International NGOs must have their credibility checked.
FOLLOW THE MONEY TRAIL!
Powerful international NGOs have a far greater influence than they deserve and too much credibility. Accountable to no one, independently funded, no one really knows or can assess whether they are biased or not in each of their reports. While some like Amnesty and HRW may research their material and appear to be neutral in their assessments every time, no one can really evaluate their impartiality unless one sets out to investigate their background funding, behind-the-scenes researchers and the influences under which they operate. Human Rights Watch is no better than the UN Human Rights Committee,- better dubbed the “ UN Human Wrongs Committee”.
What do some of these supposedly ”human rights watching” NGOs have in common? They follow the Arab propaganda line of seeking out to demonize one country above all others: Israel. Never mind all the atrocities being constantly perpetrated in Africa and Asia nowaday.
One organization that does try to bring to our attention their deficiencies and lack of credibility vis-à-vis Israel, is NGO Monitor. www.ngo-monitor.org
Here are just two of their recent reports re Amnesty and HRW.:
Double Standards: HRW/Amnesty/Christian Aid Statements on the Conflict between Fatah-al-Islam and the Lebanese
July12.
Powerful NGOs such as Amnesty International have major political impacts, and often promote narrow agendas that are inconsistent with universal human rights. As part of NGO Monitor's continuing assessment of this bias, we have systematically analyzed the relative emphasis on Israel in comparison to other countries in the Middle East in 2006. NGO Monitor has applied a quantitative framework to measure the financial and human resources devoted to addressing events and occurrences in these countries. (The same methodology was used to examine the agenda of Human Rights Watch.) This carefully documented research clearly demonstrates that in 2006, Amnesty International focused disproportionately on condemnations of Israel, far beyond any reasonable distribution of resources in a region marked by fundamental human rights abuses by many repressive regimes and sources of violence. This study, which also includes a qualitative section focusing on the language used in reports, shows that Amnesty singled out Israel for condemnation to a far greater extent than Iran, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Syria, Egypt, and other chronic abusers of human rights. This evidence of a clear political agenda is consistent with other studies and examples of Amnesty International's bias and lack of credibility.
HRW/FIDH/OMCT statement on NGO official linked to PFLP
Summary: On May 2 2007, three major NGOs -- Human Rights Watch, FIDH [1]and the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) -- published a joint press release [2]calling on Israel to lift the travel ban placed on Shawan Jabarin, the General Director of Al-Haq[3]. Al Haq, an affiliate of the Geneva based International Commission of Jurists, is a highly politicized Palestinian NGO, active in the 2001 Durban conference that adopted a strategy of demonization against Israel. The statement alleges that Jabarin was barred by Israel from attending the annual Congress of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) in Lisbon on April 19, 2007, and that "Israeli authorities have not explained why the restrictions are in place."
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Friday, June 22, 2007
Jewish Women's Talkfest in Sydney, June 16-21, 2007.
IN OUR OWN RIGHT.
National Council of Jewish Women of Australia 28th Conference.
For over 80 years Jewish women in Australia, starting in Sydney then spreading all over the country, have taken the initiative to act, support and initiate all kinds of programs and activities in their communities through the NCJWA.
At a time when women throughout the world were not really engaged in much more than in supporting roles for the menfolk in their communities as well as within their own families, one woman took it upon herself to change this attitude and perception among the women in their Jewish communities. Dr. Fanny Reading MBE was not only a pioneer and activist among the Australian Jewish women, but also a pioneer in her medical profession, being the first female medical graduate at Melbourne University.
At the 28th National Conference ( previously triennial, now quadrennial) held in Sydney 17-20 June, 2007, the Victorian Section led the way in all areas. The newly elected National President is the Victorian past President, Mrs. Rysia Rozen OAM. In other areas of membership, programming, new and invigorating leadership teams and recognition of its past leaders’ contributions, the Victorians starred although the Canberra Section of NCJWA recorded exciting new initiatives and an actual increase in numbers of members, becoming the recipients of “The Presidents’ Membership Trophy”.
Susie Ivany, the President of NCJWA (Vic.) Inc., brought home the “Israel Projects” shield for its highest pro-rata fundraising for all the major NCJWA Israel Projects, which includes the KKL Yarkon river development; Haifa University Ethiopian women’s scholarships, the Haifa Rape Crisis Centre, the ILAN Tel Aviv centre for the disabled children from cerebral palsy and other projects.
The Hon/ Treasurer from Victoria, Mrs. Beverly Walters received Council’s highest volunteer award, the Honour Badge which is awarded only at Conferences, while the National Board elevated past National presidents, Malvina Malinek OAM and Dr.Geulah Solomon OAM.to the position of Hon. Life Governors of NCJWA. Longstanding Gold Coast (Queensland) Section President, Barabar Stewart-Kann OAM was also awarded an Hon. National Life Vice Presidency and Carolyn Goldsmith of Brisbane Section an Hon. Life Membership of the National Executive.
Retiring National President, Robyn Lenn OAM of Sydney and her committee worked tirelessly to provide the delegates from all over Australia with a superb program over 5 days of intense activities and discussions on issues of “Modern Medical Interventions” for health and bioethics; challenges ahead in (post) Multicultural Australia; anti-Semitism and racism; “The Jewish Woman,- status, rights and education”; and “Jewish women around the world” with the International President, Leah Aharonov from Israel as the main guest speaker at the conference.
The Opening and Closing Dinners held at ”NCJW’s own Council House in Woollahra, were attended by the leaders of the community and members of Parliament, with the “NCJWA WOMAN OF ACHIEVEMNT AWARD” presented to Prue Goward MP, in the presence of Israeli Ambassador Mr. Naftali Tamir and the Mayor of Waverly, Mr. George Newhouse.
For the next four years, the national headquarters of NCJWA will be at the “Annia Castan and Sadie Fink” NCJW Council House in Caulfield, Melbourne, Australia.
Website, www.ncjw.org.au
MM
National Council of Jewish Women of Australia 28th Conference.
For over 80 years Jewish women in Australia, starting in Sydney then spreading all over the country, have taken the initiative to act, support and initiate all kinds of programs and activities in their communities through the NCJWA.
