Canary In The Coal Mine

The Obama Administration Opens Formal Contacts With the Muslim Brotherhood

 

 

by Andrew C McCarthy  |  NationalReview.com  |  June 30, 2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Besides explaining what the Muslim Brotherhood is and has always been, the major point of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the West Sabotage America was to warn that this day was coming. And so it has come: Reuters reports that the Obama administration has established a policy of formal contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood is the world’s most important Islamist organization. It is openly, unabashedly committed to the destruction of the United States and the West. In typical Obama fashion, this disastrous decision to engage America’s avowed enemies has been couched as the mere continuation of prior policy: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is reported to have confirmed that the U.S. would “resume” contacts which had “occurred in recent years.” But make no mistake about it, this is a new policy. 

The contacts that have occurred in recent years have been outside of U.S. policy — at the urging of leftists in the State Department, the intelligence community, the commentariat, and, in particular, the Obama White House. They have long campaigned for a policy of “engagement” with the Muslim Brotherhood (including Hamas, the terrorist organization that is the Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch). They’ve needed to do this campaigning because it was American policy not to deal with the Brotherhood — dealing with the Brothers empowers them, bolstering their status as leaders of mainstream Islam and legitimizing their agenda, which calls for Islamicizing societies, ultimately establishing a global caliphate, destroying Israel, and incrementally expanding sharia throughout the West.

This day has been coming since President Obama’s first day in office. In 2007-08, the Brotherhood was proved by the Justice Department to be engaged in what the Brotherhood itself describes as a “grand jihad” aimed at the “elimination and destruction of Western civilization from within” by “sabotage.” The title of my book was not my words but theirs — taken from their internal memoranda, seized by the FBI from the home of a Brotherhood official. The Brotherhood’s anti-U.S. strategy was not news to anyone who follows Islamist movements, but the proof for all to see came during the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial, during which several defendants were convicted of funneling millions of dollars to Hamas. Supporting Hamas’s terrorist war against Israel has been the Brotherhood’s highest priority in the U.S. since Hamas was formed, and trial evidence showed unmistakably that the leading Islamist organizations in the U.S. — almost all either formed by or having ties to the Brotherhood — were complicit.

Among the most important of these is the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which was designated as an unindicted coconspirator by the Justice Department and shown by prosecutors to have housed the HLF in its offices and to have helped it transfer money to Hamas fronts overseas. Yet, only a few months after the convictions, the Obama administration dispatched Valerie Jarrett, the president’s close friend and top political adviser, to give the keynote address at ISNA’s 2009 convention. This was only the most notorious of the administration’s outreach episodes involving groups (such as CAIR) which were shown to be Brotherhood affiliates and Islamist apologists. Indeed, by the time of Ms. Jarrett’s appearance at the ISNA convention, ISNA president Ingrid Mattson had been chosen to speak at Obama’s inauguration ceremonies, and Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Arif Alikhan (who has referred to Hezbollah as a “liberation movement”) was named assistant secretary for policy development at Obama’s Homeland Security Department.

At around the same time, at his 2009 Cairo speech — which was one big “outreach” to Islamists — the administration infuriated the Mubarak regime by inviting Brotherhood members to attend, even though the Brotherhood was then a formally banned organization under Egyptian law. Ultimately, of course, the administration pushed Mubarak aside even though it was clear by then that his fall would usher the Brotherhood into power. That will happen in the upcoming fall elections, the Brothers having successfully lobbied for a rapid election schedule that will prevent the formation of any meaningful secular opposition.

In the meantime, the administration has worked feverishly to whitewash the Brotherhood’s extremism and support of terrorism. As I have argued, Obama officials were preparing the ground for the Brotherhood’s ascendancy. They understand the political consequences of this catastrophe for the president … if the American people come to recognize what the Brotherhood is and how deeply it despises America and the West.

Thus, as the uprising in Egypt intensified, Obama adviser Bruce Reidel was quick to pen an essay called “Don’t fear Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood” (to which I responded here on NRO). James Clapper, Obama’s director of national intelligence, then proceeded to insult Congress’s intelligence — and badly damage his reputation for seriousness — by branding the Brotherhood as a moderate, “largely secular” organization. (Besides being known as theMuslim Brotherhood, the organization’s motto remains, “Allah is our objective, the Prophet is our leader, the Koran is our law, Jihad is our way, and dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope — Allahu Akbar!“)

Only a few months before Clapper’s testimony, the Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide, Muhammad Badi, called for “jihad and sacrifice” in confronting the United States and Israel. He proclaimed that America is “experiencing the beginning of its end and is heading toward its demise.” The enthusiastic endorsement of violence, particularly against Israel, would be surprising only to those who drink the Obama Kool-Aid that claims the Brotherhood has renounced violence.

As I have repeatedly pointed out — and as Barry Rubin argues in this excellent analysis of the new Obama policy — the Brotherhood has always favored violence where it would advance the Islamist cause; it tactically renounced violence against the Egyptian regime because it would have prompted ruinous retaliation from Mubarak and because the Brotherhood was making progress through the political process and influence over Egyptian institutions.

Quite apart from its long history of violence, the Brotherhood has long endorsed terrorism (which it calls “resistance”) against Israel and against Western forces operating in Islamic countries. The Brothers also favor an inside/outside strategy against the U.S. and Europe — exploiting the atmosphere of intimidation created by Islamist terrorists like al Qaeda to exercise outsize influence over American and Western policy-makers while advancing the sharia agenda through “peaceful” political means. It was not surprising, then, that the Brotherhood’s former Supreme Guide, Mohammed Mahdi Akef, praised Osama bin Laden as a “mujahid” (a jihad warrior) in a 2008 interview — adding that, though the Brotherhood objected to al Qaeda’s targeting of civilians, “I support its activities against the occupiers,” and concluding that bin Laden deserved praise for his “sincerity in resisting the occupation,” a point on which the al Qaeda leader was said to be “close to Allah on high.”

