Canary In The Coal Mine

The African BDS Disgrace

by Debra Mankowitz  |  Ynetnews.com  |  May 24, 2012

 

Op-ed: As South African case shows, BDS replaces healthy debate with totalitarian way of thinking.

The recent cancellation by University of KZN of the invitation to Israel’s Deputy Ambassador to South Africa Yaakov Finkelstein to freely address students and staff of smacks of racism of the worst kind. Surely, an academic institution is a place where minds should be able to hear all points of view

Instead, students are now being coerced into witnessing official representatives from Israel being singled out for opprobrium and sanction, with only insidious disinformation and the proselytizing anti-Israel campaign of the BDS movement available to them.

Does BDS tell the students that the territories were won in defensive wars against Israel? Did BDS inform the students that it is unprecedented in history that a country is obliged to give up land taken in a defensive war? Both Japan and Germany lost land as a result of their aggressions in WWII.

This self-same BDS movement is now trying to force South Africa through the Department of Trade and Industry to label goods made in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria as being manufactured in the “Occupied Palestinian Territories,” unless of course Israel withdraws back to 1948 lines.

This demand is ludicrous and ignorant in the extreme. What are the 1948 lines anyway? Do they form part of the 1947 Partition or are these the armistice lines after the War of Independence? So Israel at the insistence of BDS is going to give up its towns and cities and go back to Auschwitz- type borders, or otherwise "Ahava" will have a new label.

This would be laughable if it were not so tragic that a bunch of deluded individuals who actually don’t give a damn about Palestinian rights or their future can honestly believe that Israel, a sovereign United Nations member, will capitulate to their new demand, which smacks of arrogance, delusion and racism.

Is this organization even representative of Palestinian interests? I don’t think so. Do they know, or even care, that 13,000 Palestinians and their families may lose their jobs if companies are forced to relocate because of the campaign against Israel?

BDS has not helped the Palestinians one iota but has given free, unexpected and very welcome publicity to "Ahava." Their profits internationally are growing exponentially.

Ignoring global atrocities

BDS claims to be humanistic in its outlook but from what one can see only has selective humanism towards one conflict in the world, while conveniently ignoring atrocities in Syria, massive human rights violations in China, endless torture and detentions without trial in Iran. The list is endless. Is this because it is acceptable for Muslims to kill Muslims, and for dissident Chinese and activist Tibetans to be incarcerated and tortured by these respective countries?

It is very interesting that it is not acceptable for Jews in the only Jewish state in the world to defend themselves in what is now a 100 year old terror-war against the Arabs. Despite an intractable conflict and numerous peace overtures to uncompromising neighbors who do not want peace, these same eight million Jews, Muslim Arabs, Druze, Bedouin, Circassians and Christians too - all Israeli by the way - have contributed in unparalleled ways to the upliftment of the world.

South Africa too has benefited enormously from Israeli innovations in agriculture, medicine and technology. Is South Africa now going to ban the use of all these marvelous inventions for a misplaced and propagandist ideology that serves no-one, least of all our needy population?

Who cares about the Kashmiri dispute or millions of Zimbabweans struggling and suffering on the other side of the border? Who cares about Eritrean and Sudanese people who, in attempting to flee from some of the worst atrocities perpetrated on them, run to pariah Israel which does not shoot them, torture them or incarcerate them like Egypt does, but allows them to live freely and even feeds them and sends their children to school? Many of them are black Muslims, hated by their fellow more lighter-skinned Muslims. Talk about racism!

Sadly the reality is that Israel’s case dates from time immemorial. It fits in comfortably with popular Jew-prejudice, it is fashionable to pick on Jews and the only Jewish country in the world – in truth, it is a soft target and few besides the Jewish people care enough to take a stance.

It is undoubtedly the BDS campaign that has prevented Israel’s deputy ambassador from stating his country’s position. Could it be that something frightens them? Could it be that he will speak the truth, enough of the truth to change the mindset of impressionable young minds?

BDS is doing all it can to destroy healthy debate and replace it with a totalitarian way of thinking that smacks of intimidation and Apartheid-style tactics. That is not democratic; it is not just; and in the end, it will be defeated, for history has proven that the truth will out, no matter what.

 

Source: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4233847,00.html

Spreading Education, Not Ignorance

Another Example of Why We MUST FIGHT BACK With The Truth 

 

Above image: Some of the services and products targeted for boycot to harm Israel

 

Here is the standard fare from a Middle East publication, Gulf Daily News, for March 17, 2012 by Sandeep Singh Grewal. This paper calls itself, "the voice of Bahrain":

 

Boycott Israeli products call

ACTIVISTS have demanded nationwide boycotts of Israeli products amid new attacks on Palestinians.

The Bahrain Society against Normalisation with the Zionist Enemy is calling on the government to reopen the Israel Boycott Office.

It comes amid reports of Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip which killed at least 15 people last week in an escalation of the worst clashes with Palestinian militants so far this year.

