idealist, a non-Jew who has always believed in a two-state solution. But I have never been more concerned about the false reality many people are constructing around Israel and the Middle East, here and abroad. Our polling shows that opinion formers know that Israel is a fully functioning democracy, but care more about what Israel does than what Israel is.
Since its birth 58 years ago, Israel has always been prepared to compromise for peace. From Begin's agreement with Sadat in 1979 to the Arafat-Barak talks at Camp David in 2000, Israeli leaders have been prepared to challenge their own people in pursuit of peace. Last summer Israel withdrew from Gaza, angry settlers and all. Yet the terror from the Gaza Strip has continued - more than 1,000 rockets have been fired into southern Israel in the past year. Since 2000, nine fatalities have been caused by Qassam missiles.
Some media have reported the panic these missiles have caused but they downplay the impact because of the small scale of fatalities compared with those on the Palestinian side. My husband, a British soldier, is currently serving a tour of duty in Iraq. His unit has come under mortar fire nearly every night for the past six months. Not many service personnel have been killed by these missiles but every soldier fears that the next one might have his or her name on it. Do you think that a child, a parent or a grandmother in one of the towns bordering Gaza thinks there have been "only" nine fatalities? Can you imagine what that does to a civilian population?
We need to think carefully about the consequences of questioning the defensive reactions of a nation-state that is constantly bombarded by an enemy calling for its destruction, especially after it has withdrawn from Lebanon and Gaza. Would we as British citizens accept a single rocket on a British town, let alone hundreds?
The commentators' objection is that the response is "disproportionate". But how does a nation-state defend itself against a terrorist organisation or organisations that are part of, and deliberately hide behind, ordinary citizens? Of course the Israeli military and all military forces must act ethically. But if the number of civilian casualties continues to be the main issue, there is no incentive for the terrorists to stop using the civilian population as a shield.
We live in dangerous times when, in parts of the left especially, you can't be a friend to Islam or to Muslims unless you are anti-Israel. That is exactly what al-Qaida wants us to think. Events in Rochdale at the last election represent a microcosm of what we are sleepwalking into globally. The Islamists and the left argued that, because I supported Israel and its right to exist, all my work for my Muslim constituents was a lie. They suggested I was an opportunistic, neocon Zionist, aiming to dupe them.
Israel's willingness to compromise for peace has never been enough, because Israel alone cannot gain peace. The Palestinians and others in the region also have to want peace. Israel needs a serious interlocutor so that peace can stand a chance. So my question to the left is this: why not concentrate your attention there, rather than on the one player in the region who has always been serious about peace?
· Lorna Fitzsimons is chief executive of the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre and the former Labour MP for Rochdale=
=======================================================================ZNN - Visit these Web sites: http://www.zionism-israel.com http://www.zionismontheweb.org http://www.zionism.netfirms.com=========================================================================
http://zionism-israel.com/israel_news/2006/11/why-im-backing-israel.html
Why I'm backing Israel
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1955804,00..html
The left and the Islamists portray me as a Zionist neocon,
but it takes two sides to make a peace deal .
Lorna Fitzsimons
Friday November 24, 2006
The Guardian
Some said I should have my head examined after I agreed to become the chief executive of a pro-Israel advocacy group, the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre. But people said the same when I joined Labour in the mid-80s.
There is never a wrong time to do the right thing and if, like me, you are convinced of Israel's cause, then why not support Israel and why not now? I have always been a practical idealist, a non-Jew who has always believed in a two-state solution. But I have never been more concerned about the false reality many people are constructing around Israel and the Middle East, here and abroad. Our polling shows that opinion formers know that Israel is a fully functioning democracy, but care more about what Israel does than what Israel is.
Since its birth 58 years ago, Israel has always been prepared to compromise for peace. From Begin's agreement with Sadat in 1979 to the Arafat-Barak talks at Camp David in 2000, Israeli leaders have been prepared to challenge their own people in pursuit of peace. Last summer Israel withdrew from Gaza, angry settlers and all. Yet the terror from the Gaza Strip has continued - more than 1,000 rockets have been fired into southern Israel in the past year. Since 2000, nine fatalities have been caused by Qassam missiles.
Some media have reported the panic these missiles have caused but they downplay the impact because of the small scale of fatalities compared with those on the Palestinian side. My husband, a British soldier, is currently serving a tour of duty in Iraq. His unit has come under mortar fire nearly every night for the past six months. Not many service personnel have been killed by these missiles but every soldier fears that the next one might have his or her name on it. Do you think that a child, a parent or a grandmother in one of the towns bordering Gaza thinks there have been "only" nine fatalities? Can you imagine what that does to a civilian population?
We need to think carefully about the consequences of questioning the defensive reactions of a nation-state that is constantly bombarded by an enemy calling for its destruction, especially after it has withdrawn from Lebanon and Gaza. Would we as British citizens accept a single rocket on a British town, let alone hundreds?
The commentators' objection is that the response is "disproportionate". But how does a nation-state defend itself against a terrorist organisation or organisations that are part of, and deliberately hide behind, ordinary citizens? Of course the Israeli military and all military forces must act ethically. But if the number of civilian casualties continues to be the main issue, there is no incentive for the terrorists to stop using the civilian population as a shield.
We live in dangerous times when, in parts of the left especially, you can't be a friend to Islam or to Muslims unless you are anti-Israel. That is exactly what al-Qaida wants us to think. Events in Rochdale at the last election represent a microcosm of what we are sleepwalking into globally. The Islamists and the left argued that, because I supported Israel and its right to exist, all my work for my Muslim constituents was a lie. They suggested I was an opportunistic, neocon Zionist, aiming to dupe them.
Israel's willingness to compromise for peace has never been enough, because Israel alone cannot gain peace. The Palestinians and others in the region also have to want peace. Israel needs a serious interlocutor so that peace can stand a chance. So my question to the left is this: why not concentrate your attention there, rather than on the one player in the region who has always been serious about peace?
· Lorna Fitzsimons is chief executive of the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre and the former Labour MP for Rochdale=
=======================================================================ZNN - Visit these Web sites: http://www.zionism-israel.com http://www.zionismontheweb.org http://www.zionism.netfirms.com=========================================================================
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Australian Foreign Minister's speech in Melbourne, 9/11/2006.
Speech by FM Alexander Downer
Australia’s Foreign Minister Alexander Downer speaks at the dedication of Ohel Devorah Melbourne, on November 9, 2006
Well Rabbis, ladies and gentlemen I just want to say what a great honour it is and an unusual honour for me to come along here this afternoon and spend some time with you and participate in the opening of this synagogue.
I feel it is a great honour for a lot of reasons - some of them are very modern, some of them are not so modern I’m not Jewish, as you probably know I’m a Christian. But I went to university in England and when I was at university in England I got in with as they say, a whole lot of Jewish people, for no particular reason. I just came across them and became friendly with them to the extent that one of them a girl called Judy and I and a couple of others I hasten to add shared a house in our last year (It was a platonic relationship…) We still keep in touch with her to this very day.
Judy had a cousin in Israel as many Jewish people do and her cousin came to stay with us from Israel. It’s rather exciting having an Israeli come to stay with us in our student house, eating our modest maybe I could say even disgusting food of baked beans and toast and other nasty things that students in those days ate when they were away from home. Only this was 1973 and while this friend, this cousin of Judy’s was staying with us as the Yom Kippur war broke out. And you can imagine the absolute agony of this for these young people who I was living with at the time. The cousin had a brother who was in the Israeli Defence Forces at the time. And the worry, the agony, I think is the right way to put it, that Judy and her fiend in particular felt as they listened to the reports on the BBC coming from the battlefield….
Well it had an enormous impact on me. And it helped I suppose to put into perspective for me as a Christian the appalling history of the Jewish people, in the sense that they have been targeted, they have been discriminated against, they have been ridiculed, they’ve been murdered, and yet despite all the horrors that they have put up with, they have continued and they have shown courage and they have a record of simply extraordinary achievement.
I am just enormously proud that in this country of Australia, and you know this was true to some extent of Britain, but in this country, Jewish people have been a fundamental part of the writing of the modern Australian story. It’s nice that we have had two Jewish Governors General and it is wonderful to see Sir Zelman and Lady Cowen here tonight. It’s a particular honour to be with them. Sir Zelman succeeded Sir John Kerr as the Governor General and it was of course a tumultuous period in Australian history - tonight’s not the night to relive that. He used a phrase when he became the Governor General and that phrase that he used was that he would like to bring a touch of healing to the job. He very much did do that. He did a wonderful job as our Governor General.
Sir Isaac Isaacs was our first Australian-born Governor General and he was Jewish. I come from South Australia. I think I am right in saying South Australia is the only state that’s ever had a Jewish Premier in the form of Premier Solomon back in the 19th century. I think one of the most important figures in Australian history has been none other than General Sir John Monash who was also Jewish - a great general, not just a great Australian general, but a great allied general, a great general on the Western Front during the First World War.
So Jewish people in Australia have prospered yet they have been monstrously persecuted over and over again through history for the most intolerant, irrational and unacceptable of reasons. And it is just wonderful as a country that we have crafted for ourselves a place in the world where we have stood up for the equal value of all people regardless of their religions or even lack of religions, of their colour, of their race, even of their ideology. I often say the only people we don’t tolerate in Australia are the intolerant. You should never tolerate the intolerant but you should tolerate everyone else. It’s a truly great thing about this country and as I travel around the world I can’t help but be proud of it.
The second thing I wanted to say is that I think as a country we have shown that we are prepared to stand up for our values and sometimes even to die for our values. I didn’t realize as I came here this evening that this was the anniversary of kristallnacht, the 68th anniversary. This was a truly dark time in the history of the world. The 30s was the ugly decade, really the decade where National Socialism, Nazism, fascism increasingly gained a grip on Europe and on the centres of power in the world. And good people did so little about it. Good people did not confront it until very nearly it was too late. Many good people thought, well, it’s going on in Germany. I suppose, they’ve had a tough time the Germans - they couldn’t face another war after the horrors of the First World War And there emerged the policy of appeasement. The price of appeasement was not just the lives of the six million Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis but of the 60 or so million people that died through the Second World War.