The Brotherhood’s approach is popular in Egypt and throughout the Islamic Middle East. Indeed, shortly after Mubarak fell, the Brotherhood’s leading jurisprudent, Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, was given a hero’s welcome in Tahrir Square, where he had been banned from inciting Islamist revolutionaries for 30 years. The sheikh is the most influential Islamic cleric in the world. Drawing on classical sharia teaching, he instructs that Islam and secularlism cannot co-exist. Moreover, Qaradawi has promised that Islam will “conquer” America and Europe, he calls for the annihilation of Israel by violent jihad, he incited the murderous rioting over the Danish cartoon depictions of Mohammed, and he has issued fatwas approving suicide bombings and the terrorist murder of American troops and support personnel in Iraq. I’m sure you’ll be shocked to learn that the State Department has nevertheless long regarded Qaradawi as an “intelligent and thoughtful voice from the region” who is “an important figure that deserves our attention” (to quote Alberto Fernandez, State’s director of public diplomacy in the Middle East during the Bush years).

Since Mubarak’s fall, the Brotherhood has worked toward formally reestablishing Egypt’s ties with Iran and for ending the peace agreement with Israel. The Brotherhood is also behind the “Peace Flotilla” expeditions in which Islamists and Leftists join together in efforts to break Israel’s blockade against Hamas in Gaza — the American part of the effort is being spearheaded by such old Obama friends former PLO spokesman Rashid Khalidi, Code Pink founder Jodi Evans, and Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn — and the planned U.S. ship is called, yes, The Audacity of Hope. 

Meanwhile, the Obama Justice Department has pulled the plug on further prosecution of the Muslim Brotherhood affiliates identified as coconspirators in the Holy Land Foundation case. And now we’ll be formally engaged with the Brotherhood overseas just as we’ve been formally embracing its operatives in our own country. The Grand Jihad is right on schedule.

 

Source:  http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/270864/obama-administration-opens-formal-contacts-muslim-brotherhood-andrew-c-mccarthy

UK - Eric Pickles: UCU Sending Jews 'Chilling Message'

by Marcus Dysch  |  TheJC.com  |  June 30, 2011

 

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles believes the University and College Union's rejection of the widely-accepted definition of antisemitism sends a "chilling message" to Jewish academics and students.

Writing exclusively for the JC, Mr Pickles says UCU now believes that Jews are "fair game for invective" and has become "a most unlikely champion of free speech".

"It has been boycotting visits by Israeli academics for a number of years. Their actions suggest that their true goal is not and cannot be to secure freedom of speech, but to silence dissenting opinion."

Jewish community leaders reacted with outrage when delegates at May's UCU annual congress overwhelmingly supported the executive's resolution distancing the organisation from the European Union's working definition on antisemitism.

UCU claimed the definition prevented the full and open discussion of Israel and Palestine on campus.

Mr Pickles also cites UCU's 2006 rejection of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism's findings, and the Union's 2009 invitation to South African trade unionist Bongani Masuku - who had called for Jews in South Africa to be stripped of their citizenship – to speak at a conference.

Mr Pickles writes: "Seen in this context, the latest resolution is in fact sending out a chilling message. It says that Jewish academics and students who perceive that they are being harassed or bullied should understand that they will be held to a different standard. It says that they should expect to be fair game for invective, and learn to live with feeling more vulnerable.

"Little wonder that the Union has already seen many members of the Jewish faith, other faiths and none vote with their feet and leave."

Baroness Deech, a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism, welcomed Mr Pickles' remarks.

She said: "This is an appropriate and timely intervention. I am heartened by the seriousness with which he is addressing the actions of the UCU. This gives me some hope that the UCU will be forced to change.

"Like the Secretary of State, I have asked the Equality and Human Rights Commission to investigate the UCU's apparent institutional racism. It is simply not acceptable that Jewish students and lecturers are being denied rights that are available to others."

UCU general secretary Sally Hunt was unavailable to respond to Mr Pickles's comments.

Source:  http://www.thejc.com/node/50996

Hamas on Campus?

by Jerry Gordon  |  PajamasMedia.com  |  June 30, 2011

 

A Jewish organization is winning college converts to the Palestinian cause.

On May 9th, the president of the Jewish Federation & Family Services of Orange County, California (JFOC), Shalom Elcott, was loitering on the plaza during the first day of anti-Israel “Apartheid Awareness Week,” organized by the Muslim Student Union (MSU) at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). There, he encountered Professor Amihai Glazer. Glazer is one of 60 faculty members who signed a letter expressing the view that anti-Semitism did indeed exist on the UCI campus — including Islamic anti-Semitism. The conversation got heated when Elcott hit Glazer with coiled-up flyers after Glazer told him he had “a credibility problem.”

One potential problem was the Olive Tree Initiative (OTI), currently at UCI and spreading to other university campuses. The objective of the OTI program, sponsored by the JFOC Rose Project, was to send Jewish and non-Jewish students to Israel and the West Bank, exposing them to a variety of views from Israeli and Palestinian representatives and affording an understanding of all sides of the issues.