The strikes began when the air raids killed senior leader Zohair Al Qaisi, who is also Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) secretary-general.

Israel later claimed Mr Al Qaisi was targeted because he was planning an attack.

"Reopening of the Israel boycott office in Bahrain would set an example in Gulf countries especially when violence has escalated on the Gaza Strip," said society vice-president Abdulla Malik.

The office was initially set up in 1963 in Mina Salman, but was shut down in 2005 as part of the deal with the US to pass the Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

It aimed to make sure no Israeli product was allowed into the Bahraini market.

It was operated by the society and monitored by the Customs Directorate.

The Arab League was the first to launch a similar boycott office in 1951 in Damascus, Syria, to identify foreigners doing business with Israel and ban them from operating in the Arab world.

"Syria and Lebanon strictly adhere to ban on Israeli goods, but we have to ensure all Arab and Gulf countries collectively work together on the issue," he said.

"I know Bahrain authorities will say there are no Israeli goods and products in Bahrain, but according to our information the door to these goods is the Fifth Fleet."

The society launched a petition to reopen the boycott office in 2009 but collected more than 200 signatures.

However, Mr Malik said they were planning several awareness campaigns and activities to push for their demands.

"This time, our board is planning several activities and conferences to raise this issue," he said. "There are also plans being considered to send a team of volunteers from Bahrain on an aid convoy to Gaza through Egypt's Rafah border."

Mr Malik also called on MPs to pass a law that criminalises all ties and contacts with Israel.

MPs approved legislation in 2009 to penalise links with Israel but it was never discussed by the Shura Council and later dropped.

It means the bill could not be transferred to the present parliament term.

It imposed a five-year jail term and a BD10,000 fine for individuals and businessmen engaging in trade activities with Israel, included selling or promoting its products.

The law also stated to reopen the office and prosecute any Bahraini travelling to or through Israel and ban the government from setting up any diplomatic mission.

"We contacted several government offices for years now but sadly received no response from their end," said Mr Malik.

"It's important that once again the MPs take up the Anti-Israel bill and approve it during their term.

"This would also result in re-opening the office and would clearly indicate Bahrain's stance on the Palestinian issue."

Bahrain and other GCC countries have no diplomatic relations with Israel.

Its foreign policy document supports a peaceful solution to the Palestinian cause and supports the restoration of the Palestinian people's legitimate rights.

It further holds Israel responsible for the deteriorating and painful situation in Palestinian lands as a result of its aggressive practices which include assassinations, the construction of the separation wall, attacking holy places and imposing economic blockades.

[email protected]

 

ACT FOR ISRAEL has set up blog content to enable each of us to combat the lies and misinformation spread worldwide concerning Israel. Please take a few moments to examine their website. Some of these tasks take little time and effort. 

Victimology 101 at UC San Diego

by Richard Cravatts  |  PJMedia.com  |  March 16, 2012

 

Another failed Israel divestiture campaign turns to tired, irrational Marxist trope.

Adding to the evidence that California campuses have become the epicenter for anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, and anti-American activism, student groups at UC San Diego led by Students for Justice in Palestine introduced — for the third time — an initiative aimed at divesting university funds from “U.S. companies that profit from violent conflict and occupation.”

This year, the divestment call was aimed specifically at General Electric and Northrop Grumman — firms that “produce parts of Apache helicopters used by the Israeli Defense Forces against Palestinians” — with the empty ambition that “by removing investments from companies who assist in perpetuating the violence in the area [supporters would be instrumental in] setting up a forum where peace is achievable.”

As had happened on two earlier occasions on the UCSD campus when a similar divestment initiative was presented, the proposal was roundly defeated in a 20-13 vote, stunning its supporters.

The rejection of calls for divestment from companies doing business with Israel mirrors what has happened elsewhere on campuses, where such campaigns represent the continuing effort by some activist members of the academic Left — joined happily by Islamists and other ideological enemies of the Jewish state — to prolong and enhance the demonization of Israel for the purpose of delegitimizing, weakening, and, it is hoped by these advocates, eventually extirpating Israel altogether. Positioned as a morally upright effort to assert and protect the rights of the long-suffering Palestinians, these efforts at demonizing Israel are not, in fact, benign gestures of peace activists and well-meaning academics in pursuit of social justice for the Palestinians.

But a telling, if not unexpected, thing happened once the student groups who had sponsored this odious divestment resolution actually lost their bid to implement it: supporters of the divestment initiative immediately proclaimed that the initiative had failed because opponents of the resolution were “racists” and bigots. They claimed opponents pressured the student government representatives to vote down the campaign in a manner that created a “hostile campus climate … for students of color and students from underserved and underrepresented communities,” suffering victims who are now “hurt, [and] feel disrespected, silenced, ignored and erased by this University.”

