Canary In The Coal Mine

Speakers at Muslim Conference Noted for Disparaging Gays and Jews

by Daniel Dale, Urban Affairs Reporter  |  TheStar.com  |  October 13, 2011

 

Islamic Education and Research Academy (IERA) website screen shot.

 

Four of the six speakers scheduled to appear at an upcoming Muslim conference at a downtown hotel have made anti-gay or anti-Semitic remarks.

The “Calling the World Back to Allah” conference is part of the “Canada Launch Tour” of the Islamic Education and Research Academy (IERA), a British organization seeking to establish a presence in Toronto and Montreal.

The conference is scheduled for Oct. 23 at the Sheraton Centre. Gay activists in Britain denounced a hotel chain in January for hosting a London IERA event involving several of the same speakers.

One of the speakers expected in Toronto, Malaysian convert Hussain Yee, has said “the Jews” are “the most extremist nation in this world.” He also suggested that Jews perpetrated and celebrated the 9/11 attacks.

Hamza Andreas Tzortzis, a British convert, has argued that open displays of homosexuality should be made a crime.

British convert Abdur Raheem Green, who also appeared at a July conference in Toronto, has written that gays, like adulterers, should be stoned to death. At the July conference, Green criticized the media for labeling him hateful and challenged critics to “find a pattern” of homophobia in his hundreds of public statements. “All you can find is one comment I made on my blog where I talked about Islamic law and punishment for homosexuals,” he said.

Toronto’s Abdullah Hakim Quick, an African-American convert, has been lauded for his work to promote women’s rights, improve interfaith relations and eradicate female genital mutilation; he wrote a column for the Star in the 1990s. Later, however, he said AIDS was caused by “sick” homosexuals who want “to take us all down with them” and referred to the “filth” of Christians and Jews.

He has rejected accusations of bigotry. His “filth” comment, he wrote, was merely a plea for “God to heal the spiritual corruption that afflicts some members of religious groups, which in turn leads to injustice against innocent people.”

Quick also wrote that, although he opposes homosexuality, he opposes any violence against gays. He said in New Zealand in 2004 that “Muslims are going to have to take a stand, and it’s not enough to call names.”

The public relations officer for the conference referred questions to an IERA official who did not respond to a request for comment.

A Sheraton convention services employee said hotel staff began researching the event after he was informed of the speakers’ backgrounds Wednesday by a reporter.

“We book things and sometimes we don’t know exactly what they are,” he said.

Howard English, senior vice-president of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said he is “very concerned” about both conference and the IERA’s attempt to establish itself in Canada. He called the speakers’ views “reprehensible.”

“The people that are being tolerated, featured and promoted by this organization are expressing views that, if promoted in Canada, can only serve to divide people rather than uniting people,” he said.

Nick Mulé, chair of the gay activist group Queer Ontario, said he was concerned about the potential impact of the speakers’ views on conference attendees.

Source:  http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1068726--speakers-at-muslim-conference-noted-for-disparaging-gays-and-jews

 

IERA CANADA RESPONDS TO BASELESS ACCUSATIONS OF HOMOPHOBIA AND ANTI-SEMITISM

Response from Islamic Education and Research Academy's (iERA) website on October 13, 2011:
 

On the 12th October 2011, an article appeared in The Toronto Star, accusing the Islamic Education and Research Academy (iERA) of hosting speakers who have expressed homophobic hatred and incitement to violence as well as anti-semitic views.  Similar views have been aired on broadcast media, such as The Arena show anchored by Michael Coren.  iERA unequivocally rejects these accusations as being false and misleading. Similar allegations were made in the run up to another international conference hosted by iERA in January 2011 entitled Changing the World Through Dawah. At this conference, which took place in London, United Kingdom, iERA clearly demonstrated the baseless nature of the accusations and the conference, which was held at the Hotel Ibis (part of the international Accor chain of hotels) passed without incident.

iERA wishes to make it abundantly clear as part of its goal to educate the world about the religion of Islam that we encourage positive civic engagement through dialogue and action. iERA and its international team of speakers, staff and volunteers have never called for violence or hatred towards members of the Jewish or Homosexual communities. These accusations are antithetical to our work in thought and deed. iERA has been working very hard to empower the Muslim community to engage with people of all persuasions in a peaceful manner and to serve humanity.

The aim of the upcoming conference, far from promoting hatred, will focus on getting Muslims to pro-actively engage with the wider society by sharing the true essence of the Islamic faith in both word and deed. This is what the Quran teaches. This message is simply to believe in and worship God and through this, work to improve the welfare of all Canadian citizens regardless of race, colour, culture or creed. The message that iERA aims to deliver is not unique. Muslim communities, in Canada and elsewhere are already contributing immensely to the social welfare of our society, and that is through remaining loyal to the basic tenets and values of their faith. This is the very theme of our conferences.

Most, if not all major religions forbid homosexuality and Islam is no different. To give the issue further context, Islamic ethics forbid any sexual activity outside of marriage. This very point has been discussed by iERA’s speakers with respect to criminal law in an Islamic state.

iERA urges all members of society, especially Muslims to be model citizens and therefore should obey the law of the land. We believe Muslims need to do more to reach out to their Jewish neighbours with whom they share so much in terms of tradition.