So why is this relevant to us today? It’s relevant to us today because I think as a country and I think as a global community we have to have the courage to confront evil when we find it and deal with it and not find excuses to walk on the other side of the road and do nothing about it. Because if we do nothing about it, it will grow in its intensity and the consequences will become increasingly ghastly. I think back over the last few years, you know, 1994 in Rwanda Nearly a million people were murdered before the international community thought it was right to do something about it and even that was controversial. People were murdered in vast numbers in the Balkans, in Kosovo as well, until the international community decided do to anything about it and even that was very controversial. What do we confront this very day? We confront - and I think Israel obviously particularly has to contend with this - we confront the ideological scourge of extremist Islamist terrorism. It’s ideological because what these people want to do is eliminate all other points of view and stamp upon the world their extremist Islamic interpretation - a completely ideological interpretation encapsulated by the work of the Taliban.
Under the Taliban no girls were allowed to go to school or women to go to work, nobody was allowed a television or a radio or a CD player. Society was plunged back into the 7th Century and if you didn’t agree with them philosophically or ideologically or theologically you were put to death. This is the ideology that these terrorists are trying to impose. When it comes to Israel, I don’t think the world should forget that these people want to eliminate Israel. It’s not as though they never say they do, it’s not as though they keep it a secret. It’s that the world seems to show such a lack of understanding of the Israeli’s determination that this doesn’t happen. I often say to people how would you feel? And you have just heard the testimonies about the mothers who were in the holocaust, the children of these people and the descendants in other forms of these people. They live in Israel. They have their own country and surrounding them are people - not of course all people - I’m not saying all the Arabs hold this view - but the terrorists, the Hezbollah terrorists, the Hamas terrorists, the Al Qaeda terrorists, so the list goes on… These are people who are committed to yet again the destruction of the Jewish people and in particular the destruction of their state.
And the IDF can be a bit aggressive in defence of Israel. Well that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody who has a bit of sensitivity and a bit of understanding of what the Israeli people and the Jewish people are up against in Israel and it’s particularly important to keep a historical perspective of that. Does it matter to Israel and to the Jewish people that these terrorists could win in Afghanistan or in Iraq? It matters enormously. These are life or death issues in terms of dealing with this ideology and defeating this ideology. And I think as an international community it’s enormously difficult to keep the public on side and to encourage the public to support our policies or any country’s policies of confronting and defeating these people. There are all sorts of different ways I know of defeating them. Interfaith dialogues … very useful … very successful by the way in South East Asia. It’s been possible to defeat them by harnessing the ideology of modern Muslims, again more successful in South East Asia than in the Middle East. Sometimes they have to be defeated them in the battlefield. But in the end we, as what I might broadly describe as a Western society, can decide whether we will defeat these people or whether we won’t. We can make that decision. They can never destroy our society even though they want to They can never destroy our tolerance and our decency and our humanity even though they want to destroy that and impose their extremist ideology and their intolerance on us all. Only we can allow them to make progress, gain ground by sending a message to them that we can be defeated by showing a lack of will, by showing a lack of determination.
I think this is an incredibly difficult, a very difficult time. I find and I’ve been doing this today as we cast our votes in the United Nations against some of what I call the extreme Palestinian resolutions. I mention this today because at Melbourne airport I was signing off on how we would vote on a number of these resolutions that are coming up over the next couple days. These resolutions are deeply anti-Israeli, deeply anti-Israeli, and big majorities always carry them. And we are always being told, the best thing for diplomacy is to: all right minister, you don’t like the resolution, but in the interests of diplomacy why don’t you abstain? And I say, let’s vote against it because it is wrong. And the more we and other countries stand up to this sort of behaviour, the more we stand a chance of success… the more we try to appease, the more we will encourage. And it is enormously important to remember that.
So I spent more than my five minutes talking to you but it’s just an opportunity to say that right from those days when I was a student and I was so enthusiastically befriended by the Jewish people I met at university to the extent that I shared a house with one of them for 18 months, a couple of years, and made so many friends in England through her and other of her friends in the British Jewish community and of course in Australia as well and the kindness that has been shown to me by Jewish people and the tolerance they show towards me… and I appreciate that… some of them are, dare I say the word, Labour.
But they are still quite tolerant and the decency of them and the energy and the hard work and the long record of achievement in the Jewish community in Australia - I think it’s fantastic So it is with the greatest of pleasure that I come here this afternoon and participate in this ceremony to open a synagogue and to see so many of you here and thank you very much for tolerating me here in your presence
Australia’s Foreign Minister Alexander Downer speaks at the dedication of Ohel Devorah Melbourne, on November 9, 2006
Well Rabbis, ladies and gentlemen I just want to say what a great honour it is and an unusual honour for me to come along here this afternoon and spend some time with you and participate in the opening of this synagogue.
I feel it is a great honour for a lot of reasons - some of them are very modern, some of them are not so modern I’m not Jewish, as you probably know I’m a Christian. But I went to university in England and when I was at university in England I got in with as they say, a whole lot of Jewish people, for no particular reason. I just came across them and became friendly with them to the extent that one of them a girl called Judy and I and a couple of others I hasten to add shared a house in our last year (It was a platonic relationship…) We still keep in touch with her to this very day.
Judy had a cousin in Israel as many Jewish people do and her cousin came to stay with us from Israel. It’s rather exciting having an Israeli come to stay with us in our student house, eating our modest maybe I could say even disgusting food of baked beans and toast and other nasty things that students in those days ate when they were away from home. Only this was 1973 and while this friend, this cousin of Judy’s was staying with us as the Yom Kippur war broke out. And you can imagine the absolute agony of this for these young people who I was living with at the time. The cousin had a brother who was in the Israeli Defence Forces at the time. And the worry, the agony, I think is the right way to put it, that Judy and her fiend in particular felt as they listened to the reports on the BBC coming from the battlefield….
Well it had an enormous impact on me. And it helped I suppose to put into perspective for me as a Christian the appalling history of the Jewish people, in the sense that they have been targeted, they have been discriminated against, they have been ridiculed, they’ve been murdered, and yet despite all the horrors that they have put up with, they have continued and they have shown courage and they have a record of simply extraordinary achievement.
I am just enormously proud that in this country of Australia, and you know this was true to some extent of Britain, but in this country, Jewish people have been a fundamental part of the writing of the modern Australian story. It’s nice that we have had two Jewish Governors General and it is wonderful to see Sir Zelman and Lady Cowen here tonight. It’s a particular honour to be with them. Sir Zelman succeeded Sir John Kerr as the Governor General and it was of course a tumultuous period in Australian history - tonight’s not the night to relive that. He used a phrase when he became the Governor General and that phrase that he used was that he would like to bring a touch of healing to the job. He very much did do that. He did a wonderful job as our Governor General.
Sir Isaac Isaacs was our first Australian-born Governor General and he was Jewish. I come from South Australia. I think I am right in saying South Australia is the only state that’s ever had a Jewish Premier in the form of Premier Solomon back in the 19th century. I think one of the most important figures in Australian history has been none other than General Sir John Monash who was also Jewish - a great general, not just a great Australian general, but a great allied general, a great general on the Western Front during the First World War.
So Jewish people in Australia have prospered yet they have been monstrously persecuted over and over again through history for the most intolerant, irrational and unacceptable of reasons. And it is just wonderful as a country that we have crafted for ourselves a place in the world where we have stood up for the equal value of all people regardless of their religions or even lack of religions, of their colour, of their race, even of their ideology. I often say the only people we don’t tolerate in Australia are the intolerant. You should never tolerate the intolerant but you should tolerate everyone else. It’s a truly great thing about this country and as I travel around the world I can’t help but be proud of it.
The second thing I wanted to say is that I think as a country we have shown that we are prepared to stand up for our values and sometimes even to die for our values. I didn’t realize as I came here this evening that this was the anniversary of kristallnacht, the 68th anniversary. This was a truly dark time in the history of the world. The 30s was the ugly decade, really the decade where National Socialism, Nazism, fascism increasingly gained a grip on Europe and on the centres of power in the world. And good people did so little about it. Good people did not confront it until very nearly it was too late. Many good people thought, well, it’s going on in Germany. I suppose, they’ve had a tough time the Germans - they couldn’t face another war after the horrors of the First World War And there emerged the policy of appeasement. The price of appeasement was not just the lives of the six million Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis but of the 60 or so million people that died through the Second World War.
So why is this relevant to us today? It’s relevant to us today because I think as a country and I think as a global community we have to have the courage to confront evil when we find it and deal with it and not find excuses to walk on the other side of the road and do nothing about it. Because if we do nothing about it, it will grow in its intensity and the consequences will become increasingly ghastly. I think back over the last few years, you know, 1994 in Rwanda Nearly a million people were murdered before the international community thought it was right to do something about it and even that was controversial. People were murdered in vast numbers in the Balkans, in Kosovo as well, until the international community decided do to anything about it and even that was very controversial. What do we confront this very day? We confront - and I think Israel obviously particularly has to contend with this - we confront the ideological scourge of extremist Islamist terrorism. It’s ideological because what these people want to do is eliminate all other points of view and stamp upon the world their extremist Islamic interpretation - a completely ideological interpretation encapsulated by the work of the Taliban.
Under the Taliban no girls were allowed to go to school or women to go to work, nobody was allowed a television or a radio or a CD player. Society was plunged back into the 7th Century and if you didn’t agree with them philosophically or ideologically or theologically you were put to death. This is the ideology that these terrorists are trying to impose. When it comes to Israel, I don’t think the world should forget that these people want to eliminate Israel. It’s not as though they never say they do, it’s not as though they keep it a secret. It’s that the world seems to show such a lack of understanding of the Israeli’s determination that this doesn’t happen. I often say to people how would you feel? And you have just heard the testimonies about the mothers who were in the holocaust, the children of these people and the descendants in other forms of these people. They live in Israel. They have their own country and surrounding them are people - not of course all people - I’m not saying all the Arabs hold this view - but the terrorists, the Hezbollah terrorists, the Hamas terrorists, the Al Qaeda terrorists, so the list goes on… These are people who are committed to yet again the destruction of the Jewish people and in particular the destruction of their state.