These victimized students and faculty also self-righteously proclaimed in a letter to the UCSD administration that the pro-Israel faculty and staff who spoke against the resolution at the meeting should not even have had a voice in the proceedings: “The fact that they can state whatever they like at public meetings because of academic freedom but while also using their positions of authority as professors or staff for power and intimidation is not acceptable.”

The language of the whining memo to the UCSD administration, like the language of the divestment resolution itself, is revealing. Both are laced with the tired Marxist, post-colonial vocabulary depicting a Manichean world view in which Israel is the brutal oppressor and the Palestinians are the innocent Third-World oppressed, and that the absence of peace in the region is only the fault of the militaristically mighty Jewish state. “The reality is,” the memo clarified for those on the administration who might not know, “that [the Israeli/Palestinian conflict] is a human rights issue where the oppressed are fighting against the oppressor.”

The language of human rights has, of course, been exploited to promote the Palestinian cause by many in the West and in the Arab world who wish the struggle to be seen not for what it actually is — a decades-old campaign to extirpate the Jewish state and “drive the Jews into the sea” — but instead as merely a process by which the Palestinian Arabs throw off the yoke of colonial oppression by Israel and achieve self-determination and statehood. But that formula requires that the Palestinians always remain victims, for it is in that way that they are able to acquire support in furtherance of their cause.

That same designation of victimhood had obviously become a tool for Students for Justice in Palestine and other student groups and faculty members who wrote the scolding entreaty to UCSD administrators. Nowhere in their accusatory memo did they address the central point of the resolution; that is, whether it had any merit at all and whether the vote to defeat it was handled transparently and fairly (which it obviously was). Instead, their reaction to losing the vote was not to look at the vacuity of their campaign but rather to make themselves into victims who now “feel uncomfortable” on campus because of the rejection of their ideas. In other words, on campuses today, feelings trump ideas.

“In the society of victims,” Charles Sykes observed in his engaging book A Nation of Victims, “individuals compete not only for rights or economic advantage but also for points on the ‘sensitivity’ index, where ‘feelings’ rather than reason are what count.”

As victim groups become aware of their supposed classification as “authentic” victims, they are prone to contradict the stated goal of diversity by limiting real dialogue and interchange between opposing points of view such as those expressed by some pro-Israel, anti-divestment faculty and students at the February 29 meeting. Thus, while “social justice” proponents, who claim a high moral ground because they fight for the rights of the oppressed, adamantly defend free speech for themselves in order to define their own world views, they are clearly uncomfortable with the speech of others and exempt themselves from having to live by the suppressive rules of expression they craft for others.

In fact, the UCSD students claimed, the mere presence at the meeting of those with alternate views of the divestment resolution resulted in a “hostile campus climate being created for students of color and students from underserved and underrepresented communities,” something that served to “erase the existence of many individuals in the room,” presumably only those who hoisted the hateful resolution on this campus in the first place.

This technique is effective for those who make themselves victims on campus because it helps to insulate them from criticism and sanction for their often radical ideologies. As the signatories of the memo — members of the Muslim Student Association, Students for Justice in Palestine, MEChA, Student Affirmative Action Committee, and the Black Student Union, among them — had already made clear, the failure of the divestment resolution was the fault of others, not them, due to the racism and bigotry of pro-Israel faculty and students who obviously lack concern for social justice, Palestinians, and “students of color” like them. In his insightful book Illiberal Education, Dinesh D’Souza noted that campus groups regularly “seek the moral capital of victimhood” as the UCSD students are doing. Why? Because, he said, “by converting victimhood into a certificate of virtue, minorities acquire a powerful moral claim that renders their opponents defensive and apologetic, and immunizes themselves from criticism and sanction.”

Richard L. Cravatts, PhD, director of the Program in Publishing & Digital Media at Boston University, just finished a book, Genocidal Liberalism: The University’s Jihad Against Israel & Jews.

 

Source: http://pjmedia.com/blog/victimology-101-at-uc-san-diego/?singlepage=true

BDS Disguises Its Anti-Semitic Attacks

by Jared Thompson  |  UWMPost.com  |  March 12, 2012

 

Is Israeli apartheid real? No. This month on college campuses across the U.S., students will be gathering for the annual Israeli Apartheid Week, a yearly event condemning Israel’s “apartheid system.” BDS or Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, is a group who seeks to commend itself as liberators of Palestine, when the real goal is to delegitimize Israel. As Israel is a free democratic state in which Arabs and Jews enjoy equal rights, BDS is anti-Semitic to challenge its legitimacy when many Muslim states exist unchallenged by the world at large. If Palestinians are serious about their claims of commitment to peace, then they should start now with actions of real democracy, not terrorist tactics.

The original BDS movement began in 1948 when Arab states began a pact not to buy any goods manufactured by the Jews in Palestine. For those who have not studied the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Grand Mufti Haj Amin Husseini led this movement. The Grand Mufti was also rather close politically to Adolf Hitler during the Holocaust, meeting with Hitler in November 1941 in the hopes of persuading him to extend the Nazis’ anti-Jewish program to the Arab world.