The Qur’an, the book of the Muslims contains many stories and information about the biblical prophets, as it is a core part of the Islamic faith to believe that they received revelation from One, All Powerful God, known in Arabic as Allah. Therefore, Muslims believe all the prophets came with one, universal message, with the final messenger being Muhammad, peace be upon him. This universal message was for human beings to voluntarily surrender their will to the Perfect Divine will of God; this submission is known in Arabic as Islam. Therefore, Islam considers all believers of this one, universal message to be as those who submit to God, i.e. Muslims.

iERA is an organisation dedicated to conducting research and educating humanity about Islam.We welcome open and frank discussion on these key issues, and would like to extend an open invitation to all our detractors from the Jewish Defence League and LGBT activists to come and meet us to find out what we really believe as opposed to using innuendo to stifle debate. As part of this, iERA would also offer them gift boxes which contain accurate and authentic information on the Islamic faith. These are made free of charge to members of the general public as well as media or lobby groups. 

A Rational Fear of Islamism

by Robert Spencer and David Horowitz  |  NationalReview.com  |  September 30, 2011

 

In recent months, several reports have appeared to a generally uncritical reception in the press, which purport to expose alleged conspiracies organized by “Islamophobes” against American citizens who mean us no harm. These reports single out for condemnation a dozen prominent conservative figures (and mostly the same dozen) who have publicly criticized the misogyny, bigotry, and terrorism promoted by many (but not all) Islamic institutions and religious texts.

The term “Islamophobia” itself was invented by the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the political fountainhead of Islamic terror, having spawned al-Qaeda and created Hamas. Not coincidently, the reports themselves have been produced by Brotherhood fronts like CAIR, and jihadist apologists like the Southern Poverty Law Center. But the latest and most elaborate Islamophobia report, transparently derivative of its predecessors, has been issued by the Center for American Progress, which is a brain trust of the Democratic party. It thus marks a disturbing development in this ugly campaign. 

On examination, the term “Islamophobia” is designed to create a modern-day thought crime, while the campaign to suppress it is an effort to abolish the First Amendment where Islam is concerned. The purpose of the suffix — phobia — is to identify any concern about troubling Islamic institutions and actions as irrational, or worse as a dangerous bigotry that should itself be feared.

Is fear of terrorists inspired by Islam irrational? There have been 17,800 terrorist attacks carried out by Muslims in the name of Allah since 9/11. Is it unreasonable to be concerned that 30,000 shoulder-ready surface-to-air missiles have recently gone missing in the Muslim nation of Libya, where both government and rebels support the Islamic jihad against America and the West?

Would not a reasonable person be concerned about the attacks plotted and carried out by Muslims in the United States who claim to be inspired by the Koran and who regard themselves as holy warriors in the jihad declared by Osama bin Laden and other Muslim fanatics? These Muslim attacks include the successful massacre of unarmed American soldiers at Fort Hood by Nidal Hassan, a self-declared Muslim warrior whose anti-infidel rantings were ignored by the military brass.

These Muslim terrorists include Naser Abdo, the would-be second Fort Hood jihad mass murderer; and Khalid Aldawsari, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Lubbock, Texas; and Muhammad Hussain, the would-be jihad bomber in Baltimore; and Mohamed Mohamud, the would-be jihad bomber in Portland; and Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square jihad mass-murderer; and Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, the Arkansas military recruiting station jihad murderer; and Naveed Haq, the jihad mass murderer at the Jewish Community Center in Seattle; and Mohammed Reza Taheri-Azar, the would-be jihad mass murderer in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; and Ahmed Ferhani and Mohamed Mamdouh, who hatched a jihad plot to blow up a Manhattan synagogue; and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be Christmas airplane jihad bomber; and many others.

If the FBI and law-enforcement agencies had not had serious fears of Muslim fanatics, had not been possessed by a species of “Islamophobia,” all those would-be terrorist attacks would be successful attacks and carry long lists of dead innocents — infidels — along with their names.

Should those of us who are infidels — and therefore targets — not be concerned by a religion whose followers regard this Koranic incitement as the word of God: “Slay the pagans wherever you find them.” (9:5)?

Should Jews not be concerned by the Jew-hatred that permeates the sacred texts of this religion, whose prophet has said: “The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them, until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: O Muslim, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him” (Sahih Muslim 6985)?

Should Jews not be concerned that this genocidal incitement is enshrined in the Hamas charter and defines the agenda of an armed force that is supported by dozens of Muslim states and many factions of the international left?

Should women not fear the expansion of a creed whose God likens a woman to a field men can till: “Your women are a field for you (to cultivate) so go to your field as ye will.” (Koran 2:223)? This God has decreed that a woman’s testimony is worth half that of a man (2:282), that men can marry up to four wives, and have sex with slave girls (4:3), that a son’s inheritance shall be twice the size of daughter’s (4:11), and that husbands can and should beat their disobedient wives: “Good women are obedient…. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them.” (4:34).This God sanctions marriage to pre-pubescent girls, stipulating that Islamic divorce procedures “shall apply to those who have not yet menstruated” (65:4). Islamic law codifies all this and adds from Islamic tradition justification for honor killing, female genital mutilation, and even the prohibition of women leaving their homes without permission from a male guardian.

Gays fare no better. As Sheikh Khalid Yasin, an Islamic preacher sponsored by the Muslim Students Association, said in 2005: “God is very straightforward about this — not we Muslims, not subjective, the Sharia is very clear about it, the punishment for homosexuality, bestiality or anything like that is death. We don’t make any excuses about that, it’s not our law — it’s the Koran.” Hossein Alizadeh of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission has said that in Iran gays live with “constant fear of execution and persecution and also social stigma associated with homosexuality.” This is true not only in Iran, but in all too many areas of the Islamic world. Is gays’ fear of Islamic institutions and governments irrational? Phobic? 

