British Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks visited with Pope Benedict XVI last month in Rome and defended Europe’s Judeo-Christian heritage, including the “religious roots of the market economy and of democratic capitalism.”   In a speech there, he urged that Jews and Christians to work together to “help Europe recover its soul.”

Separately, in a speech to the British House of Lords, Sacks denounced increasing persecution of Christians by radical Islam, warning that the “fate of Christians in the Middle East today is the litmus test of the Arab Spring.”  In Rome and in London, he was more outspoken than are many of Europe’s often muted church officials, who typically fear to defend their faith, their culture, or their persecuted brethren.

“If Europe loses the Judeo-Christian heritage that gave it its historic identity and its greatest achievements in literature, art, music, education, politics, and economics, it will lose its identity and its greatness,” Sacks warned during his Rome speech.  “When a civilization loses its faith, it loses its future. When it recovers its faith, it recovers its future. For the sake of our children … we – Jews and Christians, side-by-side – must renew our faith and its prophetic voice.”

Sacks admired and was encouraged by the warm response the Pope received during his 2010 visit to mostly non-religious Britain, when “everyone was amazed that the interest was so acute and so widespread.” The Chief Rabbi’s visit to Rome clearly was an attempt to strengthen Jewish and Christian voices in defense of historic Western cultural, political and economic principles.

Unlike left-leaning church officials in the West who simplistically equate free markets with sterile materialism, Sacks offered a more balanced perspective.  He critiqued Europe’s secularism and materialism while pointing out that biblical religion created the foundations of prosperous market economies.  “When Europe recovers its soul, it will recover its wealth-creating energies,” he said.  “But first it must remember: humanity was not created to serve markets. Markets were created to serve humankind.”   In contrast, the Religious Left, both in Europe and America, prefers to believe that markets are innately wicked and must be usurped by coercive national and international regulation.

Of course, much of the Religious Left is itself deeply materialist, preoccupied by the redistribution of wealth but unconcerned about the transcendence and timeless principles that facilitate justice and prosperity.  But appropriately for a spiritual leader, Sacks pointed to the primacy of the “soul” of Europe.

“We are very concerned obviously with the soul of Europe, I mean Europe was built on Judeo-Christian foundations, even the market was built on Judeo-Christian foundations,” Sacks told Vatican Radio.  In his Rome speech, he described the West’s democracy and prosperity relying on biblical understandings of “dignity of the human individual,” respect for property rights and labor, job creation over charity, and creation of wealth so as to become “partners with God in the work of creation.”   He noted that ancient rabbis “favored markets and competition because they generate wealth, lower prices, increase choice, reduced absolute levels of poverty, and extend humanity’s control over the environment, narrowing the extent to which we are the passive victims of circumstance and fate.”

A British court recently made legal history — ordering the adoption of an out-of-wedlock Muslim baby to prevent it from suffering an “honor killing.” Britain is abuzz over this bizarre and unprecedented ruling.

The London Daily Mail reports:

A baby girl born out of wedlock must be adopted to save her from the risk of being slaughtered in an “honor killing,” a court ruled yesterday.

If the unmarried Muslim woman’s father found out about the child, he would feel such “unimaginable shame” he could unleash a vengeful bloodbath by killing the baby and his whole family, three senior judges agreed.

So they made the extraordinary order to have the one-year-old girl – known as Baby Q – adopted for her own safety.

She will now grow up with adoptive parents and, when she is older, they will explain to her why she could not have been brought up by her biological parents.

It is believed to be the first time an English court has ordered an adoption to prevent a murder.

The baby’s natural father wanted to adopt her, to be sure. But judges objected, concerned the baby would be at risk from the baby’s maternal grandfather or members of his community. Aside from those concerns, judges no doubt made their decision within a larger context — their awareness of soaring numbers of “honor” attacks and killings occurring among Britain’s large and unassimilated Muslim population.

Iran’s economy runs on oil. On paper, at least, Iran would appear to be highly vulnerable to sanctions targeted at its oil export business.

Iran is the second largest oil producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (“OPEC”), and the fourth largest crude oil exporter. Iran has a 2.2 million barrel-a-day export business. It earned $56 billion in the first seven months of 2011, according to U.S. Energy Department estimates.

According to the Heritage Foundation, Iran’s oil export revenues provide about 85 percent of its government finance. Thus, aiming economic sanctions directly at Iran’s oil exports could land a serious blow to the Iranian regime’s sources of funding for its nuclear enrichment and missile programs.

The question is whether such sanctions are likely to be broad-based enough in terms of participants and happen in time to have the desired impact of crippling Iran’s nuclear ambitions, without causing a massive blowback to the global economy.

Nothing meaningful can be expected from the UN Security Council, where Russia and China will veto any further ramp up in sanctions beyond the four ineffective rounds of sanctions against Iran approved by the Security Council between 2006 and 2010. Thus, only bilateral and regional sanctions are possible.

U.S. sanctions already prohibit virtually all trade with Iran, except for limited activities “intended to benefit the Iranian people” such as humanitarian aid. The U.S. has just recently expanded its sanctions to include companies that help Iran’s oil and petrochemical industries.  However, this will have only indirect effects, assuming that Iran does not find ways to evade the sanctions as it has done before. Since the United States imports no oil from Iran, and has not done so for some time, future American oil purchase decisions will have no direct market effect on Iran’s oil revenues.

The main leverage that the U.S. has is a blunt financial instrument – a cut-off of any firms doing business with Iran’s central bank. Iran conducts its vast oil export business through its central bank, linking its national oil company with its oil customers. If the United States were to follow Britain’s example and take steps to isolate Iran’s central bank from the global financial markets by imposing sanctions on any company or government that deals with the central bank, Iran’s ability to get paid for its oil would be severely hampered. So far, however, the Obama administration has not gone that far because it fears disruptions to the global oil market, causing prices to spike at a time when the global economy is already sputtering.

Assuming the Obama administration continues to dither on cutting off Iran’s central bank, the only way to hurt Iran’s oil trade short of military action is through the decisions of Iran’s major oil customers to look elsewhere for oil.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for any bold decisions to cut off current purchases of Iranian oil, however. So far, it’s virtually all talk and no action.

The European Union governments agreed on December 1st to examine sanctions against Iran’s energy sector. However, no decision is likely until sometime in January.

According to Reuters, EU members take 450,000 barrels per day of Iranian oil, which accounts for about 18 percent of Iran’s exports.

“We need a common position of all European Union member states,” Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger told Reuters when asked about a possible ban.

France, Britain, and Germany are among the EU countries that are reported to be favorably disposed to the idea of a ban. However, other EU members are balking, including – no surprise – Italy and Greece. Italy, in fact, was the largest oil importer from Iran in Europe last year, purchasing 10 percent of Iran’s exports. Perhaps Italy’s dependence on Iranian oil will decrease once Libyan oil comes back on line, but Italy’s economy is too fragile at the present time to risk losing any important source of energy.

Osama bin Laden has threatened terror attacks on France for banning of the face veil, while Islamic extremists in Britain are threatening to kill women who do not wear a head scarf.   From the stealth Jihad perpetrated by the Muslim Brotherhood to violent Jihad, Islamists have and continue to impose Sharia law on Western soil, becoming increasingly emboldened.  Note Bin Laden’s warning to France:

If you unjustly thought that it is your right to prevent free Muslim women from wearing the face veil, is it not our right to expel your invading men and cut their necks?”

France is to be applauded for its stance.  Westerners that will defend the rights of women to wear the veil and defend the right of Muslims to practice their faith in contradiction to Western values have provided the fertile soil for the seeds of creeping Sharia to grow.

Three years ago, Islamic law was officially adopted in Britain to oversee Muslim civil cases in Sharia courts which have continued to multiply, while Canada (in the province of Ontario) narrowly escaped it. Here’s how it almost happened, but failed:  In 1991, Ontario changed its Arbitration Act to include faith-based arbitration to settle family disputes, such as divorce, inheritance and custody issues, outside the court system. CAIR-CAN was pleased and in 2004, released a statement that this was “a form of accommodating the needs of religious minorities within a multicultural society”.

Shortly after, the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice pushed the envelope by stating that it wanted this faith-based arbitration based on “Sharia Law.”  The proposal was met with stiff resistance from women’s groups and the Muslim Canadian Congress, which put an end to this drive.  The congress argued:

[S]haria is flawed because it does not view women as equal and therefore cannot provide equal justice to all parties in a dispute especially on issues of divorce, child custody and division of property.

Five months ago, Oklahoma passed a ballot initiative—70-30%– to forbid state courts from relying on Sharia in what was dubbed a “pre-emptive strike” by supporters. Yet Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, commented, “The Oklahoma ballot initiative struck us as silly and absurd — a proposed solution chasing a problem that doesn’t exist.”  He added that the initiative “underscores the deep level of misunderstanding of Muslims and Islam in America.”

The conjoined twins of violent jihad and stealth jihad —>

As one would expect, this campaign is focused on external appearances, and not toward challenging allegedly "extremist" views among fellow Muslims. And it's predictably deceptive. Glowing generalities like the one on the car pictured above require readers to project their own cultural understanding of ideas like "women's rights" onto the propaganda presented to them.

Muhammad favored "women's rights," did he? But what was the extent of what he thought the rights of women were? Qur'an 4:34 allows men to hit their wives. Qur'an 2:23 says "our women are a tilth for you (to cultivate) so go to your tilth as ye will." Qur'an 2:282 says a woman's testimony is worth half a man's. And Sahih Bukhari 4.54.460 says "If a husband calls his wife to his bed (i.e. to have sexual relation) and she refuses and causes him to sleep in anger, the angels will curse her till morning."

"U.K. ad campaign launched to improve image of Muslims," by Scott Maniquet for the National Post, June 7 (thanks to Nicolei):

Let's face it, some religions do a good job getting their feel good message across, while for whatever reason, some others have a much harder time.

But probably no religion is in more need of a good public relations overhaul than Islam.

This became apparent in Britain when a recent poll found that 58% associated Islam with extremism and 50% associated it with terrorism. The poll also found that only 13% of respondents believed that Islam - called the "religion of peace' by its adherents - was based on peace.

And we all just pulled that idea out of our hats one day -- no particular reason at all.

In response, the Exploring Islam Foundation has launched a U.K. ad campaign to bolster public perception of the religion.

The Inspired by Muhammad campaign features photos of Muslim professionals next to catchy phrases like:

"I believe in social justice. So did Muhammad."

Again, that depends on your idea of justice. Subjugation of unbelievers? Cutting the hands off of thieves and stoning adulterers? Executing apostates?

"I believe in women's rights. So did Muhammad."

"I believe in protecting the environment. So did Muhammad."

A spokesman for Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism think tank which seeks to promote a "British Islam. . . free from the bitter politics of the Arab and Muslim world, told London's Independent:

"This campaign is important because it can help non-Muslims to better understand the faith that inspires and guides their Muslim friends, neighbours and colleagues.

"This initiative also helps British Muslims reclaim the Prophet Mohamed as a time-honoured guide for peace, compassion and social justice from those who seek to twist his teachings."

Right, vague generalities will let all the air out of "chapter and verse."

With 80% of Canadians agreeing with Quebec's proposed niqab ban, perhaps we will be seeing a similar campaign here in the future.

While the slogan for the “The First National Jewish Anti-Zionist Gathering” isn’t actually “anti-Semites of the world unite!” that would have been a fitting choice, combining both of the “gatherings” two underlying themes: hatred of Israel and adoration of communism. The event is scheduled for June 19 through 22 and will be held, fittingly enough, in Detroit. The once proud and now crumbling Motor City is perhaps the nation’s best example of what happens when leftist dreams come true. Even better, from the organizers point of view, the Detroit metropolitan area is home to a large number of Muslims, so the jihadis living among them can be counted on to make the radical Jews who organized the event feel even better about their self-loathing.

Specifically, the organizers are the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network and the Middle East Children’s Alliance. Neither organization bothers to hide their radical, leftist world-view, a perspective that dovetails nicely into their sure and certain belief that Palestinians and Israelis could easily live in peace and harmony, if only Israel would grasp the hand that Hamas and Hizbullah have repeatedly extended in friendship and if only Israel would abandon its foolish alliance with those imperialistic Americans. Or, to put those concepts in less-comprehensible terms, here’s the conference’s official statement of purpose:

“To gather together as anti-Zionist Jewish (AZJ) activists committed to social justice and to challenging racism, colonialism and imperialism – first and foremost by contributing to efforts to overcome Zionism and decolonize Palestine. The Assembly hopes to provide a forum to share political perspectives, campaigns and other activities, culture and ritual, and build relationships toward collective work. Through building assessment of the current moment in the US and international Palestine solidarity movement, larger social justice movements and political context, we hope to build a shared direction for anti-Zionist Jewish organizing in the United States. This is in the interest of making our work more effective.”

