That there is a conflict existing between the Jewish state of Israel and its neighbors is a known fact throughout the world. From there, however, explaining the conflict further and exploring its roots requires a certain amount of nuance. Most casual observers may equate the conflict over religious differences between two monotheistic faiths or even a dispute over real estate. In large part they would be right. However, there is something more profound just under the surface. What fuels this incredible conflict is something far more tangible than religious disputes and closed borders. What gives the region the awesome force of power to take up arms for their cause generation after generation comes from the concept of ethnonationalism.

Ethnonationalism, or ethnic nationalism, may sound like the latest academic buzzword; but, in fact, ethnonationalism is hardly a new concept. It has been around since humans first developed the sense of kinship, language, tribalism, tradition, religion, cosmopolitans, nation states and so forth. It produces the sources for human spirit and enmity. Ethnonatioalism brought forth Manifest Destiny, the U.S. Civil War, WWI and WWII (which was fueled by extreme ethnonationalism in National Socialism ideology) and centuries long continental and world dominance by the nation states of Europe. The list could literally go on and on. It’s based off a narrow list of identities that fuels the societal belief behind a particular cause. It’s often strong, unwilling to compromise, and lasting. Those in the modern era that may find such an archaic premise troubling, intellectually and morally, haven’t paid attention to how the world has been shaped by ethnonationalism. Take America, our modern thinking polity often times belittles the ideas of ethnic nationalism or a particular national identity. We often pride ourselves as an “open” society where numerous ethnicities live in relative peace.

Social scientist go to great lengths to explain the enduring qualities of a culture, usually described as Western, that is inviting making it easier for different nationalities regardless of racial or religious origins to assimilate. They label this as liberal or civic nationalism. However, the fact that ethnonationalism already won out in North America over a century ago and continues to shape the identity of this country is rarely considered. Jerry Z. Muller (2008) says in his Foreign Affairs article, Us and Them, “The liberal view has competed with and often lost out to a different view, that of ethnonationalism. The core of ethnonatioinalist idea is that nations are defined by a shared heritage, which usually includes a common language, a common faith, and a common ethnic ancestry.” (p. 20) Over the course of a couple of centuries, migration by a disproportionate amount of white Protestants from Northern-Europe and England brought with them a culture, traditions, laws and language. They, and their subsequent ancestors (that even include us), tamed, created and shaped the U.S. and as a result, the competition between civilizations in North America has been over for nearly 200 years.

Through conquest and industry, ethnonationalism in America reigned supreme and it has been by those standards that others have assimilated and adopted. If the societal equilibrium were to shift away from this because of mass migration or, a separate demographic explosion, it’s not all that unlikely that competing cultures here in the U.S. could rekindle the flames of ethnonationalism.

Ethnonationalism is a strong force in Arab nations. Mainly because of their history, good and bad, and their religion. The modern Arab nationalist/extremist suffers from insecurities, and an inferiority complex. Added to that is a long laundry list of grievances and jealousies suffered by the West. While their history involves Defensive Developmentalism, government incompetence and loose and feuding confederations of tribes, all in which brought on a steady decline of social, military and political capital. Their nemesis in the West represents the antithesis to their situation. Europe’s high sense of identity and righteousness led to a global pursuit of riches, conquest, glory and dominance at the expense of the Middle East. When that episode in their history ran its course, American dominance picked up where Europe left off.

But to get to the point that allowed Western-European dominance and manipulation in the Middle East something binding and energetic was needed in the region. It came in the form of strong nation-states that were emerging in Western Europe. The competition between the competing powers in Europe during the 1500s – 1800s laid the way for increased economic and military expansion. Economic prosperity and ethnic nationalism requires literacy and education to promote communication and common beliefs. What developed from this was set of competing nation states that were very defined, educated and ethically charged, and the results were explosive. Consequently, the Middle East endured centuries of economic and political incursion through colonization by a Western civilization that far outpaced them in almost all aspects of life, and continues even today. Nothing in the daily lives of Arabs pass without a Western imprint on it. From music, to movies, commercial goods and technologies, all are a product of Western civilization. For many Arabs that even means the very country they live in was created or influenced by Western powers.

These are all things that most Arabs are aware of and resent. This, of course, plays heavily on their physic. And herein lies the reason for conflicts, ethnonationalism and the clash between West and Middle-east vs. Israel.If ethnonationalism gives reason to fight along borders or within a region, then hatred, distrust, jealousy and indifference with the Christian West give Arab-Muslims an overarching global cause.Samuel P. Huntington (1996) refers to this movement in his book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (p. 255). It is the overriding force in today’s global politics and particularly in the Middle East. All observable differences have to be considered and accepted as major contributors to the conflict such as different language, religion, culture, etc. However, Western dominance and Diktat runs an equally strong course through the life of the Arab world. In the view of most Arab-Muslim nationalist, Israel’s existence in former Palestine offers a daily reminder of Western dominance and the inadequacies of the Arab world. Jewish Israel is a spur literally in the side of Islam.