Finally, there is the failure of any Muslim state or authority to condemn the calls of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the extermination of America and Israel. The mainstream media constantly assumes that Muslims don’t take their words seriously, and that there exists a large population of moderate Muslims who reject the excesses of these violent leaders. Yet these moderates have maintained their silence in the face of the genocidal calls in the name of their God. They have failed to mount a campaign to condemn and counter the Jew-hatred expressed by their spiritual leaders, and broadcast by their government-sponsored media organizations, and taught in their schools.

What is truly irrational is not the fear of these very real threats, but the fear of those who point out these threats and whom the Muslim Brotherhood and its enablers have demonized as “Islamophobes.” What is irrational is the failure to recognize danger when it stares you in the face, and the attempt to silence those who have the temerity to attempt to warn you before it is too late. 

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and author of the bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth about Muhammad. David Horowitz is the founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center and author, most recently, of A Point in Time: The Search for Redemption in This Life and the Next.

 

Source:  http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/278722/rational-fear-islamism-robert-spencer

Withhold Pride Funding Over Anti-Israel Slogans: Mammoliti

by Peter Kuitenbrouwer   |  NationalPost.com  |  July 4, 2011

 

Mayor Rob Ford's absence was noted by many marchers in the Toronto Pride Parade, July 3, 2011. Photo: Merle Robillard for National Post

 

As Toronto woke up and swept up Monday from its annual celebration of all things lesbian and gay, Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti argued that the City of Toronto should not turn over the $128,000 that it promised to Pride Toronto for the 2011 festivities because of anti-Israel slogans he caught on camera during Saturday’s Dyke March.

Mr. Mammoliti (York West) went to the march with his city-bought video camera, and caught images of a group called Dykes and Trans People for Palestine. They walked up Yonge Street carrying a banner reading “Israeli Apartheid”; one woman wore a T-Shirt that reads, on the back, “Boycott Israeli Products”; and one carried a placard reading, “Nion supports Queers Against Israeli Apartheid.” (Not In Our Name, or NION, is a group of Jewish people opposed to Zionism.)

“People can say and do what they want in this country,” Mr. Mammoliti said Monday. “They should be able to carry the banners they want but not on the public dime.”

Mr. Mammoliti, wearing a flourescent-orange Lacoste golf shirt (“I wanted to be part of the rainbow,” he quipped) brought a disc containing his video footage to the press gallery and played it for reporters. He sang along with a chant he caught on the tape: “We’re sexy! We’re hot! Israeli apartheid’s not!”

One television journalist asked him whether there is something creepy about a middle-aged male city councillor bringing his video camera to record a group of lesbians.

“Is it creepy that reporters go up to peoples’ cottages in Muskoka?” Mr. Mammoliti retorted, in reference to an apparent trip by a Toronto Star reporter to cottage country Sunday, seeking the Mayor, who had said he would be there rather than attend the Pride Parade in Toronto.

“I am defending the Jewish community,” he continued. “They [parade organizers] are guilty of irritating and upsetting a whole community.”

Last year, after Jewish groups objected to Queers Against Israeli Apartheid marching in the Pride parade, City Council decided to give the nine-day festival its funding only after its conclusion. That policy remains in place this year. The city also provides about $250,000 of police and clean-up services.

City bureaucrats ruled in May that the phrase “Israeli apartheid” does not violate any city policies; even so, QAIA defused the controversy by telling Pride it would not march in the parade this year.

Glen Brown, executive director of Pride, called Mr. Mammoliti’s accusations “ridiculous.”

“If there was a placard, I didn’t see it,” he said. “We are not in the business of censoring every bit of text and every T-shirt. If we censored every idea that Councillor Mammoliti doesn’t like, we wouldn’t have much of a festival. You can Google what he’s said over the years about our community.

“We have been compliant with the city’s anti-discrimination policy. Now we are being asked to comply with policies that don’t even exist, that the councillor seems to be making up on his own.”

City officials directed calls to Mayor Rob Ford’s office; his press secretary in turn said she was trying to get clarification from city officials whether Pride Toronto’s funding will be reviewed.

[email protected]

Source:  http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/07/04/withhold-pride-funding-over-anti-israel-slogans-mammoliti/

ZOA Asks Delta To Back Out Of Deal With Saudis

by JPost.com Staff  |  JPost.com  |  June 30, 2011

 

Jewish Zionist group asks airline CEO to reconsider business deal with Saudi Arabian carrier over questionable policies.

Photo: Courtesy
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) sent a letter on Wednesday to Delta Air Lines CEO Richard H. Anderson voicing concerns that the airliner's new alliance with Saudi Arabian Airlines would lead to discriminatory practices against Jewish travelers.  

"We write on behalf of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), the oldest and one of the largest pro-Israel organizations in the US, regarding Delta Air Lines’ decision to add Saudi Arabian Airlines to its SkyTeam in 2012..., began the letter. It then proceeded to outline Delta's and Saudi Arabian Airlines' policies before requesting the cancellation of the business cooperation between the two. 

Delta Air Lines came under fire recently by Jewish and rights groups for adding Saudi Arabian Airlines to its SkyTeam because Saudi Arabian carriers are known to enact their country's discriminatory policies against Jews, Christians, other non-Muslims, and women. 

In the letter, the ZOA quoted the official website of the Saudi Supreme Commission for Tourism, "[The website] reflected that it was the policy of the Saudi Arabian government to deny visas to, among others, (1) anyone holding an Israeli passport or holding a passport with an Israeli arrival or departure stamp; and (2) 'Jewish People.'"