And the IDF can be a bit aggressive in defence of Israel. Well that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody who has a bit of sensitivity and a bit of understanding of what the Israeli people and the Jewish people are up against in Israel and it’s particularly important to keep a historical perspective of that. Does it matter to Israel and to the Jewish people that these terrorists could win in Afghanistan or in Iraq? It matters enormously. These are life or death issues in terms of dealing with this ideology and defeating this ideology. And I think as an international community it’s enormously difficult to keep the public on side and to encourage the public to support our policies or any country’s policies of confronting and defeating these people. There are all sorts of different ways I know of defeating them. Interfaith dialogues … very useful … very successful by the way in South East Asia. It’s been possible to defeat them by harnessing the ideology of modern Muslims, again more successful in South East Asia than in the Middle East. Sometimes they have to be defeated them in the battlefield. But in the end we, as what I might broadly describe as a Western society, can decide whether we will defeat these people or whether we won’t. We can make that decision. They can never destroy our society even though they want to They can never destroy our tolerance and our decency and our humanity even though they want to destroy that and impose their extremist ideology and their intolerance on us all. Only we can allow them to make progress, gain ground by sending a message to them that we can be defeated by showing a lack of will, by showing a lack of determination.
I think this is an incredibly difficult, a very difficult time. I find and I’ve been doing this today as we cast our votes in the United Nations against some of what I call the extreme Palestinian resolutions. I mention this today because at Melbourne airport I was signing off on how we would vote on a number of these resolutions that are coming up over the next couple days. These resolutions are deeply anti-Israeli, deeply anti-Israeli, and big majorities always carry them. And we are always being told, the best thing for diplomacy is to: all right minister, you don’t like the resolution, but in the interests of diplomacy why don’t you abstain? And I say, let’s vote against it because it is wrong. And the more we and other countries stand up to this sort of behaviour, the more we stand a chance of success… the more we try to appease, the more we will encourage. And it is enormously important to remember that.
So I spent more than my five minutes talking to you but it’s just an opportunity to say that right from those days when I was a student and I was so enthusiastically befriended by the Jewish people I met at university to the extent that I shared a house with one of them for 18 months, a couple of years, and made so many friends in England through her and other of her friends in the British Jewish community and of course in Australia as well and the kindness that has been shown to me by Jewish people and the tolerance they show towards me… and I appreciate that… some of them are, dare I say the word, Labour.
But they are still quite tolerant and the decency of them and the energy and the hard work and the long record of achievement in the Jewish community in Australia - I think it’s fantastic So it is with the greatest of pleasure that I come here this afternoon and participate in this ceremony to open a synagogue and to see so many of you here and thank you very much for tolerating me here in your presence
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Renewable energy conference in Israel.
http://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enScript=PrintVersion.jsp&enDispWho=Articles^l1473
Fuel for thought at Israel's renewable energy conference
By Karin Kloosterman
November 13, 2006
"What feeds terrorism is oil," Shimon Peres, Israel's Vice Premier declared at the international Renewable and Alternative Energy Conference held recently in Tel Aviv, making the connection between a peaceful world and the responsibility of Western countries to curb its dependence on foreign petroleum.
Peres' opening was both an invitation and warning to democratic nations, which must be ready to form a tight coalition to decrease dependence on fossil fuels, he said, and stop a "nuclear" Iran.
Paramount to making that happen, Peres said, is that democratic nations need to create alternate sources of energy. Peres highlighted Israel's strengths and position on renewable energy. "The only way to cut [terrorism] down is by creating alternatives," he said. In Israel, "We prefer solar energy - it is more permanent, more fair and does not affect the ecology."
After he concluded his remarks, half of the auditorium headed over to the one-day "Renewable and Alternative Energy Conference" under the umbrella of the two-day annual Prime Minister's Conference.
It was a fitting subject on which to focus an Israeli event. In the last year or so, as the world looks to energy alternatives derived from renewable sources such as solar, wind, biomass and ocean energies, Israelis have the right to trumpet their own successes.
Israel's story with renewable energy is a long and mature one, which didn't just begin after 9/11, the skyrocketing $70 per barrel oil costs, or the retreating Greenland glaciers melting from Global Warming.
Alternative energy company Ormat was invited as a guest speaker to illustrate this fact. The company's CEO Yehudit Bronicki explained, "Ormat is the story of a company that started in renewable energy 40 years ago."
She demonstrated with slides such as the solar energy collectors Ormat built in Mali, Africa in 1966 and another slide of a unit they had constructed to protect the Alaskan oil pipeline in the 1970s. Today, the company is involved in a multi-billion project to recover oil from the Alberta tar sands. Ormat's plant will be ready in 2007.
Ormat also builds plants for collecting geothermal energy and has developed a biodiesel fuel that requires no blending before use.
Another Israeli company, Metrolight, an energy efficiency company in the lighting market, announced a contract with several hundred US supermarket "Publix" stores and with the City of New York to reduce the city's street lighting bill by about $90 million per year.
And no renewable energy conference in the world would be complete without representation from Israel's Solel, which has built the largest solar energy plant in the world in California's Mojave Desert. Solel had its own news: that it signed to build three $890 million solar collection plants in Spain.
Other alternative energy companies who presented their wares included solar shingles company PowerLight Corporation, GreenFuel which converts smokestack pollution into biofuel; Genova, which makes fuel from olive pits.
Ofer Alon, CEO of Smart Energy spoke about the "retrofit" device his company has made that can shave hundreds up to millions of dollars off home and industrial air conditioning units by making them more efficient.
Target another energy efficiency company has developed an electricity board which can tell a homeowner real time, via email or SMS what amount of energy each appliance is consuming.
Target CEO Yaron Sheinman says his device, if connected to the grid, can prevent major blackouts like the one seen in Western Europe last week where 10 million people were left without electricity. "There will be no more blackouts, because our utility controls and measures electricity to give priority to certain circuits or notify consumers that there will be a load problem."
Target can also integrate conventional electricity with other forms of energy such as solar or generator without having pauses between the switchover.
Basic information, such as having knowledge about one's electrical consumption can change how we consume electricity, Sheinman added. "I don't want to say we should stop building new power plants," he said. "But the construction could certainly be delayed if our current energy supply was better used."
Energy efficiency to curb the energy crises were also some of the points made by Allan Hoffman, Senior Analyst, US Department of Energy.
"The US is on an irrevocable course to having an energy wise society," said Hoffman. "Transition to a society based on more renewable energy is inevitable -- we just want to speed it up as much as we can," he added, noting that currently the US is importing 60 percent of its oil.
"It took huge oil prices and 9/11 for people to wake up to the to the security aspects of having an energy policy," says Hoffman. "The elections that are taking place in the United States should lead to further action on clean energy," he added.
Other prominent guest speakers at the day?s event included Ambassador to Israel Richard H. Jones and Minister of Foreign Affairs Tzipi Livni, who last Thursday was ranked by Forbes as the 40th most powerful woman in the world.
Jones said the conference on energy was significant due to the energy crises, which "threatens to derail economies in developing countries and skew global incomes."
Jones looked to two new Israeli centers to advance some of the nation's and world's research on energy: Haifa University's Center For Advanced Energy Studies and the Weizmann Institute which is launching a center to make energy from "everything from plants and biomass to plasma and particle physics," he said.
In terms of cooperation Jones sees Israel and the US can be partners on biofuels and solar energy and for that reason, perhaps, these two areas were given their own panel at the conference.
"It is fitting for the US and Israel to have a broad talk to shift to renewable and alternative energy and share our notes and increase energy efficiency," said Jones. "Like Israel," he added, "The US is seized with issues of energy security."
Danny Grossman, the Israeli Director of American Jewish Congress (AJC) said that the secret for producing renewable energy "lies in US and Israel's shared values."
He went on to speak about the joint Israel-US multi-million dollar R&D energy bill, the bipartisan United States-Israel Energy Cooperation Act, also known as HR 2730 the AJC helped pass this year.
Binyamin Ben Eliezer, Minister for National Infrastructure summed up Israel's renewable energy goals well in his keynote speech: "Israel is committed to a new energy economy," he said.
"Israel has reached the point where it sees itself not only as a part aimed at improving the local environment, but rather as a part of the global effort to create a sustainable world."
© 2001-2004 ISRAEL21c.org. All rights reserved.
Fuel for thought at Israel's renewable energy conference
By Karin Kloosterman
November 13, 2006
"What feeds terrorism is oil," Shimon Peres, Israel's Vice Premier declared at the international Renewable and Alternative Energy Conference held recently in Tel Aviv, making the connection between a peaceful world and the responsibility of Western countries to curb its dependence on foreign petroleum.
Peres' opening was both an invitation and warning to democratic nations, which must be ready to form a tight coalition to decrease dependence on fossil fuels, he said, and stop a "nuclear" Iran.
Paramount to making that happen, Peres said, is that democratic nations need to create alternate sources of energy. Peres highlighted Israel's strengths and position on renewable energy. "The only way to cut [terrorism] down is by creating alternatives," he said. In Israel, "We prefer solar energy - it is more permanent, more fair and does not affect the ecology."
After he concluded his remarks, half of the auditorium headed over to the one-day "Renewable and Alternative Energy Conference" under the umbrella of the two-day annual Prime Minister's Conference.
It was a fitting subject on which to focus an Israeli event. In the last year or so, as the world looks to energy alternatives derived from renewable sources such as solar, wind, biomass and ocean energies, Israelis have the right to trumpet their own successes.
Israel's story with renewable energy is a long and mature one, which didn't just begin after 9/11, the skyrocketing $70 per barrel oil costs, or the retreating Greenland glaciers melting from Global Warming.
Alternative energy company Ormat was invited as a guest speaker to illustrate this fact. The company's CEO Yehudit Bronicki explained, "Ormat is the story of a company that started in renewable energy 40 years ago."
She demonstrated with slides such as the solar energy collectors Ormat built in Mali, Africa in 1966 and another slide of a unit they had constructed to protect the Alaskan oil pipeline in the 1970s. Today, the company is involved in a multi-billion project to recover oil from the Alberta tar sands. Ormat's plant will be ready in 2007.
Ormat also builds plants for collecting geothermal energy and has developed a biodiesel fuel that requires no blending before use.
Another Israeli company, Metrolight, an energy efficiency company in the lighting market, announced a contract with several hundred US supermarket "Publix" stores and with the City of New York to reduce the city's street lighting bill by about $90 million per year.
And no renewable energy conference in the world would be complete without representation from Israel's Solel, which has built the largest solar energy plant in the world in California's Mojave Desert. Solel had its own news: that it signed to build three $890 million solar collection plants in Spain.
Other alternative energy companies who presented their wares included solar shingles company PowerLight Corporation, GreenFuel which converts smokestack pollution into biofuel; Genova, which makes fuel from olive pits.
Ofer Alon, CEO of Smart Energy spoke about the "retrofit" device his company has made that can shave hundreds up to millions of dollars off home and industrial air conditioning units by making them more efficient.