At a time when women throughout the world were not really engaged in much more than in supporting roles for the menfolk in their communities as well as within their own families, one woman took it upon herself to change this attitude and perception among the women in their Jewish communities. Dr. Fanny Reading MBE was not only a pioneer and activist among the Australian Jewish women, but also a pioneer in her medical profession, being the first female medical graduate at Melbourne University.
At the 28th National Conference ( previously triennial, now quadrennial) held in Sydney 17-20 June, 2007, the Victorian Section led the way in all areas. The newly elected National President is the Victorian past President, Mrs. Rysia Rozen OAM. In other areas of membership, programming, new and invigorating leadership teams and recognition of its past leaders’ contributions, the Victorians starred although the Canberra Section of NCJWA recorded exciting new initiatives and an actual increase in numbers of members, becoming the recipients of “The Presidents’ Membership Trophy”.
Susie Ivany, the President of NCJWA (Vic.) Inc., brought home the “Israel Projects” shield for its highest pro-rata fundraising for all the major NCJWA Israel Projects, which includes the KKL Yarkon river development; Haifa University Ethiopian women’s scholarships, the Haifa Rape Crisis Centre, the ILAN Tel Aviv centre for the disabled children from cerebral palsy and other projects.
The Hon/ Treasurer from Victoria, Mrs. Beverly Walters received Council’s highest volunteer award, the Honour Badge which is awarded only at Conferences, while the National Board elevated past National presidents, Malvina Malinek OAM and Dr.Geulah Solomon OAM.to the position of Hon. Life Governors of NCJWA. Longstanding Gold Coast (Queensland) Section President, Barabar Stewart-Kann OAM was also awarded an Hon. National Life Vice Presidency and Carolyn Goldsmith of Brisbane Section an Hon. Life Membership of the National Executive.
Retiring National President, Robyn Lenn OAM of Sydney and her committee worked tirelessly to provide the delegates from all over Australia with a superb program over 5 days of intense activities and discussions on issues of “Modern Medical Interventions” for health and bioethics; challenges ahead in (post) Multicultural Australia; anti-Semitism and racism; “The Jewish Woman,- status, rights and education”; and “Jewish women around the world” with the International President, Leah Aharonov from Israel as the main guest speaker at the conference.
The Opening and Closing Dinners held at ”NCJW’s own Council House in Woollahra, were attended by the leaders of the community and members of Parliament, with the “NCJWA WOMAN OF ACHIEVEMNT AWARD” presented to Prue Goward MP, in the presence of Israeli Ambassador Mr. Naftali Tamir and the Mayor of Waverly, Mr. George Newhouse.
For the next four years, the national headquarters of NCJWA will be at the “Annia Castan and Sadie Fink” NCJW Council House in Caulfield, Melbourne, Australia.
Website, www.ncjw.org.au
MM
Monday, June 11, 2007
Where is the Jewish Outrage against the Moslem passion to destroy us?
Where’s the Outrage?
by David Suissa
Sunday June 10, 2007
from Aish.com
Jew-haters of the world need to know that we have as much passion to defend Jewish lives as they have passion to destroy us.
I took a break from the hood the other night to speak to a large synagogue in Palos Verdes called Congregation Ner Tamid -- and I used a word that got me in trouble. The occasion was a showing of "Obsession" -- a documentary on the rise of radical Islam and the worldwide terror that has accompanied it -- and it was sponsored by CAMERA, an organization that counteracts anti-Israel bias in the mainstream media.
"Obsession" assaults you with the hatred that fuels the fire of radical Islam.
The film points out that the majority of Muslims are not radical Islamists, but when it hones in on the radicals, the words and images make your skin crawl.
You see an old sheik, speaking to what looks like 100,000 people, pulling out a sword and exhorting his screaming flock to kill every Jew they can find. One radical Muslim after another is shown giving motivational speeches on the fine art of Jew-hatred. And Jew-killing. Lots and lots of Jew-killing.
But here's the crazy part: There's not a word from the Jew-haters about the dreaded Occupation. Not a peep about roadblocks or fences or the oppressive policies of the Zionist occupier, which, as we are so often reminded, lie "at the heart" of our enemies' discontent. The Jew-haters are honest: they want Jews dead. All Jews. Roadblocks or no roadblocks. West Bank or no West Bank.
Talk about an inconvenient truth.
When you see all this Jew-hatred, it's tempting to be dismissive and say "These are only the radicals; there are many more moderates." Or to get all cynical because "The radicals will always want to kill us. So what's new?" These are great coping mechanisms that help us maintain our composure. But here's what's new: The radicals aren't just getting bigger and bolder on the battlefield, they're also, amazingly, winning the PR war.
Who would have figured that two years after our heart-wrenching evacuation of Gaza -- two years of continued relentless attacks from an enemy that brazenly calls for our destruction -- we'd be the target of a boycott from British professors? Again, it's tempting to get all blase and say "Been there, done that."
But this blase attitude is a reason why we are losing the PR battle: We assume that getting all worked up about stuff doesn't really make a difference, or that it's not very becoming of Jews. The practical thing to do is to stay composed and look for solutions.
Well, here's a practical idea: Let's all take a time-out from "solutions" and get a little worked up. Let's stop being so composed and start being outraged.
Because if we continue like this, the whole world, except for America and Micronesia, will be boycotting Israel.
Israel needs the Diaspora to get more emotional right now -- because emotional outrage wins PR battles. Our enemy understands that a lot better than we do.
The most effective TV interview I ever saw happened about five years ago on a major network, while Israel was in the midst of numerous suicide bombings. The anchorman asked Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg, a very composed and sophisticated man, why Israel could not arrest these suicide bombers. Well, you should have seen the outrage on Mr. Burg's face.
With clenched fists and an almost growling voice, he said something like: "But how do you expect us to do that when they can blow up in one second?"
It was visceral, it was sincere and it didn't come from talking points. It came from his heart, and I guarantee you it played well in Wisconsin.
After seeing the Jew-hatred in "Obsession," it was hard not to get worked up when I spoke at the Palos Verdes synagogue. I wanted the Jew-haters of the world to know that we have as much passion to defend Jewish lives as they have passion to destroy us.
But I got a little carried away. I said that we need to have our own Jihad -- a Jihad for life -- and to show the enemy that we believe in it as much as they believe in their "Jihad for death."