A US State Department report on Saudi Arabia was also referenced in the letter. "According to the State Department, women visitors must be met by an authorized sponsor upon arriving in Saudi Arabia.  A married woman must have her husband’s permission to leave Saudi Arabia – even if she is a US citizen and even if her husband does not have Saudi nationality.  In addition, homosexuals are not welcome in Saudi Arabia. They have been imprisoned and even executed in Saudi Arabia," the ZOA wrote.

Delta issued an official statement on Wednesday assuring that it does not support discriminatory policies based on race, religion, gender, nationality, or age. The airline also explained the terms of its agreement with the Saudi carrier, which do not include flying to Saudi Arabia or code sharing with Saudi Arabian Airlines, but rather "simply allow passengers to book tickets on multiple carriers," in the statement.

While acknowledging Delta's explanation of the terms, the Zionist Organization of America, in its letter, "urge(s) Delta to retract its decision to add Saudi Arabian Airlines to its SkyTeam because, quite simply, it is the moral, ethical and right thing to do."

 

Source:  http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=227282

Tour Fee at Sachsenhausen Memorial Gets Support

JTA  |  JTA.org  |  June 29, 2011

 

Sachsenhausen prisoners in main yard. More than 200,000 were imprisoned here by the Nazis of which some 50,000 were brutally murdered - as opposed to Auschwitz which served the policy of racial genocide, Sachsenhausen victims were a mix of political opponents and then only later groups defined as racially or biologically inferior - increasingly from the newly occupied territories of Nazi dominated Europe.

 

BERLIN -- A decision by the Sachsenhausen concentration camp memorial to levy a fee on commercial tour guides has received strong support from Jewish leaders and survivor representatives, contrary to initial reports.

Sachsenhausen reportedly is the first memorial in Germany to impose a fee. Individuals and school groups, as well as non-commercial volunteer guides, will still enter free.

Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Memorial

Private commercial guides will be required to pay an annual fee of $108 for training and certification. Also, as of June 1, the private guides -- who reportedly charge fees averaging about $20 per person for their services -- have had to pay about $1.43 per person to the memorial, according to Horst Seferens, spokesman for the Brandenburg Memorial Foundation.

In contrast, the memorial offers guided tours with its own trained pedagogues for a total fee of about $20 for 15 people, and more for tours in languages other than German.

The decision to charge commercial tour guides, made in January, was based in part on feedback from survivor groups and Jewish leaders, Seferens said.

"Survivors found that some of these guides from the tourism firms ... did not really know their history -- the history of survivors," Sonja Reichert, general secretary of the International Sachsenhausen Committee, told JTA in a telephone interview from her home in Luxembourg. The Paris-based organization played an advisory role in the decision.

Stephan Kramer, general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said the council also supported the memorial's decision. A council representative was on the advisory board.

"Some outsiders commercialize the tours without really delivering quality education," Kramer said in a text message to JTA. "We need to charge them."

Although Sachsenhausen is the only such memorial in Germany to charge fees to commercial guides, Seferens said that others have supported the decision and may follow suit.

Source:  http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/06/29/3088364/tour-fee-at-sachsenhausen-memorial-gets-support

The Agony of Being a Jewish Conservative

by Burt Prelutsky  |  PatriotPost.us  |  June 4, 2011

 

 

I am not overly surprised when the majority of American Jews continue to support Obama, but I know it confounds Christians. What they fail to grasp is that Israel's survival is not only a low priority item for the president, but for a great many Jews.

My fellow Jews, by and large, are far more connected to liberalism than they are to Judaism, far less familiar with the Talmud than with "Dreams of My Father" or "The Audacity of Hope ." The more religious a Jew is, the more likely he is to be a political conservative and to be concerned with Israel's security.

On the other hand, the younger and more secular a Jew is, the more likely he is to identify with Israel's sworn enemies and the more likely he is to prioritize green energy, socialized medicine, same-sex marriages and federally-funded abortions.

It is no mystery that so many iconic figures on the left are secular Jews. They would include Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky , Saul Alinsky , Noam Chomsky , Ethel and Julius Rosenberg , Barney Frank , Rahm Emanuel , David Axelrod , Barbara Boxer , Charles Schumer , Dianne Feinstein , Henry Waxman , Barbra Streisand , Brad Sherman , Norman Lear , Jon Stewart, Alan Colmes , Bernie Sanders , Steven Spielberg , Debbie Wasserman-Schultz , Anthony Weiner, Michael Bloomberg and George Soros .

I'm afraid that attending synagogue once or twice a year, sprinkling one's conversation with the occasional "schlemiel" and "schmendrick," and having a taste for corned beef or pastrami does not a Jew make. In liberal circles, however, all it takes is voting for the most left-wing candidate on the ballot.

Any Jewish Democrat who takes umbrage at that list will, if experience counts for anything, label me a self-hating Jew. But I think, in my own defense, I need only share a few additional facts to make my case. There are, I believe, 154 Catholics in Congress, 24 in the Senate and 130 in the House. Of the 154, 84 are Democrats, 70 are Republicans.

There are 70 Baptists and Southern Baptists in Congress, 10 in the Senate and 60 in the House. Of the 70, 26 are Democrats, 44 are Republicans.

There are 47 Presbyterians in Congress, 15 in the Senate and 32 in the House. Of the 47, 16 are Democrats, 31 are Republicans.

When you realize that the Republicans in Congress currently out-number the Democrats 287 to 246, you can see that the 145 to 126 Republican advantage in those three major religious groups is nearly perfectly in sync with the overall makeup of the legislature.