Target another energy efficiency company has developed an electricity board which can tell a homeowner real time, via email or SMS what amount of energy each appliance is consuming.
Target CEO Yaron Sheinman says his device, if connected to the grid, can prevent major blackouts like the one seen in Western Europe last week where 10 million people were left without electricity. "There will be no more blackouts, because our utility controls and measures electricity to give priority to certain circuits or notify consumers that there will be a load problem."
Target can also integrate conventional electricity with other forms of energy such as solar or generator without having pauses between the switchover.
Basic information, such as having knowledge about one's electrical consumption can change how we consume electricity, Sheinman added. "I don't want to say we should stop building new power plants," he said. "But the construction could certainly be delayed if our current energy supply was better used."
Energy efficiency to curb the energy crises were also some of the points made by Allan Hoffman, Senior Analyst, US Department of Energy.
"The US is on an irrevocable course to having an energy wise society," said Hoffman. "Transition to a society based on more renewable energy is inevitable -- we just want to speed it up as much as we can," he added, noting that currently the US is importing 60 percent of its oil.
"It took huge oil prices and 9/11 for people to wake up to the to the security aspects of having an energy policy," says Hoffman. "The elections that are taking place in the United States should lead to further action on clean energy," he added.
Other prominent guest speakers at the day?s event included Ambassador to Israel Richard H. Jones and Minister of Foreign Affairs Tzipi Livni, who last Thursday was ranked by Forbes as the 40th most powerful woman in the world.
Jones said the conference on energy was significant due to the energy crises, which "threatens to derail economies in developing countries and skew global incomes."
Jones looked to two new Israeli centers to advance some of the nation's and world's research on energy: Haifa University's Center For Advanced Energy Studies and the Weizmann Institute which is launching a center to make energy from "everything from plants and biomass to plasma and particle physics," he said.
In terms of cooperation Jones sees Israel and the US can be partners on biofuels and solar energy and for that reason, perhaps, these two areas were given their own panel at the conference.
"It is fitting for the US and Israel to have a broad talk to shift to renewable and alternative energy and share our notes and increase energy efficiency," said Jones. "Like Israel," he added, "The US is seized with issues of energy security."
Danny Grossman, the Israeli Director of American Jewish Congress (AJC) said that the secret for producing renewable energy "lies in US and Israel's shared values."
He went on to speak about the joint Israel-US multi-million dollar R&D energy bill, the bipartisan United States-Israel Energy Cooperation Act, also known as HR 2730 the AJC helped pass this year.
Binyamin Ben Eliezer, Minister for National Infrastructure summed up Israel's renewable energy goals well in his keynote speech: "Israel is committed to a new energy economy," he said.
"Israel has reached the point where it sees itself not only as a part aimed at improving the local environment, but rather as a part of the global effort to create a sustainable world."
© 2001-2004 ISRAEL21c.org. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
BANGLADESHI JOURNALIST'S FATE FOR PREACHING TOLERANCE.
THE AUSTRALIAN
No tolerance for love and mercy in Bangladesh
Where are the headlines for a Muslim newsman facing death for advocating peace?
asks
Janet Albrechtsen
15nov06
WHILE Taj al-Din al-Hilali is now an international star, having attracted worldwide headlines for his recent outpouring of Western hatred, another Muslim man has barely registered on the media's radar screen. This man is facing the death penalty charged with blasphemy, sedition and treason. He was in court on Monday. His crime? He has been advocating peace between Muslims and the West. You won't have heard of this man. But it's time you did. From a small country half a world away, Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury is fighting Islamic extremism the only way he can: with words and ideas.
The West could learn something from this man. Slow on the uptake, we have finally worked out that the war on terrorism is, in the long run, a battle of ideas. When terrorists fly planes into skyscrapers, blow up a Bali nightclub, a Spanish train, the London Underground or an embassy in Indonesia, the worldwide media understandably gives maximum coverage to the death and destruction. For Islamist terrorists, it is another win in the propaganda war for Osama bin Laden, al-Qa'ida and every radical racing to join the jihad cause.
The West has been slow to realise that the only real way to fight terrorists who preach death and devastation based on a perverted Islam is by presenting an enlightened alternative to those thinking about joining the jihadists.
In some ways, it is the Cold War all over again.
For almost three years, Choudhury, a Bangladeshi journalist, has been at the front line of this battle of ideas. As editor of English-language newspaper The Weekly Blitz, he saw the rise of fundamental Islamism in Bangladesh, a country smaller than Victoria but bursting with 150 million people, 90 per cent of them Muslims. And he did what any good journalist would do. He reported it. This is his story.
From his home in Dhaka he told The Australian he watched, with apprehension, the massive expansion of what he calls kindergarten madrassas. "I discovered they were teaching almost the same thing that was being taught in the other madrassas, spreading the message of religious hatred and jihad." He is talking about children as young as five to up to 18 from both poor and affluent families being indoctrinated with Islamist revolution and the implementation of sharia law.
When mainstream newspapers refused to carry his investigative reports, he set up The Weekly Blitz. From May 2003, his newspaper, handed out in local markets and published online to an international audience, carried reports on the rise of Islamic militancy in Bangladesh and the propaganda campaign waged against Jews. Choudhury pressed for inter-faith dialogue between Jews and Muslims. Soon enough he started receiving threats from local radicals on a daily basis.
But Choudhury carried on, corresponding with people across the world to break through the propaganda. One person he contacted was Richard Benkin, a college professor in the US. Benkin would prove pivotal in Choudhury's fight.
In late November 2003, Choudhury was arrested at Zia international airport en route to Tel-Aviv when he tried to attend a conference on the media and peace. He remained in jail for 17 months, until Benkin convinced US congressman Mark Kirk to take up Choudhury's cause. Given the US donates $64 million in aid to Bangladesh, Benkin and Kirk hoped for the best.
But the inventory of abuse meted out to Choudhury and his family in what the US State Department has called a "traditionally moderate and tolerant country" is a long one: following his arrest he was beaten, his home and office were raided, his brother was beaten, his family threatened and his reputation trashed with leaks to the press. Worst of all, Choudhury told me: "They even tried to attack my children, so they stopped going to school." Police refused to act, telling Choudhury's brother, Sohail, that's what comes to those with an "alliance to Jews".
Choudhury's story needs to be understood against the political machinations in Bangladesh, a country that has a surplus of one thing: people, most of them dirt poor. While Bangladesh awaits elections in January next year and an ostensibly neutral caretaker government is in power, the country has been ruled by the Bangladesh National Party, in a fragile coalition with two fundamentalist Islamic parties. After US lobbying, the BNP Government agreed to drop the charges against Choudhury, but the Bangladeshi ambassador told Kirk it was "afraid of how the radicals would react".
This is how the radicals reacted. Two months after his release from prison on bail, a radical sheik phoned Choudhury, threatening his life and telling him his office would be bombed. Choudhury told the police but they did nothing. A few days later, in early July, Choudhury's office was bombed. No arrests were made. Two months later, when Choudhury's case came to court, the prosecution admitted there was no evidence. But the judge, who is associated with a radical Islamist party, decided the trial for sedition would proceed. A few weeks later, police protection provided to Choudhury and his family was removed. A few days later, his office was attacked by hooligans, two of whom were prominent members of the cultural wing of the BNP Government. Police were called but did nothing.
Benkin says the Bangladeshi Government is "steeped in a culture of mendacity". Choudhury's treatment reveals that the BNP is no longer in control of their relationship with the Islamists. But that is only the half of it. Benkin predicts a swing in favour of the Islamists in the January elections. While that may not concern us back home in the West, it should.
Benkin suggests we open an atlas and track the movement of
al-Qa'ida forces. Kicked out of Afghanistan, they crossed the border to Pakistan. When Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf started harassing them, they moved into Kashmir and the Chinese-Indian frontier. According to Indian intelligence, al-Qa'ida then set up camp in Nepal earlier this year. Why? Because they could. Follow that line and you find the third largest Muslim country in the world: Bangladesh. "I have no doubt they want to move people into here ... This is the tremendous story that the Western media just isn't covering," Benkin told The Australian. Now trace the line a little farther and you'll see Southeast Asia.
Choudhury's trial has been delayed until January next year, creating a window to increase pressure on the Bangladeshi Government. Tomorrow, Kirk will introduce a congressional resolution demanding the charges against the journalist be dropped.
This is why we ought to be taking notice of Choudhury. It's not just a question of saving one man's life. He is part of a threat that is facing all of us. And he is on the right side in a very long battle of ideas.
janeta@bigpond.net.au
privacy terms © The Australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,20758306,00.html
No tolerance for love and mercy in Bangladesh
Where are the headlines for a Muslim newsman facing death for advocating peace?
asks
Janet Albrechtsen
15nov06
WHILE Taj al-Din al-Hilali is now an international star, having attracted worldwide headlines for his recent outpouring of Western hatred, another Muslim man has barely registered on the media's radar screen. This man is facing the death penalty charged with blasphemy, sedition and treason. He was in court on Monday. His crime? He has been advocating peace between Muslims and the West. You won't have heard of this man. But it's time you did. From a small country half a world away, Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury is fighting Islamic extremism the only way he can: with words and ideas.
The West could learn something from this man. Slow on the uptake, we have finally worked out that the war on terrorism is, in the long run, a battle of ideas. When terrorists fly planes into skyscrapers, blow up a Bali nightclub, a Spanish train, the London Underground or an embassy in Indonesia, the worldwide media understandably gives maximum coverage to the death and destruction. For Islamist terrorists, it is another win in the propaganda war for Osama bin Laden, al-Qa'ida and every radical racing to join the jihad cause.
The West has been slow to realise that the only real way to fight terrorists who preach death and devastation based on a perverted Islam is by presenting an enlightened alternative to those thinking about joining the jihadists.
In some ways, it is the Cold War all over again.
For almost three years, Choudhury, a Bangladeshi journalist, has been at the front line of this battle of ideas. As editor of English-language newspaper The Weekly Blitz, he saw the rise of fundamental Islamism in Bangladesh, a country smaller than Victoria but bursting with 150 million people, 90 per cent of them Muslims. And he did what any good journalist would do. He reported it. This is his story.