The problem was that some OTI students may have come back from encounters on the West Bank and Israel as converts to the Palestinian cause. Those Palestinian representatives included Aziz Duwaik, Hamas speaker in the Palestinian legislature; George Rishmawi, co-founder of the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM); and Mazin Qumsiyeh, a leading architect of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. Duwaik was recently arrested by the IDF for the third time. Qumsiyeh was arrested by the IDF during the May 15, 2011, Al Nakba day protest in Al Wajala on the West Bank, and had been involved in an anti-Semitic email incident at a university in the U.S. in 2003. Rishmawi spoke at a November, 2010, OTI event at UCI.

The JFOC vigorously denied that OTI students met with Rishmawi, the ISM co-founder, alleging confusion over two persons with the same name — one having an S and the other an N as their middle initial. But OTI materials containing the 2008 and 2009 itineraries expressly identify George Rishmawi as an ISM co-founder.

Some JFOC officials, campus Hillel leaders, and OTI students denied the existence of Islamic anti-Semitism on campus perpetrated by MSU speakers and others in Muslim advocacy groups. Eleven students from the UCI MSU and UC Riverside MSA chapters were indicted by the Orange County DA for conspiring to disturb a public meeting at UCI on February 8, 2010, featuring the Hon. Michael B. Oren, Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Oren, ironically, was delivering a speech underwritten by JFOC’s Rose Project.

The JFOC’s credibility problem surfaced with a response to a California Public Records Act request by local activists. That information uncovered a “smoking gun” letter sent by JFOC President Elcott to UCI Chancellor Drake in October 2009. It revealed a meeting between OTI students and Duwaik. The JFOC leaders seized upon this letter as evidence that they had brought this to the attention of UCI administrators seeking an investigation. But they never informed the community. It appears that JFOC donated nearly $60,000 to the OTI over the period from 2009 to the present.

There were allegations of fraud and character assassination perpetrated by the student president of UCI Hillel in a petition supporting OTI, purportedly containing 87 student signatures. It has been reported that there were fewer than six. The petition also attacked a local community activist, Dee Sterling of the Ha’Emet (The Truth) website, for “disrupting Jewish life on campus.” Sterling had organized two pro-Israel rallies by community members, including non-Jewish Zionists, opposing the MSU Apartheid Awareness Weeks in both 2010 and 2011.

Joe Wolf, a PhD candidate at UCI, described the Hillel student petition signature fraud at Pajamas Media. “Sterling’s reputation,” he said, “was slandered in a letter that mischaracterized her intentions.” These disclosures began unraveling a conspiracy to cover up the truth about the OTI. The 2011 OTI program is set to roll out this summer in the midst of roiling Palestinian protests, raising concerns about possible dangers to OTI students from kidnapping or worse.

The JFOC and Rose Project leaders might find themselves confronting an incensed Jewish community for creating the OTI credibility problem. As comments in the Jerusalem Post article titled “A Very Balanced Itinerary?” reveal, JFOC leaders persist in white-washing a malformed and dangerous program indeed.

Jerry Gordon is a senior editor at the New English Review webzine.

Source:  http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/hamas-on-campus/

Self-Deception and the Jihad

by Clifford D May  |  NationalReview.com  |  June 30, 2011

 

When it comes to the jihadi threat, we’re now way beyond willful blindness. 

‘All warfare is based upon deception,” instructed Sun Tzu, the great Chinese military strategist of the 6th century B.C. But when it comes to the Global Jihad of the 21st century, the extent to which we in the West insist upon deceiving ourselves would shock even Sunny. Five brief examples follow.

1) Yonathan Melaku was charged in federal court with shooting at the National Museum of the Marine Corps. The officials who arrested him later searched his home and found a videotape in which he is shouting “Allahu Akbar!” They also found a notebook in which he’d written about Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and The Path to Jihad, a book of lectures by Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born Islamic cleric who was widely considered a moderate before he fled to Yemen where he is now a top al-Qaeda commander.

So it’s pretty obvious what Melaku was up to, right? Not if you’re a federal employee, it’s not. “I can’t suggest to you his motivations or intent,” James W. McJunkin, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington field office, told reporters at a news conference. “It’s not readily apparent yet.”

Many in the mainstream media also expressed befuddlement. A Washington Post story carried the headline: “Pentagon Shooting Subject Not Known to Law Enforcement.” (Really? That’s the news here?) The article told readers that “a motive for the shootings — and why Melaku had possible bomb-making materials — remains elusive.” So does that mean we can’t rule out a crime of passion — or a paint-ball competition that got out of hand?

To be fair, if you read to the very end of the story you will learn that it has occurred to some law enforcement officials that Melaku’s “writings and the contents of his laptop” might “indicate a desire to be involved in jihad.” Ya think? And not jihad in the sense of a struggle for individual self-fulfillment?

2) A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a column arguing that there was no evidence to support the mainstream-media narrative that Muslims in America face increasing discrimination and persecution — as do, for example, religious and ethnic minorities in most Muslim-majority countries, a topic the mainstream media assiduously avoids. I received many angry letters in response. My favorite included three newspaper stories meant to prove I was wrong. 

The first cited a poll showing that a majority of Americans “believe that Muslims face more discrimination than any other religious group in the U.S.” Well, yes, that has to be expected given the decade-long media campaign to establish this meme. The next was a piece by liberal commentator Alan Colmes headlined, “Growing Bias Against Muslims in America” and citing rising “claims of bias against Muslims in the workplace.” It, too, offered no proof — or even evidence — that such claims are justified by facts.

Finally, there was a story about Muslims in North Carolina who, following the terrorist attacks carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba in Mumbai, India, received an e-mail saying that “such violent acts wouldn’t intimidate people, but only make them stronger.”