A fellow Jew rose up in indignation. My clever twist did not amuse him. No matter how much I tried to explain the subtleties of turning our enemy's word on its head to convey our own "noble struggle," the word went too far for him.
I understood his discomfort, but maybe that's precisely why we need to go there.
Our PR timidity has backfired on us. I'm not saying we should emulate "Wrestlemania" announcers (how sincere do they look?), but I am saying that we need to get bolder and more emotional. It makes us more human.
For example, when the bombs fall on Sderot, instead of empty cliches like "no terrorist is immune" and "this is unacceptable" and so forth, we should have the guts to run ads all over the world and get on CNN and the BBC and say things like: "We gave them land, and they gave us war." "This proves that the occupation was never the key problem," and "How would England respond if the same amount of bombs fell on Manchester?"
These are not think-tank words, they're real words. If we can deliver them with the same intensity Mr. Burg used five years ago, the world will better understand the justness of our cause.
The amazing thing about the PR battle is that it's probably the only area right now where we can win. The political, military and diplomatic landscapes are a mess, but the PR landscape is wide open. Especially post-disengagement, there are numerous PR victories that are ours for the taking.
In a brilliant article in Haaretz, Moshe Arens explains why you can't deter terrorists, you can only fight them. It's time for Jews of all stripes to get their mojo back, and join the PR fight.
Even if your only weapon is your PC, and your mouth.
by David Suissa
Sunday June 10, 2007
from Aish.com
Jew-haters of the world need to know that we have as much passion to defend Jewish lives as they have passion to destroy us.
I took a break from the hood the other night to speak to a large synagogue in Palos Verdes called Congregation Ner Tamid -- and I used a word that got me in trouble. The occasion was a showing of "Obsession" -- a documentary on the rise of radical Islam and the worldwide terror that has accompanied it -- and it was sponsored by CAMERA, an organization that counteracts anti-Israel bias in the mainstream media.
"Obsession" assaults you with the hatred that fuels the fire of radical Islam.
The film points out that the majority of Muslims are not radical Islamists, but when it hones in on the radicals, the words and images make your skin crawl.
You see an old sheik, speaking to what looks like 100,000 people, pulling out a sword and exhorting his screaming flock to kill every Jew they can find. One radical Muslim after another is shown giving motivational speeches on the fine art of Jew-hatred. And Jew-killing. Lots and lots of Jew-killing.
But here's the crazy part: There's not a word from the Jew-haters about the dreaded Occupation. Not a peep about roadblocks or fences or the oppressive policies of the Zionist occupier, which, as we are so often reminded, lie "at the heart" of our enemies' discontent. The Jew-haters are honest: they want Jews dead. All Jews. Roadblocks or no roadblocks. West Bank or no West Bank.
Talk about an inconvenient truth.
When you see all this Jew-hatred, it's tempting to be dismissive and say "These are only the radicals; there are many more moderates." Or to get all cynical because "The radicals will always want to kill us. So what's new?" These are great coping mechanisms that help us maintain our composure. But here's what's new: The radicals aren't just getting bigger and bolder on the battlefield, they're also, amazingly, winning the PR war.
Who would have figured that two years after our heart-wrenching evacuation of Gaza -- two years of continued relentless attacks from an enemy that brazenly calls for our destruction -- we'd be the target of a boycott from British professors? Again, it's tempting to get all blase and say "Been there, done that."
But this blase attitude is a reason why we are losing the PR battle: We assume that getting all worked up about stuff doesn't really make a difference, or that it's not very becoming of Jews. The practical thing to do is to stay composed and look for solutions.
Well, here's a practical idea: Let's all take a time-out from "solutions" and get a little worked up. Let's stop being so composed and start being outraged.
Because if we continue like this, the whole world, except for America and Micronesia, will be boycotting Israel.
Israel needs the Diaspora to get more emotional right now -- because emotional outrage wins PR battles. Our enemy understands that a lot better than we do.
The most effective TV interview I ever saw happened about five years ago on a major network, while Israel was in the midst of numerous suicide bombings. The anchorman asked Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg, a very composed and sophisticated man, why Israel could not arrest these suicide bombers. Well, you should have seen the outrage on Mr. Burg's face.
With clenched fists and an almost growling voice, he said something like: "But how do you expect us to do that when they can blow up in one second?"
It was visceral, it was sincere and it didn't come from talking points. It came from his heart, and I guarantee you it played well in Wisconsin.
After seeing the Jew-hatred in "Obsession," it was hard not to get worked up when I spoke at the Palos Verdes synagogue. I wanted the Jew-haters of the world to know that we have as much passion to defend Jewish lives as they have passion to destroy us.
But I got a little carried away. I said that we need to have our own Jihad -- a Jihad for life -- and to show the enemy that we believe in it as much as they believe in their "Jihad for death."
A fellow Jew rose up in indignation. My clever twist did not amuse him. No matter how much I tried to explain the subtleties of turning our enemy's word on its head to convey our own "noble struggle," the word went too far for him.
I understood his discomfort, but maybe that's precisely why we need to go there.
Our PR timidity has backfired on us. I'm not saying we should emulate "Wrestlemania" announcers (how sincere do they look?), but I am saying that we need to get bolder and more emotional. It makes us more human.
For example, when the bombs fall on Sderot, instead of empty cliches like "no terrorist is immune" and "this is unacceptable" and so forth, we should have the guts to run ads all over the world and get on CNN and the BBC and say things like: "We gave them land, and they gave us war." "This proves that the occupation was never the key problem," and "How would England respond if the same amount of bombs fell on Manchester?"
These are not think-tank words, they're real words. If we can deliver them with the same intensity Mr. Burg used five years ago, the world will better understand the justness of our cause.
The amazing thing about the PR battle is that it's probably the only area right now where we can win. The political, military and diplomatic landscapes are a mess, but the PR landscape is wide open. Especially post-disengagement, there are numerous PR victories that are ours for the taking.
In a brilliant article in Haaretz, Moshe Arens explains why you can't deter terrorists, you can only fight them. It's time for Jews of all stripes to get their mojo back, and join the PR fight.