From his home in Dhaka he told The Australian he watched, with apprehension, the massive expansion of what he calls kindergarten madrassas. "I discovered they were teaching almost the same thing that was being taught in the other madrassas, spreading the message of religious hatred and jihad." He is talking about children as young as five to up to 18 from both poor and affluent families being indoctrinated with Islamist revolution and the implementation of sharia law.
When mainstream newspapers refused to carry his investigative reports, he set up The Weekly Blitz. From May 2003, his newspaper, handed out in local markets and published online to an international audience, carried reports on the rise of Islamic militancy in Bangladesh and the propaganda campaign waged against Jews. Choudhury pressed for inter-faith dialogue between Jews and Muslims. Soon enough he started receiving threats from local radicals on a daily basis.
But Choudhury carried on, corresponding with people across the world to break through the propaganda. One person he contacted was Richard Benkin, a college professor in the US. Benkin would prove pivotal in Choudhury's fight.
In late November 2003, Choudhury was arrested at Zia international airport en route to Tel-Aviv when he tried to attend a conference on the media and peace. He remained in jail for 17 months, until Benkin convinced US congressman Mark Kirk to take up Choudhury's cause. Given the US donates $64 million in aid to Bangladesh, Benkin and Kirk hoped for the best.
But the inventory of abuse meted out to Choudhury and his family in what the US State Department has called a "traditionally moderate and tolerant country" is a long one: following his arrest he was beaten, his home and office were raided, his brother was beaten, his family threatened and his reputation trashed with leaks to the press. Worst of all, Choudhury told me: "They even tried to attack my children, so they stopped going to school." Police refused to act, telling Choudhury's brother, Sohail, that's what comes to those with an "alliance to Jews".
Choudhury's story needs to be understood against the political machinations in Bangladesh, a country that has a surplus of one thing: people, most of them dirt poor. While Bangladesh awaits elections in January next year and an ostensibly neutral caretaker government is in power, the country has been ruled by the Bangladesh National Party, in a fragile coalition with two fundamentalist Islamic parties. After US lobbying, the BNP Government agreed to drop the charges against Choudhury, but the Bangladeshi ambassador told Kirk it was "afraid of how the radicals would react".
This is how the radicals reacted. Two months after his release from prison on bail, a radical sheik phoned Choudhury, threatening his life and telling him his office would be bombed. Choudhury told the police but they did nothing. A few days later, in early July, Choudhury's office was bombed. No arrests were made. Two months later, when Choudhury's case came to court, the prosecution admitted there was no evidence. But the judge, who is associated with a radical Islamist party, decided the trial for sedition would proceed. A few weeks later, police protection provided to Choudhury and his family was removed. A few days later, his office was attacked by hooligans, two of whom were prominent members of the cultural wing of the BNP Government. Police were called but did nothing.
Benkin says the Bangladeshi Government is "steeped in a culture of mendacity". Choudhury's treatment reveals that the BNP is no longer in control of their relationship with the Islamists. But that is only the half of it. Benkin predicts a swing in favour of the Islamists in the January elections. While that may not concern us back home in the West, it should.
Benkin suggests we open an atlas and track the movement of
al-Qa'ida forces. Kicked out of Afghanistan, they crossed the border to Pakistan. When Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf started harassing them, they moved into Kashmir and the Chinese-Indian frontier. According to Indian intelligence, al-Qa'ida then set up camp in Nepal earlier this year. Why? Because they could. Follow that line and you find the third largest Muslim country in the world: Bangladesh. "I have no doubt they want to move people into here ... This is the tremendous story that the Western media just isn't covering," Benkin told The Australian. Now trace the line a little farther and you'll see Southeast Asia.
Choudhury's trial has been delayed until January next year, creating a window to increase pressure on the Bangladeshi Government. Tomorrow, Kirk will introduce a congressional resolution demanding the charges against the journalist be dropped.
This is why we ought to be taking notice of Choudhury. It's not just a question of saving one man's life. He is part of a threat that is facing all of us. And he is on the right side in a very long battle of ideas.
janeta@bigpond.net.au
privacy terms © The Australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,20758306,00.html
Monday, November 13, 2006
Israel still has no genuine peace partner. (Daniel Mandel, THE AGE).
Israel still has no genuine peace partner
By Daniel Mandel
November 13, 2006 . THE AGE. Melbourne, Australia.
There are chiefly two approaches people take to the Arab-Israeli conflict: One is to assert that Israeli occupation of Palestinians is the cause whose reversal would terminate it; the other is to regard Palestinian and wider Arab goals to replace Israel with an Arab/Muslim state as the cause whose relinquishing would bring peace. Antony Loewenstein, (Opinion, 10/11), subscribes to the former view. I subscribe to the latter.
The Arab desire to dismember Israel, expressed in several wars launched by Arab states, has accompanied Israel from the moment of its birth in 1948; the Israeli conquest of the West Bank and Gaza dates from the 1967 Six Day War. Israeli occupation is a symptom, not a cause, of Arab belligerence.
The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), for example, was formed in Arab-controlled Jerusalem in 1964 self-evidently not with the intention of "liberating" territories that were then firmly in Arab hands.
However, in the 1990s, many Israelis preferred to believe that Arab determination to dismember Israel had given way to acceptance, making a land-for-peace deal possible for the first time. It was a seductive hope, yet despite Israeli flexibility, American diplomatic enthusiasm and European largesse, it failed dismally.
Why? Ample opportunity, after all, existed for the PLO and Fatah leader, Yasser Arafat, heading the newly installed Palestinian Authority (PA) regime to come to terms with Israelis, build a rule of law society and lay the foundations of a firm economy bolstered by the world's highest per capita level of international aid.
Instead, the PA squandered it on building up militias and lining the pockets of officials from Arafat down. Terrorism increased while in the PA-controlled media, mosques, schools and youth camps, incitement to hatred and murder of Jews and glorification of terrorism as a religious and national duty became the order of the day.
In these circumstances, logic dictated that negotiations with the PA be called off, funding halted and diplomatic pressure applied to stop and reverse these developments.
Instead, the Israelis, the Americans and everyone else persisted with talks and concessions to this governmental Enron. This continued even after Arafat walked away from president Bill Clinton's peace plan in 2000, which would have seen uprooted the bulk of the Israeli settlements of which Loewenstein complains. For Palestinians, non-acceptance of Israel trumps statehood.
To this day, PA maps and atlases pretend Israel does not exist, PA-salaried clerics call for the murder of Jews, TV and radio broadcasts, popular songs and poetry extol the glories of suicide attacks, textbooks teach that Israel is unfit to live, and streets and colleges named for suicide bombers. One example: the PA/Egypt border crossing at Rafah is named in honour of a terrorist who murdered five Israelis.
Simply nothing comparable, despite Loewenstein's best efforts fixating on right-wing Israeli politician Avigdor Lieberman, exists on the Israeli side.
To this day, both Fatah and Hamas, which together command the support of the overwhelming majority of Palestinians, call in their respective charters for Israel's destruction, while Hamas goes one further and calls for Jews to be murdered, yet Loewenstein sees its election as grounds for its international acceptance. Fatah and Hamas have each deliberately killed more than 400 Israelis apiece in five years of suicide bombing but Loewenstein believes Israel is "addicted to violence".
Before the Palestinian terror wave, beginning in September 2000, there were no Israeli incursions, blockades and security fences. Until last week, there were no Israeli forces in Gaza's Beit Hanoun. But scores of missiles fired into Israel from that territory - unilaterally relinquished by Israel last year - brought the Israeli army back.
Hamas called out Palestinian women to shield the escape of cornered gunmen and other terrorists ensconced in apartments eluded the fire intended for them that killed neigbouring civilians in their beds. Using human shields is a vile tactic, made more effective by ritual condemnation for the Israelis confronting it.
Why the studious avoidance of the abundant evidence of Palestinian intentions and conduct? Why the rationalisation of Palestinian terror via the mantra of "occupation"? Why the inversion of cause and effect?
Because it is apparently difficult (though it shouldn't be) to accept that when people say they mean to kill Jews and eliminate Israel, they actually mean it. How much more comforting for the gullible and convenient for the malevolent to insist that peace lies within Israel's unilateral gift.
As the case of Loewenstein shows, an awakening from this resilient fallacy must await still further and greater terror. In retrospect, a peace process between one party bent on survival and the other on destruction has predictably failed.
If Israel one day prevails on Palestinians to relinquish their goal of its elimination, successful peace talks will ensue. If Israel goes under, none of course will be necessary.
Daniel Mandel is director of the Zionist Organisation of America's Centre for Middle East Policy, a fellow in history at University of Melbourne and the author of H. V. Evatt and the Establishment of Israel: The Undercover Zionist (2004).
By Daniel Mandel
November 13, 2006 . THE AGE. Melbourne, Australia.
There are chiefly two approaches people take to the Arab-Israeli conflict: One is to assert that Israeli occupation of Palestinians is the cause whose reversal would terminate it; the other is to regard Palestinian and wider Arab goals to replace Israel with an Arab/Muslim state as the cause whose relinquishing would bring peace. Antony Loewenstein, (Opinion, 10/11), subscribes to the former view. I subscribe to the latter.
The Arab desire to dismember Israel, expressed in several wars launched by Arab states, has accompanied Israel from the moment of its birth in 1948; the Israeli conquest of the West Bank and Gaza dates from the 1967 Six Day War. Israeli occupation is a symptom, not a cause, of Arab belligerence.
The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), for example, was formed in Arab-controlled Jerusalem in 1964 self-evidently not with the intention of "liberating" territories that were then firmly in Arab hands.
However, in the 1990s, many Israelis preferred to believe that Arab determination to dismember Israel had given way to acceptance, making a land-for-peace deal possible for the first time. It was a seductive hope, yet despite Israeli flexibility, American diplomatic enthusiasm and European largesse, it failed dismally.
Why? Ample opportunity, after all, existed for the PLO and Fatah leader, Yasser Arafat, heading the newly installed Palestinian Authority (PA) regime to come to terms with Israelis, build a rule of law society and lay the foundations of a firm economy bolstered by the world's highest per capita level of international aid.
Instead, the PA squandered it on building up militias and lining the pockets of officials from Arafat down. Terrorism increased while in the PA-controlled media, mosques, schools and youth camps, incitement to hatred and murder of Jews and glorification of terrorism as a religious and national duty became the order of the day.
In these circumstances, logic dictated that negotiations with the PA be called off, funding halted and diplomatic pressure applied to stop and reverse these developments.