Considering Israel’s size and population great wealth, technology, and medical advances provide a standard of living that far exceeds most Arab countries.What’s more, it is the region’s premier military power and has been tested numerous times, in which resulted in embarrassing and disastrous defeats for Arab-Muslim nations. It’s no wonder that the creation and existence of Israel is first on the list of grievances.

Balfour Agreement, Zionism and Hezbollah

The ending of WWI brought the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and with it a great vacuum to fill. The British Empire still had important interest in the region. Palestine stood out strategically because it served as a land bridge from Egypt to India and offered security to the Suez Canal protecting the sea road to India and elsewhere throughout the Empire. Britain, under Lloyd George devised away to bring Palestine under its sphere and serve as an ally in the Mid East. He distrusted the Arabs in Palestine and possible German interference in the region; therefore, pushed the idea of mass Jewish resettlement in the ancient land. David Fromkin (1989) in his book A Peace to End All Peace supports the idea. “There were also those who were worried about allowing the Germans and Turks to retain control of an area whose vital importance had been underscored by the Prime Minister. The assistant secretaries of the War Cabinet , Leo Amery and Mark Sykes, worried that in the postwar world the Ottoman Empire might fall completely in the clutches of Germany. Were that to happen, the road to India would be in enemy hands – a threat the British Empire could avert only by ejecting the Turks and Germans, and taking into British hands the southern perimeter of the Ottoman domains.” (p. 276)

These factors plus Biblical romanticism, Woodrow Wilson’s high-minded and heavy-handed international views, and a growing surge of Zionism led to the Balfour agreement the prelude to the British mandate that created modern day Israel.Zionism was growing in importance in Europe as well as in America. It was fueled from Jewish suffering and centuries of persecution in just about whatever land they settled. Before the end of WWI, they began to be gripped by the idea returning to their ancestral homeland in Palestine as the “Land of Israel”. The idea that they could set up a Jewish government based on self-determination and structured on Western democracy, led to a nostalgic frenzy. Backed by the British government, fear of anti-Semitism and, later the holocaust, migration was encouraged to create a modern Jewish state.

With them they brought valuable trades in medicine, law, education, commerce and a Western sense of culture that previously was absent from the area. All of this was promptly greeted with a revolt from the indigenous Arabs of the region. The areas under control by Arabs were cleansed of Jews and the areas controlled by Jews forced Arabs out to the surrounding Arab countries. During the ensuing years, violence against Jews in Arab countries forced another round of migration to Israel. Jerry Muller (2008) writes about the impact in the region upon the establishment of the Jewish state and Jewish migration. “Some 750,000 Arabs left, primarily for the surrounding Arab countries, andthe remaining 150,000 constituted only about a sixth of the population of thenew Jewish State. In the years afterward, nationalist-inspired violence against Jews in Arab countries propelled almost all of the more than 500,000 Jews there to leave their lands of origin and immigrate to Israel.” (p. 29)

The seeds for ethnonationlsim and true clash between West and Islam were being planted.Hezbollah is a byproduct from the creation of the Jewish sate and Zionism. Though founded only in 1982 out of reaction from the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the group itself is hardly a new concept. Its history goes back as far as Arab-Muslim nationalism/Islamism does and can be seen as a microcosm of Arab/Islamic sentiment towards Israel and Western backing. The force itself acts as troops in the trench on the front line fighting against Western incursion and Zionism. Also, it gives an outlet for uneducated and unemployed young men to serve a cause greater than their lowly existence can muster. Furthermore, Hezbollah gives the Muslim world a chance to cheer and feel a source of pride as it repeatedly thumbs its nose at Israel and, by extension, engages in a proxy war with the West. Naturally, they receive high popularity in Southern Lebanon and support from regional powers like Syria and Iran.

Ethnonationalism, and all the defining and clashing identities that come with it contributed to the Hezbollah-Israeli conflict in 2006. However, something much greater and far reaching was at play.What actually is taking place is the Islamic world’s attempt to do away with the status-quo of Western interference in the region. Israel represents Western dominance and arrogance; therefore, the conflict is one entirely between the West and Islam, with Israel as the battlefront. The West, and America being its standard bearer, represents an image of unimaginable power and wealth — with God like powers that is able to topple governments as well as prop them up. With that comes an arrogance and a global swagger coupled with high minded policies of inclusion, tolerance and the persuasion of Western universal values and systems. While promoting these ideals, the West (mainly the U.S.) sometimes bomb and invade Muslim countries while at the same time preaching restraint, praising human rights, and acting as a global hawk for weapons proliferation. This creates resentment and assertiveness from the Muslim world and sets the path for extremism. The populace adopts an antagonistic attitude and governments begin to cooperate to undermine American-Western aims, as was the case with the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah conflict.