Even if your only weapon is your PC, and your mouth.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
DESPERATE FOR ENLIGHTMENT (re Ayaan Hirsi Ali, The Australian)
THE AUSTRALIAN
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DESPERATE FOR ENLIGHTMENT.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the voice of reason and confrontation, is part of a growing movement that seeks to shape the future of Islam, and her message needs to be more widely heard, writes Janet Albrechtsen
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
06jun07
"A Muslim woman must not feel wild, or free, or any of the other emotions and longings ... A Muslim girl does not make her own decisions or seek control. She is trained to be docile. If you are a Muslim girl, you disappear, until there is almost no you inside you. In Islam, becoming an individual is not a necessary development ... You submit; that is the literal meaning of Islam: submission. The goal is to become quiet on the inside, so that you never raise your eyes, not even inside your mind. - Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel"
HIRSI Ali makes headlines wherever she goes. In Australia for the Sydney Writers Festival, she provided a finale on a brisk Sunday evening unusual at such events where a heady concoctions of anti-Western sentiments tend to prevail. Hirsi Ali encouraged her audience to espouse their Western values louder than those who espouse Islam. There was, she said, "always an infidel in me" as she grew to detest the submission of free will at the heart of Islam. Dressed in a black dress and knee-high boots, Hirsi Ali glided off the stage just as the polite applause grew more rapturous, with the audience standing to mark their appreciation.
Alas, there were no Muslim women in the audience dressed in hijabs or chadors. Hirsi Ali was preaching, if not to the converted then at least to the curious: those who wanted to catch a glimpse of this tall, beautiful, brave woman, who implored her audience not to abandon the child brides who could be found in the suburbs.
The 37-year-old Somali-born former Dutch MP has not always been applauded. Even before she arrived in Australia she was told to stay home. University of Technology Sydney Islamic law lecturer Jamila Hussain said Hirsi Ali's ideas were "narrow and radical" and she did not agree with them. Fair enough. But then Hussain added: "I think she'd be better staying where she came from." You have to admire academe for its censorship chutzpah. More from Nada Roude, of the NSW Islamic Council, who said Hirsi Ali's comments on the prophet Mohammed were a "no-go zone".
It won't faze Hirsi Ali, a woman surrounded by security to protect her from those who would resort to violence to fend off ideas. By blowing the lid on the treatment of some women within Muslim communities, she has nettled an even broader coalition of progressives who embrace cultural rights as a higher paragon than, say, those of women's rights.
In Infidel, she recounts the harrowing experience of genital mutilation, inflicted on her and her friends. And one friend, Sahra, described what it was like when her husband tried to penetrate her after they were married, "pushing his way into her, trying to tear open the scar between her legs, how much it hurt. She said Abdullah (her husband) had wanted to cut her open with a knife because she was sewn so tight ... I suppose he felt pity for that poor 14-year-old child (his wife), because he agreed to take her to the hospital to be cut."
The bind for progressives was obvious. Would they hail Hirsi Ali's expose of the inequality and mistreatment of Muslim women? Or would they defend cultural sensitivities? They opted for the latter, a choice imbued more with anti-Western sentiment than logic given that the past 40 years have been devoted to fighting for the sorts of freedoms - for women, for gays, for non-conformists - that Islamic societies openly spurn. Normally only too eager to denounce the stifling role of Christianity, many Western European secularists found her discussion of Islam a bridge too far. And her embrace of Western culture tended to show up their own loathing towards the West.
And so it falls to brave women such as Hirsi Ali to break the silence. In Infidel she traces how a spark of independence in a young, obedient Muslim girl matured into a determination to escape the shackles of Islam. Deserting an arranged marriage, she arrived in The Netherlands, where she discovered freedom, but it was tainted by what she found: Muslim girls suffering the same injustices meted out in Muslim countries. When she started talking, The Netherlands would never be the same.
Tolerance-laden Dutch society had turned a blind eye to barbarity committed in the name of culture. It became a snapshot of the West's future confronted with Islamic fundamentalism: a confrontation sharpened by the sheer power of demography.
Western feminists have largely ignored Hirsi Ali's call for female emancipation in Muslim communities. In an interview with The Australian yesterday, Hirsi Ali lamented the fact that such women gave up on universal human rights and pursued relativist rights. "Western feminism jumped on the multiculturalism wagon" forgetting that "human beings are equal. Ideas and values are not equal".
Critics who denounce Hirsi Ali as a Western fundamentalist have similarly adopted a moral equivalence that beggars belief. As she says in her book: "I left the world of faith, of genital cutting and forced marriage for the world of reason and sexual emancipation." She acknowledges the West is not perfect, "but this culture, the West, the product of the Enlightenment, is the best humanity has ever achieved", she says.
In March, Ali joined a small group of "believers, doubters and unbelievers" in Florida who are calling for an Islamic Enlightenment. Ignored by the Australian media, signatories to what is called the StPetersburg Declaration called for an end to sharia law, fatwa courts, clerical rule and state-sanctioned religion, the elimination of female circumcision, honour killings and forced marriages, the removal of penalties for blasphemy and apostasy.
In short, they are asking for "an open public sphere in which all matters may be discussed without coercion or intimidation", releasing Islam from its captive embrace by "the totalitarian ambitions of power-hungry men". Their aim is for Islam to have a noble future as a personal faith, not a political doctrine.
Achieving that goal will depend on two things. First, whether other Muslims will recognise the need for Islam to be reinterpreted in a way that embraces liberty, rationality and tolerance. Canadian author Irshad Manji, a practising Muslim whose house has bulletproof windows and a locked mailbox to prevent letter bombs, told CNN we must draw a distinction between Muslim moderates and Muslim reformers. "Moderates denounce terror, to be sure, but they say Islam has nothing to do with it," she said. "Reform-minded Muslims, of which I consider myself one, denounce terror and acknowledge that the manipulation of religion does play a role."
The second challenge is for the rest of us. When reform-minded Muslims step up to the plate, they ought to be treated as champions, lauded as heroes. That may encourage more to come forward in a cause that will determine the future course of the West.