Instead, the Israelis, the Americans and everyone else persisted with talks and concessions to this governmental Enron. This continued even after Arafat walked away from president Bill Clinton's peace plan in 2000, which would have seen uprooted the bulk of the Israeli settlements of which Loewenstein complains. For Palestinians, non-acceptance of Israel trumps statehood.
To this day, PA maps and atlases pretend Israel does not exist, PA-salaried clerics call for the murder of Jews, TV and radio broadcasts, popular songs and poetry extol the glories of suicide attacks, textbooks teach that Israel is unfit to live, and streets and colleges named for suicide bombers. One example: the PA/Egypt border crossing at Rafah is named in honour of a terrorist who murdered five Israelis.
Simply nothing comparable, despite Loewenstein's best efforts fixating on right-wing Israeli politician Avigdor Lieberman, exists on the Israeli side.
To this day, both Fatah and Hamas, which together command the support of the overwhelming majority of Palestinians, call in their respective charters for Israel's destruction, while Hamas goes one further and calls for Jews to be murdered, yet Loewenstein sees its election as grounds for its international acceptance. Fatah and Hamas have each deliberately killed more than 400 Israelis apiece in five years of suicide bombing but Loewenstein believes Israel is "addicted to violence".
Before the Palestinian terror wave, beginning in September 2000, there were no Israeli incursions, blockades and security fences. Until last week, there were no Israeli forces in Gaza's Beit Hanoun. But scores of missiles fired into Israel from that territory - unilaterally relinquished by Israel last year - brought the Israeli army back.
Hamas called out Palestinian women to shield the escape of cornered gunmen and other terrorists ensconced in apartments eluded the fire intended for them that killed neigbouring civilians in their beds. Using human shields is a vile tactic, made more effective by ritual condemnation for the Israelis confronting it.
Why the studious avoidance of the abundant evidence of Palestinian intentions and conduct? Why the rationalisation of Palestinian terror via the mantra of "occupation"? Why the inversion of cause and effect?
Because it is apparently difficult (though it shouldn't be) to accept that when people say they mean to kill Jews and eliminate Israel, they actually mean it. How much more comforting for the gullible and convenient for the malevolent to insist that peace lies within Israel's unilateral gift.
As the case of Loewenstein shows, an awakening from this resilient fallacy must await still further and greater terror. In retrospect, a peace process between one party bent on survival and the other on destruction has predictably failed.
If Israel one day prevails on Palestinians to relinquish their goal of its elimination, successful peace talks will ensue. If Israel goes under, none of course will be necessary.
Daniel Mandel is director of the Zionist Organisation of America's Centre for Middle East Policy, a fellow in history at University of Melbourne and the author of H. V. Evatt and the Establishment of Israel: The Undercover Zionist (2004).
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
SBS Dateline: re Campus Watch. 8/11/06.
MESSAGES in their SBS Dateline Guest Book were diverse and mostly anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli. The problem however is much worse than it appears.
Many of the so-called Jewish names appearing on the Guest Book were obviously fabricated to appear Jewish and to implicate dissent within the Jewish community. One reference pointed to a Nazi-site which is made to appear that it is a Jewish site. It is a vile fabrication and vitriolic hate propaganda!
By using pseudonyms, hate-propaganda is invited, while the use of programs which purport to be for the benefit of pointing out unfair use of "Zionist lobby and power " on denying academic freedoms by (non-Jewish, but Israel supporter and anti-Arab influence in America) Daniel Pipes through "CAMPUS WATCH", obviously adds to the anti-Zionist anti-Semitic propaganda in this country.
I don't know why we can have a "MEDIA WATCH" on the ABC-TV, but not a "CAMPUS WATCH" . The fact that some Arab-American academics are feeling the heat is obvious.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wed.8 Novemeber.
MM
Good program tonight.
The matter of "freedom of speech" is constantly being brought up here and all over the Western world,- but only in the Western world. Sheikh Hilali also cries about freedom of speech; academics are supposedly immune from criticism in the name of "freedom of speech and expression".
The Arab world went into hysterics over some cartoons in a democratic country which upholds the right of freedom of expression and now the whole Western world is held to ransom for fear of upsetting the Islamic world.
But it is OK to abuse, incite hatred of the tiny, single Jewish State or the Jews,- in the name of "freedom" of speech, etc. and accusations of "the powerful lobby" immediately surface if they protest. One can't do much about Iran's cartoon contest about the Holocaust though,- can one?
If the Palestinians and Jihadis generally could talk instead of terrorise, they could have, or could have had years ago, their own State, or a Federation with the Jewish State and let all their people in the region live a normal life. But did any of their leaders let them?
Do those professors that are teaching this subject here or in America, tell it as it is, or as they want it to be?
All the Arabs seem to want to do is to destroy, even that which was handed to them on a plate as in Gaza and South Lebanon! But they want Israel,- but not to live in it ,- to destroy it. Would an American Moslem academic speak freely about that, or give vent to propaganda? Why should not he be watched to ensure a fair discourse on that intractable topic?
Hizbullah will destroy Lebanon,- but if Iran will try to destroy Israel, there won't be any Palestine left either,- they are too closely tied to each other!
Australian and American academics have to be aware of what they impart to future leaders of their respective countries and so must all of us be mindful of that.
MM
One reply (see below, after my retort.)
Thu 9 Nov 2006
MM
Rubbish, Neil Maydom. You are the one who has been fed lies. Israel's founders have long since gone, but they were satisfied with the tiny bit of land which the UN Partioned for them and the Arabs' 80% which they rejected. Palestinians never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
" Israel's founding activities were repulsive acts of ethnic cleansing."
Really? The 20% of the Israeli population who consider themselves Israeli & Palestinian Arabs don't seem to be worried about it.
"Have you never heard the Zionist description of pre-Israel Palestine as "A land without people for a people without a land"? "
No, never in Israel,- but I have heard it often in Australia until recent times and Mabo.
Yes,it is all about the lies you have been fed, Maydom. And believing those lies is a matter of personal choice. Shame on you.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neil Maydom (replies to original MM comments):
"If the Palestinians and Jihadis generally could talk instead of terrorise, they could have and could have had years ago, their own State, or a Federation with the Jewish State and let all their people in the region live a normal life. But did any of their leaders let them?"
Rubbish, MM. It was Israel's founders who didn't let them - and still won't. Palestinians never had a snowflake's chance in Hell of being treated like human beings. Israel's founding activities were repulsive acts of ethnic cleansing. Have you never heard the Zionist description of pre-Israel Palestine as "A land without people for a people without a land"? It's a lie, MM. And believing that lie is a matter of personal choice. Shame on you.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wonder how Australians would react if 20% of population were going to be Arab Moslems? With more to come of course for reunification of families.
MM.
Many of the so-called Jewish names appearing on the Guest Book were obviously fabricated to appear Jewish and to implicate dissent within the Jewish community. One reference pointed to a Nazi-site which is made to appear that it is a Jewish site. It is a vile fabrication and vitriolic hate propaganda!
By using pseudonyms, hate-propaganda is invited, while the use of programs which purport to be for the benefit of pointing out unfair use of "Zionist lobby and power " on denying academic freedoms by (non-Jewish, but Israel supporter and anti-Arab influence in America) Daniel Pipes through "CAMPUS WATCH", obviously adds to the anti-Zionist anti-Semitic propaganda in this country.
I don't know why we can have a "MEDIA WATCH" on the ABC-TV, but not a "CAMPUS WATCH" . The fact that some Arab-American academics are feeling the heat is obvious.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wed.8 Novemeber.
MM
Good program tonight.
The matter of "freedom of speech" is constantly being brought up here and all over the Western world,- but only in the Western world. Sheikh Hilali also cries about freedom of speech; academics are supposedly immune from criticism in the name of "freedom of speech and expression".
The Arab world went into hysterics over some cartoons in a democratic country which upholds the right of freedom of expression and now the whole Western world is held to ransom for fear of upsetting the Islamic world.
But it is OK to abuse, incite hatred of the tiny, single Jewish State or the Jews,- in the name of "freedom" of speech, etc. and accusations of "the powerful lobby" immediately surface if they protest. One can't do much about Iran's cartoon contest about the Holocaust though,- can one?
If the Palestinians and Jihadis generally could talk instead of terrorise, they could have, or could have had years ago, their own State, or a Federation with the Jewish State and let all their people in the region live a normal life. But did any of their leaders let them?
Do those professors that are teaching this subject here or in America, tell it as it is, or as they want it to be?
All the Arabs seem to want to do is to destroy, even that which was handed to them on a plate as in Gaza and South Lebanon! But they want Israel,- but not to live in it ,- to destroy it. Would an American Moslem academic speak freely about that, or give vent to propaganda? Why should not he be watched to ensure a fair discourse on that intractable topic?
Hizbullah will destroy Lebanon,- but if Iran will try to destroy Israel, there won't be any Palestine left either,- they are too closely tied to each other!
Australian and American academics have to be aware of what they impart to future leaders of their respective countries and so must all of us be mindful of that.
MM
One reply (see below, after my retort.)
Thu 9 Nov 2006
MM
Rubbish, Neil Maydom. You are the one who has been fed lies. Israel's founders have long since gone, but they were satisfied with the tiny bit of land which the UN Partioned for them and the Arabs' 80% which they rejected. Palestinians never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
" Israel's founding activities were repulsive acts of ethnic cleansing."
Really? The 20% of the Israeli population who consider themselves Israeli & Palestinian Arabs don't seem to be worried about it.
"Have you never heard the Zionist description of pre-Israel Palestine as "A land without people for a people without a land"? "
No, never in Israel,- but I have heard it often in Australia until recent times and Mabo.
Yes,it is all about the lies you have been fed, Maydom. And believing those lies is a matter of personal choice. Shame on you.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neil Maydom (replies to original MM comments):
"If the Palestinians and Jihadis generally could talk instead of terrorise, they could have and could have had years ago, their own State, or a Federation with the Jewish State and let all their people in the region live a normal life. But did any of their leaders let them?"
Rubbish, MM. It was Israel's founders who didn't let them - and still won't. Palestinians never had a snowflake's chance in Hell of being treated like human beings. Israel's founding activities were repulsive acts of ethnic cleansing. Have you never heard the Zionist description of pre-Israel Palestine as "A land without people for a people without a land"? It's a lie, MM. And believing that lie is a matter of personal choice. Shame on you.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wonder how Australians would react if 20% of population were going to be Arab Moslems? With more to come of course for reunification of families.