“I was furious,” Motaz Elshafi — an American-born Muslim who received such a note — told USA Today. He had a right to be. The e-mail he received — though by no means threatening — was misdirected. Nevertheless, one might have hoped Elshafi would mention that he was at least equally furious with those who slaughter innocent men, women, and children based on their reading of his religion.

3) The term “conscientious objector” used to refer to those who sought exemption from military duty because their religious beliefs prohibited their use of violence. But, as Patrick Poole has reported, in May the secretary of the army granted conscientious-objector status to a soldier — a volunteer — who refused to deploy to Afghanistan. PFC Nasser Abdo claimed that sharia, Islamic law, prohibits him not from killing anyone, but only from killing fellow Muslims — including, apparently, “violent extremists” who join the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

“I don’t believe I can involve myself in an army that wages war against Muslims,” Abdo told al-Jazeera. “I don’t believe I could sleep at night if I take part, in any way, in the killing of Muslims.”

Imagine if, in 1942, a PFC Helmut Shultz had said: “I don’t believe I could sleep at night if I take part, in any way, in the killing of Germans.” You think he would have been called a conscientious objector and sent merrily on his way?

4) A few days ago, the regime that rules Iran, designated by the U.S. State Department as the world’s most active state sponsor of terrorism, held what it called the First International Conference on the Global Fight against Terrorism. The U.S. and Israel were singled out as “satanic world powers” with a “black record of terrorist behaviors.” This should have been the subject of scorn and ridicule from the “international community.” But senior officials from at least 60 countries attended and U.N. secretary general Ban Ki-moon delivered a message via special envoy expressing his appreciation to Tehran. Apparently he was not bothered by the fact that Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court, was among those attending. Don’t worry: American taxpayer support for the U.N. is not in jeopardy.

5) Yale University has decided to shut down the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism (YIISA) following protests — for example, from the Palestine Liberation Organization’s representative to the United States — that studying the rise of Jew-hatred in the Muslim world is by definition “racist” and “right-wing.” Meanwhile, the Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project (IRDP) at the University of California at Berkeley continues to receive funding and support.

A few years ago, Andy McCarthy wrote Willful Blindness, a book about political leaders, academics, journalists, and others refusing to see the jihadi threat staring America in the face. But we’ve now gone well beyond that. The examples above — and I could cite many more — have to be seen as determined self-deception, if not symptoms of madness. I’m pretty sure Sun Tzu would agree.

Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism and political Islam.

 

Source:  http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/270812/self-deception-and-jihad-clifford-d-may

Why Muslim Demands for Headscarves Are Exaggerated

by Raymond Ibrahim  |  Hudson-NY.org  |  June 30, 2011

 

Islamic attire for women—the burqa and hijab—are back in the news, though with a twist, as they cause problems and lawsuits in America, where they are legal. In France, however, they have been banned, and Muslim women are happily complying.

There is an instructive reason for this, but first, the stories from this week.

A Muslim-American woman, Kulsoom Abdullah, is trying to change the rules of competitive weightlifting to accommodate her. The rules require arms and legs to be bare so judges can see when elbows and knees are "locked," therefore being able to determine if a lift is successful. Most competitors wear a form-fitting body suit with short sleeves and short pants. Abdullah, however, says that "such exposure would violate her deeply held religious beliefs. But rather than giving up on her dreams of competitive weightlifting, she is pressing for a change in the sport's international rules," including "with the help of a lawyer, Muslim activists and the U.S. Olympic Committee."

And she won. The rules have been changed, in the words of the International Weightlifting Federation, to "promote and enable a more inclusive sport environment and break down barriers to participation."

It was also reported this week that Muslim-American Hani Khan is suing Abercrombie & Fitch, claiming the clothing retailer fired her for refusing to shed the hijab, an experience which in Khan's words "shook my confidence." She would be the third Muslim woman to sue Abercrombie for hijab reasons. But Khan is not trying to get her job back; rather, "her suit seeks to force Abercrombie to change its dress code to loosen restrictions on religious clothing… and is seeking back wages and unspecified damages."

In a statement, Abercrombie said, "We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all individuals regardless of religion, race or ethnicity. ... We comply with the law regarding reasonable religious accommodation."

Oddly, Khan's lawyer asserted that "Abercrombie prides itself on requiring what it calls 'a natural, classic American style.' But there is nothing American about discriminating against someone because of their religion." Apparently, work dress codes are now tantamount to "discriminating against someone because of their religion."

Meanwhile, in France, where Islamic dress is altogether banned, a new report suggests that Muslim women are happily complying—indeed, more Muslim women are traveling to France than before the ban:

Wealthy Gulf tourists are expected to continue to flock to France this summer in spite of a law that prohibits Muslim women from wearing the burqa, travel agencies said. Travel industry experts had initially feared a decline in Arab tourists after the April ban on full veils but now report no decline in peak-season bookings to France. Hotels.com, the parent company of the online travel website expedia.com, has seen a 219 percent increase in the number of searches for France from its Arabic Middle East site from April 1 to date. Searches for Belgium, which in 2010 passed a bill banning any clothing that would obscure the identity of the wearer, have increased 300 percent the website said.

Lest you think these Gulf women are any less pious than their American counterparts, there is a simple reason for why they are complying:

Islam's doctrine of taysir allows for hiyla, or the relaxation of Islamic law whenever Muslims find it inconvenient to uphold aspects of Sharia law, like when they are under infidel/Western authority. In fact, some of Islam's top leaders, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, for example, are great advocates of taysir, "especially for those Muslim minorities living in Europe and America."