[janeta@bigpond.net.au]
privacy terms © The Australian
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DESPERATE FOR ENLIGHTMENT.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the voice of reason and confrontation, is part of a growing movement that seeks to shape the future of Islam, and her message needs to be more widely heard, writes Janet Albrechtsen
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
06jun07
"A Muslim woman must not feel wild, or free, or any of the other emotions and longings ... A Muslim girl does not make her own decisions or seek control. She is trained to be docile. If you are a Muslim girl, you disappear, until there is almost no you inside you. In Islam, becoming an individual is not a necessary development ... You submit; that is the literal meaning of Islam: submission. The goal is to become quiet on the inside, so that you never raise your eyes, not even inside your mind. - Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel"
HIRSI Ali makes headlines wherever she goes. In Australia for the Sydney Writers Festival, she provided a finale on a brisk Sunday evening unusual at such events where a heady concoctions of anti-Western sentiments tend to prevail. Hirsi Ali encouraged her audience to espouse their Western values louder than those who espouse Islam. There was, she said, "always an infidel in me" as she grew to detest the submission of free will at the heart of Islam. Dressed in a black dress and knee-high boots, Hirsi Ali glided off the stage just as the polite applause grew more rapturous, with the audience standing to mark their appreciation.
Alas, there were no Muslim women in the audience dressed in hijabs or chadors. Hirsi Ali was preaching, if not to the converted then at least to the curious: those who wanted to catch a glimpse of this tall, beautiful, brave woman, who implored her audience not to abandon the child brides who could be found in the suburbs.
The 37-year-old Somali-born former Dutch MP has not always been applauded. Even before she arrived in Australia she was told to stay home. University of Technology Sydney Islamic law lecturer Jamila Hussain said Hirsi Ali's ideas were "narrow and radical" and she did not agree with them. Fair enough. But then Hussain added: "I think she'd be better staying where she came from." You have to admire academe for its censorship chutzpah. More from Nada Roude, of the NSW Islamic Council, who said Hirsi Ali's comments on the prophet Mohammed were a "no-go zone".
It won't faze Hirsi Ali, a woman surrounded by security to protect her from those who would resort to violence to fend off ideas. By blowing the lid on the treatment of some women within Muslim communities, she has nettled an even broader coalition of progressives who embrace cultural rights as a higher paragon than, say, those of women's rights.
In Infidel, she recounts the harrowing experience of genital mutilation, inflicted on her and her friends. And one friend, Sahra, described what it was like when her husband tried to penetrate her after they were married, "pushing his way into her, trying to tear open the scar between her legs, how much it hurt. She said Abdullah (her husband) had wanted to cut her open with a knife because she was sewn so tight ... I suppose he felt pity for that poor 14-year-old child (his wife), because he agreed to take her to the hospital to be cut."
The bind for progressives was obvious. Would they hail Hirsi Ali's expose of the inequality and mistreatment of Muslim women? Or would they defend cultural sensitivities? They opted for the latter, a choice imbued more with anti-Western sentiment than logic given that the past 40 years have been devoted to fighting for the sorts of freedoms - for women, for gays, for non-conformists - that Islamic societies openly spurn. Normally only too eager to denounce the stifling role of Christianity, many Western European secularists found her discussion of Islam a bridge too far. And her embrace of Western culture tended to show up their own loathing towards the West.
And so it falls to brave women such as Hirsi Ali to break the silence. In Infidel she traces how a spark of independence in a young, obedient Muslim girl matured into a determination to escape the shackles of Islam. Deserting an arranged marriage, she arrived in The Netherlands, where she discovered freedom, but it was tainted by what she found: Muslim girls suffering the same injustices meted out in Muslim countries. When she started talking, The Netherlands would never be the same.
Tolerance-laden Dutch society had turned a blind eye to barbarity committed in the name of culture. It became a snapshot of the West's future confronted with Islamic fundamentalism: a confrontation sharpened by the sheer power of demography.
Western feminists have largely ignored Hirsi Ali's call for female emancipation in Muslim communities. In an interview with The Australian yesterday, Hirsi Ali lamented the fact that such women gave up on universal human rights and pursued relativist rights. "Western feminism jumped on the multiculturalism wagon" forgetting that "human beings are equal. Ideas and values are not equal".
Critics who denounce Hirsi Ali as a Western fundamentalist have similarly adopted a moral equivalence that beggars belief. As she says in her book: "I left the world of faith, of genital cutting and forced marriage for the world of reason and sexual emancipation." She acknowledges the West is not perfect, "but this culture, the West, the product of the Enlightenment, is the best humanity has ever achieved", she says.
In March, Ali joined a small group of "believers, doubters and unbelievers" in Florida who are calling for an Islamic Enlightenment. Ignored by the Australian media, signatories to what is called the StPetersburg Declaration called for an end to sharia law, fatwa courts, clerical rule and state-sanctioned religion, the elimination of female circumcision, honour killings and forced marriages, the removal of penalties for blasphemy and apostasy.
In short, they are asking for "an open public sphere in which all matters may be discussed without coercion or intimidation", releasing Islam from its captive embrace by "the totalitarian ambitions of power-hungry men". Their aim is for Islam to have a noble future as a personal faith, not a political doctrine.
Achieving that goal will depend on two things. First, whether other Muslims will recognise the need for Islam to be reinterpreted in a way that embraces liberty, rationality and tolerance. Canadian author Irshad Manji, a practising Muslim whose house has bulletproof windows and a locked mailbox to prevent letter bombs, told CNN we must draw a distinction between Muslim moderates and Muslim reformers. "Moderates denounce terror, to be sure, but they say Islam has nothing to do with it," she said. "Reform-minded Muslims, of which I consider myself one, denounce terror and acknowledge that the manipulation of religion does play a role."
The second challenge is for the rest of us. When reform-minded Muslims step up to the plate, they ought to be treated as champions, lauded as heroes. That may encourage more to come forward in a cause that will determine the future course of the West.
[janeta@bigpond.net.au]
privacy terms © The Australian
Friday, June 01, 2007
As Europe self-destructs, UK boycotts of Israel.
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Column One: As Europe self-destructs
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Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST May. 31, 2007
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Wednesday's decision by Britain's University and College Union to call for a boycott of Israeli universities and colleges was not only hypocritical. It was suicidal.
It is not simply that the British prefer to boycott Israeli universities than say, Palestinian, Egyptian, Syrian, Iranian, Saudi and Jordanian universities where students are indoctrinated to seek the annihilation of the Jewish people and the subjugation of Christianity through the destruction of Western civilization.