However, there are 40 Jews currently in Congress, 13 in the Senate, 27 in the House. Of the 40, 39 are Democrats, while Eric Cantor constitutes the entire Republican contingent.

Even though Barack Obama has displayed a personal bias favoring Arabs and Muslims ever since he entered the Oval Office, whether it was demanding that Israel stop erecting housing in the so-called settlements, going back to its 1967 borders or glowering at its prime minister as if he'd just nuked Chicago, he's not the first president who has held Israel to an impossible standard while giving the Arabs a pass. At least since Carter, they've all behaved as if the stumbling block to peace is that Israel is just too damn big. Why else would every "path to peace" invariably begin with Israel's being asked to cede land? Inasmuch as Israel is by far the smallest nation in the region, it suggests that each of them, but especially Obama, would have insisted that if it had been up to him, David would have had to first hand over his slingshot, and then fight Goliath from his knees with one arm tied behind his back.

It's a strange form of amnesia that causes the world to forget that in 1948, it wasn't the Jews who banished the Arabs; it was Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, the invading coalition, that suggested to their friends that they temporarily vacate the premises while the Arab legions finished the job that Hitler began. These weasels were told it would be over in a day or two, and they could then return to divvy up the spoils.

The world also tends to overlook the fact that for decades before Israel achieved statehood, the Zionists had been buying up land at wildly inflated prices from the local Arabs. The world also ignores the fact that thousands of Jews had lived there since biblical times.

Yet another inconvenient truth the world turns a blind eye to is that it was the Arab and Muslim nations in 1948 that banished their Jewish populations and, for good measure, confiscated their money and property.

As if all of that weren't enough to sway public opinion in their favor, 20% of Israelis are Arabs, who not only have the vote, but have seats in the Knesset, Israel's legislature, and whose wives and daughters actually have the rights and freedoms they're denied everywhere else in the sewer known as the Middle East.

Within a few years following the end of World War II, all the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust had found homes, mainly in Israel, Europe, Canada and the U.S. But 63 years after they voluntarily abandoned Israel so the Jews could be slaughtered without any collateral damage to themselves, the so-called Palestinians continue to be "refugees" demanding the right of return, although how one returns to where one has never been is a mystery best left to science fiction writers.

The reason that there are still "refugees" six decades after the fact is that not a single nation in the region wants the riffraff inside their borders. Far better for Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and the rest, to keep them right where they are, to be used as pawns in their attempt to scapegoat the Jews for the hunger, unemployment, ignorance and oppression, rampant in their own countries.

Jewish Democrats may be willing to give Obama high marks, but fortunately there are others who have a clearer vision. Which is why some wag has seen to it that the following piece of fiction has gone viral in recent weeks. Claiming to be a message to Obama from Netanyahu, while on his way to the U.S., it reads: "Tens of thousands of ordinary Mexicans were driven out of their homes, the only homes they had known for centuries, and forced to live in poverty and squalor south of the border, thanks to American aggression. This festering wound will never heal until America takes steps to return to the internationally accepted lines of 1845. Clearly the settlement activity that's taken place in occupied Mexico since then is illegal. When I meet the President tomorrow, I will tell him to halt all building activity in Texas immediately. Two lands for two people, yes, but not on land taken by force from Mexico."

It's a shame that it never happened. At least if it had, it might have made sense why, at their get-together the next day, Obama had glared at Netanyahu as if he had caught him trying to swipe the White House silverware.

 

Source:  http://patriotpost.us/opinion/burt-prelutsky/2011/06/04/the-agony-of-being-a-jewish-conservative/

Gates Turns Off The Lights

by Frank Gaffney, Jr.  |  CenterForSecurityPolicy.org  |  May 30, 2011

 

I have been in Washington now for nearly forty years and, in all that time, I can't recall seeing anything quite like Robert Gates' ongoing farewell to arms.

In a series of speeches over the past few days - at Notre Dame, at the American Enterprise Institute and at the Naval Academy - the outgoing Secretary of Defense has sounded a series of warnings that the ship of state, or at least the carrier battle group that protects it, is headed for the rocks. 

That is surely so.  But, welcome as his alarm is, the course is one Mr. Gates has largely charted himself.  Of late, President Obama has simply ordered "full steam ahead," with encouragement from some in both parties on Capitol Hill.

Secretary Gates has particularly warned against a "hollowing out" of the military, a not-so-implicit criticism of the $400 billion Mr. Obama has announced that he intends to cut from Pentagon accounts.  This reduction would come on top of the roughly $178 billion already being excised by the Gates team.

In so doing, Mr. Gates recalls the mistake made twice during my decades in this town - first by Presidents Ford and Carter, then by Presidents Bush '41 and Clinton:  Yielding to the ever-present-temptation to meet contemporary budgetary exigencies by cutting the nation's investment in its armed forces, leaving them without the modern equipment, realistic training, adequately sized forces, up-to-date facilities and development of the future technologies needed to deter and, if deterrence fails, to prevail in tomorrow's wars. 

It took an immensely expensive buildup under Ronald Reagan to rectify the first of these perilous mistakes.  Thanks in part to the Gates legacy, the second has still not been remedied.  The effect has been to condemn the armed services - currently in the midst of three far-flung military campaigns - to an unwise and unsustainable reliance for the foreseeable future on obsolescing tanks, ships, aircraft and missiles purchased during the Reagan years (if not before).