Not only does BDS unjustly brand Israel as an apartheid state, this group spreads lies, disinformation and propaganda in order to demonize Israel. Apartheid refers most commonly to the apartheid of South Africa by Caucasians, in which native South Africans were systematically oppressed, denied citizenship and voting rights. Today in Israel, although Jews represent the majority, Palestinian Arabs hold full citizenship, rights to vote and have been full-fledged members of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) since the first elections in 1948. The claims that Israel practices apartheid against Palestinians are false.

BDS claims that their goal as a human rights organization is to seek equality for all Palestinians and their rights under international law. Their demands reflect their desire for Israel to meet three obligations: firstly, ending its occupation and colonization returning to June 1967 borders and dismantling the wall separating the disputed territories from the rest of Israel; secondly, recognizing the rights of Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality, and finally, respecting the rights of Palestinians to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.

BDS condemns the restrictions placed on Palestinians living in the disputed territories. These restrictions are a direct result of terrorism and attacks on Israelis both from neighboring countries and from Palestinian terror groups within the territories themselves. It should not be surprising that Israelis want to stop rocket attacks and suicide bombers, which regularly kill innocent civilians. Such attacks have led to the construction of the aforementioned security fence. Unless the killings stop, how can peace be attained and the Palestinians “freed?”

The demand for recognition of Arab rights has been addressed previously. Arab citizens of Israel do indeed enjoy equal rights, as do all Israeli citizens. The only difference is that Arabs are exempt from the mandatory military service requirement.

The assertions made by the BDS movement have a convenient way of thinly disguising anti-Semitism. While their concern about the present and the future of the Palestinian people is both legitimate and warranted, these concerns do not justify for categorically delegitimizing and demonizing another people. Israeli Apartheid Week does nothing more than condemn Israel for its right to exist and enlist others in their cause of supporting terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. IAW simply uses apartheid to appeal to the public to endorse anger and hate.

 

Source:  http://www.uwmpost.com/2012/03/12/bds-disguises-its-anti-semitic-attacks/

Muslim Cab Drivers Rescue New York City's Oldest Jewish Bagel Bakery From Closing, Plan to Keep it Kosher

by Bill Hutchinson & Mark Morales, New York Daily News  |  NYDailyNews.com  |  November 4, 2011

 

Brooklyn Hot Bialys & Bagels was about to close, but was saved by Peerzada Shah and his partner Zafaryab Ali. Todd Maisel/New York Daily News

 

The oldest Jewish bialy and bagel shop in New York City is being rescued by two Muslim cab drivers — and they plan to keep it kosher.

Coney Island Bialys and Bagels — founded in 1920 by Morris Rosenzweig, a Jewish immigrant of Bialystok, Poland — was about to go out of business until two unlikely proprietors saved it.

Zafaryab Ali and Peerzada Shah said the first bagels and bialys they ever tasted when they immigrated here from Pakistan more than 16 years ago were made at the Gravesend noshery.

“I felt I had to save this store,” said Ali, 54, who worked for Rozenzweig’s grandson Steve Ross for 11 years, making bagels and bialys by hand, committing to memory the recipes Rosenzweig brought over from the old country.

Ali, a married father of two young girls, said he quit five years ago to earn a bigger paycheck as a cabbie.

“I’m happy I can take care of this store, turn a profit and make customers happy,” Ali said.

Ali and Shah said geopolitics that divide Muslims and Jews have no bearing on making 95-cent bagels and their flatter, oniony cousins, the bialys.

“It doesn’t matter,” Ali said of the cross-cultural differences. “I make the food for everyone.”

“I don’t even think about it,” added Shah, 47. “I just look at this as a business opportunity.”

Ross said he couldn’t think of two better guys to pass on the Coney Island Ave. family business to.

“I’d like to see them flourish because they’re making a product that my grandfather brought to this country,” Ross said.

Shah and Ali met and became roommates after immigrating to New York. Back in Pakistan, Shah made his livelihood repairing baking equipment, and he enrolled in culinary school when he first came here.

They were both driving cabs when Ali went to fuel up at his favorite gas station and the attendant told him that the bagel shop was about to close. He called Ross right away and worked out a deal for him and Shah to take it over.

The partners said they plan to keep using all the old kosher-certified equipment but have spiffed up the place, replacing floors and walls.

“I hope they build the business up and do more business than I did,” said Ross, who has been advising the pair.

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz dropped by yesterday to wish the new proprietors mazel tov and salaam aleikum !” Markowitz vowed to return for a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Ross’ loyal customers said they were relieved to hear their beloved bialy and bagel shop was still cooking.

“I almost cried when I found out they were closing,” said customer Ellen Steiner, 57, of Midwood. “This is the best bialy place in Brooklyn.”