History is always present and the events of the past leaves the residual necessary to fuel the ongoing pattern of conflict between the West and Islam. There is a source of pride and romanticism that exist in the Muslim world. Muslim dominance was absolute in the Middle East and North Africa by the 8th century. The Arabic armies fought off Christian advances into the Holy Land and by the 13th century the Ottomans were a “world” power that caused Europe to quake. This era was the high-water mark of Muslim dominance and exertion in worldly affairs. From the 16th century on the West, powered by organized nation-states, gained every conceivable advantage over the Ottomans and other Empires in the Middle East.

By the 20th century almost the entire Middle East was under the sphere of Western control. Huntington (1996) writes, “By 1920 only four Muslim countries – Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Afghanistan – remained independent of some form of non-Muslim rule.”(p. 210). Considering all of this, that groups like Hezbollah draws support is hardly amazing. These Islamic groups play up Islamic romanticism and fuel the imagination of a time when Islam and its principles ran supreme. It glorifies an explosive culture, a growing population and draws out on the fundamental differences that exist between Christianity and Islam especially in a time when the American-Western way of life is so heavily promoted and seductive to Middle Eastern culture. It gives a growing population of youth a chance to be a part of a grand cause and an opportunity to advance socially.

More importantly, Islam has showed a propensity for violence and absolutism and with the Western creation of Jewish Israel sitting squarely and defiantly on their land only brings the volatile culture to a boil. Samuel Huntington (1996) states, “Intense antagonisms and violent conflicts are pervasive between local Muslim and non-Muslim peoples.” And again he states supported by a list of evidence. “In the early 1990s Muslims were engaged in more intergroup violence than were non-Muslims, and two-thirds to three-quarters of intercivilazational wars were between Muslims and non-Muslims” (pp. 256, 257, 258).

Conclusion

The ideological, cultural, religious and deeply historical differences between the Islamic/fundamentalist Middle East and the Christian/secular West are likely to continue. A growing younger Muslim population who tend to be more conservative and are likely to be more fundamental will only add to an assertive culture with an absolutist faith. Larger numbers of immigrants from the Middle East to Europe and America will further create antagonisms between the cultures as tensions and conflicts take place elsewhere. Islamic states like Iran who is showing the willingness to assert their power regionally may also prove to be a destabilizing influence.

Israel was created during an age of ethnonationalism and many of its citizens and leaders are still influenced by it. The country and its government was born from 20th century style of European nationalism and still carries with it the policies and sentiment that helped to shape it. Therefore, it is unlikely, at least in the foreseeable future, that Israeli will make any substantial concessions to Muslim demands. As the regional military power, backed by the U.S., Israel will continue to defend itself from threats and protect its interest in the region.

If the Middle East can become stabilized economically during this century, many of the disenchanted youth can find opportunity socially and through education, and not through radical Islamic groups. As opportunities increase and standard of living goes up so will the fortunes of the region. However, radicalism and resentment seems to be the only social/political outlet and current source for Arab-Muslim thinking.

References and Bibliography

Ferguson, N. (2006). The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West. New York: Penguin Books.

Fromkin, D. (1989).A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East. New York: Avon Books

Huntington, S. (1996). The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon & amp; and; Schuster.

Muller, J. (2008). The Clash of Peoples: Us and Them. Foreign Affairs, 87 (2) , 18-35.

As anyone familiar with my writing knows, I’m a hawk.  I believe in America as a world power that, when needed, should use its military might to protect the downtrodden, those suffering genocide, or to stop a country harboring terrorists.  I would support an invasion of Iran if all else failed.  However, I do think we need to truly exhaust all resources prior to bomb, bomb, bombing that country. After all, its citizenry is very pro-American.

But I’m not down with Holy War.  I’m not interested in casting out demons or witches, or putting a Pentacostal Evangelical who makes Bush look agnostic at the helm of this government.  It’s crazy, people.

Won’t this play right into the extremists’ hands?  Electing another evangelical, end-times Christian into office while in the midst of two wars in or near the Holy Land?  I don’t imagine that Israeli’s are feeling too comfortable with this choice either, though they may be as nervous about an Obama Presidency.

Personally, I think we’ve reached critical mass with this.  There’s nothing whatsoever wrong with religious people in Government.  It’s just that Palin is so over-the-top religious.  Zealots, even well-meaning ones, are dangerous when put in positions of power.

I am a committed atheist. I subscribe to Christopher Hitchens’ view that ‘God is not great’, though I would not agree with him that anyone who believes in religion ought to be distrusted. A common misunderstanding is that one must be religious in order to recognize the role religion can play in making society a better place in which to live. This is not true.