To coin a phrase: dhmittude never sounded so good. But, with the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network leading the way, such sentiments are hardly surprising. The IJAZN was created in 2008 when Professor Moshe Machover and Selma James announced the adoption of the organization’s charter at a press conference in London. Machover and James’ extremist, radical views – and both would readily accept, indeed would be proud of, the use of those two adjectives to describe their views – have been well documented. While their organization serves as a lightning rod for anti-Semites of all cultures and faiths, one wouldn’t describe either Machover of James (both of whom are Jewish) as anti-Semites themselves. They are rather utopians of the communist variety, wholly incapable of understanding that the price one pays for pursuing the unachievable leftist nirvana is drenched in blood and soaked in misery.

Machover, born in Tel Aviv in 1936, is an unrepentant admirer of all things Marxist. He scorns representative democracy, because in his view our system of government doesn’t give appropriate weight to radical ideas. Oddly enough though, the one representative democracy that comes closest to getting it right in Machover’s world is the nation he hates most of all: Israel. In April 2010 he wrote: “But here is a rare, perhaps unique, exception: Israel has just about the most democratic electoral system possible in a bourgeois state: a consistent form of proportional representation… Minority voices, including that of the Arab national minority, have regularly been heard on the floor of that house.” Not that providing Arabs living in Israel with the very things that Arabs deny non-Muslims in every nation they control – a voice in government and freedom of worship – excuses Israel’s many sins in Machover’s world. Of course not.

Machover has also rewritten history in order to defame the father of modern Israel, saying: “Ben-Gurion preferred to invade Egypt, alongside France and Britain, rather than to make peace with Egypt”.  And, for Machover, the reason for ongoing conflict in the Middle East has nothing to do with Israel’s enemies. He has said: “…it became clear to us that the roots of the Israeli-Arab conflict lay, not in the conflict between Israel and the Arab states, but rather in the conflict between Zionist colonialism and the Palestinians over the land of Palestine and its independence.”

For her part, Selma James founded the “International Wages for Housework Campaign” in 1972. Under this scheme, governments would have had to compensate stay-at-home moms for their efforts. She’s also a buddy of Venezuelan tyrant Hugo Chavez and has been a member of Chavez’s socialist “Venezuelan Revolution” movement since 2002.

The Middle East Children’s Alliance is just as radical. Founder and Executive Director Barbara Lubin, a Norm Chomsky disciple, was abducted by Hizbullah in 1991. Recognizing that their captive was coming down with a bad case of Stockholm syndrome, the terrorist organization released her, prompting Lubin to observe that: “They’re just ordinary schleps like the rest of us.” Ordinary schleps armed with missiles and RPGs perhaps, but why quibble with a humanitarian like Lubin? She’s obviously a high-minded pacifist, is she not? Take a look for yourself.

Given the alternate universe in which the organizers flourish, it’s not at all difficult to predict the themes of The First National Jewish Anti-Zionist Gathering. According to their world view, the aggressors in the Middle East are nobly defending their rights and their land, while a nation under siege has somehow become an agent of American imperialism. What’s truly troubling is that, based on their words and deeds, there’s little doubt that the organizers actually believe that represents an accurate portrayal of the on-going struggle in the Middle East and that Machover, James and Lubin don’t know how they are being used – and will continue to be used – by terrorists bent on the destruction of Israel.

Seventy years ago an obscure, extremist, anti-Semetic Norwegian politician by the name of Vidkun Quisling helped undermine his nation and welcomed Nazi invaders with open arms. On June 19 another generation of Quislings will do their best to undermine the security of their people’s ancient homeland, not because they actively wish to see Israel destroyed and its people enslaved, but because their minds are so clouded by idyllic, extremist dreams of a leftist-utopia they are unable to comprehend that is exactly the kind of end result that they are in fact supporting.

Over the years I have seen it happen more than once: a plausible “moderate Muslim” appears on the scene and becomes the darling of hopeful non-Muslims who believe that he epitomizes the peaceful, reasonable face of Islam upon which they have placed so much hope (and based so much policy). His non-Muslim patrons loudly sing his praises and denounce anyone who is rude or “Islamophobic” enough to examine his statements closely and find that they don’t actually amount to what those patrons think they do or wish they did: a genuinely peaceful and pluralistic version of Islam that is strong enough on Islamic grounds to convince Muslims that they should abandon jihad against Infidels in all its manifestations.

Not infrequently I have been the first to burst the bubbles of these “moderates,” thereby arousing the ire of the willfully ignorant and self-deceived, who found my unwillingness to be satisfied with these moderates’ blandly incomplete or deceptive versions of Islam to be evidence of my “Islamophobia” or bigotry or what have you. In reality, it was nothing of the kind. It was just an unwillingness to be fooled.

There was Khaleel Mohammed, who won many bemused non-Muslim hearts (and opened many non-Muslim wallets) by appearing in Obsession, but who later denounced the film as “Satanic.”

There was Ed Husain, who continues to bamboozle many in Britain, but not the redoubtable and clear-sighted Melanie Phillips, who saw through him when he began inciting young Muslims to hate Israel over earlier false charges of atrocities against Gazans.

There was Hamid Mir, who wowed audiences in the U.S. with his tales of interviewing Osama bin Laden and avowals of a peaceful, tolerant Islam, who was recently discovered to be aiding the Pakistani Taliban.

There is the cuddly Tarek Fatah, who reassures everyone with his comfortable manner — but who, when confronted with Wafa Sultan’s unblinking truth-telling about Islam and Muhammad, resorted in the blink of an eye to tried-and-true CAIR-like tactics of personal defamation and character assassination.

There have been others also, including a still-prominent, much-ballyhooed moderate who was caught in an interview decrying the Israeli “occupation” — but that is a story for another day. Today there is Mustafa Akyol, a Turkish moderate with whom I had several exchanges a few years ago.

Akyol, like Ed Husain and the other moderate I mentioned above, finds one great obstacle in the way of a lucrative and adulation-filled career as a “moderate”: Israel. It is one thing to sell unsuspecting and ignorant Infidels on the idea that Islam is peace. But Islamic antisemitism, based on the Qur’an’s designation of the Jews as the worst enemies of the Muslims (5:82) and their repeated cursing by Allah (2:62-65; 2:89; 5:59-60; 7:166; 9:30, etc.), is harder for even these “moderates” to shake off, and it leads them to take postures toward Israel that are frequently revealing.

I hate to say I told you so, but I don’t hate it all that much.

“Who the hell does Israel think she is?,” by Mustafa Akyol in the Hurriyet Daily News, June 1 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

Two days ago, Israeli forces attacked a humanitarian aid flotilla in international waters. The whole purpose of the activists on the raided Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, and several others around it, were to bring aid and supplies, including playgrounds for children, to Gaza. They paid the price by being the targets of Israeli machine guns.

Back to Akyol:

At least 10 unarmed civilians, most of whom are Turks, were killed. Dozens of others were injured.There is no need to mince words in the face of this atrocity: Israel has committed piracy, barbarism and state terrorism.

Beyond doing all these shamelessly, Israeli spokesmen have also lied shamelessly. One of them, Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon, was doing exactly that when he portrayed the ship, and the whole aid flotilla, as full of people “well-known for their ties with global Jihad, Al-Qaeda and Hamas.”

Damned lies

In fact, the 600 or so activists in the flotilla were a diverse group from 32 countries and many faiths. They included Christian priests and secular humanists. They included Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, the 85-year-old Nobel peace laureate from North Ireland, and Hedy Epstein, a Holocaust survivor. They included children, including a 1-year-old.

Does the presence of these Useful Idiots actually refute the contention that the ship was also full of people tied to Al-Qaeda and other jihad groups? Of course not.

These two Dutch-language stories (thanks to Denise) reveal that one of the two Dutch citizens on the Flotilla, Amin Abou Rashed, is a Hamas leader who has also worked for the Al-Aksa Foundation, which was suspected of raising money for Hamas. One of the articles mentions that he lost his arm in battle against Israel.

Ayalon was also lying when he said, “we found weapons that were prepared in advance and used against our forces.” The Turkish authorities had checked the ships thoroughly before their departure, and there were simply no firearms on board. The only “weapons” that can be spoken of were the wooden or metal sticks that some of the activists had in their hands, apparently taken from the chairs or other ordinary materials on the vessels.Yesterday, Israel released the photos of some other “weapons” on board, which were just knives taken from the ship’s kitchen.

Akyol:

The video footage we have seen on TV actually gives a sense of what happened: Israeli commandos raided the ships at dawn, sliding down from helicopters via ropes with machine guns in their hands. Some of the activists on board took this as an assault on their ship, which was, to repeat, in international, not Israeli, waters. (How could they take it otherwise?) Then they tried to resist the commandos with the sticks in their hands. The soldiers, in return, fired on the activists, killing at least 10 people and injuring dozens.

Actually, the “activists” took it upon themselves to “resist the commandos” before the “commandos” had done anything. Here is the actual videotape — see for yourself:

From the Israeli point of view, everything is perfectly fine here: They have a policy of blockading Gaza, and those who defy it have to face the consequences.

Note that Akyol utters not a word about the indiscriminate rocket attacks upon Israeli civilians, launched from Gaza for many years.

The question is why in the world do people have to obey Israel’s dictates and recognize its inhumane blockade on Gaza?Who the hell is Israel, in other words, to force 1.5 million people to live in an open-air prison for years?

Scenes from that hellish open-air prison:

Akyol:

The answer from Israel is that “Hamas fires rockets from Gaza.” Well, the last time those rockets were flying in the air, Israel was also firing rockets (and phosphorus bombs) into Gaza, killing a hundred times more civilians than Hamas did. According to a United Nations report, the actions of both sides equally amounted to war crimes….

Akyol doesn’t mention that that UN report was funded by the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Nor does he bother to note that it has been thoroughly debunked.

Akyol:

There is even a more fundamental question here, relating to the elephant in the Middle Eastern room: Who the hell is Israel to occupy the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 1967, and to systematically steal these territories by building illegal settlements?

Question to Akyol: why didn’t the “Palestinians” fight against Egyptian “occupation” of Gaza and Jordanian “occupation” of the West Bank between 1948 and 1967?

And how can she expect the Palestinians, and other nations like us, the Turks, to bow down to this unabashed theft of land? When I asked that question to an Israeli hawk some years ago, I received a very revealing response: “Might,” he said, “makes right.”

Well, that might be a popular belief in Tel Aviv and Occupied Jerusalem, but not here in Istanbul. In fact our creed tells us that the exact opposite is true: Right, sooner or later, makes might.

The hundreds of heroes who sailed to Gaza last weekend had this faith in their hearts. Here in Turkey, 70 million more stand by them. We mourn for our fallen, but also know that they did not die in vain. Their sacrifice unveiled to the world not just the suffering of the innocents in the Gaza ghetto, but also the brutality of the rogue state that imposes it.

Read my lips: This spirit is really not going to die. We Turks will continue to stand for what is right, regardless of Israel’s might. None of her lobbying, bullying or killing is going to change that.

Nor will truth, evidently.

I’ve praised Donna Laframboise here before, due to her tireless and thankless factchecking of the infamous Nobel-winning report on “global warming.

Today, she provides some much needed perspective on the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico:

She writes, in part:

Green activists like to declare that we’re addicted to oil. I think we’re addicted to drama. (…)

Regarding the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico here are a few facts:

Half of all the oil entering the world’s oceans is totally unconnected to humans.  According to research  published in a peer-reviewed academic journal in 2003: “Crude oil seeps are natural phenomenon over which humankind has little direct control.” (…)

In early 1996, an oil tanker ran aground off Britain, polluting 200 km (124 miles) of coastline. Three years later, when the BBC reported on the aftermath, it observed that visitors to the region could “see no evidence today of the dismal predictions some were making at the time of the spill.”

As well, Rush Limbaugh displayed a helpful graph (see above) on his show’s webcam yesterday. It is now available at his site, along with a transcript:

Oil spills are not uncommon.  This one is by no means anywhere near the largest.  It’s not even the largest in the Gulf of Mexico.  It’s the second largest.  That doesn’t make it okay.  I don’t want anybody to misunderstand me here.  It’s bad as it is, but the planet’s still here, people are still alive and animals are still alive where all these things have happened, and that will be the case here as well.  It’s not going to be easy. There’s going to be a tremendous amount of pain, and there ought to be steps being taken now that aren’t being taken to plug this well or do something like Jindal wants to do with these sand berms. There are a number of steps that could be taken.  We don’t need to be sending Eric Holder down there, a lawyer, meeting with prosecutors.  We don’t need to be sending commissions down there or setting commissions up.  We need to find the best and brightest engineers possible in the private sector and get ‘em all working on this.