It is not merely that they ignored the poor, brave Iranian students who just three weeks ago were brutally attacked by regime forces as they sought to hold elections for their pro-democracy campus organizations.
By calling for a boycott of Israeli universities, Britain's academic establishment is turning its back not only on Israel, but on Britain. When Britain's professoriate rejects Israel's right to exist as a Jewish, democratic nation-state and glorifies Palestinian society which supports global jihad and the destruction of Western civilization, it is rejecting the British state.
They are embracing a culture founded on a rejection of the culture and traditions that have formed Britain since the Magna Carta was issued in 1215. For the past 800 years, Britain has stood for individual liberty and freedom of inquiry - at least for the British themselves. In universities like Oxford and Cambridge, it was this humanist spirit and the justified national and cultural pride it nurtured which facilitated Britain's rise to international power. By boycotting Israel, which itself embodies these British ideals, the British are abrogating their own traditions of openness. Consequently, they are destroying themselves.
AND BRITAIN is not alone in its self-destruction. Britain's rush to oblivion is part of a wider trend overtaking all of Western Europe. Take Sweden for example.
Sweden is upheld by leaders of the Israeli left like former foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami (who now devotes himself to attacking the US and Israel from his academic perch in Toledo, Spain), Education Minister Yuli Tamir, Defense Minister Amir Peretz, Meretz chief Yossi Beilin and former Labor chairman Avrum Burg. They extol Sweden as a social democratic wonderland which Israel must emulate.
Some 12.5 percent of Swedes are immigrants and around half of Sweden's immigrants are Muslims. Muslims will soon comprise the majority in many of Sweden's cities.
The intrepid Scandinavian blogger 'Fjordman' recently penned an essay, "Jihad and the collapse of the Swedish model" in the on-line Brussels Journal. In it he relates the significance of Sweden's Integration Act of 1997 to Sweden's national self-destruction. The act officially proclaimed Sweden "a multicultural society."
Notes to the act stated, "Since a large group of people have their origins in another country, the Swedish population lacks a common history. The relationship to Sweden and the support given to the fundamental values of society thus carry greater significance for integration than a common historical origin."
As 'Fjordman' explains, the act was nothing less than national suicide. "Native Swedes have… been reduced to just another ethnic group in Sweden, with no more claim to the country than the Kurds or the Somalis who arrived there last Thursday. The political authorities of the country have erased their own people's history and culture."
Fjordman cites authors Jonathan Friedman, Ingrid Bjorkman, Jan Elfverson and Ake Wedin who explained in their 2005 book Exit the People's Home of Sweden - The Downfall of a Model of Society, that multiculturalism, as the "dominant ideology in Sweden, which has been made dominant by powerful methods of silencing and repression, is a totalitarian ideology, where the elites oppose the national aspect of the nation state."
The authors explained that "the problem is that the ethnic group… described as Swedes implicitly are considered to be nationalists, and thereby are viewed as racists."
Like the totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century, multiculturalism identifies the Jews and the Americans as its chief enemies. Both must be defeated for their refusal to destroy themselves and merge into the post-national thought stream. And like their 20th century predecessors, the multiculturalists of today embrace radical Muslims who share their rejection of Judaism and Americanism.
The multiculturalists convince their societies to accept their own destruction by indoctrinating their fellow citizens through their education systems and media. A recent poll of Swedes between the ages of 15-20 showed that 90% had never heard of the Soviet gulag.
NEEDLESS TO say, the consequences of this state of affairs are not localized to Europe. As they do towards their own people, the European elites work tirelessly to subvert American and Israeli cultural confidence and to undermine every action the two nations take to combat the forces of global jihad. Whether by condemning the US incarceration of jihadists at Guantanamo Bay, claiming that Zionism is racism, attacking the US campaign in Iraq, financing Israeli anti-Zionist pressure groups and the Palestinian Authority, or insisting that Iran should be negotiated with, the EU works to compel the US and Israel to stand down rather than defend themselves and to convince American and Israeli societies that we are unworthy of being defended.
Disturbingly, rather than face up to Europe's self-destruction and give it a wide berth, led by our own post-national elites, Israel and the US are adopting the European model of cultural collapse.
The most recent example of the Israeli elites' subversion of their country is Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz's assault on the Jewish National Fund.
Since it was chartered by Theodor Herzl in 1901, financed by donations from Jews throughout the world, the JNF has purchased land to promote settlement of the land by the Jewish people. The JNF owns some 2.5 million hectares of land.
In 1961, the JNF signed an agreement with the Israel Lands Authority which authorized the ILA to manage JNF lands in accordance with the JNF charter. In 2004, the anti-Jewish Arab Israeli pressure group Adalah petitioned the Supreme Court demanding that the ILA enable non-Jews to settle on JNF lands. Adalah alleged that by acting in accordance with the JNF charter, the ILA discriminates against Arabs.
Rather than reject Adalah's claim on its face, or at a minimum cancel the 1961 agreement and enable JNF to manage its own lands, Mazuz sided with Adalah. Last week he ordered the JNF to stop operating in accordance with its charter. That is, Mazuz effectively and with no legal authority expropriated the property of the Jewish people.
In so doing, the attorney-general of the Jewish state essentially decided that Zionism is a form of racism and that the Jewish people have no special rights to the Land of Israel. No doubt the Swedes are proud of him.
The Olmert government has likewise embraced the European model of national collapse. Rather than defend Israel's citizens from our enemies and cultivate the Jewish character of the state, the government seeks to appease the Palestinians, the Syrians, the Egyptians and the Europeans at the expense of Israel's citizenry.
At the invitation of successive Israeli governments, Europeans forces are deployed today in Hebron, in Gaza and along Israel's northern border with Lebanon. These European forces have done nothing to prevent the Palestinians from arming, training and attacking Israel. Along the Lebanese border, since last summer's war, the Europeans have similarly done nothing to prevent Hizbullah from rebuilding its arsenals and reasserting its control over southern Lebanon.
And this is to be expected. As Europeans perceive their interests, they are better off appeasing the Arabs and the Iranians and condemning Israel and the US for every step we take to combat the forces of global jihad committed to our destruction.