[email protected]

 

Source:  http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/muslim-cab-drivers-rescue-york-city-oldest-jewish-bagel-bakery-closing-plan-kosher-article-1.972123

Islamist Lawfare on Steroids – Part 2

by David Meir-Levi  |  FrontPageMag.com  |  November 4, 2011

 

Earlier this year the present writer exposed the plans of prominent Muslim professionals and academics in the USA to exploit the American legal system by filing lawsuits, even frivolous ones, that would serve primarily, no matter what the merits of the case, to bring to the attention of the public the plight of the Palestinians and the evils of their Zionist oppressors.  Such exploitation of our legal system by American Muslims and their supporters for political goals, now known as “lawfare,” is not limited to the politics of the Arab-Israel conflict.  For almost a decade, Muslim political action committees and other Muslim social and legal organizations have exploited our court system with lawsuits about alleged religious or racial discrimination against Muslims.

The entry “Muslims sue” into Google brings up a surprisingly long list of references to individual Muslims or Muslim organizations, such as CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) and ISNA (Islamic Society of North America), that are suing a variety of individuals, employers, airlines, theatres, school districts, states, universities and even the FBI for religious discrimination or harassment.

Certainly some suits are legitimate, but some look very much like they are frivolous, intended only to harass the accused and create a substantive or at least symbolic victory for Islam.

Here are a few examples:

Muslim tenants harass an Anaheim apartment manager then sue when the manager evicts them.

Muslim neighbors sue an Austrian retiree for yodeling while mowing his lawn.

Muslim female employees sue Abercrombie and Fitch over their right to wear a hejab despite the fact that the hejab violates the A&F dress code.

Muslim female employees sue McDonalds over its dress code which is incompatible with the hejab, and later add to their lawsuit the demand that the McDonalds store in which they work should serve no bacon.

Muslim female workers sue Disneyland because the Disneyland costume dress code does not accommodate the hejab. These workers were offered jobs in Disneyland concessions that did not require a costume, but refused.

Female Muslim workers at a Whirlpool appliances plant sued because they were fired due to their demand for prayer breaks during work time.  It is important to note that there is no fixed schedule for when the Islamic 5 prayers per day must be said, so one could pray five times a day before and after work.

The “flying imams” incident on US Airways flight 300 on 11/20/06 still reverberates as the lawsuit, filed by the imams and resolved in 2009, threatens to imperil anyone who alerts authorities to a Muslim’s suspicious behavior.

The Fox Theatre in Atlanta was already booked for the date that a Muslim group wanted; but the group sued anyway, alleging religious discrimination because they were denied the right to have a post-Ramadan party there on 9/11/2010.

A teacher read a Christmas story to her fourth-grade elementary school class in a Delaware public school and Muslim parents sued the entire school district for endorsing Christianity and creating a hostile environment for Muslims.

Two days after Oklahoma passed a law banning Shari’ah (Islamic religious law) in state courts (with 70% voting in favor of the ban), CAIR filed a lawsuit against the state claiming religious discrimination.  Space does not permit a debate regarding the merits of the Oklahoma law or the CAIR lawsuit, but it is important to recall that injecting Shari’ah law into the secular legal arena is one of the means whereby Islamist terrorist organizations have successfully created the legal environment allowing Muslim supremacist organizations to establish their own fiefdoms in England and France.  The demand for Shari’ah law in secular courts is a “calling card” for Islamist terrorist infiltration.

GWU Law School Professor John Banzhaf has filed a complaint with the Washington, D.C. Office of Human Rights against the Catholic University of America for displaying Christian crosses in its classrooms, something that Banzhaf describes as an act of malice against Muslim students.  This complaint has been filed without Muslim participation.  Muslim students at Catholic U.  have made no complaints, and deny having complained to Banzhaf. 

One can only wonder about Banzhaf’s motivation for this lawsuit.

Los Angeles Muslim groups, with the assistance of the ACLU, have filed suit against the FBI, claiming that FBI surveillance of their mosques and other meeting places is a violation of their civil rights, freedom of religion, and rights to privacy.  US Attorney General Eric Holder has invoked state secrets rules in order to prevent information about the lawsuit from being released.

It may be impossible to determine how many of the suits in this litany of complaints are legitimate, and how many are examples of Muslim lawfare intended to incrementally advance the cause of Islamist jihad and Shari’ah law in the USA, much as has been done in Europe.  But it is frightening to note that the legal initiative against the FBI may be having a rather salacious effect upon our Department of Justice (DOJ).

As part of the George Washington University’s conference on “Confronting Discrimination in the Post-9/11 Era,” Department of Justice officials convened a meeting on October 21, 2011, with leaders of several national Muslim organizations and other American Muslims who demanded that the DOJ cut back federal anti-terror funding to state and local law enforcement organizations, rewrite FBI agent manuals to remove references that connect “Islam” and “Muslims” with terrorism, and create a legal basis for the definition of “U.S. citizens’ criticism of Islam” as racial discrimination.

One might think that demands to reduce our nation’s ability to defend itself against terror attacks, to obfuscate the glaringly obvious connection between Muslim terrorists and Islam, and especially to curtail freedom of speech would be met with incredulity and rejection.  But one would be wrong.