As usual, well said Rush. Well said.

Not infrequently I have been the first to burst the bubbles of these "moderates," thereby arousing the ire of the willfully ignorant and self-deceived, who found my unwillingness to be satisfied with these moderates' blandly incomplete or deceptive versions of Islam to be evidence of my "Islamophobia" or bigotry or what have you. In reality, it was nothing of the kind. It was just an unwillingness to be fooled.

There was Khaleel Mohammed, who won many bemused non-Muslim hearts (and opened many non-Muslim wallets) by appearing in Obsession, but who later denounced the film as "Satanic."

There was Ed Husain, who continues to bamboozle many in Britain, but not the redoubtable and clear-sighted Melanie Phillips, who saw through him when he began inciting young Muslims to hate Israel over earlier false charges of atrocities against Gazans.

There was Hamid Mir, who wowed audiences in the U.S. with his tales of interviewing Osama bin Laden and avowals of a peaceful, tolerant Islam, who was recently discovered to be aiding the Pakistani Taliban.

There is the cuddly Tarek Fatah, who reassures everyone with his comfortable manner -- but who, when confronted with Wafa Sultan's unblinking truth-telling about Islam and Muhammad, resorted in the blink of an eye to tried-and-true CAIR-like tactics of personal defamation and character assassination.

There have been others also, including a still-prominent, much-ballyhooed moderate who was caught in an interview decrying the Israeli "occupation" -- but that is a story for another day. Today there is Mustafa Akyol, a Turkish moderate with whom I had several exchanges a few years ago.

Akyol, like Ed Husain and the other moderate I mentioned above, finds one great obstacle in the way of a lucrative and adulation-filled career as a "moderate": Israel. It is one thing to sell unsuspecting and ignorant Infidels on the idea that Islam is peace. But Islamic antisemitism, based on the Qur'an's designation of the Jews as the worst enemies of the Muslims (5:82) and their repeated cursing by Allah (2:62-65; 2:89; 5:59-60; 7:166; 9:30, etc.), is harder for even these "moderates" to shake off, and it leads them to take postures toward Israel that are frequently revealing.

I hate to say I told you so, but I don't hate it all that much.

"Who the hell does Israel think she is?," by Mustafa Akyol in the Hurriyet Daily News, June 1 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

Two days ago, Israeli forces attacked a humanitarian aid flotilla in international waters. The whole purpose of the activists on the raided Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, and several others around it, were to bring aid and supplies, including playgrounds for children, to Gaza. They paid the price by being the targets of Israeli machine guns.

Aid and supplies from the Mavi Marmara

"Flotilla 'Aid' to Gaza Includes Expired Medicines, Old Equipment," by Hillel Fendel for Israel National News, June 1: "Much of the equipment and supplies aboard the 'humanitarian' ships for Gaza has been checked and found to be worthless....An IDF source said that the poor condition of the supplies renders most of it unusable. 'This once again strengthens the evaluation that the intentions of the flotilla organizers were not humanitarian in the first place,' he said."

Back to Akyol:

At least 10 unarmed civilians, most of whom are Turks, were killed. Dozens of others were injured.

There is no need to mince words in the face of this atrocity: Israel has committed piracy, barbarism and state terrorism.

Beyond doing all these shamelessly, Israeli spokesmen have also lied shamelessly. One of them, Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon, was doing exactly that when he portrayed the ship, and the whole aid flotilla, as full of people "well-known for their ties with global Jihad, Al-Qaeda and Hamas."

Damned lies

In fact, the 600 or so activists in the flotilla were a diverse group from 32 countries and many faiths. They included Christian priests and secular humanists. They included Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, the 85-year-old Nobel peace laureate from North Ireland, and Hedy Epstein, a Holocaust survivor. They included children, including a 1-year-old.

Does the presence of these Useful Idiots actually refute the contention that the ship was also full of people tied to Al-Qaeda and other jihad groups? Of course not.

These two Dutch-language stories (thanks to Denise) reveal that one of the two Dutch citizens on the Flotilla, Amin Abou Rashed, is a Hamas leader who has also worked for the Al-Aksa Foundation, which was suspected of raising money for Hamas. One of the articles mentions that he lost his arm in battle against Israel.

Ayalon was also lying when he said, "we found weapons that were prepared in advance and used against our forces." The Turkish authorities had checked the ships thoroughly before their departure, and there were simply no firearms on board. The only "weapons" that can be spoken of were the wooden or metal sticks that some of the activists had in their hands, apparently taken from the chairs or other ordinary materials on the vessels.

Yesterday, Israel released the photos of some other "weapons" on board, which were just knives taken from the ship's kitchen.

Knives from the ship's kitchen

The ship's chef, no doubt

Akyol:

The video footage we have seen on TV actually gives a sense of what happened: Israeli commandos raided the ships at dawn, sliding down from helicopters via ropes with machine guns in their hands. Some of the activists on board took this as an assault on their ship, which was, to repeat, in international, not Israeli, waters. (How could they take it otherwise?) Then they tried to resist the commandos with the sticks in their hands. The soldiers, in return, fired on the activists, killing at least 10 people and injuring dozens.

Actually, the "activists" took it upon themselves to "resist the commandos" before the "commandos" had done anything. Here is the actual videotape -- see for yourself:

From the Israeli point of view, everything is perfectly fine here: They have a policy of blockading Gaza, and those who defy it have to face the consequences.

Note that Akyol utters not a word about the indiscriminate rocket attacks upon Israeli civilians, launched from Gaza for many years.

The question is why in the world do people have to obey Israel's dictates and recognize its inhumane blockade on Gaza?

Who the hell is Israel, in other words, to force 1.5 million people to live in an open-air prison for years?

Scenes from that hellish open-air prison:

Akyol:

The answer from Israel is that "Hamas fires rockets from Gaza." Well, the last time those rockets were flying in the air, Israel was also firing rockets (and phosphorus bombs) into Gaza, killing a hundred times more civilians than Hamas did. According to a United Nations report, the actions of both sides equally amounted to war crimes....

Akyol doesn't mention that that UN report was funded by the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Nor does he bother to note that it has been thoroughly debunked.

Akyol:

There is even a more fundamental question here, relating to the elephant in the Middle Eastern room: Who the hell is Israel to occupy the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 1967, and to systematically steal these territories by building illegal settlements?

Question to Akyol: why didn't the "Palestinians" fight against Egyptian "occupation" of Gaza and Jordanian "occupation" of the West Bank between 1948 and 1967?

And how can she expect the Palestinians, and other nations like us, the Turks, to bow down to this unabashed theft of land?

When I asked that question to an Israeli hawk some years ago, I received a very revealing response: "Might," he said, "makes right."

Well, that might be a popular belief in Tel Aviv and Occupied Jerusalem, but not here in Istanbul. In fact our creed tells us that the exact opposite is true: Right, sooner or later, makes might.

The hundreds of heroes who sailed to Gaza last weekend had this faith in their hearts. Here in Turkey, 70 million more stand by them. We mourn for our fallen, but also know that they did not die in vain. Their sacrifice unveiled to the world not just the suffering of the innocents in the Gaza ghetto, but also the brutality of the rogue state that imposes it.

Read my lips: This spirit is really not going to die. We Turks will continue to stand for what is right, regardless of Israel's might. None of her lobbying, bullying or killing is going to change that.

Nor will truth, evidently.

Thirty little buses in New York City...my, how they roll. Through our organization Stop Islamization of America, Robert Spencer and I have placed ads on New York City buses, offering help to Muslims wishing to leave Islam. Our ads ran previously on buses in Miami, but in New York they’ve received international notice. The religious liberty bus ad campaign was covered in the last few days by every major network: ABC, NBC, CBS (New York), CNN and FOX, as well by Associated Press, Reuters, the Los Angeles Times, Britain's Daily Mail, Russian television, and many more–too many news outlets to list here.

It's no surprise that most mainstream media outlets that have covered the story have just repeated talking points from the unindicted co-conspirator, Hamas-linked Muslim Brotherhood front, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). AP said: "some Muslims are calling the ads a smoke screen for an anti-Muslim agenda." Which Muslims are saying that? Farther down in the article we find out:

Faiza Ali, of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the ads were based on a false premise that people faced coercion to remain with Islam. She said Muslims believe faith that is forced is not true belief.

"Geller is free to say what she likes, just as concerned community members are free to criticize her motives," Ali said.

Geller has a history of speaking out against Muslims, and the ads are "a smoke screen to advance her long-standing history of anti-Muslim bigotry," Ali said.

While we hear that "some Muslims" believe this, we don't hear in this AP story about any Muslims who think otherwise. So is AP saying that the unindicted co-conspirator, Hamas-linked CAIR is the best representative of Muslims in America? Is AP actually saying that Muslims in the U.S. are haters, extremists, and terror-tied? Islamic Sharia law is very clear: apostasy is punishable by death. Why does CAIR equate being pro-freedom with being anti-Muslim? Is AP saying that Muslims in America don't support religious freedom? Wow....

Read it all.

An Asian man whose marriage breakdown allegedly led to the murders of his parents and sister may have split up with his wife because he had a love-child with a secret girlfriend.

Kamar Mahmood separated from his wife Nabeela after being married for nine years.

It is understood that the shame of the couple's split - and the news that Mr Mahmood had allegedly cheated on his wife with a white, blonde girl - outraged Nabeela's family so much that they decided to take revenge.

Nabeela's three brothers and two other men are accused of shooting dead Mr Mahmood's father Mohammad Yusaf, 51, his mother Pervaze, 49, and sister Tania, 22, who were in Pakistan for the marriage of their youngest son, Asad, 24.

The victims were sprayed with bullets as they prayed at a relative's graveside in a village in Gujrat province....

Inspector Meraj Baig, a Gujrat officer investigating the murders, said: 'His wife found out he was involved with a British girl and that he was preparing to marry her. She told his parents and other family members and then her own brothers, who were furious.

There were quarrels between the two families and, ultimately, it is alleged, it led to murder.'...

THE home secretary, Theresa May, is facing a stiff test of the Conservative party's claims to oppose radical Islam after her officials chose to allow a misogynist Muslim preacher into Britain.

Zakir Naik, an Indian televangelist described as a "hate-monger" by moderate Muslims and one Tory MP, says western women make themselves "more susceptible to rape" by wearing revealing clothing.

Naik, who proselytises on Peace TV, a satellite television channel, is reported to have called for the execution of Muslims who change their faith, described Americans as "pigs" and said that "every Muslim should be a terrorist".

In a recent lecture, he said he was "with" Osama Bin Laden over the attacks on "terrorist America", adding that the 9/11 hijackings were an inside job by President George W Bush.
Related Links

In opposition, David Cameron and other senior Tories led criticism of the Labour government for allowing radical preachers into Britain to stir up hatred on lecture tours. While in opposition, Cameron also campaigned to get Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian radical, banned from Britain. [...]

Although Naik makes it clear he does not support specific acts of terrorism, his inflammatory speeches have included one, currently on YouTube, in which he states: "Beware of Muslims saying Osama Bin Laden is right or wrong. I reject them ... we don't know.

"But if you ask my view, if given the truth, if he is fighting the enemies of Islam, I am for him.

"I don't know what he's doing. I'm not in touch with him. I don't know him personally. If he is terrorising the terrorists, if he is terrorising America the terrorist ... I am with him. Every Muslim should be a terrorist."

According to reports in the Indian media, his organisation, the Islamic Research Foundation in Mumbai, was where Rahil Abdul Rehman Sheikh, suspected of being commander of a series of train bombings in Mumbai, and other alleged terrorists spent much of their time before the attacks.

The American terror suspect Najibullah Zazi, arrested last year for planning suicide attacks on the New York subway, is said to have been inspired by Naik's YouTube videos. There is no suggestion Naik had any knowledge of terrorist plotting. [...]

Naik will be appearing at Wembley Arena in London and in Sheffield on his British tour. When he last came to Britain in 2006, his visit was condemned by David Davies, the Tory MP for Monmouth, who described him as a "hate-monger".

A doctor by profession, Naik has distinguished himself from dozens of other "mad mullahs" through his intellect and his ability to recite verbatim extended sections of the Koran. [...]

What? And he isn't deterred by that Holy Book's message of Peace?

Since the 9/11 attacks, he appears to have developed a particular hatred of America. He is reported to have said: "The pig is the most shameless animal on the face of the Earth. It is the only animal that invites its friends to have sex with its mate.