Rather than acknowledge this reality and work to remove the Europeans from our midst, the Olmert government is exacerbating the problem. In recent weeks, the government has asked the Europeans to increase the size of their forces along the Gaza-Egypt border. Thursday, Minister for Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman recommended that NATO forces be deployed in Gaza. Similarly, Minister Rafi Eitan and far-left Meretz MKs Zehava Gal-On and Avshalom Vilan are calling for Arab League forces to be deployed to Gaza. Gal-On and Vilan envision the Arabs and the Europeans jointly take control over Gaza. For his part, Eitan is recommending that Arab armies deploy to Judea and Samaria as well.
IN THE US, the situation is depressingly similar. At leading universities, professors and students who openly support Israel and the US campaign in Iraq are hounded and isolated. In keeping with the general anti-American and anti-Israel gestalt on college campuses, last year Harvard University invited former Iranian president Muhammad Khatami to speak on campus. Harvard ignored Khatami's stewardship of the Iranian nuclear program during his tenure. His role in violently quelling the student democracy movement in 1999 and 2003 was similarly overlooked.
The Bush administration's foreign policy has likewise been Europeanized. Five years after President George W. Bush placed Iran and North Korea firmly in the axis of evil, the State Department is working overtime to appease them both. In line with this policy, on Tuesday, Iran's announcement that it had arrested five US citizens and is charging them with espionage was greeted by embarrassment and paralysis in Washington. Just the day before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had dispatched the US ambassador in Baghdad to meet with his Iranian counterpart.
The US's treatment of North Korea is perhaps even more dramatic. Rather than abandon its appeasement policy towards Pyongyang after the North Koreans breached their commitment to close their nuclear facility at Yongbyon in April, the Bush administration has redoubled its efforts to placate the Stalinist dictatorship. Not only did the US have little to say about the North Korean short-range missile tests over Japan last week. It sent its emissaries to Beijing this week to attempt to buy North Korean compliance with its breached commitment by unfreezing Pyongyangs's bank accounts in Macau. The US treasury froze those accounts when it discovered that they were being used to launder profits from counterfeit US currency and drug deals.
Then there is the US's refusal to abandon pressure on Israel to appease the Palestinians. At a time when jihadists from Iraq have panned out to Lebanon and Algeria and are actively working to overthrow those countries' governments, Tuesday Rice claimed that the Palestinian conflict with Israel is "at the core of a lot of problems in the region."
During the Cold War, protected by the US military, Europeans could embrace cultural and national suicide without fearing the consequences of their actions. Now faced with those consequences, the Europeans have embraced their own destruction rather than abandon their multicultural model and its concomitant anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism.
Israel and the US do not have anyone else to defend them. And in spite of the rantings of their cultural, media and academic elites, the Israeli and American people have no interest in committing national suicide. In light of this, both countries must move swiftly to end the Europeanization of their cultures and policies.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1180527976961&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
[ Back to the Article ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 1995-2007 The Jerusalem Post - http://www.jpost.com/
Column One: As Europe self-destructs
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST May. 31, 2007
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday's decision by Britain's University and College Union to call for a boycott of Israeli universities and colleges was not only hypocritical. It was suicidal.
It is not simply that the British prefer to boycott Israeli universities than say, Palestinian, Egyptian, Syrian, Iranian, Saudi and Jordanian universities where students are indoctrinated to seek the annihilation of the Jewish people and the subjugation of Christianity through the destruction of Western civilization.
It is not merely that they ignored the poor, brave Iranian students who just three weeks ago were brutally attacked by regime forces as they sought to hold elections for their pro-democracy campus organizations.
By calling for a boycott of Israeli universities, Britain's academic establishment is turning its back not only on Israel, but on Britain. When Britain's professoriate rejects Israel's right to exist as a Jewish, democratic nation-state and glorifies Palestinian society which supports global jihad and the destruction of Western civilization, it is rejecting the British state.
They are embracing a culture founded on a rejection of the culture and traditions that have formed Britain since the Magna Carta was issued in 1215. For the past 800 years, Britain has stood for individual liberty and freedom of inquiry - at least for the British themselves. In universities like Oxford and Cambridge, it was this humanist spirit and the justified national and cultural pride it nurtured which facilitated Britain's rise to international power. By boycotting Israel, which itself embodies these British ideals, the British are abrogating their own traditions of openness. Consequently, they are destroying themselves.
AND BRITAIN is not alone in its self-destruction. Britain's rush to oblivion is part of a wider trend overtaking all of Western Europe. Take Sweden for example.
Sweden is upheld by leaders of the Israeli left like former foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami (who now devotes himself to attacking the US and Israel from his academic perch in Toledo, Spain), Education Minister Yuli Tamir, Defense Minister Amir Peretz, Meretz chief Yossi Beilin and former Labor chairman Avrum Burg. They extol Sweden as a social democratic wonderland which Israel must emulate.
Some 12.5 percent of Swedes are immigrants and around half of Sweden's immigrants are Muslims. Muslims will soon comprise the majority in many of Sweden's cities.
The intrepid Scandinavian blogger 'Fjordman' recently penned an essay, "Jihad and the collapse of the Swedish model" in the on-line Brussels Journal. In it he relates the significance of Sweden's Integration Act of 1997 to Sweden's national self-destruction. The act officially proclaimed Sweden "a multicultural society."
Notes to the act stated, "Since a large group of people have their origins in another country, the Swedish population lacks a common history. The relationship to Sweden and the support given to the fundamental values of society thus carry greater significance for integration than a common historical origin."
As 'Fjordman' explains, the act was nothing less than national suicide. "Native Swedes have… been reduced to just another ethnic group in Sweden, with no more claim to the country than the Kurds or the Somalis who arrived there last Thursday. The political authorities of the country have erased their own people's history and culture."
Fjordman cites authors Jonathan Friedman, Ingrid Bjorkman, Jan Elfverson and Ake Wedin who explained in their 2005 book Exit the People's Home of Sweden - The Downfall of a Model of Society, that multiculturalism, as the "dominant ideology in Sweden, which has been made dominant by powerful methods of silencing and repression, is a totalitarian ideology, where the elites oppose the national aspect of the nation state."
The authors explained that "the problem is that the ethnic group… described as Swedes implicitly are considered to be nationalists, and thereby are viewed as racists."