Tom Perez, head of the DOJ’s division of civil rights, enthusiastically endorsed these demands and urged the attendees to “…continue to have the open and honest and critical dialogue…” that took place at the meeting.  He took myriad notes and asserted that he had some “concrete thoughts” about how to address these demands.

No one at the meeting raised any objection to the demand for restrictions on freedom of speech!

No one from the DOJ expressed any concern that one of the most outspoken Muslim representatives at the meeting was the Imam Mohammed Majid, president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a Muslim lobbying group accused of having close ties with Islamic terror organizations.   The Justice Department named ISNA an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation trial – the largest terror-finance case in U.S. history. In a post-trial opinion, a federal judge ruled that prosecutors had provided “ample evidence” to support ISNA’s involvement in the conspiracy to underwrite terrorism, and he refused ISNA’s petition to remove its name from the list of co-conspirators.

The putative justification for the outrageous demands made by the Muslim representatives was the assertion that “…Americans’ fear of Islamists’ bombs has evolved into racism towards dark-skinned men” and “…the word ‘Muslim’ has become racialized.”  One Muslim spokesperson went so far as to say that people in the USA are teaching that “..all Muslims are a threat to the country…” and that criticism of Islam is “religious bigotry and hate.”  None of the Muslim spokespersons offered any evidence for these assertions, nor did the DOJ participants request any.

Ironically, the FBI’s own statistics show that hate crimes against Muslims amount to less than 8% of religious hate crimes in the USA. The latest statistics, for 2008 indicate that there were 1,606 hate crime offenses motivated by religious bias in 2008 (the last year for which the FBI reports identify victims of religious hate crime by religion).  Of these:

• 65.7 percent were anti-Jewish. (1055 crimes)
• 13.2 percent were anti-other religion. (191)
• 7.7 percent were anti-Islamic. (105)
• 4.7 percent were anti-Catholic. (75)
• 4.2 percent were anti-multiple religions, group.(65)
• 3.7 percent were anti-Protestant. (56)
• 0.9 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc. (Based on the FBI’s Table 1for hate-crime statistics) (14)

No one at the meeting pointed out the discrepancy between the FBI’s statistics and the near-hysteria of the wildly exaggerated assertions of Imam Majid and others about the anti-Muslim atmosphere in America, nor did anyone point out that no FBI training material, nor anything anywhere else in the DOJ, has ever asserted that all Muslims are a threat to our country.

Shortly after this meeting, in a gloating sermon on his ISNA website, Imam Majid crowed that the DOJ has acknowledged the accuracy of his accusations and will purge the FBI training manuals of their offensive anti-Islamic diatribes.  He clearly felt that he had won a meaningful victory.

None of this makes any sense.

If these DOJ officials were committed to stamping out hate crimes, they should look first into the hate-crimes against Jews, which made up almost two-thirds of all hate crimes in 2008.  If these DOJ officials were consistent with the DoJ’s own actions toward Muslim organizations tied to terror groups, they should never have invited ISNA representatives to the meeting. If these DOJ officials were committed to the defense of the USA against terrorist enemies, they should have spoken out when Muslim representatives ranted about fictitious Islamophobia in FBI training materials and in American society at large.  If these DOJ officials honored the sacred American tradition of freedom of speech, they should have dismissed demands for the criminalization of that freedom when criticism of Islam is involved.

But they did not.

Is the DOJ intimidated by the recent Los Angeles Muslim organizations law suit against the FBI?

Or is it possible that these DOJ officials were acting on the directives of President Obama;  directives made official only a few days ago, which require that FBI training materials be purged of anything that might portray Islam as somehow related to terrorist violence, and that any investigation of the beliefs, motives and goals of jihad terrorists be considered off-limits?

What reason could Obama have for banning the truth about jihad terrorism and Muslim terrorist?  Surely he must know that his directives merely open the door for increased jihadist activity in the USA. Imam Majid has indeed won a victory, and with Obama and the DOJ on a crash course with reality, he has no reason to do anything other than strive for more such victories.

 

Source:  http://frontpagemag.com/2011/11/04/islamist-lawfare-on-steroids-%E2%80%93-part-2/

Strong Support for Shariah in Canada

by Kris Sims, Parliamentary Bureau  |  CNews.canoe.ca  |  November 1, 2011

The end of Ramadan being celebrated in St. Catharines, Ont., August 30, 2011. Photo: Julie Jocsak / QMI Agency

A newly released survey suggests a large number of Muslims living in Canada will not disown Al-Qaida.

The study, conducted by the MacDonald Laurier Institute, found 65% of Muslims questioned said they would “repudiate absolutely” the terrorist organization, while 35% would not do so.

“From a security perspective, it is difficult to know if a 65% rate of repudiation (of Al-Qaida) is re-assuring or a 35% failure to repudiate troubling,” wrote study authors Christian Leuprecht, associate professor of the Royal Military College of Canada and Conrad Winn, Carleton University professor and president of COMPAS, a public opinion research firm.