"In America, most people consume pork. Many times after dance parties, they have swapping of wives. Many say, 'You sleep with my wife and I will sleep with your wife'. If you eat pigs then you behave like pigs."

Sermons of malice

"Western society has actually degraded [women] to the status of concubines, mistresses and social butterflies, who are mere tools in the hands of pleasure seekers and sex marketeers"

"People who change their religion should face the death penalty"

"It is a blatant secret that this attack on the twin towers was done by George Bush himself"

"If he [Osama Bin Laden] is terrorising the terrorists, if he is terrorising America the terrorist ... I am with him. Every Muslim should be a terrorist"

Now allow me to deal with some of the lies perpetrated by the Muslim Students Association and their “Israel Apartheid Week” on [the University of California, San Diego] campus. On the “apartheid” wall of hate funded by this university there is a map that pictures Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. It is labeled “occupied Palestine.” It is a lie.

There is no occupation of a country called “Palestine.” There were no Palestinian lands originally to be stolen. Israel was created in the same way that Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq were created – out of the ruins of the Turkish Empire. The Turks are not Arabs. They had ruled the entire region for 400 years since the 16th Century, until they joined the powers that were defeated in World War I.

At the end of the war, the victors – Britain and France — divided up the spoils, in this case the defeated Turkish empire. The “Palestine Mandate,” which was part of these Turkish spoils did not refer to a people but to a geographical region. The people in the region for the previous thousand years called themselves “Arabs” not “Palestinians.” The word “Palestine” is not even an Arab word. It is Roman in origin. When the Romans drove the Jews out of their homeland, Judea, in the first century CE, they renamed it after the Jews’ enemies, the Philistines, who were Europeans, not Arabs. Hence the name “Palestine.”

The claim that Israel is “occupied Palestine” is a lie of Hitlerian proportions and has the same genocidal intention. And it is funded by the University of California on this campus.

– The War Against Jews at UC San Diego

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[Editor’s note: This speech was delivered at the University of California, San Diego on May 10, 2010 and has been edited for publication.]

The last time I visited this campus was 40 years ago when I came to have lunch with Professor Herbert Marcuse, a malicious Marxist who made a reputation for himself and became a hero to the left by advancing the proposition that if you can claim to speak on behalf of the oppressed you have the right and the obligation to silence, and, if necessary, to obliterate people who disagree with you. This, of course, is the creed of every run-of-the-mill dictator on earth, and it is the creed of the progressive left today.

It is appropriate — and not coincidental of course — that I arrive here during “Israel Apartheid Week” or, as I prefer to call it, “Hitler Youth Week.”  I use that reference because — as should be evident — what is going on here is part of a globally organized movement centered in the Arab Muslim Middle East to finish the job that Hitler started.  Unlike the Nazis, who hid their “final solution” from ordinary Germans and the world at large, the Muslim radicals shout it from the rooftops, put it in their organizational charters and get applauded for doing so by millions of Muslims who want to see it happen.  And the left does its job, as during the Cold War years, of conducting auxiliary campaigns to help the genocide along.

Along with Israel Apartheid Week, these leftists will commemorate what the genocide-minded call the “Nakba,” which is Arabic for “catastrophe” and is the name they have given to the creation of the only Jewish state in existence. The protests are genocidal intentions in themselves, seeking the obliteration of a people’s homeland; and they are supported by this university which prides itself on its diversity and respect for others – apparently excepting Jews. The “Israel Apartheid Wall,” which is the centerpiece of this genocidal week at UC San Diego, was created with $8,500 in student funds. Another $32,000 in student funds went to the sponsoring organization, the Muslim Students Association, for the hate speakers it brought in and other activities this spring. The hate week itself is supported by several university departments, including Ethnic Studies, Visual Arts and Literature, and by one of the colleges of the university, as it happens Thurgood Marshall College, named for a civil rights activist.

It is also fitting that one of the speakers should be Angela Davis, an academic icon and a lifelong Communist who devoted herself to furthering the agendas of the most oppressive, blood-soaked regime in recorded history; and received for her services a Lenin Prize from the East German police state, the most wretched and ruthless of all the Soviet satellite regimes; who bought an arsenal of weapons for a young Black Panther, who attempted to take a judge and his courtroom hostage, blew off the head of the judge and got himself killed in the process.

Today Angela Davis comes as the leader of a 20-year campaign to end what she calls the “Prison-Industrial Complex.” This is a racist campaign to free every incarcerated criminal in the United States who happens to be of a darker skin tone. Her movement is actually doubly racist.  First, because it singles out black and Hispanic criminals for “liberation,” and second, because ninety-five percent of their crimes are committed against law-abiding black and Hispanic people. Angela Davis is a “University Professor,” which means that she makes a six-figure income, is provided with a personal staff and is honored in a way that only a select few of University of California  faculty are. A revered figure among the academic left, she makes scores of appearances every academic year and receiving $10,000 honoraria an appearance to spread her hatred of white people, of Jews, and of America to college audiences. This evening we have been thrust into a very sad situation.

Ecclesiastes famously said, “There is nothing new under the sun,” and the older I get, the more impressed I am by this observation. My own parents were card-carrying members of the American Communist Party, which meant that they were pawns, witting and unwitting, of the Soviet empire.  They called themselves progressives and believed they had joined a movement to bring social justice to all mankind. In 1956, the leader of world Communism gave a secret speech about the crimes that Stalin had committed in the name of social justice, which included the murders of millions of people, including millions of Communists. He gave the speech because the post-Stalin leaders of the Soviet Union were afraid a new Stalin would emerge and slaughter them too. Like today’s leftists, my parents hated the anti-Communists on the political right and called them liars when they confronted progressives with the crimes their hero had committed. The anti-Communists claimed that Stalin had killed 10 million people. In fact, when the truth was revealed, the figure was 40 million.  That’s interesting in itself:  The right understates the truth, and the left overstates the lies, in the name of social justice.

When the speech appeared on the front page of The New York Times, its impact was devastating to the progressive cause to which my parents had devoted themselves. Progressives were demoralized and unable to regroup. So their children — my generation — launched a new left.  We fatuously believed that there could be a new left – one untainted by the crimes of the old and unlikely to repeat them despite the fact that our understanding of the world and our agenda for the future — social justice, meaning equality enforced by government — were fundamentally the same. The American founders understood and asserted that politically enforced equality would mean the end of liberty for all, a wisdom we ignored as the new left quickly revealed itself to be no different from the old, embracing Communists in Vietnam and Central America and eventually Islamic totalitarians in Gaza and the Middle East.

About the time I was having lunch with Herbert Marcuse, I was also raising a considerable sum of money for the Black Panther Party in order to buy a church in East Oakland to house a Panther school. I was then the editor of Ramparts, the largest magazine of the left, and had recruited our bookkeeper, Betty Van Patter, to maintain the school’s financial records because I foolishly believed our own propaganda that a “racist” federal government would shut down the school if the Panthers didn’t keep their books properly. In December 1974, Betty Van Patter disappeared, and by the time the police fished her body out of San Francisco Bay, I knew the Panthers had killed her, and I also knew that every progressive friend I had was a potential threat to me and my four children, because if I said what I thought, members of that community would denounce me as a CIA agent and a racist, and I couldn’t know what consequences might ensue.

So for me Israel Apartheid Week where secular progressives join hands with theocratic fascists and disregard the realities in front of their eyes is a case of déjà vu all over again.  On this campus we are witnessing a “protest” in support of a movement worse than the Nazis, which unlike Hitler broadcasts from the rooftops its plan to obliterate the Jews, to obliterate Israel and to obliterate America. Have you noticed a single Muslim country distancing itself from this plan or denouncing Ahmadinejad and Hizbollah and Hamas for proclaiming this solution to the problem posed by infidel Jews and Americans? Even one Muslim state out of the 57 that exist? When people say Islam is a religion of peace, I’m sure that’s true for some individual Muslims, and have said so many times.  But when you look at the organized Muslim community, the element that is willing to stand up for peace, that will defend the right of the Jewish state to exist, that is willing to pass a UN resolution condemning the genocidal terrorists of Hizbollah and Hamas is so inconsequential that it might as well not exist.

Now to the conflict in the Middle East which Israel Apartheid Week is supposed to illuminate. Since there are young people in this room I’m going to focus this lesson on a recent event — the 2005 Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Gaza is a little strip of land bounded on one side by the Mediterranean and on the other by Israel. It is about six miles wide and 25 miles long.  Across this stretch of land, Israel was attacked by Egyptian tanks in three aggressive wars supported by all the Arabs in the region – in 1948, 1967 and 1973. Since Gaza is a long corridor the support of its population for the anti-Israel aggressor gave Egyptian forces the opportunity to come within striking range of important Israeli cities. This is why in the aftermath of those aggressions Israel decided it was necessary for security reasons to station Israeli forces in Gaza.

Not only did Egypt invade Israel three times across the Gaza strip, but after the first invasion it annexed Gaza, and did so with no protest from Palestinians or the Arab world, which now pretend to be so concerned about Palestinian land and a Palestinian state. Following the 1948 war, when Gaza was under Egyptian control, the 25 mile strip of land became the base for the first terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians. These were conducted by the Fedayeen who were created by Egypt’s dictator, Gamel Abdel Nasser, and were led by the head of his secret police.

These and later terrorist attacks by the PLO and Hamas strengthened Israel’s resolve to take the step that any country would take to protect its citizens by stationing its own military in the Gaza strip until such a time as the Arab states and the Palestinians were ready to accept Israel’s existence and live in peace. It has been more than sixty years since the creation of Israel and the Arabs have never been willing to accept Israel’s existence and consequently there is no peace.  No Palestinian entity recognizes the state of Israel. None. Israel has been continuously under attack by Arab regimes and Arab terrorists since its creation. The Islamic Republic of Iran, armed with Chinese rockets and soon to possess nuclear weapons has declared its intention to wipe Israel from the face of the earth. The Palestinian Authority, Hizbollah, and Hamas have made the identical intention clear so that no one can mistake it. These calls for genocide have not been repudiated by a single Muslim state, and no Muslim state has offered Israel’s threatened Jews their support.

Nonetheless, in 2005, Israel, in the interests of peace, unilaterally withdrew its military forces from Gaza, taking a risk unprecedented in the annals of nations.  The events that followed the Israeli withdrawal tell you everything you need to know about the Palestinians and their cause, and about the nature of the conflict in the Middle East.

Prior to Israel’s withdrawal, there were 9,000 Jews living in Gaza along the Mediterranean coast. Nine thousand Jews out of a population of 1.2 million Arabs; nine thousand law-abiding Jews.  These 9,000 law-abiding Jews created a horticulture industry, which employed 12,000 Palestinians and whose product accounted for 10% of the entire gross national product of Gaza.  Consider that 9,000 Jews are only .02% of the Gaza population. Two hundredths of 1%.  As it happens the entire state of Israel also exists on only .02% of the entire Arab land mass. But that is too much for the Arabs. And nine thousand Jews out of a population of 1.2 million Arabs was too much for them as well.

Think about it. If the Muslims of Gaza – or if the leaders they have elected — were rational, decent, normal human beings their reaction to the law-abiding Jews living among them could have been: Let’s import more Jews!  Let’s encourage more Jews to live here. Let’s make Jews welcome in our country; they are creating so much wealth for our citizens.

But that did not happen. Instead the Israeli government out of concern for the safety of the 9,000 productive, law-abiding Jews who lived there, evacuated them from Gaza. Some of these Jews were so attached to their homes in Gaza that they had to be removed at gun point. Why did the Israeli government do that? Because if they left them behind they would have been slaughtered.  Everybody, including those individuals in this audience who disagree with everything else I say, should understand that. Palestinians elect regimes – both the PLO and Hamas – which organize terrorist attacks against men, women and children; which target men, women and children. No civilized people in the world does that. Everybody understands that if the Palestinians were disarmed today, there would be peace in the Middle East.  Everybody understands that if the Jews in Israel disarm, they will be massacred.  These are simple facts that every rational person can see provided their vision isn’t impaired by religious hatred.

It was even worse than these bare facts would suggest. A philanthropic Jew in America, Mortimer Zuckerman, the publisher of U.S. News and World Report, fully aware that the Jews of Gaza were going to be removed forcibly to save their lives because the Palestinians are so bloodthirsty and genocidal that Israel couldn’t guarantee their safety, collected $14 million from American Jews to buy the 3,000 greenhouses and all the plumbing that went into this horticulture industry. They then gave it to the Palestinians as a gesture of peace.  And on the day that Hamas took control of Gaza, the Palestinians destroyed all the greenhouses, all the plumbing, and started firing thousands of rockets into unarmed towns and schoolyards in Israel.