A couple of examples illustrate the problem we already have, let alone what will come if President Obama has his way:

In his recent speeches, Secretary Gates has emphasized the need to modernize the military's various air forces with the F-35, a "stealthy" fifth-generation aircraft that has run into production delays and increased costs.  The risks associated with the attendant slowing-down of deliveries of this plane have been greatly compounded by Mr. Gates' insistence on the premature shutting down of the production line for the far more capable F-22 - one of 30 Pentagon modernization programs he has eviscerated.  

The effect of falling for the old bird-in-the-bush gambit was predictable (and predicted):  They are never as good, cheap or readily available as we are told they will be. Worse yet, as the Washington Times' Bill Gertz reported in his "Inside the Ring" column last week, senior officers are now warning that, as a result, we are ominously ill-prepared to contend with growing challenges to our historic air superiority from Communist China.

Mr. Gates says President Obama's projected cuts will preclude the modernization of two legs of our strategic "Triad."   For those who share the Commander-in-Chief's zeal for the U.S. leading the way to "a world without nuclear weapons," the accelerating atrophying of our land-based missile and bomber forces is not only of no concern; it is a desirable thing.  For the rest of us who worry about the wisdom of America being the only nuclear power (actual or wannabe) that is systematically engaged in denuclearization, however, the prospect of a future strategic "Monad" is alarming.

The Defense Secretary is rightly concerned about the ability of an all-volunteer force to continue to maintain the operational tempos that have characterized the past decade.  Regrettably, the military may confront no-less-daunting requirements in the next decade, too, especially if enemy perceptions that the United States "lost" Iraq and/or Afghanistan translate into expensive new conflicts.  Cut the numbers of troops in the Army and Marines, cut their pay andbenefits - both of which Mr. Gates says are in prospect if the President has his way with the Pentagon budget - and that problem becomes infinitely worse.

That could be the effect, as well, if Mr. Gates and outgoing Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen certify before leaving office that the military is ready to accept avowed homosexuals.  Both have pushed hard for this top Obama agenda item; both know the President wants to get this done in time for June's Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender Month festivities. 

Yet, both men must appreciate that their successors should be allowed to take a fresh, hard look at the impact this action will actually have on readiness, unit cohesion and retention.  Such would be the case especially if that it proves to be as bad as careful analysis of the data predicts - particularly among the combat arms.  In that event, the contribution made during Mr. Gates' tenure at the Pentagon to the hollowing-out of the armed forces will be even more severe.

Mr. Gates' warnings about the Obama agenda are indeed welcome.   One can only wish he had done less to enable it to date, and pray that he does not make matters worse still before leaving office four weeks from now.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy (www.SecureFreedom.org), a columnist for the Washington Times and host of the nationally syndicated program, Secure Freedom Radio, heard in Washington weeknights at 9:00 p.m. on WRC 1260 AM.

 

Source:  http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p18734.xml

Ailes 'Feared Bombing' by Gays, Muslims

by Rob Quinn, Newser Staff  |  Newser.com  |  May 26, 2011

 

Rolling Stone profile paints Fox News boss as paranoid propagandist.

 

Roger Ailes, chairman and chief executive officer of Fox News, speaks during the Summer Television Critics Association Press Tour in Pasadena, Calif.   AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File

 

Roger Ailes has made huge profits by selling fear, but he has a few fears of his own, Rolling Stone finds in a detailed—and deeply unflattering—profile of the Fox News chairman. Ailes, whose resumé includes repackaging Richard Nixon for TV in 1968 and helping derail health care reform on behalf of Big Tobacco in 1993, insisted on having bombproof glass installed in his office after Rupert Murdoch hired him to create the Fox News Channel.

The precautions were apparently intended to protect him from a bomb attack by activists. "They’ll be down there protesting," he told an aide. "Those gays." Ailes—who Rolling Stone says has "built the most formidable propaganda machine ever seen outside of the Communist bloc"—is escorted to work by a security detail described as "straight out of 24." He has bought the houses surrounding his New Jersey home to create a wider security perimeter. Inside his bombproof office at Fox, he views the goings-on outside through security monitors, and once put Fox News on lockdown after seeing a dark-skinned man in what he believed was Muslim garb. The man turned out to be a janitor. "Roger tore up the whole floor,” a source says. “He has a personal paranoia about people who are Muslim—which is consistent with the ideology of his network."

 

Source:  http://www.newser.com/story/119458/fox-chief-roger-ailes-feared-bombing-by-gays-muslims.html

From 2010 - Book Review: Islamic Suicide Terrorism & The Stockholm Syndrome Writ Large

by Jerry Gordon  |  NewEnglishReview.org  |  June 2010 Issue

 

 

 

The Banality of Suicide Terrorism:
The Naked Truth About the Psychology of Islamic Suicide Bombing
By Nancy Hartevelt Kobrin
Potomac Books, Inc.
Washington, DC
ISBN 978-1-59797-504-9

 

 

Why do Muslims venerate as suicide terrorists as martyrs? What drives them to commit suicide and simultaneously murder of dozens if not hundreds of others, including fellow Muslims? What is there inside the family structure and cultural dynamics defined by Islamic Sharia and the Qu’ranic Canon that have created this phenomenon? The Banality of Suicide Terrorism by Nancy Hartevelt Kobrin attempts to explain this phenomenon:   

Islamic suicidal terrorism can be understood as a new variant of an old problem—domestic violence—which has existed since time immemorial across many cultures. Islamic suicidal terrorism gives a new complicated twist to domestic violence because that is where conjoint murder and suicide routinely occur. Islamic suicidal terrorism merits the name of political domestic violence because it is a military political tool used by radical political Islam as well as secular Muslim terrorist organizations.