“The most radical political views tended to be expressed by relatively secular people, often equipped with higher education in the social sciences, while devout Muslims were sometimes the most articulate advocates for Canada and democracy.” According to the Ottawa based think tank, only a small minority of Muslim newcomers to Canada reject Hamas, Hezbollah, or the Iranian regime.

The survey, which was released Tuesday, found 62% wanted some form of Shariah law in Canada, 15% of them saying it should be mandatory for all Muslims.

The report also states support for extremism is just as high among Muslims born in Canada, or other Western countries, as it is among those hailing from oppressive dictatorships.

The survey involved phone interviews with 455 Muslims in Ottawa, between May and July 2008, with a margin of error of five percentage points. The study was funded by the University of Maryland for the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. 

The institute could not find funding for the study in Canada.

 

Source:  http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2011/11/01/18911216.html

Enter the Counter Boycott

From: Galus Australus  |  GalusAustralis.com  |  October 27, 2011 

 

 

West Dunbartonshire Coat of Arms

 

Previously, we’ve seen Buycott Israel as  a response to the BDS against Israel. However, some Jewish organisations have responded with counter boycotts. Simon Morawetz reports on a recent example in Australia.

In 2009, West Dunbartonshire Council (WDC) approved a boycott of all Israeli made and produced goods. The attention that this relatively small Glaswegian council’s decision got was remarkable, sparking outrage from Jewish communities across the globe.

In response, many Jewish communities initiated a counter-boycott of all goods made in West Dunbartonshire. As any reputable Scottish region would insist, this includes several whisky distilleries. One of the products of these distilleries is a staple in kosher households around Caulfield: Glenlivet.

Yeshiva Shul is one entity that decided not to purchase Glenlivet this year and instead explore other options. It went with Glen Moray this year. Eli Belfer, the man responsible for alcohol purchases (among other things) at the Shul, was in contact with WDC, who were unwilling to resurrect any discussion on the basis for the policy. However, they were willing to clarify any misconceptions regarding its application. WDC are aware of the counter-boycott, but Yeshiva will formally write to them in the coming weeks to confirm the action and put pressure on them to remove the policy.  The Council did say that they may reconsider it in future, though they gave no reason to believe that it would be reversed.

For the record, Glenlivet did not respond to my email offering them a comment on the matter.

It is important to note that not all distilleries in West Dunbartonshire agree with their council’s policy. Auchentoshan is one example of a distillery that has continued to support Israel and Judaism, and produces a range of kosher whiskies. Nevertheless, the council’s policy remains in place and shows no immediate signs of moving. Hence the retaliatory counter-boycott.

Which begs two questions. The first is: what impact, if any, will the retaliation have? Although Yeshiva’s standard order is indeed a significant one, in the grand scheme of things, it is little more than a drop in the ocean. Whether its impact will be felt strongly enough to prompt a swift reconsideration of the council’s policy is doubtful at best, a pipedream at worst.

Generally, boycotts are more symbolic than financial in their impact. Just as Yeshiva’s order will hardly be felt by Glenlivet, who manufacture millions of bottles of whisky every year, West Dunbartonshire’s boycott of Israeli made or produced goods will hardly make an impact on Israel’s Balance of Payments.

The second question is: does that render the action negligible?

Of course, it doesn’t. It was not the financial ramification for Israel that people got worked up about when the WDC made its decision. Rather, it was its anti-Semitic nature, and the threat of a domino effect spreading the boycott of Israeli goods across Scotland, the UK, Europe, or perhaps the world.

Similarly, although WDC may not feel the counter-boycott in its hip pocket, the mere fact of the action may be enough for it to hasten its reconsideration of the policy. Hopefully, when that day comes, they have the sense to abandon it.

 

Source:  http://galusaustralis.com/2011/10/5278/enter-the-counter-boycott/

Muslim Brotherhood Sells Low-Cost Military Meat to Gain Votes

From: Al-Masry Al-Youm  |  almasryalyoum.com  |  October 19, 2011

 

Photo: Staff

 

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party has erected outlets in popular neighborhoods to sell meat at discounted prices as part of its campaign for the upcoming parliamentary elections.

The Brotherhood has sold low-cost meat before ahead of elections. However, the novelty this time is that the group is selling meat produced on farms belonging to the armed forces.

To accompany its meat-retailing operations, the Islamist group uses the slogan of "We Work for the Good of Egypt," which it used in the last parliamentary elections.