Every Palestinian rocket is an anti-civilian rocket because they are rockets that can’t be aimed. The Palestinians fire their rockets at random in the hopes that they will kill Jews. Israel’s rockets, by contrast, are precision weapons that are aimed solely at military targets in an effort save civilian lives.

The lesson of the Gaza Strip is that the Palestinian jihadists are so full of hate that they are willing to destroy 10% of their own gross national product because it was created and donated by Jews. Israel, the on the other hand, was forced to evacuate the people who created this wealth to save them from being massacred because they were Jews.  That tells you everything you need to know about the conflict in the Middle East.

Here’s another instructive fact about Gaza. After the 1948 war, the entire Gaza Strip was annexed by Egypt. It disappeared from the maps. The same thing happened to the West Bank, which was annexed by Jordan. Yet there was no protest from the Arabs or the “Palestinians.” So much for the desire for Palestinian self-determination.

The so-called Palestine Liberation Organization was created in 1964, fifteen years after the creation of Israel. This was the first time since the Arabs invaded the region in the 7^th Century that there was any hint there was a people who identified themselves as “Palestinians” and desired a Palestinian state.

The charter of the newly created PLO which proclaimed the goals of the “liberation” movement failed to mention either the annexation of the West Bank or the Gaza strip. There was not a word in it about the liberation of Gaza from Egypt. There was not a word about the liberation of the West Bank from Jordan. Instead the PLO charter called for the elimination of the “Zionist entity.” From its beginning the Palestinian liberation movement has been a movement driven by Jew hatred. It is not designed to liberate the Palestinians by winning them a state; it is designed to “liberate” Israel and the Arab Middle East from the Jews, to expunge an infidel presence from the Muslim umma. Hamas and Hizbollah and the PLO do not want a Palestinian state. They want an Islamic empire, an infidel-free zone stretching “from the Jordan to the sea.”

Now allow me to deal with some of the lies perpetrated by the Muslim Students Association and their “Israel Apartheid Week” on this campus.  On the “apartheid” wall of hate funded by this university there is a map that pictures Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.  It is labeled “occupied Palestine.” It is a lie.

There is no occupation of a country called “Palestine.”  There were no Palestinian lands originally to be stolen.  Israel was created in the same way that Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq were created – out of the ruins of the Turkish Empire.  The Turks are not Arabs.  They had ruled the entire region for 400 years since the 16^th Century, until they joined the powers that were defeated in World War I.

At the end of the war, the victors – Britain and France — divided up the spoils, in this case the defeated Turkish empire. The “Palestine Mandate,” which was part of these Turkish spoils did not refer to a people but to a geographical region. The people in the region for the previous thousand years called themselves “Arabs” not “Palestinians.” The word “Palestine” is not even an Arab word. It is Roman in origin. When the Romans drove the Jews out of their homeland, Judea, in the first century CE, they renamed it after the Jews’ enemies, the Philistines, who were Europeans, not Arabs. Hence the name “Palestine.”

The claim that Israel is “occupied Palestine” is a lie of Hitlerian proportions and has the same genocidal intention. And it is funded by the University of California on this campus.

A second version of this lie is focused on Jewish settlements in the West Bank, as though these are an extension of the so-called “occupation.” The hate week displays put up by the Muslim Students Association, show the West Bank dotted with the settlements of Jewish interlopers. Let me put to you this question: If you are not a xenophobe or a racist what is wrong with Jewish settlements – with Jews settling on the West Bank or in Gaza? Why is a Jewish settlement a problem?  There are more than a million Arab Muslims settled permanently in Israel as Israeli citizens. They have more rights than the Muslims of Gaza, more rights than the Muslims in the West Bank, more rights than the Muslims in Iran, more rights than the Muslims in any Muslim country.  Jews welcome Muslims as settlers in their country. But Arab Muslims do not welcome Jews. They are xenophobes and Judeo-phobes, and that is the only reason why Jewish settlements are a problem for them.

Consider that the Jews of Israel have been attacked in a single generation in three aggressive wars designed to push them into the sea. By every precept of international law they had – and have — the right to annex those territories from which they were attacked and expel the entire population which joined the aggressions.

That’s exactly what happened to the Germans after World War II. East Prussia was the industrial heartland of Germany. Ethnic Germans had inhabited it for 1,000 years. But when Germany invaded Poland twice in a generation, the allied powers said, enough.  As part of the peace that followed the war, they expelled 12 million Germans from East Prussia and gave the land they had inhabited to Poland. There was no international outcry over that.

The Israelis had every right to take the same measures to secure peace in the Middle East in 1948 and 1967. In 1948 they could have expelled all the Arabs who had not left Israel, the way the Arabs expelled the Jews living in their countries in the Middle East. In 1967 they could have expelled all the Arabs living in Gaza and all the Arabs on the West Bank. But they didn’t. They preferred to live in peace with their Arab neighbors. The Israelis extended their hands to them and even when their peace offers were rejected built universities on the West Bank and made it a booming economy – an economy the PLO has since destroyed. And now the Israelis are being threatened with extinction by these same people as a reward for their generosity.

A third lie featured in the Muslim-sponsored hate fest this week is that there are five million Palestinian refugees who should be returned to their homes in Israel. The Arab records show quite clearly that when the Arab armies invaded Israel, the Arab governments called on those Arabs living in the area to flee and promised them they would be returned to their homes by the victorious Arab armies. In war, people sometimes flee because they are scared; some were undoubtedly driven out. Eventually there were an estimated five or six hundred thousand Arabs who fled. But there were also six hundred thousand Jews who were driven out of Iraq, Morocco, Tunisia and other Arab lands where they had lived for centuries. The largest ethnic community in Baghdad until the 30’s, when Iraq joined the Nazis, was the Jews.

The Arab propagandists and their University of California supporters now claim that there are more than five million Palestinian refugees, even though there were only a tenth that many originally and most of them have died. But why are there any Palestinian refugees? It is sixty years later. There are no longer any Jewish refugees, because they were all re-settled by Israel. The Palestinian refugees were not re-settled by the Arabs, not even in Jordan whose territory consists of 80% of the original Palestine Mandate and whose population is 70% made up of Palestinian Arabs. Jordan by the way is ruled by a Hashemite minority, yet there are no calls for the self-determination of Palestinians in Jordan. Palestinian Arabs are not allowed to settle in other Arab states. They are barred from entering.

In other words, the reason there are Palestinian refugees is because the PLO, Hamas and the Arab states want them to be refugees — want them to be confined to miserable camps, where they can use them for propaganda and as cannon fodder for the war to cleanse the Jews from the Muslim Middle East. Indeed the refugee camps are bases for the terrorist armies of the Islamic jihad. The United States and Israel, along with other countries, have poured billions of dollars into the refugee cause and it ended up in the Swiss bank accounts of the real oppressors of Palestinians – the leaders of the PLO and Hamas. Yasir Arafat died with a Swiss bank account worth $35 billion. That was money donated by Jews and Americans and taken out of the pockets of Palestinians.

The centerpiece of the Muslim sponsored hate week on this campus is the so-called Apartheid Wall which is itself two lies. The wall being protested – the “wall” in Israel — is not a wall but a security fence, and it is not an “apartheid” fence because it is not designed to enforce a separation of races or ethnicities. There are, as noted, a million Arabs living in Israel with more rights than the Arabs of any Arab country.

The fence was not erected to keep Arabs out. It was erected to keep terrorists out. The West Bank and Gaza are terrorist camps whose governments honor, support, and orchestrate a terrorist war against the ordinary citizens of Israel. What if the Jews took down the wall? We know from the past exactly what would happen. Israel’s security fence did not appear out of the blue.  The wall was a desperate last measure the Israelis devised after years of watching their children slaughtered by Palestinians in discos and at Sbarro pizza parlors who were then honored as heroes and martyrs in the wake of their crimes. The fence has stopped virtually all of these attacks. So what the hate week on this campus is really calling for when it calls for the removal of the fence is a renewal of terrorist attacks against the children of Israel.

There are whole departments of this university that are sponsoring this hate week and thus the war against the Jews it encourages, including the Visual Arts Department, the Literature Department and the Ethnic Studies Department. The Thurgood Marshall College is another official entity sponsoring these incitements and lies. If you look at the codes this university claims to live by, you will see that chief among them is respect for diversity – for the ethnicities of students who attend this school. There is no respect for Jewish students at this campus when a week of hate like this is thrust in their faces courtesy of university faculties and administrators.

There are thirty campuses across the nation hosting Israel Apartheid Weeks this spring, including the University of California — Irvine, UC Berkeley, Boston University, Brandeis. Brown, University of Wisconsin, University of Houston, Brooklyn College, University of Chicago, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, UCLA, DePaul, Columbia, University of Illinois, University of Minnesota, University of Washington and others.

Behind each and every one of these hate weeks against the Jews is the Muslim Students Association. Many people on this and other campuses mistake the Muslim Students Association for a cultural organization that represents all Muslims. It is no such thing. The Muslim Students Association is a sister organization of the terrorist organization Hamas, and like Hamas, is part of the Muslim Brotherhood network.

Hasan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood and the architect of terrorist jihad was an admirer of Adolf Hitler, whose organization translated Mein Kampf into Arabic. The father of Palestinian nationalism, Haj Amin al-Husseini, was one of Al-Banna’s heroes and is revered to this day by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas as the father of Palestinian nationalism. Haj Amin al-Husseini was a Nazi. In the twenties and the thirties he preached the extermination of the Jews and inspired two celebrated massacres of Jewish settlers. During the Second World War he went to Berlin to work with Hitler to recruit Arabs to Nazism . He devised his own plan to create an Auschwitz in the Middle East and was thwarted in setting up his death camps only because Rommel was defeated at El-Alamein. After the war, he and al-Banna led the Arab crusade against the creation of the Jewish state.

Why is the Muslim Students Association that violates the diversity principles and ethical codes of every one of these universities allowed to sponsor hate weeks against Israel and the Jews on these campuses? Where is the outrage over the lies the Muslim Students Association spreads along with its incitements against the Jewish state? Shame on the University of California for its role in this event. Shame on Thurgood Marshall College and the faculties that sponsored it. And shame on the Muslim students who use the shield of their religion to advance the Islamic war against the Jews.

A Question from the Audience:

[Note: I am including this one question from a UC San Diego student named Jumanah Imad Albahri, a former officer of the Muslim Students Association. Albahri came wearing a red Muslim head covering and a Kaffiya, the scarf Arafat used as a symbol of the terrorist war against Israel. A video of this exchange is available here]

Jumanah Imad Albahri: Good evening.  I just wanted to say thank you for coming to campus tonight and presenting your point of view.  It’s always valuable to have two sets of views going on at the same time. Very useful. My name is Jumanah Imad Albahri and I am a student here at UCSD.  I was reading your literature. I found that much more interesting than the talk. And I found some interesting things about the MSA, which is an organization that is very active on campus and it is hosting our annual “Hitler Youth Week.”  You should come out to those events.  If you could clarify the connection between the MSA and Jihad terrorist networks, because last I checked, we had to do our own fundraising and we never get help from anyone.  So if you could clarify the connection between UCSD’s MSA, or if you don’t have such information, if you could connect other MSAs on UC, because the connection wasn’t too clear in the pamphlet.

David Horowitz: Will you condemn Hamas here and now?

Jumanah Imad Albahri: I’m sorry, what?

Horowitz: Will you condemn Hamas?

Albahri: Would I condemn Hamas?

Horowitz: As a terrorist – genocidal — organization?

Albahri: Are you asking me to put myself on a cross?

Horowitz: So you won’t.  I actually have had this experience many times.  You didn’t read the pamphlet (The Muslim Student Association and the Jihad Network), because the pamphlet gives chapter and verse on the connection.  The main connection is that the MSA is part of the Muslim Brotherhood network as revealed in the documents produced by the FBI in the Holy Land Foundation trial.

Albahri: I don’t think you understood what I meant by that.  I meant, if I say something, I’m sure that I will be arrested for reasons of Homeland Security.  So if you could please just answer my question.

Horowitz: If you condemn Hamas, Homeland Security will arrest you?

Albahri: If I support Hamas — because your question forces me to condemn Hamas — if I support Hamas, I look really bad.