Taysir is like a broader concept of taqiyya, which permits Muslims to lie when circumstances call for it, while taysir only permits Muslims to drop aspects of Sharia law when circumstances call for it.

But there is another distinction. The Gulf women traveling to France are tourists who are not nearly as acquainted with the West as their American counterparts. They naturally assume the West is like the Islamic world—actually tenacious about its customs and laws, hardly to be pushed around by minority groups. (This is precisely why Muslims in the West shamelessly push for the Ground Zero mosque -- Muslims in the Middle East can't believe it and think it's a Zionist conspiracy.)

Muslims living in the West, on the other hand, know how easily the West can be pushed into submission, so why settle for the Muslim option of taysir when they can score a victory for Islam—and make some money while at it?

Source:  http://www.hudson-ny.org/2235/muslim-demands-burqa-hijab

Don’t Worry, Be Muslim

by Daniel Greenfield  |  FrontPageMag.com  |  June 30, 2011

 

There’s good news on the horizon. According to Trevor Philips, the head of the UK’s ‘Equality and Human Rights Commission’, Muslims “are doing their damnedest” to develop an Islam compatible with liberal democracy. And if you don’t believe him, then just ask Tony Blair, who reads the Koran every day and marvels at how progressive it is.

Forget all the worrying and fussing over Muslim immigration and terrorism. The future looks bright for Britain. We’re probably only days away from the first female Imam and drive through abortion clinics in local mosques. Mecca is going to host its first swimsuit competition on its black rock and Ramadan will unite with Gay Pride Day for a parade that no one will ever be able to forget.

At The Guardian, where left is always right, Musleh Faradhi assures us that Sharia courts are not about to displace English law or flog Prince Charles as an adulterer in front of Buckingham Palace. “Women who come to this country with little or no English and are then discriminated against by their own husbands or relatives has nothing to do with sharia, but rather with traditions and culture,” says Faradhi. “This should not be used as a stick with which to beat sharia councils.”

That sounds fair enough except when you remember that Sharia councils are usually the ones who beat women with sticks, rather than the other way around. For reasons that have nothing to do with the Koran, but with traditions, culture and the equinox. It would be a shame if Sharia’s habit of beating women with sticks were to be used to beat Sharia councils with sticks. When it comes to Muslims, turnabout is never fair play. Even when the sticks are metaphorical ones. And the ones they use are all too real.

According to Tony Blair, the Koran is, “ahead of its time in attitudes to marriage, women and governance”. This claim would be true only if the Koran had been written in the age of the dinosaurs. And probably not even then. The educated Cro-Magnon would have taken one sniff at the Koran and opted for something more progressive. Like the Daily Mail or Benny Hill.

In the progressive words of the Koran, “Men have authority over women because Allah has made the one superior to the other.” (Koran 4:34). It’s hard to argue with that. At least if you’re a woman and under the authority of a Sharia council. Bring enough Muslim men with sticks together and then good luck arguing with Allah’s Theory of Gender Evolution without getting beheaded. Or at least beaten bloody with sticks.

“Good women are obedient,” says the Koran. “They guard their unseen parts.” Which in the Muslim world often includes their faces, their voices and themselves, until the whole woman becomes one unseen part. “As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them.”

The liberal Britain which long since disavowed, “A woman, a dog and a walnut tree; the harder they are beaten, the better they be”, has welcomed it back in as, “A woman, a dog and a palm tree.” It is easy to argue with the practices of beating a domestic walnut tree, but who are we to argue with the cultural tree harvesting methods of an ancient belief system which must be superior to ours on account of it being practiced by the people we once colonized.

And the verse finishes, that having beaten them “Then if they obey you, take no further action against them.” This must be the part that Tony Blair and Western liberal readers find so ahead of its time in its attitude toward women. That once having beaten a woman, if she complies, then you should stop beating her. The nobility and generosity of these words should touch the heart of even a Germaine Greer.

The Koran may tell you to beat women, but it doesn’t tell you to keep beating them once they’re cringing on the floor. This generosity extends not only to women, but to all sorts of beloved infidels. Once he surrenders, and pays Jizya, accepting his role as an inferior– the well-behaved Muslim is not supposed to keep beating him. Women, Dhimmis, slaves and other people whom Allah hath made inferior are not to be beaten so long as they obey you.

You can see why Tony Blair might consider this attitude toward governance ahead of its time. Anyone who has had contact with England’s bureaucracy can well appreciate a form of governance that stops beating you once you’re lying prone on the floor.

“The Koran strikes me as a reforming book, trying to return Judaism and Christianity to their origins” says the former Prime Minister. “Rather as reformers attempted with the Christian Church centuries later.”. The inability of the former Prime Minister to tell the difference between the Anglican Church and a wife-beating manual is a sad testament to many things. Not the least of which is his functional illiteracy.

If Islam was trying to return to the origins of Judaism and Christianity, it took the wrong road around. Mohammed’s GPS may have told him he was headed to Jerusalem, but instead he ended up in Mecca. Which is what happens when you attach a GPS to a flying horse and religious ideas to greedy bandits.

Jewish and Christian scriptures were not possessed with the “fear of disobedience” or the need to compel their wives to cover their faces to avoid being raped on the spot by their own cousins. Which originated the headbags of Muslim modesty. But then Jews and Christians tended to court their wives, rather than abduct them and rape them in front of their husbands.

When your wedding canopy is a knife at her throat, and your “meet-cute” was burning her village, there’s good reason to fear her disobedience. And when your relationship is based on being the first man to grab her as she made a run for it, there is good reason to keep her inside or cover her from head to toe. You may be her first rapist, but your cousins and friends will have no objection to being her second and third. When rape is legal, and every adult male around you is a potential rapist, then purdah and headbags are a natural way for fathers and husbands to protect their investment.