MM.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Hot for Martyrdom. (Sex and Islamic terrorism)
Monday » November 6 » 2006
Hot for martyrdom
Michael Coren
National Post
Friday, November 03, 2006
Dr. Tawfik Hamid doesn't tell people where he lives. Not the street, not the city, not even the country. It's safer that way. It's only the letters of testimony from some of the highest intelligence officers in the Western world that enable him to move freely. This medical doctor, author and activist once was a member of Egypt's Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya (Arabic for "the Islamic Group"), a banned terrorist organization. He was trained under Ayman al-Zawahiri, the bearded jihadi who appears in Bin Laden's videos, telling the world that Islamic violence will stop only once we all become Muslims.
He's a disarmingly gentle and courteous man. But he's determined to tell a complacent North America what he knows about fundamentalist Muslim imperialism.
"Yes, 'imperialism,' " he tells me. "The deliberate and determined expansion of militant Islam and its attempt to triumph not only in the Islamic world but in Europe and North America. Pure ideology. Muslim terrorists kill and slaughter not because of what they experience but because of what they believe."
Hamid drank in the message of Jihadism while at medical school in Cairo, and devoted himself to the cause. His group began meeting in a small room. Then a larger one. Then a Mosque reserved for followers of al-Zawahiri. By the time Hamid left the movement, its members were intimidating other students who were unsympathetic.
He is now 45 years old, and has had many years to reflect on why he was willing to die and kill for his religion. "The first thing you have to understand is that it has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with poverty or lack of education," he says. "I was from a middle-class family and my parents were not religious. Hardly anyone in the movement at university came from a background that was different from mine.
"I've heard this poverty nonsense time and time again from Western apologists for Islam, most of them not Muslim by the way. There are millions of passive supporters of terror who may be poor and needy but most of those who do the killing are wealthy, privileged, educated and free. If it were about poverty, ask yourself why it is middle-class Muslims -- and never poor Christians -- who become suicide bombers in Palestine."
His analysis is fascinating. Muslim fundamentalists believe, he insists, that Saudi Arabia's petroleum-based wealth is a divine gift, and that Saudi influence is sanctioned by Allah. Thus the extreme brand of Sunni Islam that spread from the Kingdom to the rest of the Islamic world is regarded not merely as one interpretation of the religion but the only genuine interpretation. The expansion of violent and regressive Islam, he continues, began in the late 1970s, and can be traced precisely to the growing financial clout of Saudi Arabia.
"We're not talking about a fringe cult here," he tells me. "Salafist [fundamentalist] Islam is the dominant version of the religion and is taught in almost every Islamic university in the world. It is puritanical, extreme and does, yes, mean that women can be beaten, apostates killed and Jews called pigs and monkeys."
He leans back, takes a deep breath and moves to another area, one that he says is far too seldom discussed: "North Americans are too squeamish about discussing the obvious sexual dynamic behind suicide bombings. If they understood contemporary Islamic society, they would understand the sheer sexual tension of Sunni Muslim men. Look at the figures for suicide bombings and see how few are from the Shiite world. Terrorism and violence yes, but not suicide. The overwhelming majority are from Sunnis. Now within the Shiite world there are what is known as temporary marriages, lasting anywhere from an hour to 95 years. It enables men to release their sexual frustrations.
"Islam condemns extra-marital sex as well as masturbation, which is also taught in the Christian tradition. But Islam also tells of unlimited sexual ecstasy in paradise with beautiful virgins for the martyr who gives his life for the faith. Don't for a moment underestimate this blinding passion or its influence on those who accept fundamentalism."
A pause. "I know. I was one who accepted it."
This partial explanation is shocking more for its banality than its horror. Mass murder provoked partly by simple lust. But it cannot be denied that letters written by suicide bombers frequently dwell on waiting virgins and sexual gratification.
"The sexual aspect is, of course, just one part of this. But I can tell you what it is not about. Not about Israel, not about Iraq, not about Afghanistan. They are mere excuses. Algerian Muslim fundamentalists murdered 150,000 other Algerian Muslims, sometimes slitting the throats of children in front of their parents. Are you seriously telling me that this was because of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians or American foreign policy?"
He's exasperated now, visibly angry at what he sees as a willful Western foolishness. "Stop asking what you have done wrong. Stop it! They're slaughtering you like sheep and you still look within. You criticize your history, your institutions, your churches. Why can't you realize that it has nothing to do with what you have done but with what they want."
Then he leaves -- for where, he cannot say. A voice that is silenced in its homeland and too often ignored by those who prefer convenient revision to disturbing truth. The tragedy is that Tawfik Hamid is almost used to it.
- Michael Coren is an author and broadcaster. www.michaelcoren.com
© National Post 2006
Copyright © 2006 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
=0)document.write(unescape('%3C')+'\!-'+'-')
//-->
Hot for martyrdom
Michael Coren
National Post
Friday, November 03, 2006
Dr. Tawfik Hamid doesn't tell people where he lives. Not the street, not the city, not even the country. It's safer that way. It's only the letters of testimony from some of the highest intelligence officers in the Western world that enable him to move freely. This medical doctor, author and activist once was a member of Egypt's Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya (Arabic for "the Islamic Group"), a banned terrorist organization. He was trained under Ayman al-Zawahiri, the bearded jihadi who appears in Bin Laden's videos, telling the world that Islamic violence will stop only once we all become Muslims.
He's a disarmingly gentle and courteous man. But he's determined to tell a complacent North America what he knows about fundamentalist Muslim imperialism.
"Yes, 'imperialism,' " he tells me. "The deliberate and determined expansion of militant Islam and its attempt to triumph not only in the Islamic world but in Europe and North America. Pure ideology. Muslim terrorists kill and slaughter not because of what they experience but because of what they believe."
Hamid drank in the message of Jihadism while at medical school in Cairo, and devoted himself to the cause. His group began meeting in a small room. Then a larger one. Then a Mosque reserved for followers of al-Zawahiri. By the time Hamid left the movement, its members were intimidating other students who were unsympathetic.
He is now 45 years old, and has had many years to reflect on why he was willing to die and kill for his religion. "The first thing you have to understand is that it has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with poverty or lack of education," he says. "I was from a middle-class family and my parents were not religious. Hardly anyone in the movement at university came from a background that was different from mine.
"I've heard this poverty nonsense time and time again from Western apologists for Islam, most of them not Muslim by the way. There are millions of passive supporters of terror who may be poor and needy but most of those who do the killing are wealthy, privileged, educated and free. If it were about poverty, ask yourself why it is middle-class Muslims -- and never poor Christians -- who become suicide bombers in Palestine."
His analysis is fascinating. Muslim fundamentalists believe, he insists, that Saudi Arabia's petroleum-based wealth is a divine gift, and that Saudi influence is sanctioned by Allah. Thus the extreme brand of Sunni Islam that spread from the Kingdom to the rest of the Islamic world is regarded not merely as one interpretation of the religion but the only genuine interpretation. The expansion of violent and regressive Islam, he continues, began in the late 1970s, and can be traced precisely to the growing financial clout of Saudi Arabia.
"We're not talking about a fringe cult here," he tells me. "Salafist [fundamentalist] Islam is the dominant version of the religion and is taught in almost every Islamic university in the world. It is puritanical, extreme and does, yes, mean that women can be beaten, apostates killed and Jews called pigs and monkeys."
He leans back, takes a deep breath and moves to another area, one that he says is far too seldom discussed: "North Americans are too squeamish about discussing the obvious sexual dynamic behind suicide bombings. If they understood contemporary Islamic society, they would understand the sheer sexual tension of Sunni Muslim men. Look at the figures for suicide bombings and see how few are from the Shiite world. Terrorism and violence yes, but not suicide. The overwhelming majority are from Sunnis. Now within the Shiite world there are what is known as temporary marriages, lasting anywhere from an hour to 95 years. It enables men to release their sexual frustrations.
"Islam condemns extra-marital sex as well as masturbation, which is also taught in the Christian tradition. But Islam also tells of unlimited sexual ecstasy in paradise with beautiful virgins for the martyr who gives his life for the faith. Don't for a moment underestimate this blinding passion or its influence on those who accept fundamentalism."
A pause. "I know. I was one who accepted it."
This partial explanation is shocking more for its banality than its horror. Mass murder provoked partly by simple lust. But it cannot be denied that letters written by suicide bombers frequently dwell on waiting virgins and sexual gratification.
"The sexual aspect is, of course, just one part of this. But I can tell you what it is not about. Not about Israel, not about Iraq, not about Afghanistan. They are mere excuses. Algerian Muslim fundamentalists murdered 150,000 other Algerian Muslims, sometimes slitting the throats of children in front of their parents. Are you seriously telling me that this was because of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians or American foreign policy?"
He's exasperated now, visibly angry at what he sees as a willful Western foolishness. "Stop asking what you have done wrong. Stop it! They're slaughtering you like sheep and you still look within. You criticize your history, your institutions, your churches. Why can't you realize that it has nothing to do with what you have done but with what they want."
Then he leaves -- for where, he cannot say. A voice that is silenced in its homeland and too often ignored by those who prefer convenient revision to disturbing truth. The tragedy is that Tawfik Hamid is almost used to it.
- Michael Coren is an author and broadcaster. www.michaelcoren.com
© National Post 2006
Copyright © 2006 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
=0)document.write(unescape('%3C')+'\!-'+'-')
//-->
Friday, November 03, 2006
The Sheikh Hilali Sermons controversy.
So,- the Sydney Mufti of Australia, one Sheikh Hilali, who preaches at the Lakemba Mosque, the largest in Australia, is in trouble,- again! He has been preaching the extremist brand of Islam since he arrived here in the '80s. He has never been far from controversy ever since, with calls to deport him back to his native Egypt, frequently repeated. Whatever any other firebrand Islamic cleric preaches in the Islamic nations' Mosques,- whether in Gaza or in the Hizbullah countryside of Lebanon, -he has been known to repeat it here in his Sydney Mosque.
He has raved against Jews, Zionists, Christians and all infidels; his latest ravings have been against women who are the seductresses, by exposing themselves. "If you leave out raw flesh and the cats come to devour it, whom do you blame? The cats, or those who leave out the meat?"