Horowitz: Well, if you don’t condemn Hamas, obviously you support it. Case closed. I had this same experience at UC Santa Barbara where there were 50 members of the Muslim Students Association sitting right in the rows there. And throughout my hour talk, I kept asking them, will you condemn Hezbollah and Hamas.  And none of them would.  And then, when the question period came, the President of the Muslim Students Association was the first person to ask questions. And I said, before you start, will you condemn Hezbollah?  And he said, well, that question is too complicated for a yes/no answer.  So I said, okay, I’ll put it to you this way. I am a Jew. The head of Hezbollah has said that he hopes that we will gather in Israel so he doesn’t have to hunt us down globally. For it or against it?

Albahri: For it.

Horowitz: Thank you. Thank you for coming and showing everybody what’s really going on here.

Noam Chomsky was one of the organizers and promoters of the MIT-Harvard campaign to boycott and “divest” Israel a few years back.  Well, last week Israel decided to boycott one of its own boycotters. Chomsky was refused entry into the country when he tried to cross over from Jordan, for purposes of giving an anti-Israel speech at a Palestinian “university” in Ramallah.  As such, Chomsky joined the very select club of people who have been prevented from entering Israel because of their blatant anti-Israel activities and their open collaboration with terrorists.

Chomsky was on his way to give an anti-Israel speech at Birzeit University.  (Instead he gave the speech by videoconference from Jordan.)   Now, Chomsky had been in Israel for visits before, and was even hosted at Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheba.  In fact the entire “ban” was evidently nothing more than some bureaucratic glitch in the instructions to Israeli border passport checkers.  Chomsky was invited at the Jordan River Crossing to enter the country instead through the Tel Aviv airport.  Ironically, the Israeli bureaucratic glitch resulted in Israel accidentally doing the right thing.

But this did not prevent a worldwide campaign of anti-Israel vilification by the usual crowd, denouncing Israel for the “banning” of Chomsky, complete with denunciations of “Israeli fascism.”   Led by the Daily Kos, the leftist blogs declared, “Chomsky was banned by the occupation army,” even though the Israeli army had nothing to do with it. Far leftists inside Israel joined in the brouhaha. Chomsky groupies accused Israel of suppressing freedom of speech.  Never mind that there are sufficient reasons to keep Chomsky out of Israel that have nothing to do with his anti-Israel opinions, such as his friendly ties and meetings with the Hezb’Allah terrorist group or his long track record of celebrating and promoting Holocaust deniers.  In fact, no sooner was Chomsky denied entry into Israel than he popped over to Lebanon, and there met with the Hezb’Allah terrorists and attended a salute to Hezb’Allah chief murderer Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, as reported in the Ya Libnan, a Lebanese news service.

Chomsky himself denounced the Israeli decision to block his entry as “Stalinism.”  To tell the truth, when I first heard that Chomsky accused Israel of Stalinism I assumed he meant it as a compliment.  Chomsky has gone out of his way to defend Stalin and he publishes his own articles in all the prominent Stalinist websites.  But like most Stalinists these days, Chomsky prefers to label himself an “anarchist.” This, of course, is the very same individual who spent much of his career as the academic spokesman for the Khmer Rouge regime, the ultra-communists who can only be described as Stalinists on steroids.  Chomsky defended Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge as they annihilated the Cambodian population and he still doubletalks his way out when asked about the genocide that the Khmer Rouge conducted. He once claimed the Khmer Rouge actually SAVED millions of Cambodian lives.  Even far-leftist The Nation demolished Chomsky for his toadying up to Pol Pot.

There have only been a few other cases of people being prevented from entering Israel because of their ties to terrorists or their involvement in anti-Semitic or anti-Israel campaigns.  Norman Finkelstein, the unemployed hate-monger fired by DePaul University, was banned from entering Israel a couple of years back because of his intimate collaboration with Hezb’Allah terrorists. Others banned from Israel include  Richard Falk, the retired Princeton propagandist who has made a career out of denouncing Israelis as Nazis. He was denied entry into Israel as a UN “investigator,” because that UN “investigation” was nothing more than a campaign of lies and smears about Israeli “war crimes.” Falk earlier had been allowed to enter Israel as a private citizen.

Chomsky has, in the past, been welcomed to enter Israel even though he proclaims that he considers both the US and Israel to be far worse than Nazi Germany.  When not dealing with linguistics, Chomsky may be best known for his obsessive cheering on of terrorists and occasionally holding meetings with them.  Chomsky has pow-wowed with Hezb’Allah terrorists.  He has also long been a major promoter of Holocaust deniers. Like Falk and Finkelstein, Chomsky has long led the campaign to boycott and “divest” Israel.  Even a free speech absolutist must concede that there is some logic to a victim of a boycott boycotting that boycotter.  Chomsky has led the jihad against Israel’s existence for as long as he has been a public figure.  He is also a pathological serial liar.

Now, whether or not one agrees with them doing so, democratic countries, in fact, often deny entrance to people whose opinions or politics they find repulsive.  The very same people now whining about Israel refusing Chomsky access to the country to engage in anti-Israel agitation were strangely silent when Britain prohibited 16 people from entering the country on grounds that they held politically incorrect opinions.  These included US radio host Michael Savage.  Before that, the UK banned Rev. Fred Phelps from entering the country because he is anti-gay.  Dutch politician Geert Wilders, a candidate for the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, was barred from entering the UK because of his opinions.  The UK has banned a whole host of Israelis from entering their country, including activist Moshe Feiglin.

The United States has banned all sorts of people from entering, not limited to those suspected of having ties to terror groups.  In some cases it was because of their political views.  Journalist Robert Fisk was banned for this reason.  Professor John Milios from Greece was banned.  Curiously, few in the world denounced the US for being a fascist country on that basis.  Tariq Ramadan, the darling of the pro-jihad Left, was barred until recently from both the US and France.  Liberian President Charles Taylor and other leading Liberians were banned from entering the US because of their support for rebels in Sierra Leone.  Canada has also banned people because of their views or behavior, most famously the case of George Galloway, the British Member of Parliament because of his intimate ties to Saddam Hussein.

Germany, Austria and some other European countries routinely ban Neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers from entering their territories and sometimes jail them when they enter.  Germany banned the Reverend Moon from entering.  And so on.

In the late 1970s, a professor of literature at the University of Lyon named Robert Faurisson wrote two letters to Le Monde claiming that the gas chambers in concentration camps used by the Nazis to exterminate the Jews did not exist and were a Jewish hoax.  Faurisson was convicted of Holocaust denial and hate speech in two trials in France, in 1983 and 1990.

Noam Chomsky has long been the most prominent defender of Faurisson.  Chomsky’s father had been a Hebrew teacher at Gratz College in Philadelphia (which I attended in the 1960s).  Chomsky the younger may be the most academically distinguished Jewish anti-Semite on the planet, even though his theories about linguistics have evidently lost much of their favor among researchers in recent years.

In the 1980s Chomsky signed a petition denying that Faurisson was an anti-Semite and saluting Faurisson as a “respected professor.”  Chomsky not only defended Faurisson’s “academic freedom” but endorsed the content of Faurisson’s anti-Semitic diatribes.

Chomsky also wrote the foreword to one of Faurisson’s Holocaust denial books. There Chomsky wrote: “Is it true that Faurisson is an anti-Semite or a neo-Nazi? As noted earlier, I do not know his work very well. But from what I have read — largely as a result of the nature of the attacks on him — I find no evidence to support either conclusion. Nor do I find credible evidence in the material that I have read concerning him, either in the public record or in private correspondence. As far as I can determine, he is a relatively apolitical liberal of some sort.”

In defending Faurisson, Chomsky wrote: “I see no anti-Semitic implications in denial of the existence of gas chambers or even denial of the Holocaust. Nor would there be anti-Semitic implications, per se, in the claim that the Holocaust (whether one believes it took place or not) is being exploited, viciously so, by apologists for Israeli repression and violence. I see no hint of anti-Semitic implications in Faurisson’s work.”

Now if anyone is looking for another reason why Israel should legitimately prevent Chomsky from setting his paws on the Holy Land, how was that?  Add it to Chomsky’s role in the Israeli boycott movement and his associations with terrorists.

Should Israel have prevented Chomsky from entering?  It was clearly justified in doing so. But was that the right choice?   Personally – I would have let him in and then immediately had him arrested him for Holocaust denial (if not of Jews then surely regarding the genocide of Cambodians) and anti-Semitism.  Like many countries in Europe, Holocaust Denial is illegal in Israel, although the law is never enforced against anyone, even Arab politicians.  And Israel has an “anti-racism” law on the books, albeit one only used against rightwing Jews, and Chomsky is clearly in violation of it.

Indicting Chomsky under that would have made such a wonderful legal precedent.

It’s popular these days for conservatives to criticize the defender of the poor and the oppressed, Robin Hood. Hood, they say, is nothing more than a socialist pretending to be a hero. He is, if you will, Karl Marx with a bow and couple of arrows. He steels from the wealthy and gives to the poor. It’s socialism in action, or so many contemporary conservative commentators argue.

Although I understand it that conservatives automatically oppose all those who dare “redistribute wealth” (or appear to), they are sorely mistaken to do so with Hood. Dismissing him as a Marxist is ludicrous and counterproductive; the former because he is actually a very American (classically liberal and conservative) hero, the latter because the audience will sympathize with him regardless of the criticism.

Hood’s anger is directed at ruthless oppressors, who came to power not because the people voted them into office, but because they were of noble blood. There is no democracy and no freedom in Hood’s Britain. These people can do whatever they want to, because they are not accountable for their deeds.

Furthermore, their wealth isn’t based on hard work, entrepreneurship and innovation, but on theft. They didn’t work for it, nor did they earn it. They simply stole it from the people, all of whom are poor and oppressed, and who are trying to raise themselves up by their bootstraps only to be pushed down time and again by those in power.

One of the ways these oppressors steal from the citizenry is by levying high taxes. If that’s not a conservative and libertarian outlook on (the dangers of high) taxes, I don’t know what is. Progressives, on the other hand, have no problem with high taxes. Better yet, they believe that every single penny one earns actually belongs to the state. It is only by the grace of God that one is allowed to keep a specific amount (enough to live on).

If you look at these circumstances,  Hood is quite right to take back the money these undemocratic rulers stole from their oppressed subjects. In effect, he’s not “robbing” anyone, as Big Hollywood’s Dan Gifford would have us believe, but simply giving back to the people that which was rightfully theirs in the first place.

By criticizing Hood conservatives are not turning the audience against the hero, but against themselves and their ideology. This while he actually embodies many of our beloved conservative ideals. Instead of attacking him, then, we have to claim him as one of ours – which he is.

Of course, no Islamic law sanctions the disfiguring of those who besmirch the family honor. But with honor killing broadly tolerated -- its perpetrators given light sentences at best in countries such as Jordan and Syria -- this kind of thing is going to happen.

"Charities fear rise in acid attacks avenging slights on family honour," by Jerome Taylor for The Independent, May 19 (thanks to all who sent this in):

When Awais Akram answered his mobile to Sadia Khatoon, a 24-year-old married woman whom he had met on Facebook and had recently started a physical, but not sexual, relationship with, he had little idea of the fate that was about to befall him.

Mrs Khatoon insisted they meet outside his flat in Leytonstone, east London, but as Mr Akram stepped out into the summer sunshine his lover was nowhere to be seen. Instead he was confronted by three masked men wearing gloves, one of whom was carrying a bottle of "Give It One Shot" drain cleaner.

The men, who included Mrs Khatoon's brother Mohammed Vakas, had come to wipe off what they believed was a stain on their family's "izzat" (honour). Beating and stabbing Mr Akram was not enough. As he lay bleeding on the floor, Vakas stepped over his victim and poured the entire bottle of drain cleaner over Mr Akram's face and body.

In parts of the developing world - particularly south-east Asia, the south Asian subcontinent and east Africa - acid attacks are common. The Taliban and fellow extremists have frequently resorted to throwing acid in women's faces for even small transgressions, such as daring to go out unveiled. But there are concerns that such attacks may also be on the increase in the UK.

Hospital admission figures for the past three years show a steady rise in the number of people being treated for acid attacks. According to the NHS information centre, 44 people were admitted to hospital in 2006-07 after they were "assaulted with a corrosive substance". The following year the figure jumped to 67 and last year there were 69 admissions.

The figures only include hospital admissions where a patient had to spend one night or more in hospital and there is no ethnic breakdown. But charity workers fear there is enough anecdotal evidence to suggest acid attacks are becoming more common....

Read it all.