There is nothing spiritual about Muslim modesty. It is, as Blair said, “Practical”. In a society of rapists, women had better remain at home, cover up, or end up like Lara Logan. But you don’t have to be a blonde at a celebration of Egyptian democracy to be assaulted. It happens just as often in the UK now. Take Abul Malik of Trafalgar Road, who raped a female passenger when she couldn’t cover the full fare. And why not. Back in Pakistan, rape is a time honored means of restitution in disputes. And now so it is in the UK too.

We can of course go on pretending that all this ugly and sordid stuff has nothing to do with the high-minded ideals Islam and go on cheering the Sharia councils who “are doing their damnedest” to make Islam compatible with liberal democracy. Except it isn’t Islam that they are making compatible with liberal democracy, rather it is liberal democracy that they are making damnably compatible with Islam.

Lord Phillips, the Lord Chief Justice, has explained that equality before the law now means that some people will be governed under the law, and others under Sharia law. Of course there will be no beating of women with sticks. Yet. For now it will have to be the metaphorical sticks of a legal system which is under the impression that women are an inferior form of life.

How much justice can women expect from divorce proceedings that take place under the authority of the Koran which says that, men have authority over women because “they spend their wealth to maintain them.” Which denies that domestic abuse and marital rape are wrong.

Baroness Cox has introduced the “Arbitration and Mediation Services Equality Bill” which puts forward the controversial idea that no mediator can operate on the belief that a woman has fewer rights than a man. That such a bill had to be put forward in 2011, ninety-three years after the triumph of women’s suffrage, is outrageous. But what is even more outrageous is the opposition to it.

The Islamic Sharia Council’s Suhaib Hasan replied that, “It is indeed a crime that Lady Cox has made no attempt to understand the workings of the shariah councils.” Of course that isn’t an actual crime that she can be beaten with sticks for. Yet.

The media’s message is don’t worry. Every day Muslim immigrants are adapting to the new way of life. But who is really doing the adapting? The real message of don’t worry, is don’t worry and be Muslim. And if you can’t, then keep to the floor and hope that they don’t keep beating you once you’re down.

 

Source:  http://frontpagemag.com/2011/06/30/don%E2%80%99t-worry-be-muslim/

Did Jewish Agency Sponsor New Israel Fund Event In NY?

by Jordana Horn, JPost Correspondent  |  JPost.com  |  June 30, 2011

 

JCC Watch founder contends "Jewish Agency was hoodwinked" into lending its name to an event with a "bash-Israel agenda."

Photo: Marc Israel Sellem

NEW YORK – An event to be held this week at the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan, “Love, Hate and the Jewish State 4.0: Airing the Dirty Laundry,” is being sponsored by various organizations. The question of whether the Jewish Agency is among them is one that is apparently up for debate.

“Love, Hate and the Jewish State” is a highly successful program that engages young people in a serious discussion of the complexities of Israeli society,” Rabbi David Rosenn, chief operating officer at the New Israel Fund, told The Jerusalem Post about the event, scheduled for Wednesday. “Everyone knows and the most recent research emphasizes that young people (and not just young people) want an opportunity to think critically about Israel in a supportive atmosphere and that they respond negatively to indoctrination and party lines.”

JCC Watch, however, has protested the event. Original listings, including the link to buy tickets, stated that the event was being jointly sponsored by the New Israel Fund and Makom (the Jewish Agency for Israel). Subsequent listings, however, removed Makom’s name, after JCC Watch posted that according to the North American director of Makom, Rami Wernik, the organization was not sponsoring the event. JCC Watch’s founder, Richard Allen, contended that “the Jewish Agency was hoodwinked” into lending its name to an event with a “bash-Israel agenda.”

“This is another instance of a radical group using the cloak of mainstream Jewish organizations to stage an anti-Israel event,” Allen wrote in a press release. “Once again, the JCC in Manhattan has been caught hosting, linking and partnering with groups that call for or fund efforts to boycott, divest and invoke sanctions against the Jewish State of Israel.”

“Unfortunately, indoctrination, party lines and hysterical name calling is precisely what the self-appointed JCC Watch is offering,” Rosenn said. “Neither the Jewish Agency nor the Manhattan JCC is likely to be hoodwinked into a partnership on a program about Israel, an area where both institutions have deep expertise. They just understand that good conversations about Israel are what’s needed, which is precisely why the New Israel Fund developed this program in the first place.”

“Being critical of the status quo is an inherent part of social change – we identify problems in our world that we hope to solve or improve,” the New Israel Fund’s websitestates in a description of the event. “But free expression of critical views of the Jewishstate inside and outside of Jewish communities often meets with complicated rules against ‘airing our dirty laundry.’” 

The NIF website cites recent events such as the imbroglio surrounding the CUNY honorary degree award to playwright Tony Kushner as shedding light “on the tense atmosphere around the discourse on Israel in the American Jewish community.”

The event is designed to be a “highly interactive, non-persuasive, open” discussion with people in their 20s and 30s. As of midmorning Wednesday, however, the event was not listed on the Manhattan JCC’s website.

“JCCWatch.org condemns the JCC in Manhattan for hosting the anti-Israel “Love, Hate and the Jewish State 4.0” on its facilities, and once again calls on the organization’s board of directors to establish firm and serious guidelines to prevent the JCC in Manhattan from becoming a hotbed of anti-Israel activities,” Allen’s press release said.