Translated from the Arabic Edition

Source:  http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/506781

Memorial Defaced to Protest Israel-Hamas Prisoner Swap

by Sheera Frenkel, McClatchy Newspapers  |  MiamiHerald.com  |  October 14, 2011

 

Oren Ziv - An Israeli man uses his cell-phone to photograph the vandalized memorial site of assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, with the Hebrew graffiti reading "Price Tag", a slogan used by Jewish right wing extremists, in Tel Aviv, Israel, early Friday, Oct. 14, 2011. A police spokesman says a man splashed paint over Rabin's memorial and sprayed graffiti calling for his killer's release. The vandalism early Friday may be a response to a deal where Hamas will swap a captive Israeli soldier for the release of 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. Photo: AP/Oren Ziv

JERUSALEM — An Israeli man who lost five family members in the 2001 suicide bombing of a Jerusalem pizza restaurant on Friday defaced the memorial to Israel's assassinated Prime Minster Yitzhak Rabin as tension continued to mount here over next week's Israel-Hamas prisoner exchange.

Shvuel Schijveschuurder, 27, splashed white paint and sprayed graffiti on the memorial to Rabin, considered a founder of the Israeli peace movement before his assassination in 1995.

Police said Schijveschuurder was spurred to attack the memorial in central Tel Aviv by news that several Palestinians involved in the 2001 Sbarro pizza bombing would be among 1,027 Palestinian prisoners to be released next week in an exchange that would bring back to Israel Gilad Shalit, a soldier whom Palestinian militants captured in June 2006.

Schijveschuurder's parents and three siblings were among those killed in the restaurant.

Israelis remember the Sbarro bombing as one of the deadliest attacks of the second Palestinian uprising. Fifteen people were killed and 130 wounded when a suicide bomber exploded himself during a summer holiday afternoon.

The possibility that Palestinians involved in terrorist attacks might be free in exchange for Shalit has long been controversial. In 2009, Schijveschuurder joined families who'd lost loved ones in terrorist attacks in a protest in front of a tent that the Shalit family used to keep a vigil outside the residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Shalits were demanding that Netanyahu agree to such an exchange.

"The Shalits' struggle is legitimate," Schijveschuurder said then, "but if his release is contingent upon the freeing of prisoners, then the (Shalit) family should join us, the bereaved."

Earlier this week, when it was announced that the Palestinian prisoners would be released in exchange for Shalit, Schijveschuurder spoke to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

"There's a minority here that's forcing its opinion on the majority. They're just sitting there and laughing at us," he said.

Israeli news outlets reported that Schijveschuurder was disoriented and confused when security officers apprehended him. He told police "my family was killed," when they asked why he'd defaced the memorial.

"What he claims . . . the suspect himself carried out the incident in connection with the prisoner swap," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

Rosenfeld said Schijveschuurder was released and had been banned from entering Tel Aviv for two weeks, but didn't say whether he'd be charged.

The vandalism reflected the apprehension among some Israelis over freeing Palestinian prisoners involved in prior attacks. For many Israelis, the memorial to Rabin is a reminder of the end of more optimistic times, when the peace camp in Israel held a majority of the seats in parliament and espoused coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians.

Rabin was assassinated by Yigal Amir, a right-wing student who'd vocally protested Rabin's signing of the Oslo Accords with the late Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasser Arafat. Since then, the popularity of the peace movement has waned, and Rabin's Labor Party, once the majority of the 120-member parliament, now holds just eight seats.

The Labor Party condemned the attack on Rabin's memorial. "Rabin's assassination and the monument are a national symbol that serves as a constant reminder that extremism and violence endanger the state of Israel," the statement said.

"Even during these days of heightened emotions, such actions of hatred and extremism should be rejected with disgust," it said. "The law enforcement system must be firm and alert during these times to prevent serious acts of this kind."

Right-wing member of parliament Michael Ben-Ari, however, urged police to treat Schijveschuurder "gently," saying he understood the fury of terrorism survivors.

"The release of killers is apt to anarchy and not a lawful state. In anarchy boundaries are crossed, and even Yitzhak Rabin's gravestone has lost its glory and sanctity," Ben-Ari told Israel Radio.

In an interview with the Israeli news website Ynet in August, Schijveschuurder said Israel "must not return a single Palestinian prisoner sentenced to life in prison in Israel."

At least two of the prisoners expected to be released in the prisoner swap are connected to the Sbarro attack. Husam Badran, the former head of Hamas' military wing in the West Bank, coordinated the attack. Ahlam Tamimi was sentenced to 16 life terms for helping to pick the restaurant as a target and then driving the bombers there.

Arnold Roth, whose 15-year-old daughter, Malka, was killed in the Sbarro bombing, said he sympathized with the Shalit family wanting to get their son back.

But, he added, "We wish there were some way to convey to the working media how acutely painful and immoral is the egregious injustice and betrayal now being perpetrated upon the families of terror victims by this hostage release transaction."

Noam Shalit, the father of the captured Israeli soldier, said he felt sympathy for the families of those who'd lost loved ones in terrorist attacks. He added, however, that he wasn't a politician making decisions over prisoner names and numbers.

"I'm a father that wants my son back," Shalit said. "We just want to see him home."

 

Source:  http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/14/2454407/memorial-defaced-to-protest-israel.html