For a while, we were all hopeful, that the fact that this kind of sermon, given in Arabic to the faithful, was exposed to and translated by the media and everybody of note in the Muslim community condemned it immediately. It was a good sign that finally the moderate silent-majority of Moslems on Australia are speaking up. How dare he blame women, the victims of rape? How dare he compare women with pieces of raw meat? Does he really want women to go around covered-up, not go out on their own in the evenings? To protect whom,- the women or the men?
The right comments were made, but by now everybody is retreating and blaming the media for formenting trouble for the Islamic comunity.
I think that the media and everyone has got it wrong about Hilali's sermon. He may have compared women's flesh with "raw meat",- but who did he compare the scavengers with? The men,- the rapists are like feral cats,- animals, without self control! This is what he really said. Therefore, if I were a male, Moslem or not, I would be more incensed than we free Aussie females.- Who are the ones needing to be shut away from the world?
Certainly not the women, while the "wild animals" roam free!
Malvina
He has raved against Jews, Zionists, Christians and all infidels; his latest ravings have been against women who are the seductresses, by exposing themselves. "If you leave out raw flesh and the cats come to devour it, whom do you blame? The cats, or those who leave out the meat?"
For a while, we were all hopeful, that the fact that this kind of sermon, given in Arabic to the faithful, was exposed to and translated by the media and everybody of note in the Muslim community condemned it immediately. It was a good sign that finally the moderate silent-majority of Moslems on Australia are speaking up. How dare he blame women, the victims of rape? How dare he compare women with pieces of raw meat? Does he really want women to go around covered-up, not go out on their own in the evenings? To protect whom,- the women or the men?
The right comments were made, but by now everybody is retreating and blaming the media for formenting trouble for the Islamic comunity.
I think that the media and everyone has got it wrong about Hilali's sermon. He may have compared women's flesh with "raw meat",- but who did he compare the scavengers with? The men,- the rapists are like feral cats,- animals, without self control! This is what he really said. Therefore, if I were a male, Moslem or not, I would be more incensed than we free Aussie females.- Who are the ones needing to be shut away from the world?
Certainly not the women, while the "wild animals" roam free!
Malvina
Blind-sided by U.N. ( Anne Bayefsky)..
<http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20061030-095026-7517r.htm>
Blind-sided by U.N.
TODAY'S COLUMNIST
By Anne Bayefsky
October 31, 2006
Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, makes it very plain why the U.N. has become the Trojan horse of nuclear proliferation. In an interview with Newsweek magazine on Oct. 20, Mr. ElBaradei laid bare his plan -- guaranteed to lead the international community into nuclear war. His overall outlook toward nuclear proliferation, he explained, has two prongs. No. 1, the problem with Iran and North Korea is "not really leader-specific. It is country-specific: a country feeling insecure. And if it sees that the people in the major leagues are relying on nuclear weapons, it will at the very least be tempted to do the same." It is interesting to speculate how Iranians and North Koreans have managed to communicate to Mr. ElBaradei that they really want to use their precious resources on acquiring nuclear weapons, given "criminal justice" systems that include torture, amputation and stoning. Of course, Mr. ElBaradei brings to bear two personal perspectives on the subject of "country feelings." He hails from the Arab world, the least democratically inclined neighborhood on earth, and has a long professional career in the U.N., where one state-one vote masquerades for "international democracy" regardless of the Castros, Hu Jintaos or Mugabes casting the ballots.
So what would Mr. ElBaradei propose as a way of extinguishing this heartfelt longing for weapons of mass destruction beating in the hearts of the Iranian and North Korean peoples? In his words: "the Korean situation, the Iran situation -- these problems hinge, in my view, on the parties sitting together." No sanctions of any kind for this master of international double-talk. The solution is not to isolate the leadership that terrorizes the population, but to sit down, talk and further empower their prison wardens.
Part two of the plan championed by Mr. ElBaradei -- the recipient of one of the most ignominious Nobel "Peace" Prizes of all time -- is to promote moral relativism. Says Mr. ElBaradei: "The second myth is that nuclear weapons are OK in the hands of 'the good guys' and not OK in the hands of 'the bad guys' ... We need to have a system that is not based on subjective considerations." Such a statement coming from the head of the organization intended to prevent nuclear war should send a chill down the spine of peace-loving people everywhere. The obscenity that there is no good and evil, or that such ideas are merely subjective, is the ultimate rallying cry for those who hate democracy and everything America stands for. It is also the antithesis of the IAEA mandate, which by Mr. ElBaradei's own admission is "an organization that is asked to sit and judge member states."
It is little wonder, therefore, that Mr. ElBaradei and the U.N. apparatus that stands behind him will not stop Iran or its terrorist friends and allies from acquiring nuclear weapons. On the contrary, they are the very instrument of nuclear proliferation today. Mr. ElBaradei is Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's front man. When asked by the Newsweek correspondent, minimally, "Surely Iran's behavior doesn't inspire confidence?" Mr. ElBaradei replied only "The jury is still out." He sees no evil and hears no evil three-and-a-half years after the IAEA Governing Board first declared Iran to be in violation of its nuclear non-proliferation obligations.
In effect, Mr. ElBaradei is the brake-man on any international effort to curtail Iran's nuclear ambitions. His mantra what's the rush? "[W]e are really talking about four to nine years ... [W]e don't see a clear and present danger that we have to address tomorrow, and we have ample time to negotiate... Iran in the worst-case scenario is still a few years away, I have ample time to talk to them, I have ample time to negotiate with them." This is not harmless verbiage. This a lie that threatens to doom civilization as we know it. The whole point of the non-proliferation regime was to stop the process long before the enemy of freedom had nothing left to do but pull the switch. If it took three years for the mere subject of Iranian nuclear ambitions to make its way from the IAEA Governing Board to the agenda of the Security Council, is doubling that amount of time "ample"? Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice told talk-show host Sean Hannity on Oct. 24, having met with Mr. ElBaradei earlier in the week, "we have to really manage to get the international system to take very seriously the Iranian threat. I think people do now take the nuclear threat seriously ... [W]e're dealing with that in the UN."
It is one thing for a U.N. official to misrepresent the capacity of the U.N. to deal with Iran. It is another for an American secretary of state. The U.N. cannot and will not prevent Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons, whatever slap on the wrist the Security Council might one day concoct for show. And the longer the lie is perpetuated, the faster we doom our children to live in a world none of us would want to inhabit.
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Anne Bayefsky is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and professor at Touro Law School.
Blind-sided by U.N.
TODAY'S COLUMNIST
By Anne Bayefsky
October 31, 2006
Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, makes it very plain why the U.N. has become the Trojan horse of nuclear proliferation. In an interview with Newsweek magazine on Oct. 20, Mr. ElBaradei laid bare his plan -- guaranteed to lead the international community into nuclear war. His overall outlook toward nuclear proliferation, he explained, has two prongs. No. 1, the problem with Iran and North Korea is "not really leader-specific. It is country-specific: a country feeling insecure. And if it sees that the people in the major leagues are relying on nuclear weapons, it will at the very least be tempted to do the same." It is interesting to speculate how Iranians and North Koreans have managed to communicate to Mr. ElBaradei that they really want to use their precious resources on acquiring nuclear weapons, given "criminal justice" systems that include torture, amputation and stoning. Of course, Mr. ElBaradei brings to bear two personal perspectives on the subject of "country feelings." He hails from the Arab world, the least democratically inclined neighborhood on earth, and has a long professional career in the U.N., where one state-one vote masquerades for "international democracy" regardless of the Castros, Hu Jintaos or Mugabes casting the ballots.
So what would Mr. ElBaradei propose as a way of extinguishing this heartfelt longing for weapons of mass destruction beating in the hearts of the Iranian and North Korean peoples? In his words: "the Korean situation, the Iran situation -- these problems hinge, in my view, on the parties sitting together." No sanctions of any kind for this master of international double-talk. The solution is not to isolate the leadership that terrorizes the population, but to sit down, talk and further empower their prison wardens.
Part two of the plan championed by Mr. ElBaradei -- the recipient of one of the most ignominious Nobel "Peace" Prizes of all time -- is to promote moral relativism. Says Mr. ElBaradei: "The second myth is that nuclear weapons are OK in the hands of 'the good guys' and not OK in the hands of 'the bad guys' ... We need to have a system that is not based on subjective considerations." Such a statement coming from the head of the organization intended to prevent nuclear war should send a chill down the spine of peace-loving people everywhere. The obscenity that there is no good and evil, or that such ideas are merely subjective, is the ultimate rallying cry for those who hate democracy and everything America stands for. It is also the antithesis of the IAEA mandate, which by Mr. ElBaradei's own admission is "an organization that is asked to sit and judge member states."
It is little wonder, therefore, that Mr. ElBaradei and the U.N. apparatus that stands behind him will not stop Iran or its terrorist friends and allies from acquiring nuclear weapons. On the contrary, they are the very instrument of nuclear proliferation today. Mr. ElBaradei is Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's front man. When asked by the Newsweek correspondent, minimally, "Surely Iran's behavior doesn't inspire confidence?" Mr. ElBaradei replied only "The jury is still out." He sees no evil and hears no evil three-and-a-half years after the IAEA Governing Board first declared Iran to be in violation of its nuclear non-proliferation obligations.
In effect, Mr. ElBaradei is the brake-man on any international effort to curtail Iran's nuclear ambitions. His mantra what's the rush? "[W]e are really talking about four to nine years ... [W]e don't see a clear and present danger that we have to address tomorrow, and we have ample time to negotiate... Iran in the worst-case scenario is still a few years away, I have ample time to talk to them, I have ample time to negotiate with them." This is not harmless verbiage. This a lie that threatens to doom civilization as we know it. The whole point of the non-proliferation regime was to stop the process long before the enemy of freedom had nothing left to do but pull the switch. If it took three years for the mere subject of Iranian nuclear ambitions to make its way from the IAEA Governing Board to the agenda of the Security Council, is doubling that amount of time "ample"? Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice told talk-show host Sean Hannity on Oct. 24, having met with Mr. ElBaradei earlier in the week, "we have to really manage to get the international system to take very seriously the Iranian threat. I think people do now take the nuclear threat seriously ... [W]e're dealing with that in the UN."
It is one thing for a U.N. official to misrepresent the capacity of the U.N. to deal with Iran. It is another for an American secretary of state. The U.N. cannot and will not prevent Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons, whatever slap on the wrist the Security Council might one day concoct for show. And the longer the lie is perpetuated, the faster we doom our children to live in a world none of us would want to inhabit.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anne Bayefsky is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and professor at Touro Law School.
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