 

Source:  http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=227226

Friends of Israel To PM: Accept Obama Terms, Restart Talks

by Gil Shefler  |  JPost.com  |  June 30, 2011

 

In apparent criticism of Netanyahu, Ronald Lauder (Pictured Right) reportedly warns Israel against favoring internal politics at expense of its int'l standing.

Members of the International Council of Jewish Parliamentarians gathered at the King David Hotel on Tuesday for a candid conversation closed to journalists dealing with the considerable challenges facing Israel in the international arena.

During the event, speakers pledged support for Israel, vociferously defending it against its critics, but in between the words of praise some genuine concern could also be heard.

Irwin Cotler (Pictured Left), the former justice minister of Canada and staunch friend of Israel, took the opportunity to give Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu some advice: Accept Obama’s principles and get talks with the Palestinians back on track, for Israel’s sake.

“I wasn’t criticizing Netanyahu for his inaction, but called on him to take up such an initiative based on the Obama principles, as incorporated in his communiqué issued by the G-8,” he said on the phone on Wednesday. "You have here not just Obama principles, but the G-8, supportive of such principles. Such an initiative would challenge the Palestinians to return to negotiations."

Cotler spoke about the perceived disconnect between Netanyahu and the US president and suggested it might be time for Jerusalem to bend a little to mend those ties.

“I just said people think there’s been a cultural pond between Obama and Bibi,” he said. “At this point [accepting Obama’s principles] might be a good idea.”

World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder, whose organization sponsors the International Council of Jewish Parliamentarians, was also said to be among those critical of Netanyahu at the banquet.

According to reports in the media, the billionaire businessman said starting talks with the Palestinians may be a severe blow to Netanyahu’s coalition, but it was a necessary gambit. Lauder reportedly warned Israel against favoring internal politics at the expense of its standing in the world.

Some have speculated that Lauder’s alleged criticism may be related to Netanyahu’s decision not to appear at WJC’s Board of Governors meeting last week, an act several commentators believe was a deliberate shunning.

In a statement sent to The Jerusalem Post regarding his speech, Lauder reiterated his his "unequivocal" support for Netanyahu and "policies that seek to create a lasting peace in the Middle East."

“The Prime Minister and I have been friends and colleagues for thirty years. Let there be no mistake. We stand united in the pursuit of peace and the protection of the Jewish people and theState of Israel. My position regarding the need for negotiations is absolutely consistent with the Government’s call for direct negotiations,” said the WJC president in the statement.

Meanwhile, during a short interview aired on Wednesday, Channel 2 reporter Dana Weiss asked Lauder about rumors of a split between him and the prime minister.

“We’ve been friends for 30 years and I expect us to be friends 40 more,” Lauder replied, without denying the rumor. “Every friendship has ups and downs.”

Source:  http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=227227

The United Nations - The Epicenter of Anti-Semitism

by Alan Caruba  |  CanadaFreePress.com  |  June 29, 2011

 

Anti-Semitism has a very long history.

In June, Dr. Rivka Shpak Lissak, a Jewish historian, posted a section of her forthcoming book, noting that “The Roman Empire committed a genocide of the Jewish people under its occupation (63 BCE – 324 CE) of the land of Israel. From about 3,000,000 Jews in the first century CE (Common Era), about 200,000 survived until the 7th century, most of them killed or enslaved.”

How does this differ from the Arab agenda that has existed since the day that the modern state of Israel was resurrected and was immediately attacked by five Arab nations in 1948? Islam, from its beginning in 632 A.D. has always had the goal of killing or enslaving every Jew on planet Earth.

Islam’s exponents in Hamas and Hezbollah have always made it clear that the purpose of their existence is the destruction of Israel and both are instruments of Iran’s expressed intention to “wipe Israel from the map.”

The United Nations, despite its role in the recognition of Israel, is the epicenter of modern anti-Semitism and a facilitator of Jew-hatred.

It has provided a shameless platform for every virulent call for the destruction of Israel and the Jews. If for no other reason, the UN has no right to exist. The United States should not be a participant or party to this obscenity.

The UN’s role in the furtherance of global anti-Semitism is so manifest it is impossible to ignore. Its sponsorship of the Durban conferences, allegedly to oppose racism, has fostered the most egregious anti-Semitism. In September 2009, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed the conference and repeated every tired lie about Judaism and Jews. Out of 192 UN members, only eleven got up and left. The United States and Israel had chosen not to attend.

In September 2010 Ahmadinejad used his UN invitation to New York to claim that that “segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the (9/11) attack” on behalf of “the Zionist regime”; only seven nations including the U.S. departed the General Assembly.

Simply not attending these events without a strong, vocal denunciation is a weak response.

The “tilt” of the Obama administration against Israel has only encouraged Arab states. In the two and a half years Obama has been in office, he has expressed support for a mosque within sight of Ground Zero, has openly insulted the Israeli Prime Minister on his first trip to Washington, and backed a UN investigation into the Turkish flotilla to Gaza, among other overt acts.

Most recently, the UN leadership endorsed the Iranian-sponsored “World Without Terrorism” conference on June 25-26. It was a confab attended by some of the leading actors when it comes to terrorism including Sudan and Pakistan, both of which were hosts to the late Osama bin Laden. By far the leading facilitator for terrorism is, of course, Iran. This Alice-in-Wonderland approach to the truth is typical of Arab and Persian Islamic deception and incitement.

In June, the UN General Assembly elected Iran as one of its vice presidents and Qatar as its president. Each will begin a year-long term in September. Durban III is scheduled for September 22, 2011.

The Palestinians will push for recognition as a nation-state in the General Assembly where the U.S. has no veto. Former US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, noted that “General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, and that body has no authority to recognize states, although its actions can be politically powerful, as the 1975 ‘Zionism is racism’ resolution demonstrated.”