Each suicide bombing attack constitutes a crime scene.

This exploration of Islamic terrorism is focused specifically on the cultural influences that motivate the terrorist. Millions of Muslims lead peaceful lives, so what happens that influences those few who elect to become suicide bombers? We still do not know precisely who will become a terrorist and why, but we can work backwards from the crime scene and surmise its psychodynamics through what it communicates. Where you have a devalued female and an over-idealized mother, as you do in Arab and Muslim culture and where there is a prohibition to separate from the mother, violent problems may ensue—such as murder-suicide.

This book explains Islamic suicide terrorism as displaced rage against the “Early Mother” of childhood because the young mother in these cultures has been so utterly devalued, abused and traumatized as a child that when she becomes a mother—often at a very young age—she is compromised and struggles in her capacity to mother in a completely unsupported environment in which she is further abused. 

The author has a remarkable psycho-analytical and linguistic background coupled with counter terrorism investigative work that make her eminently qualified to investigate the depths of this paradigm. Dr. Nancy Kobrin is a psychoanalyst with a clinical specialty in trauma. Her Ph.D. is in romance and Semitic languages, specializing in Aljamía, Old Spanish in Arabic script. She did a two volume dissertation on Ahadith Musa. She began to study the perpetrators of terrorist attacks in the early 80s as the truck bombs went off in Lebanon. Residing in Minnesota for many years she was asked to teach Radical Islam to the Sheriff's Deputies of Hennepin County. She is an expert on the Minnesota Somali diaspora and a graduate of the Human Terrain System program at Leavenworth Kansas and was slated to go into Helmand Province in Afghanistan.

Her book plumbs the depth of the “Early Mother” suicide murder paradigm by applying the construct to explain the behavior of the 9/11 “death pilots,” the motivations of Osama Bin Laden, the psychological depths of Al Qaeda and political serial killing. She also presents suggestions to consider in developing policies to stop Islamic suicide terrorism.

This is a brilliant incisive tour de force that has captured the imagination of prominent psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, and counter-terrorism experts in America and Israel.

In her foreword to Kobrin’s book, Dr. Phyllis Chesler noted:

Dr. Kobrin uses her considerable skills as a psychoanalyst and as an Arabist to help profile suicide homicide bombers and their handlers [. . .] Bin Laden’s rage is motivated by his early childhood and family dynamics. Dr. Kobrin astounded me when she connected the following dots: bin Laden is still psychologically at war with his father, a builder who renovated the famous Mosques in Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. Osama bin Laden’s code name for his terrorist attacks on Kenya was known as the Holy Ka’aba (which is in Mecca), and the attack on Tanzania was known as the al-Aqsa (which is in Jerusalem).

Kobrin expounds in a recent FrontPage Magazine interview,“The Doctor Ruth of Counter Terrorism.”

Kobrin: In Arab Muslim culture you are never ever permitted to separate from your mother, ever. This means that you are glued to her and she is more important than your wife. It means that you are not permitted to establish your own sense of self, i.e. separate from her. Your wife is ultimately devalued and the upshot is that you harbor unbelievable, disavowed rage toward your mother, in essence one has no real effective father – the father is too busy with his other wives and women.

This creates tremendous ambivalence, on the one hand to want to bond with mother (ummi) and on the other hand at the same time remaining terrified of her, resulting in a confusing sense of identity. Perhaps this is why Muslims struggle so and are always fighting to prove their identity. Proving their existence becomes a more pervasive force than life itself. “I’d rather die by blowing myself up than lose my identity as a Muslim brother.”

 

When queried about how this construct applied to female suicide terrorists, Kobrin noted:

Yet after the female being devalued for centuries, the female suicide bomber can find honor and respect within the twisted psychology of the male dominated terrorist group.

 

The female suicide bomber merely internalizes the male rage of the female as self-hatred. She becomes victim-victimizer as my Israeli colleague Dr. Anat Berko has named her. The female suicide bomber is the most expendable of the terrorist chain.

 

In the concluding chapter, Kobrin addresses how we might stop suicide terrorism. She suggests that we start by recognizing the commonality between domestic violence and Islamic suicide terrorism through intervention within these communities via education that “men’s hatred of women is self hatred and unacceptable behavior.” Young girls in Muslim cultures she suggests must be protected against child abuse. Former Dutch Somali politician Hirsi Ali, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, attested to these issues in a recent Toronto Star interview, “Fundamentalist Muslims seem to be Haunted by the female body”:

“Virginity,” she writes, is “the obsession” of Islam. “The fundamentalists seem to be haunted by the female body and neurotically debate which fractions of it should be covered, until they declare the whole thing, from head to toe, a gigantic private part.”

Genital cutting, aimed at preserving virginity, is illegal in many Western countries, including the U.S. and Canada. But reports that daughters of immigrants are still subjected to the life-shattering procedure prompted the American Academy of Pediatrics to suggest a more humane version.

“It’s a slippery slope,” she says, her voice rising in exasperation. “They were inspired by compassion. But they’re creating a situation where parents will come and have their daughters legally nicked then later take them away to be infibulated. (The practice of sewing up most of the vaginal opening.)”

Kobrin also suggests an international ban on burkas for both security and human rights reasons. Young Muslim girls should be raised in safe and secure settings so that they can become successful adults. That requires education. No young girl should live under the threat of honor killing and coercion to become a female suicide bomber.

Foiled suicide bombers should be subjected to intensive reeducation, rehabilitation and monitoring to assure that they do not become dangerous recidivists. 