Comments by David G. Littman, NGO Representative at the UN in Geneva:
Association for World Education and World Union for Progressive Judaism

The Vienna Forum Conference took place at the Neuwaldegg Castle just outside Vienna on 6-9 May 2010. Co-sponsored by the Hudson Institute, the Educational Initiative for Central and Eastern Europe (EICEE) and the Kairos Journal, there were more than 40 panellists, including academics and distinguished experts from various countries of Europe and the United States. The subject: 'The Future of Europe and the Question of Islam'; I was conveniently placed as the last speaker on the last panel; my theme: 'Islam at the UN Human Rights Council'. Although everything was filmed and recorded by the organizers, we are indebted to EuropeNews for having filmed and recorded everything independently and to the organizers in giving their prior approval for those videos and the presentations to be posted on various websites - mine is below virtually verbatim. The passages in square brackets were not pronounced in the 20 minutes allowed, but were in my prepared text and have been left as is my UN habit since 1986.

My intention was to read the conclusion to Churchill's brief historic House of Commons speech on 13 May 1940 - 'blood, toil, tears and sweat' - pronounced almost exactly 70 years ago, but time did not allow me. He was received in Parliament two days after becoming Prime Minister with almost total silence by the Conservatives, in contrast to Neville Chamberlain, who was even cheered in the House of Lords. I have left Churchill's words below, for they are certainly worth meditating today by those who can see and hear the Gathering Storm on the horizon.

By an extraordinary coincidence, Libya and Switzerland were accepted as members of the 47-State Human Rights Council on the 13th May 2010, exactly 70 years after Churchill's speech. It is more than likely that Libya will be welcomed back - in 2003 Libya held the Chair - with enthusiasm by the OIC, Arab League, African Union and the NAM (Non-aligned Movement), as a form of Appeasement after the 'Hannibal Affair' ; whereas Switzerland more grudgingly by most groups as a result of its popular vote against construction of minarets (November 2009), and being criticized in the customary "Defamation of Religions" resolution in March 2010.

Full transcript of the speech:
Note:
The passages in square brackets [] were not pronounced in the 20 minutes period allowed (finally 22 minutes) but were in my prepared text & have been left, as is my habit at the UN in Geneva.

Mr. Chairman, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to be back in Vienna to address you and I wish to thank the organizers for giving me the opportunity to be the last speaker [on a crucial subject, 'Islam at the UN Human Rights Council'.] As it is writ in sacred texts: "The first shall be last and the last first." The World Conference on Human Rights was adopted here in 1993 as the VIENNA DECLARATION AND PROGRAMME OF ACTION - referred to as the DPA; it recognised and affirmed:

that all human rights derive from the dignity and worth inherent in the human person,
and that the human person is the central subject of human rights and fundamental freedoms, and consequently should be the principal beneficiary and should participate actively in the realization of these rights and freedoms.

The World Conference on Human Rights reaffirms the solemn commitment of all States to fulfil their obligations to promote universal respect for, and observance and protection of, all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, other instruments relating to human rights, and international law. The universal nature of these rights and freedoms is beyond question.

In its penultimate paragraph the [27-page Declaration & Programme of Action] DPA concludes with a Follow-up to the World Conference on Human Rights and "further recommends that the Commission on Human Rights annually review the progress towards this end." Yes, you heard me correctly - "the Commission on Human Rights."

[The DPA inspired me to plead successfully here in 1996 - with Archduke Felix Habsburg and his lawyer at a widely covered press conference - and later in the Hofburg for Archdukes Karl and Felix to be allowed to use their Austrian passports for travel to Austria, until then forbidden to both of them.]

[99 - The World Conference on Human Rights on Human Rights recommends that the General Assembly, the Commission on Human Rights and other organs and agencies of the United Nations system related to human rights consider ways and means for the full implementation, without delay, of the recommendations contained in the present Declaration, including the possibility of proclaiming a United Nations decade for human rights. The World Conference on Human Rights further recommends that the Commission on Human Rights annually review the progress towards this end.

100 - The World Conference on Human Rights requests the Secretary-General of the United Nations to invite on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights all States all organs and agencies of the United Nations system related to human rights, to report to him on the progress made in the implement-ation of the present Declaration and to submit a report to the General Assembly at its fifty-third session, through the Commission on Human Rights and the Economic and Social Council.

Likewise, regional and, as appropriate, national human rights institutions, as well as non-governmental organizations, may present their views to the Secretary-General on the progress made in the implementation of the present Declaration. Special attention should be paid to assessing the progress towards the goal of universal ratification of international human rights treaties and protocols adopted within the framework of the United Nations system.]

In articles published in 1994 on slavery in Sudan; threats against the Special Rapporteur Gaspar Biro; and since 1997 on: "Blasphemy at the United Nations"; "Universal Human Rights and 'Human Rights in Islam'"; "Islamism Grows Stronger at the United Nations; Stealth Jihad at the UN; and many other texts, we have illustrated how a systematic effort has been made at the United Nations by certain member States to replace some of the dominant paradigms of international relations - now referred to as "complementary standards" by OIC countries [the Organization of the Islamic Conference] and the UN in a diplomatic language.

Already in September 1992, six months before the Vienna Conference, the Final Declaration of the Conference of the 108 Non-Aligned Countries held at Djarkarta, Indonesia, stressed "differences in cultures" and implied that differences in the interpretation of human rights should be recognized. This soon became the "cultural relativism" ploy which we have warned against systematically since then.

[Yes, religions and traditional societies deserve respect, without however losing sight of the goals laid down in the International Bill of Human Rights; but any reinterpretation of human rights beyond the existing framework of international norms - that is, the various forms of "cultural relativism" - quickly leads to grave human rights abuses by dictatorial regimes, whose countries are signatories to the International Bill of Rights and to the other International Human Rights Instruments.]

At the recent 13th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva on 23 March, speaking jointly for the Association for World Education and the World Union for Progressive Judaism in the context of the Vienna DPA, we paid homage to Sérgio Vieira de Mello, the then High Commissioner for Human Rights who was tragically slaughtered, with 20 other members of his staff, in the Baghdad Canal Hotel Bombing of 19 August 2003, after the UN refused allied military protection - in order not to imply any UN links. He was there as the Secretary-General's Special Representative in Iraq.

In his last report on the 'Follow-up to the World Conference on Human Rights', he pertinently stated the hopeless mess into which the Commission had fallen; it was this report that led to an attempt to improve the structure and mechanisms on Human Rights and finally to the creation of the Human Rights Council. [E/CN.4/2003/14]

[I personally remember how shocked he was on taking up his new job in autumn 2002 when he realised the level to which the Commission had sunk & then tried desperately to fix it rapidly. In a joking manner, I reminded him, before he left for Baghdad, of the words of Shakespeare in the mouth of John of Gaunt: "Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short; He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes." (King Richard II, Act II: i, 35-36). He liked it, but three months later he was killed by a jihadist bomber.]

We shall quote his courageous words seven years later - as we did at the Commission soon after his death, and recently again - for they were a harbinger of the gathering, stealth storm that resulted in a decision to replace the discredited Commission with what was intended to be a responsible body - the Human Rights Council:

Membership of the Commission on Human Rights must carry responsibilities. I therefore wonder whether the time has not come for the Commission itself to develop a code of guidelines for access to membership of the Commission and a code of conduct for members while they serve on the Commission. After all, the Commission on Human Rights has a duty to humanity and the members of the Commission must themselves set the example of adherence to the international human rights norms - in practice as well as in law." [Point 5 - see also §4]

Without universal respect for human rights, the vision of the Charter of a world of peace grounded in respect for human rights and economic and social justice will remain an illusion. Let us vindicate the Charter's vision by being faithful to the universal implementation of human rights. In doing so we shall continue in the direction of history, rather than allowing ourselves to be diverted from the course we know to be just." [§ 55]

As a veteran NGO human rights defender since 1986 at the United Nations in Geneva, I have watched - what is grandly called 'the international community' - at the Palais des Nations, which I sometimes call, in remembrance of Ludwig II [of Bavaria], the Palais Schwanstein:

descending incontinently, recklessly, the staircase which leads to a dark gulf. It is a fine broad staircase at the beginning, but, after a bit, the carpet ends. A little further on there are only flagstones, and, a little further on still, these break beneath your feet.

The problem is that everyone knows, but no one wants to recognise the fact that the Emperor strutting in his Palace des Nations, announcing royally: 'L'Etat c'est moi' [I am the State]- or rather 'Les droits de l'Homme, c'est nous' [Human Rights is us] - is stark naked.

Three months ago, we gave a longer presentation in the European Parliament in Brussels [at a Conference organized by the European Coalition for Israel: "How can the EU promote 'Universal Values' in the world community at large?"]. That text contains much documentation; it is available here for some background information.

You may also be interested in a recent piece that was posted on Jihad Watch in regard to 'violence against women', and further comments on FGM [Female Genital Mutilation], an origo mali (origin of evil) Council event, when we were again stopped on this subject, as reported at JihadWatch.

A classic example of this 'Game of Nations' Council, where the OIC constantly tries to rule the roost is also available on Robert Spencer's Jihad-Watch with a vivid, unbelievable UN video: called 'Shariah-gate Shipwreck' where Egypt's delegate, with an Adolf-like moustache (there's an Association for such moustaches in Egypt), and waving my statement over his head, which he shouldn't have been given, declared: "Islam will not be crucified at this Council." Since then the word 'Sharia' is a taboo word at the Human Rights Council - this shows its absurdity when a three minute statement took 1½ hours, with endless points of order from Egypt, Pakistan, Iran (JihadWatch).

On that occasion, I condemned FGM, 'honor killing' and the stoning of women for alleged adultery that still occurs regularly in Iran, Sudan and other countries - pointing out that in Iran, they are buried up to their waists in pits and blunt stones are used for women, thereby increasing their agony in death - and that the marriage-age for girls remains at 9 years old, since the 1979 Islamic revolution reduced it by half of the 18 years in the days of the last Shah.

What is amusing is the crassness to which the 'usual suspects' are willing to go at the Council. Here are the words of the Iranian delegate, speaking on a 'point of order' - in fact, it was not a point of order, it was 'a reply' and he was politely reprimanded by the Romanian president.

Mr. President, the statement and the references made by this speaker in this statement is false and has nothing to do with the realities in my country. I just wanted, for the record... he said that "the stoning of women for alleged adultery still occurs regularly in Iran." It's not true it is completely false and is out of the question. Thank you.

Courageous Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi

In a statement made in Geneva in 2008 by the courageous Iranian Noble Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi, she explained that a girl in her native country is considered an adult and liable to punishment, even execution, at 9 and a boy at 15. She totally rejected "cultural relativism".

[Two months earlier she told Reuters that Iran's human rights record had regressed since 2006. After her Nobel Prize was confiscated, she released a statement: "Threats against my life and security and those of my family which began some time ago, have intensified.]

In a keynote address at Emory University School of Law on 17 Oct. 2008: ["Islam, Human Rights & Iran" at Atlanta, Georgia], where she said: "I have always opposed the Islamic Declaration on Human Rights." Two months later she spoke again very courageously on Human Rights Day [10 December 2008] at the Palais des Nations [when I put to her a key question on such issues] (Emory Law).

Despite all this, last week the UN elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women with a four-year seat on the influential human rights body. This was a few days after Iran dropped an outrageous demand for a seat on the Human Rights Council. It should be noted that this special Status of Women Commission, according to its website, is "dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women." Iran will be joined next year by the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zimbabwe. [Indeed: "The time is out of joint." - Hamlet I, v. 189-90]

OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu: 'Happy note'

To update you on the latest situation: ten weeks ago [1 March 2010], OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, delivered a statement at what is called the 'High Segment' beginning of the 13th session of the Human Rights Council (I prefer the word 'highfalutin' as it is taken up with speeches by ministers from different States, often repeating the same platitudes). He then concluded on what he called a "Happy Note".

[I am pleased to inform this Council that the OIC is on the verge of establishing an Independent Permanent Commission on Human Rights. The vision and the mandate for the establishment of the Commission was provided by the leadership of the OIC Ten-Year Programme of Action adopted by the 3rd Extraordinary Islamic Summit held in Makkah Al-Mukarramah in December
2005. This vision was accorded a statuary status in the new OIC Charter, unanimously approved and entered into force in March 2008. (...) Islam places a premium on human rights by according primacy to 'Hukook-ul-ibad' or the rights of people.]

We take pride that Islam was the first religion that called for full equality among people regardless of their race, language, ethnic origin, social status, etc. This equality has been associated with preserving human dignity, a concept that goes far beyond that of human rights. The establishment of the Commission will introduce a paradigm shift within the OIC in the way Universal Human Rights and freedoms flow together with Islamic values to offer a coherent and strong system aimed at facilitating the full enjoyment of all Human Rights in the Member States.

[We have denounced this aberration at the Commission from January 1990, and in several articles since; as well as the publication of the Cairo Declaration, A Compilation of International Instruments Vol. II: Regional Instruments (UN-Office High Commissioner for Human Rights, New York / Geneva, 1997).