Bolton is urging Congress to make it clear that any resolution to recognize Palestinian statehood will result in a cutoff of funds to the UN, but not to separate agencies such as the World Health Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and others.

From the days of ancient Rome, to the last century’s Holocaust, to the present existence of the United Nations, anti-Semitism remains an evil component in the affairs of the world.

Source:  http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/38025

Reuters Exclusive: U.S. To Resume Formal Muslim Brotherhood Contacts

by *Arshad Mohammed, Reuters  |  News.Yahoo.com  |  June 29, 2011

 

 

WASHINGTON - The United States has decided to resume formal contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday, in a step that reflects the Islamist group's growing political weight but that is almost certain to upset Israel and its U.S. backers.

"The political landscape in Egypt has changed, and is changing," said the senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "It is in our interests to engage with all of the parties that are competing for parliament or the presidency."

The official sought to portray the shift as a subtle evolution rather than a dramatic change in Washington's stance toward the Brotherhood, a group founded in 1928 that seeks to promote its conservative vision of Islam in society.

Under the previous policy, U.S. diplomats were allowed to deal with Brotherhood members of parliament who had won seats as independents -- a diplomatic fiction that allowed them to keep lines of communication open.

Where U.S. diplomats previously dealt only with group members in their role as parliamentarians, a policy the official said had been in place since 2006, they will now deal directly with low-level Brotherhood party officials.

There is no U.S. legal prohibition against dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood itself, which long ago renounced violence as a means to achieve political change in Egypt and which is not regarded by Washington as a foreign terrorist organization.

But other sympathetic groups, such as Hamas, which identifies the Brotherhood as its spiritual guide, have not disavowed violence against the state of Israel.

The result has been a dilemma for the Obama administration. Former officials and analysts said it has little choice but to engage the Brotherhood directly, given its political prominence after the February 11 downfall of former President Hosni Mubarak.

STIRRING UP DEMONS

U.S. President Barack Obama will surely face criticism for engaging with the Brotherhood, even tentatively.

Howard Kohr, executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, made clear the pro-Israel group's deep skepticism about the group in a speech last month.

"While we all hope that Egypt emerges from its current political transition with a functioning, Western-oriented democracy, the fact is the best-organized political force in Egypt today is the Muslim Brotherhood -- which does not recognize Israel," Kohr said.

Former U.S. diplomats said the United States had to engage with the Brotherhood given its influence in Egypt.

"We cannot have a free and fair election and democracy unless we are going to be willing to talk to all the people that are a part of that democracy," said Edward Walker, a former U.S. ambassador to Egypt and Israel who now teaches at Hamilton College.

"It's going to stir up demons," he added. "You have got an awful lot of people who are not very happy with what the roots of the Brotherhood have spawned ... There will be people who will not accept that the Brotherhood is of a new or different character today."

Egypt's parliamentary elections are scheduled for September and its military rulers have promised to hold a presidential vote by the end of the year.

DIPLOMATIC FIG LEAF

U.S. dealings with the Brotherhood have evolved over time and officials have found ways to keep lines open under the cover of one diplomatic fig leaf or another.

"We have not had contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood," then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in response to a question at the American University in Cairo in June 2005. "We have not engaged the Muslim Brotherhood and ... we won't."

The reality is more complex.

In the 1980s, U.S. diplomats had open dealings, visiting the group's Cairo headquarters to call on members, including the Brotherhood's supreme guide, according to the text of a May 2008 speech by Francis Ricciardone, a former U.S. ambassador to Egypt who is now the U.S. ambassador to Turkey.

By 1994, when Walker became U.S. ambassador in Cairo, he said the policy was to avoid direct contacts and to deal with trade unionists or other prominent figures who happened to be members of the group.

This gave Washington a way to keep tabs on the Brotherhood's thinking without antagonizing those who opposed such contacts or the Mubarak regime, which maintained its status as a banned political organization and imprisoned many members -- but also allowed it to run social welfare programs.

Despite his animus toward the group, Mubarak himself indirectly facilitated U.S. contacts by allowing its sympathizers to win seats in parliament as long as they ran as independents, handing Washington a justification for contacts.

HELPING MODERATES?

Elliott Abrams, a deputy national security adviser handling Middle East affairs under former President George W. Bush, said he favored dropping the ban on formal contacts -- but approaching any actual dealings with great caution.

Abrams said positions espoused by some Brotherhood members -- such as favoring religious tests for public office, questioning the rights of women and limiting freedom of religion or speech -- were "anathema" to the United States.

The group says it wants a civil state based on Islamic principles, but talk by some members of an "Islamic state" or "Islamic government" have raised concerns that their goal is a state where full Islamic sharia law is implemented. The group says such comments have been taken out of context.

"It's critical ... that we make it very, very clear to Egyptians, if we are going to do a meeting, that we are no less opposed to the ideas they represent," Abrams said, noting that there are splits among Brotherhood members.

"We have to think about whether we can use meetings to deepen those splits and to help, quietly, those who are trying to moderate the positions of the Brotherhood," he added, saying the United States should choose its interlocutors with care and that the talks need not be conducted by the U.S. ambassador.

The U.S. official who declined to be identified said U.S. diplomats "will continue to emphasize the importance of support for democratic principles and a commitment to nonviolence, and respect for minority and women's rights in conversations with all groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood."

*Additional reporting by Edmund Blair in Cairo.

 

Source:  http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-u-resume-formal-muslim-brotherhood-contacts-025327189.html