In a recent article in Standpoint magazine, the Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, complains that Christianity’s marginalisation in Britain has created a ‘moral and spiritual vacuum’, and warns radical Islam may fill this void. Nazir-Ali argues the increasing secularization since the 1960s is to blame as religious faith has been replaced by ‘endless self-indulgence’, of which I presume he is making reference to social evils, like the consumer driven society in which we now live.

Nazir-Ali argues Christianity helped create the British identity and values such as freedom, equality, the rule of law, and hospitality, and is still capable of standing for these. Yet he seems unwilling to recognize the failure of the Church of England in providing any form of defence for these values, to help halt the tide of the liberal counter-culture he warns against. To combat a ‘moral and spiritual vacuum’, moral and spiritual leadership is needed, which the Church of England has proved increasingly reluctant to provide in recent years. I would argue this has greatly contributed to the retreat of Christianity in Britain, over society’s addiction to the latest I-phone or widescreen television. Nazir-Ali recognizes the problem - the vacuum, yet he, like most Church leaders is unwilling to acknowledge the Church’s role in enlarging the vacuum, and making it easier for others – notably Islamists, to fill.

The Church of England is emblematic of many in Britain and the world today - in that they consciously endorse relativism. By this I mean they increasingly believe that they have no moral authority over those whom present a challenge to theirs, and society’s prevailing beliefs. Relativism universally prioritizes the oppressor over the victim. For example, in the 1990s the then Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey argued no one under 18 should be held in custody, even though it was argued by those with knowledge of the subject that it was often a necessity for the protection of the general public. Yet Carey’s tenure as Archbishop is now perceived as the good old days in contrast to his successor - Rowan Williams.

Williams’ liberal worldview has led him to, among other things, call for the age of criminal responsibility to be raised from 10 to 16, as well as apologising for bringing Christianity to the world. Yet it is his views on Islam which have caused most controversy. Williams has called for Brits to embrace Sharia law by saying its partial adoption into British law is ‘unavoidable’. With reference to al-Qaeda, he argued terrorists often have serious moral goals. Views like these have been typical of the Church’s response to the terrorist threat in Britain. When the head of the Church espouses such views, is it any wonder the secular ‘vacuum’ exists and is growing? It amounts to nothing more than pandering to the threats we face, in the hope that following the liberal, multicultural, relativistic sickness that plagues society, the Church’s reputation will somehow be enhanced, when it is this very sick society which must be cured of its terminal illness.

In Britain, after the London terror attacks, Christian leaders, instead of speaking out in defence of the victims of the atrocities, empathised with the community of the faith which carried out the attacks, and mistakenly denied they were religiously driven. Whilst Church leaders in the US sought to defend the Christian faith against a common enemy post 9/11, the Church of England crumbled after 7/7 when confronted with the terrorist threat. As one critic says, the Church has consistently ‘appeased the forces of secularism’ since. Given this, Nazir-Ali has no right to criticise increasing secularization, because the Church of England has done to little to discourage it.

What Church leaders, like many in society, appear unwilling to accept or believe however, is that the end point of relativism (and the nihilism their appeasement creates) is that the views of their opponents, i.e. Islamic radicals, ultimately begin to appear valuable, and are given equal respect to their own views. Ultimately, it is agreed the opposing views are superior to the prevailing ones, and that our opponents must defeat us, and we have no moral right to do anything about this, as there is no ‘right’ and ‘wrong’; no ‘true’ and ‘false’.

Clearly my own atheism leads me to reject any form of religious dogmatism. But the Church of England has now become so far removed from doing this, that to hear more dogmatic views on television from Church leaders is the preferable option. Yet their rhetoric need not be dogmatic, as they would be merely representing those citizens who wanted a future where freedom, equality and respect for the rule of law, were protected, the very values Nazir-Ali argues Christianity helped create. To be silent and watch while these established values are slowly eroded would be a fatal mistake. Yet it is this which we see occurring at the present time.

This is what I mean when I say religion can play a role in making society a better place, for both the religious and non-religious. The Church of England can encourage the religious and the rest of society to stand up to extremism by speaking out for what they believe in. Leaders must stand strong in the face of relativism, liberalism and often multiculturalism, and refuse the temptation to play the demagogue. The Church needs courageous leaders who are willing to make a stand and express their beliefs with moral clarity and absolutism. Do this, and the Church would receive far more respect, and the size of the ‘vacuum’ Nazir-Ali rightly warns against would be reduced, as would the likelihood of radical Islam filling the gap. The outcome of which being something Hitchens would certainly argue beneficial.