Like the totalitarian ideologies of the 20th century, multiculturalism identifies the Jews and the Americans as its chief enemies. Both must be defeated for their refusal to destroy themselves and merge into the post-national thought stream. And like their 20th century predecessors, the multiculturalists of today embrace radical Muslims who share their rejection of Judaism and Americanism.
The multiculturalists convince their societies to accept their own destruction by indoctrinating their fellow citizens through their education systems and media. A recent poll of Swedes between the ages of 15-20 showed that 90% had never heard of the Soviet gulag.
NEEDLESS TO say, the consequences of this state of affairs are not localized to Europe. As they do towards their own people, the European elites work tirelessly to subvert American and Israeli cultural confidence and to undermine every action the two nations take to combat the forces of global jihad. Whether by condemning the US incarceration of jihadists at Guantanamo Bay, claiming that Zionism is racism, attacking the US campaign in Iraq, financing Israeli anti-Zionist pressure groups and the Palestinian Authority, or insisting that Iran should be negotiated with, the EU works to compel the US and Israel to stand down rather than defend themselves and to convince American and Israeli societies that we are unworthy of being defended.
Disturbingly, rather than face up to Europe's self-destruction and give it a wide berth, led by our own post-national elites, Israel and the US are adopting the European model of cultural collapse.
The most recent example of the Israeli elites' subversion of their country is Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz's assault on the Jewish National Fund.
Since it was chartered by Theodor Herzl in 1901, financed by donations from Jews throughout the world, the JNF has purchased land to promote settlement of the land by the Jewish people. The JNF owns some 2.5 million hectares of land.
In 1961, the JNF signed an agreement with the Israel Lands Authority which authorized the ILA to manage JNF lands in accordance with the JNF charter. In 2004, the anti-Jewish Arab Israeli pressure group Adalah petitioned the Supreme Court demanding that the ILA enable non-Jews to settle on JNF lands. Adalah alleged that by acting in accordance with the JNF charter, the ILA discriminates against Arabs.
Rather than reject Adalah's claim on its face, or at a minimum cancel the 1961 agreement and enable JNF to manage its own lands, Mazuz sided with Adalah. Last week he ordered the JNF to stop operating in accordance with its charter. That is, Mazuz effectively and with no legal authority expropriated the property of the Jewish people.
In so doing, the attorney-general of the Jewish state essentially decided that Zionism is a form of racism and that the Jewish people have no special rights to the Land of Israel. No doubt the Swedes are proud of him.
The Olmert government has likewise embraced the European model of national collapse. Rather than defend Israel's citizens from our enemies and cultivate the Jewish character of the state, the government seeks to appease the Palestinians, the Syrians, the Egyptians and the Europeans at the expense of Israel's citizenry.
At the invitation of successive Israeli governments, Europeans forces are deployed today in Hebron, in Gaza and along Israel's northern border with Lebanon. These European forces have done nothing to prevent the Palestinians from arming, training and attacking Israel. Along the Lebanese border, since last summer's war, the Europeans have similarly done nothing to prevent Hizbullah from rebuilding its arsenals and reasserting its control over southern Lebanon.
And this is to be expected. As Europeans perceive their interests, they are better off appeasing the Arabs and the Iranians and condemning Israel and the US for every step we take to combat the forces of global jihad committed to our destruction.
Rather than acknowledge this reality and work to remove the Europeans from our midst, the Olmert government is exacerbating the problem. In recent weeks, the government has asked the Europeans to increase the size of their forces along the Gaza-Egypt border. Thursday, Minister for Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman recommended that NATO forces be deployed in Gaza. Similarly, Minister Rafi Eitan and far-left Meretz MKs Zehava Gal-On and Avshalom Vilan are calling for Arab League forces to be deployed to Gaza. Gal-On and Vilan envision the Arabs and the Europeans jointly take control over Gaza. For his part, Eitan is recommending that Arab armies deploy to Judea and Samaria as well.
IN THE US, the situation is depressingly similar. At leading universities, professors and students who openly support Israel and the US campaign in Iraq are hounded and isolated. In keeping with the general anti-American and anti-Israel gestalt on college campuses, last year Harvard University invited former Iranian president Muhammad Khatami to speak on campus. Harvard ignored Khatami's stewardship of the Iranian nuclear program during his tenure. His role in violently quelling the student democracy movement in 1999 and 2003 was similarly overlooked.
The Bush administration's foreign policy has likewise been Europeanized. Five years after President George W. Bush placed Iran and North Korea firmly in the axis of evil, the State Department is working overtime to appease them both. In line with this policy, on Tuesday, Iran's announcement that it had arrested five US citizens and is charging them with espionage was greeted by embarrassment and paralysis in Washington. Just the day before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had dispatched the US ambassador in Baghdad to meet with his Iranian counterpart.
The US's treatment of North Korea is perhaps even more dramatic. Rather than abandon its appeasement policy towards Pyongyang after the North Koreans breached their commitment to close their nuclear facility at Yongbyon in April, the Bush administration has redoubled its efforts to placate the Stalinist dictatorship. Not only did the US have little to say about the North Korean short-range missile tests over Japan last week. It sent its emissaries to Beijing this week to attempt to buy North Korean compliance with its breached commitment by unfreezing Pyongyangs's bank accounts in Macau. The US treasury froze those accounts when it discovered that they were being used to launder profits from counterfeit US currency and drug deals.
Then there is the US's refusal to abandon pressure on Israel to appease the Palestinians. At a time when jihadists from Iraq have panned out to Lebanon and Algeria and are actively working to overthrow those countries' governments, Tuesday Rice claimed that the Palestinian conflict with Israel is "at the core of a lot of problems in the region."
During the Cold War, protected by the US military, Europeans could embrace cultural and national suicide without fearing the consequences of their actions. Now faced with those consequences, the Europeans have embraced their own destruction rather than abandon their multicultural model and its concomitant anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism.
Israel and the US do not have anyone else to defend them. And in spite of the rantings of their cultural, media and academic elites, the Israeli and American people have no interest in committing national suicide. In light of this, both countries must move swiftly to end the Europeanization of their cultures and policies.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1180527976961&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
[ Back to the Article ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 1995-2007 The Jerusalem Post - http://www.jpost.com/
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