National Review ; International Bill Human Rights: Universality / International Standards / National Practices: E/CN.4/Sub.2/2003/NGO/15

United Nations ]

Nothing could be clearer than this solemn announcement by the OIC Secretary-General. But then came a worse clanger. On 19 April - only three weeks ago - when a meeting took place at the OIC Headquarters in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia between the OIC Secretary General and High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay, who was on a general visit. This was clearly a follow-up to Ihsanoglu's statement at the UN Human Rights Council. We learn on the OIC website: "The High Commissioner congratulated the Secretary General on the prospective establishment of the Commission and assured full support of her Office in its formative phase."

OIC Secretary General Receives the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Date: 19/04/2010

The OIC website refers to the Independent Permanent Commission on Human Rights in Islam, which I advise you to read, as there is no time for me to develop it here:

[The Secretary General informed the High Commissioner that the OIC was on the verge of establishing an Independent Permanent Commission on Human Rights The statute of the Commission was near finalization and likely to be entered into force following adoption by the forthcoming Session of the Council of Foreign Ministers due to be held in Dushanbe next month.

He emphasized that the establishment of the Commission must be viewed as a landmark event and a most positive development in the four decade long history of the Organization. Briefing the High Commissioner on the OIC Human Rights Commission, the Secretary General expressed the hope that the establishment of the Commission will introduce a paradigm shift within the OIC in the way universal human rights and freedoms flow together with Islamic values to offer a coherent and strong system aimed at facilitating the full enjoyment of all human rights in the OIC member states.

The High Commissioner congratulated the Secretary General on the prospective establishment of the Commission and assured full support of her Office in its formative phase. She also thanked Secretary General for his leadership and contribution to the successful outcome of the Durban Review Conference and indicated her hope for a continued cooperation with the OIC in the future. The meeting afforded the opportunity of exchange of views on the whole range of issues pertaining to the OIC's engagement with the Office of the High Commissioner and ended with the agreement to continue to build on the cooperation and coordination between the two Organizations.]

This, and other attempts at stealth jihad - to muzzle freedom of expression at the UN Human Rights Council - is being effectively challenged by Western countries and NGOs and it is also possible that the influence of cyberspace, conveying such 'news' worldwide is having a beneficial effect. What we were able to say in our 10 two minute statements last month at the Human Rights Council, without being stopped, and in the absence of Egypt's moustached comic trouble-maker is indicative.

The blatant Judeophobia /Antisemitism in the Arab-Muslim world is exemplified by the two ISESCO books we discovered on display at the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration [at the Palais des Nations, 19 December 2008], described in our Public Complaint documentation a year ago (12 January 2009). What is most disturbing is that ISESCO - the scholarly wing of the OIC countries - has an educational partnership with UNESCO since 1981, yet this changes nothing. The documents on all this are also available. [Written General Assembly NGO statement A/HRC/10/NGO/29 : Defamation of Judaism and Jews by ISESCO (OIC): 60th UDHR Anniversary at the UN]

* * * * *
What is our policy recommendation? It is to oppose every attempt by Islamists or their allies to introduce Islamic values into our society. Those shari'a-linked values are totally alien to our Judeo-Christian-Enlightenment values on which our modern democratic societies have been built. We must oppose attempts to create parallel systems of justice. We must fight every step of the way all attempts to create Sharia courts. All of us: Christians, Jews, Hindus, Humanists, and especially Muslims must reject Shar'ia law because, as the Islamic scholar Hassan Mahmud has clearly stated - and as we can see - "Muslims are the first victims of Islamic law."

Our joint parallel UN Conference at the 2005 Commission on Human Rights [18 April] covered this theme: 'Victims of Jihad: Muslims / Apostates and Infidels/ Dhimmis /Women. [Association for World Education / International Humanist and Ethical Union / Association of World Citizens]

[We are making available a comprehensive 13-page analysis of the latest situation on 'freedom of religion and belief'; 'freedom of opinion and expression; and 'combating defamation of religion' in the corridors of power at the United Nations and elsewhere. It was prepared by the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) with whom I have often collaborated since 2006 in joint statements at the Council, via their main representative in Geneva, Roy W. Brown; one such case was the now famous 'Sharia Affair'of 16 June 2008, mentioned earlier as the "Sharia-gate Shipwreck. The title of this paper: "Speaking Freely About Religion: Religious Freedom, Defamation and Blasphemy."]

Conclusion

To conclude, let us all remember that it is now 65 years since the horrors of the Second World War and the founding of the United Nations - a body often more 'Divided' regionally, politically and spiritually, than 'United.' The principal aim of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights was to create a framework for a world society, in need of universal codes based on mutual consent in order to function. We must always remain vigilant to prevent these international standards being contested by those who call into question - at the United Nations or elsewhere - the universality of these human rights principles. This creeping dhimmitude at the UN and elsewhere, led by the OIC and its agents and allies, should be denounced for what it is: a return to the medieval past.

In his analysis of Plato's criticism of democracy, Sir Karl Popper refers to a paradox of freedom and a paradox of tolerance. In my presentation at a European Parliament [Brussels] Conference on 18 October 2007, and again on 28 January 2010, I ended with his philosophical reflection. I shall use it again, leaving for another time Churchill apt, ringing words 70 years ago [see below]:

[Less well known is the paradox of tolerance:]

Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant
society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed and tolerance with them. - [In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise.

But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of fists or pistols.]

We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade as criminal. (1)

The presentation ended here - no time to conclude with the apt Churchill quotation (below):

[In two days it will be the 11th of May. Seventy years ago on that very day Winston Churchill became Prime Minister and on 13th May 1940 he delivered his brief and dramatic historic speech in the House of Commons: 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.' He concluded with words that are appropriate today:

You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in a word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival (...) At this time I feel entitled to claim the aid of all, and I say, 'Come then, let us go forward together with our united strength.' (2)

View Newsreal

Seven years after its application, Al Jazeera English has been launched in Canada. The three largest cable providers  (Bell TV, Rogers and Videotron) are carrying the digital channel. Al Jazeera (AJ), a.k.a. the “CNN of the Arab World” was given its approval papers by the Canadian broadcast regulator—the CRTC (Canadian Television and Telecommunications Commission).

Not surprisingly, the Managing Director of Al Jazeera English is Tony Burman, former Editor in Chief of the CBC—the leftist network propped up by its infinite bank payroll—taxpayer dollars. Yet the publicly funded CRTC has blocked several applications by Fox News, which by the way is in demand in Canada, but not Liberal and politically correct enough for a country long dominated by leftist media ideologues.

Oh, and there’s something else funded by Canadian taxpayers:   Harems! Hundreds of GTA (Greater Toronto Area) Muslim men in polygamous marriages are receiving welfare and social benefits for each of their spouses.

Mumtaz Ali, president of the Canadian Society of Muslims, said wives in polygamous marriages are recognized as spouses under the Ontario Family Law Act, providing they were legally married under Muslim laws abroad. – Toronto Sun

So here we “stand on guard” in Canada incorporating foreign Muslim laws into our provincial social benefits system. This is possible because, while polygamy is officially outlawed in Canada, there is a loophole in the law which is, it goes without saying, being capitalized upon by fundamentalist Muslims.

Canada is a very liberal-minded country, Ali said…way ahead of Britain in this respect. – Toronto Sun

It’s a troubling statement given that Canada shares its borders with the United States – the leader on the terrorist war front. And let’s not even mention the fact that Britain has actually gone so far as to sanction Sharia law to rule to replace common law in civil cases between Muslims.

That’s bad, but it becomes even worse. A Montreal man, Mohamed Omary, has been collecting welfare cheques for nearly two decades, crisscrossing ‘ Europe to meet with six other men who have since been killed, convicted or linked to global terrorism.

Lawyers for RCMP and CSIS have filed documents, alleging Omary has been living off taxpayers ever since he arrived from Morocco, yet finding cash to fund his escapades throughout Europe.

Some advice:  if Canadian taxpayers’ dollars aren’t lucrative enough, then go the Arar route, which means:  sue, big time.   Maher Arar originally had the audacity to demand $400-million, but settled for a meager 10.5 million.  He’s still on a U.S. terrorist list, yet received an apology from Prime Minister Stephen Harper and 10.5 million dollars in a legal settlement from the government (read: taxpayers) because of a s0-called injustice.  Arar– with dual Syrian and Canadian citizenship– was detained by American authorities in New York on terrorism suspicions, sent back to his country of origin (Syria), where he was imprisoned and tortured.  A judicial inquiry  subsequently found that the Canadian RCMP mislabeled him as an Islamic extremist with suspected ties to al Qaeda (al Qaida) (AQ) and  shared  that “misinformation” with U.S. authorities which led to his deportation to Syria.

Down the road, Omar Kadhr, the Canadian kid raising all kinds of controversy among naïve, bleeding hearts because he’s stuck in Guantanamo, said he saw Arar in safe houses and Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.  Well, 10.5 million dollars later, who cares?  Arar is happy with his new found wealth and personal apology from the Prime Minister’s Office. It takes little imagination to predict what he’ll do with these millions.

Conclusion:  with its lucrative potentials and its strategic location so close to the United States, dhimmi Canada has made itself the ideal place to live for extremist Muslims.

Seven years after its application, Al Jazeera English has been launched in Canada. The three largest cable providers  (Bell TV, Rogers and Videotron) are carrying the digital channel. Al Jazeera (AJ), a.k.a. the “CNN of the Arab World” was given its approval papers by the Canadian broadcast regulator—the CRTC (Canadian Television and Telecommunications Commission).

Not surprisingly, the Managing Director of Al Jazeera English is Tony Burman, former Editor in Chief of the CBC—the leftist network propped up by its infinite bank payroll—taxpayer dollars. Yet the publicly funded CRTC has blocked several applications by Fox News, which by the way is in demand in Canada, but not Liberal and politically correct enough for a country long dominated by leftist media ideologues.

Oh, and there’s something else funded by Canadian taxpayers:   Harems! Hundreds of GTA (Greater Toronto Area) Muslim men in polygamous marriages are receiving welfare and social benefits for each of their spouses.

Mumtaz Ali, president of the Canadian Society of Muslims, said wives in polygamous marriages are recognized as spouses under the Ontario Family Law Act, providing they were legally married under Muslim laws abroad. – Toronto Sun

So here we “stand on guard” in Canada incorporating foreign Muslim laws into our provincial social benefits system. This is possible because, while polygamy is officially outlawed in Canada, there is a loophole in the law which is, it goes without saying, being capitalized upon by fundamentalist Muslims.

Canada is a very liberal-minded country, Ali said…way ahead of Britain in this respect. – Toronto Sun

It’s a troubling statement given that Canada shares its borders with the United States – the leader on the terrorist war front. And let’s not even mention the fact that Britain has actually gone so far as to sanction Sharia law to rule to replace common law in civil cases between Muslims.

That’s bad, but it becomes even worse. A Montreal man, Mohamed Omary, has been collecting welfare cheques for nearly two decades,crisscrossing Europe to meet with six other men who have since been killed, convicted or linked to global terrorism.

Lawyers for RCMP and CSIS have filed documents, alleging Omary has been living off taxpayers ever since he arrived from Morocco, yet finding cash to fund his escapades throughout Europe.

Some advice:  if Canadian taxpayers dollars isn’t lucrative enough, then go the Arar route. Which means: Sue, big time.   Maher Arar originally had the audacity to demand $400-million, but settled for a meager 10.5 million.  He’s still on a U.S. terrorist list, yet got an apology from Prime Minister Stephen Harper and 10.5 million dollars in a legal settlement from the government (read: taxpayers) because of a s0-called injustice.  Arar– with dual Syrian and Canadian citizenship– was detained by American authorities in New York on terrorism suspicions, sent back to his country of origin (Syria), where he was imprisoned and tortured.  A judicial inquiry  subsequently found that the Canadian RCMP mislabeled him as an Islamic extremist with suspected ties to al Qaeda (al Qaida) (AQ) and  shared  that “misinformation” with U.S. authorities which led to his deportation to Syria.

Down the road, Omar Kadhr, the Canadian kid raising all kinds of controversy among naïve, bleeding hearts because he’s stuck in Guantanamo, said he saw Arar in safe houses and Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.  Well, 10.5 million dollars later, who cares?  Arar is happy with his new found wealth and personal apology from the Prime Minister’s Office. It takes little imagination to predict what he’ll do with these millions.

Conclusion, with its lucrative potentials and its strategic location so close to the United States, dhimmi Canada has made itself the ideal place to live for extremist Muslims.