The Sun, which in Britain is loosely categorised as a national newspaper, last week “exposed” a pole dancer called Yasmin as the daughter of the Muslim cleric and former leader of Hizb ut Tahrir and Al Mujahiroun, Omar Bakri Mohammed.  She doesn’t see much of daddy these days - he’s stuck in Lebanon because the British government won’t let him come back - and anyway they don’t get on.  She’s a single mum who ran out on an arranged marriage, and what with the pole dancing and tattoos, she’s not exactly a stereotypical Muslim, yet she’s apparently fasting, and she doesn’t eat pork.

David T at Harry’s Place cites Yasmin as an example of how…

In a free and pluralist society, an awful lot of people move backwards and forward between different iterations of their identity. One generation is not like the next.

The inference we are supposed to draw is that Muslims in western society (in this context, particularly British society), are quite capable of integration and assimilation into the wider community.  This is what other groups have done down the centuries - is there any reason to suppose that Muslims should be any different?

All of this has implications for the proposition, advanced by various commentators, including Mark Steyn, that Europe is undergoing a process of Islamification driven by demographic change: catastrophically declining birth rates in Western Europe - particularly among the indigenous population, contrasting with much higher birthrates among Muslim communities (many of whom are immigrants or the children or grandchildren of immigrants), and combining to deliver a very rapid demographic shift in favour of a very greatly increased Muslim population.

David T lists three premises which seek to characterise, but largely misrepresent, this theory:

How is this going to happen?

• First of all, the birth rates of Muslims will outstrip those of non-Muslims indefinitely.
• Secondly, all Muslims will demand, and subject themselves to Sharia.
• Thirdly, people will convert to Islam, but nobody will leave Islam.

Each of those premises is dubious.

The first premise is indeed false (or most probably false).  The birthrates in Muslim communities are already falling and will probably match those of the majority community within a couple of generations.  However, that still gives a fair amount of time for fairly rapid growth in the Muslim community as a proportion of the total population.

The second proposition is equally false.  The degree of adherence to Shari’a law is variable within and across Islamic countries - at least insofar as the citizens of these countries have any choice in the matter.

The third proposition is the most interesting and the most significant.  Currently approximately three percent of the British population is Muslim.  Current demographic trends would suggest that this proportion will increase to somewhere between ten and fifteen percent within the next fifty years or so, depending on the impact of additional immigration.  The other unknown factor is what the effect of conversion will be.

Walking through some of the great cities of Northern England, as I do reasonably frequently, it is striking these days not that so many women are wearing hijab, but that so many of the faces under the hijab are white.  For Islam is not an Arab religion, nor is it an Asian religion or a “Black” religion.  Islam is a religion with a global mission and, like Christianity, it assumes a global mandate.  The call to Islam is being heard and accepted by an increasing number of the ethnic majority in British society.

The big questions here are “Why?” and “How strong will this trend become?”.  The why is reasonably straightforward.  There are several reasons why someone might find Islam an attractive proposition as a religion.

Firstly (and most destructively), many on the far left of politics, having discovered that their old socialist gods are made of clay, have discovered political Islamism as an alternative outlet for their totalitarian predilections.  The ironically-named Respect Coalition led by George Galloway MP was founded as a marriage-made-in-Hell between the Trotskyite Socialist Workers’ Party, a bunch of Galloway groupies and another group of Islamists.  Although Respect has recently collapsed (as the SWP control-freaks found riding the tiger of Islamism rather too draining of their revolutionary energy), the ideological convergence has yet to run out of steam.  The (largely unrequited) love affair that many leftists have with Hamas and Hezbollah, and the continuing and alarming rise of anti-Semitism within the mainstream left are both disturbing indications of this.

Secondly, mainstream Christianity in Britain has largely given up the ghost.  The Church of England is largely paralysed by squabbles over gay rights and women bishops.  Other churches are in catastrophic decline.  Meanwhile the mosques are heaving.  Moreover, the government, the political establishment and the media are willing to give Islam an easy ride whereas Christianity, its beliefs and institutions are simply regarded as an easy target.

For example, back in 2005 the BBC televised a performance of Jerry Springer - The Opera, a comedy show which included, among other things, a representation of Jesus in a nappy.   Christian activists in the UK rarely get outraged about anything, but in this case the result was pandemonium, driven not least by the suspicion that if it had been Mohammed in a nappy then the Jerry Springer Opera would have got nowhere near a television screen, or indeed a stage. Compare and contrast the uproar among the so-called liberal elites about the publication of certain Danish cartoons…

Sooner or later, the logic of this situation will begin to sink in.  Muslims get some respect for their beliefs (even if this respect derives to no small extent from fear).  Christians get none and therefore regularly get a kicking - in fact sometimes they get the kicking which would otherwise be given to Muslims - the gay police association produced a pamphlet denouncing religious hate crimes against gay people.  The booklet had a picture of the Bible on the cover.  What happens when those of a traditional frame of mind see Muslims articulating their beliefs and worldview (more or less), and getting respect for it, while the Christian churches spend all their time in pointless handwringing and getting a regular pasting for their pains?  Perhaps some of those pretty parish churches in the shires will be mosques in a few decades time.