Kobrin also suggests that we should be honest about what is at the core of the Islamic doctrine because it exacerbates globalization of suicide terrorism. As she states:

. . .  because of its totalitarian, authoritarian and grandiose directives which lead to polarity with the Other, meaning us, as non-equals. [. . .] This defensive strategy is a key ingredient in the volatile mix making the combination of factors – the mother factor, the unseverable bond factor, the shaming factor, and others explosively paranoid.

 
She suggests that any society that venerates suicide bombers should be considered an accomplice to murder and that there should be an international convention and tribunal as proposed in a petition to the UN developed by Dr. Shaker Al-Nabusi:

that would prosecute terrorists, as well as people and institutions, primarily religious clerics that incite terrorism.

Muslim girls according to Kobrin should be re-educated to “address the nature of trauma, its treatments, impact on self esteem and literacy.” 

Kobrin believes that all children deserve the right to separate from their mother in place of the alleged "unseverable bond" in both Muslim and Hindu cultures as that diminishes the psychological well being of the child. She believes that this is a “key contributing factor to Islamic suicide terrorism when grounded in child-rearing practices based on shaming.”

The Banality of Suicide Terrorism breaks new ground for counterterrorism profiling through cogent presentation of the "early mother psycho-dynamic" operating in the Arab Muslim culture that Nonie Darwish portrayed in her book, Cruel and Usual Punishment. Add to that the prevalence of sanctioned female genital mutilation and male homosexuality practices prior to marriage you and gain appreciation of why suicide terrorism is rage against the 'missing' nurturing mother, who abandoned young females and males at the time of their ritual circumcisions and dominance by their authoritarian patriarchical societies. Women are brutalized by their fathers and husbands in front of their children who must be terrified into submission by such institutionalized violence. No display of the female form is tolerated as it is condemned by the Quranic Canon. Women's Sharia compliant clothing, an alleged inheritance from the Bedouin desert traditions, makes Muslim Women virtually invisible so that display of the female form isn't an enticement to male arousal, considered inherently "evil" in doctrinal Islam. That may explain tolerance of homosexuality practices by Muslim men prior to arranged marriage and the brutal Afghan sex slavery and rape of transvestite ‘boy dancers' that Chesler and others (see The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini) have written about.

 

However, this pattern of tolerating domestic violence all too frequently happens in expatriate Muslim communities in the West and in well educated families.

 

This is reflected in a presentation at a Florida conference by Ms. Noor Nishan. See this You Tube video. She told why she left her Pakistani American family and became a Christian convert. This is a beautiful American born well educated young woman who is very articulate. She spoke of being beaten by her father and on his command by her older sisters for being an 'unruly child.' Her older siblings were well educated, including one sister who was trained as a physician. However, they all have arranged marriages with Pakistani nationals. Their first loyalty, according to Ms. Nishan’s father, was to Islam and, Pakistan second. This despite all five female siblings in the family having been born in the US and receiving college educations. Miss Nishan fled from a fraudulent marriage arranged with a Pakistani national by her father. Nevertheless, she still evinced "love" for her stern and punishing father. Given her apostasy under Sharia, he is compelled under a fatwa to murder her as she left Islam and his household. This predicament left Ms. Nishan fearful of reconciliation with her father. 

Nonie Darwish observed in Cruel and Usual Punishment:

I believe that Muslim women have succumbed to none other than a massive Stockholm Syndrome. [ . . .] The syndrome accounts for why many domestic abuse victims do not press charges against their abusers. The Stockholm syndrome on a massive societal basis accounts for why millions of women not only put up with their abuse but also support and champion the very Sharia laws that imprison them inside their homes and inside their hijab.

Given Dr. Kobrin’s penetrating analysis it would appear that in Ms Nishan case she escaped this mental affliction through conversion and great personal courage. However for hundreds of millions of young Muslim men and women in America and across the globe doctrinal Islam is the Stockholm Syndrome writ large.

 

Source:  http://www.newenglishreview.org/Jerry_Gordon/Islamic_Suicide_Terrorism_%26_The_Stockholm_Syndrome_Writ_Large/

‘WEAR SCARF OR WE KILL YOU’, Muslims Told Woman

by Anil Dawar  |  Express.co.uk  |  April 18, 2011

 

ISLAMIC extremists bent on imposing Sharia law have threatened women and told them to cover up their heads, it has been claimed.

One woman was told she faced death if she failed to don the hijab, or headscarf, in east London’s Tower Hamlets.

Signs warning the area is a “gay-free zone” have also been seen while posters at bus shelters featuring models and a Bollywood film have been defaced with black paint. Incidents involving posters have also happened in Birmingham.

An Asian Whitechapel shopkeeper, who is not a practising Muslim and who dresses in western clothes, said she was told to cover up last month or face a boycott of her pharmacy. When she went to the press a man came to the shop, she said, telling her, “If you keep doing these things we will kill you”. She spoke to police last week.

The news comes after Iraqi Mohamed Al Hakim, 30, was spared jail for threatening to kill his cousin if she didn’t cover her head. He claimed Alya Al Safar, 21, had branded her family as “bitches and whores”. But firebrand Muslim cleric Anjem Choudary insisted the Muslims were only giving “advice”.

He said: “It’s ridiculous. I think the idea of threats being made has been fabricated.”

Paul Rickett, Borough Commander of Tower Hamlets, said the issue was being investigated and anyone making threats would be prosecuted.

 

Source:  http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/241369/-Wear-scarf-or-we-kill-you-Muslims-told-woman