Thirdly, we live in a time of unprecedented social breakdown.  The family as an institution is in real trouble.  In some council housing estates fathers are an endangered species.  Many young people are rootless, without hope or prospects, without direction or even much of an education.  Islam offers a structure to life, a goal for the future, membership in an extended family and community.  Particularly when so much of what passes for Christianity seems to have lost the plot, would it really be a surprise to see these people turn to Islam as a solution in their lives?

The fourth part of “Why?” addresses the second question.  How strong will this trend become?  We can’t at this stage know.  Western societies generally have lost their sense of direction.  There is no longer much of a sense that we believe in the superiority or even of the worth of the liberal democracies for which our grandparents’ generation had to shed blood.  We won’t stand up for freedom and human rights abroad.  When our governments try to free an ancient and noble people from an appalling dictatorship, millions of numbskulls take to the streets to chant “Not in my name!”  The protagonists of the culture wars have sought to erase all memory of what our societies stand for - and in its place all we have is a blank page - tabula rasa - anything goes.  The point is that the page can’t remain blank forever.  Nature abhors a vacuum.  If we no longer know what we are for, then somebody else will step in who does.

The only question is when.  What will the tipping point be?  What will be the trigger?  A major environmental disaster?  Another war?  A collapse of the global financial system perhaps…

Aside from legitimacy and control the new millennium is sweetly crashing against the world’s despotries - horrid and benign and stirring things up faster than wearing a thong to Church.

Like in Saudiland. Corrupt royalty which draw the nation’s wealth right out of the ground (via devices designed, developed and deployed by daemonic foreign women worshippers) royal cats owe their people nothing. No services or benefits.

Thanks to divine right Kings and nearly 5K Princes enjoy the plundering of natural resources while their own people suffer under the weight of unfree, unfun and nigh unhinged mohammedist rule.

Thanks to really cool tech (created by Great Satan - natch!) inmates or citizens of Saudiland can cable up nearly anything on TV to satiate desires subtle and gross.

Baywatch, American Idol - tons of classic and au currant satellite TV stuff (probably a few laffy taffy channels too) make their way straight into the living rooms (and , uh, bedrooms?) of Saudilanders.

And that’s a prob. How can the religious police and their cleric commanders keep young people on the path to whatever, when they can go home, tune in and soak up wicked Western ways via Viacom.

Easy! Issue a fatwah.

“A fatwa is issued by a recognized religious authority in Islam. But
since there is no hierarchical priesthood or anything of the sort in Islam, a fatwa is not necessarily “binding” on the faithful.

The people who pronounce these rulings are supposed to be
knowledgable, and base their rulings in knowledge and wisdom. They need to supply the evidence from Islamic sources for their opinions, and it is not uncommon for scholars to come to different conclusions regarding the same issue.”

Fatwahs are awesome - whenever one is issued, fatwah fans can go on a bloody rampage, killing, looting, jihad, raising pure heck - as long as the fatwah is appealing binding.

Like in Saudiland. Wicked TV stuff (broadcast from Gulf States) is a matter of concern for the Ministry of Virtue and Vice Prevention.

Saudi State Media (alas, there is no other type in Saudiland) has a really interesting show on shortwave radio called “Light in the Path”.

Featuring Saudi Arabia’s Chief Witchfinder General Judge - Sheik Saleh al-Lihedan.

A while back, this ancient hysteric cleric called for a fatwa against Great Satan in Iraq. Essentially Surge bait - suckering in hundreds of silly Saudi jihadis that were routinely incarcerated, incinerated or simply shot to pieces and left on the side of the road for a stranger to bury.

Listeners can call in and ask questions and a certain call really kicked things up a notch RE: Fatwa fallacy.

Asking about unmohammedist TV shows during Ramadan, Preacher Command nearly blew a fuse!

“I want to advise the owners of these channels, who broadcast calls
for such indecency and impudence and I warn them of the consequences. What does the owner of these networks think, when he provides seduction, obscenity and vulgarity?

Those calling for corrupt beliefs, certainly it’s permissible to
kill them. Those calling for sedition, those who are able to prevent it but
don’t, it is permissible to kill them.”

Whoa! Hold up! Obviously the 80 yo preacher judge guy - had no clue that State Media in Saudiland is owned by the Royal family! Kill the king?!

Faster than one could say “Don’t touch that dial - We’ll be right back” Royal family deployed a cadre of clerics that disputed the Preacher Judge in chief’s fatwa.

And the most convincing weapon they used could eventually be turned against a ton of Saudiland’s control mechanisms like the secret police, the religious police, the fashion posse and the unfun brigades.

Freedom of choice.

Counter cleric Sheik Hazim Awad in liberated and starting to function democratic Iraq, points out such a threatwah is suspect, retarded and ultimately flawed.

‘Our religion prevents Muslims from watching films that provide
seduction, obscenity and vulgarity - the real Muslim can just cancel these channels’

This is significant.

The burden for discouraging this questionable unmohammedist eye candy and witchcraft (which is a very nice way of nom de guerring Baby Jesus, Xianity and concepts like ‘who so ever will’), is not on the State or the mosque - but individual will!

Those remotes can change channels and turn off TV’s.

Free choice as a raison d etre could easily be applied to any control mechs, techs, fatwahs, preachers, militias - even corrupt, kleptocratic, autocratic despotic tyranny monarchies.

The regional reach of the most likely soon to be retired Witchfingerer General Shiek is interesting. Counter clerical cussing from Iraq, Jordan, Palestine and the Gulf States reveal that alien concepts from the wild wacky wicked West - like free choice, fun and prepping for this life instead of racing to the next are taking hold.

Great Satan brought more to the ME than ballots, M 16’s and Surge.

“TV Police” all original, fake, doctored up pic inspired by the sweet crunchy pop rock of Cheap Trick from their CD “Dream Police”

~cross-posted at Great Satan’s Girlfriend

By Andrew L. Jaffee, netwmd.com

All for fear of offending Muslims, we have “a quiet wave of self-censorship and cultural cowardice sweeping Western art circles:” A novel (The Jewel of Medina by Sherry Jones) is pulled before it even got published; the “BBC has dropped a big-budget docu-drama, The London Bombers;” “the BBC hospital soap Casualty chang[ed] Muslim terrorists into animal rights activists;” and, the “Royal Court Theatre cancel[ed] an adaptation of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata.” To this sorry list, I would add all the U.S. and Canadian newspapers who refused to publish the Danish Mohammad cartoons, because the editors were cowering under their desks. I turn readers’ attention to an op-ed by Mick Hume for the Sunday Times

Just the impassioned prose of the author — the sheer quality — should be enough to scream “WAKE-UP CALL” to the West:

… The threat to freedom here does not come from a few Islamic radicals, but from the invertebrate liberals of the cultural establishment who have so lost faith in themselves that they will surrender their freedoms before anybody starts a fight. The mere suggestion of causing offence to some mob of imagined stereotypes is enough to have them scurrying for a bomb shelter, their creative imaginations blowing up small protests into the threat of a big culture war. Of course, such pre-emptive grovelling only encourages any zealot with a blog to demand even more censorship.

Who needs book burners if “offensive” books are not allowed to be published in the first place? Why bother to protest against provocative plays if the theatres will turn the lights off for you beforehand? There is no need even for a polite exchange on Points of View if the controversial programmes never get made.

The quality or lack of it in the self-censored works is not the issue here. That associate professor from Texas condemned the novel about Muhammad’s wife as “soft porn”. But so what if it was? Free expression should mean freedom for what others see as filth, too. If there are artists childishly causing offence for its own sake, feel free to ignore them, but not to gag them.

Pre-emptive grovelling, encouraged from the top down by our illiberal authorities, is bad for the arts and for society. The arts can only flourish in a climate of cultural anarchy rather than compulsion and conformity. The attempt to limit what can be said must have a chilling effect, encouraging other writers and artists to pull in their horns.

Such self-censorship is also dangerous for those who don’t much care about high culture. There is indeed a lesson from the Satanic Verses controversy, but not the one often cited. The dominant response to that clash of cultures was to try to bury it beneath worthy multicultural claptrap about celebrating difference. After more than 15 years of such attempts to suppress honest debate, the tensions festering beneath the surface exploded on the London transport system. As one female Muslim writer critical of the decision not to publish The Jewel of Medina says: “The series of events that torpedoed this novel are a window into how quickly fear stunts intelligent discourse about the Muslim world.” …

CALIFORNIA - A moment before beginning his dinner, Masab, son of West Bank Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef, glances at the friend who has accompanied him to the restaurant where we met. They whisper a few words and then say grace, thanking God and Jesus for putting food on their plates.

It takes a few seconds to digest this sight: The son of a Hamas MP who is also the most popular figure in that extremist Islamic organization in the West Bank, a young man who assisted his father for years in his political activities, has become a rank-and-file Christian. A few seconds later, he is savoring his meal, explaining that he hasn’t been eating much recently because of financial problems. During the past week he has been living with the friend, a Christian, of course, whom he met at church. “Without him,” he says, “I would have become homeless.”

The younger Yousef is well aware of the implications of this interview, and how it will likely offend his family, as well as of the slim chance that he will be able to return to Ramallah one day. But apparently he is on a crusade of his own. “I know that I’m endangering my life and am even liable to lose my father, but I hope that he’ll understand this and that God will give him and my family the patience and willingness to open their eyes to Jesus and to Christianity. Maybe one day I’ll be able to return to Palestine and to Ramallah together with Jesus, in the Kingdom of God.”

	Advertisement

“I’m now called Joseph,” he says at the outset. A few seconds earlier he had received me with greetings in Arabic: “Ahalan wasahalan. I’m very excited that you’re here,” he said, switching to a few words in Hebrew: “Shalom, ma nishma [What's up]?” he laughed.

We met for the first time about four years ago, outside the military prison at the Ofer Camp, only about half a kilometer from the family home in the town of Bitunia, near Ramallah. His father, not a member of parliament at the time, was one of the founders of Hamas in the West Bank and one of the prisoners’ leaders; he was supposed to be released after several years’ imprisonment for membership in the organization. In order to arrange an interview with Sheikh Hassan Yousef (Abu Masab), I had to speak to his eldest son, Masab, who was expected to take an active part in running his father’s political affairs in the future. When I saw him in the prison parking lot I was surprised by his unusual appearance, which deviated from the dress code expected of relatives of senior Hamas leaders. Without a beard or even a goatee, he sported a Western haircut, jeans and a motorcyclist’s leather jacket. But the media uproar that accompanied his father’s appearance made me forget his “improper” appearance.

Since then, the young man has hardly changed. He is 30 years old and has lost several kilos (”because I don’t eat much”), his hair is short, he is suntanned and looks like just another young Israeli in California. Most of the interview is conducted in English, mostly so that his friend Ryan will understand.

“As a child I grew up in a very religious family, on the principle of hatred of Israelis. The first time I encountered them was at about the age of 10, when soldiers entered our home and arrested my father. Until then I had never been separated from him. We didn’t know anything about the circumstances of his arrest. His membership in Hamas was a secret matter, and we certainly didn’t think he was one of its founders. I didn’t understand anything about politics or religion. I only knew that the Israeli army had arrested my father repeatedly, and for me he was everything: a good, loving man who would do anything for me. He took care of us, bought us gifts, gave of himself, whereas the soldiers entered our house and took him away from me. In high school I studied sharia, Islamic law. In 1996, when I was only 18, I was arrested by the Israel Defense Forces because I was the head of the Islamic Society in my high school. It’s a kind of youth movement of the organization. And my process of awakening began.”

What happened?

Masab-Joseph: “Until then I knew Hamas through my father, who lived a very modest and loving life. At first I really admired the organization, mainly because I admired my father so much. But during the 16 months I spent in prison I was exposed to the true face of Hamas. It’s a negative organization. As simple as that. A fundamentally bad organization. I sat in Megiddo Prison and suddenly I understood who the real Hamas was. Their leaders in prison received better conditions, such as the best food, as well as more family visits and towels for the shower. These people have no morals, they have no integrity. But they aren’t as stupid as Fatah, which steals in broad daylight in front of everyone and is immediately suspected of corruption. [Hamas people] receive money in dishonest ways, invest it in secret places, and outwardly maintain a simple lifestyle. Sooner or later they will use this money and screw the people.

“Nobody knows them and how they operate as well as I do. For example, I remember how the family of Saleh Talahmeh, a member of the military arm of Hamas, who was assassinated by Israel, was forced to beg for financial assistance because they were left with nothing after his death. The Hamas leadership abandoned them as well as the families of other shaheeds [martyrs], while the senior members of the organization abroad wasted tens of thousand of dollars a month only on security for themselves.”

For example?

“Even some of the current leaders of Hamas were involved in the past in the ’security arm’ in the prisons, so that he is among those responsible for these acts. They were suspicious of prisoners who spent too much time in the bathroom, even if it was only an upset stomach. They suspected that the prisoner was transferring information or alternatively having sexual relations with other men. A homosexual. The gays were immediately suspected of collaboration. Then I understood that not everyone in Hamas is like my father. He’s a nice, friendly man. But I discovered how evil his colleagues are. After my release I lost the faith I had in those who ostensibly represented Islam.”

Were you tortured?

“No. I enjoyed immunity because of my father’s status.”

‘Jesus loves me’

Masab-Joseph has five brothers and two sisters. He is in regular contact with them and keeps them informed of his situation. However, until recently he refrained from telling his family that he had converted to Christianity, and at the time of this interview his father the sheikh still did not know that his son had converted. And in spite of the secrecy surrounding his conversion, sometimes he seems like a veteran missionary who is trying to get entire communities to change.

“You’ll see, this interview will open many people’s eyes, it will shake Islam from the roots, and I’m not exaggerating. What other case do you know where a son of a Hamas leader, who was raised on the tenets of extremist Islam, comes out against it? Although I was never a terrorist, I was a part of them, surrounded by them all the time.”

How were you exposed to Christianity?

“It began about eight years ago. I was in Jerusalem and I received an invitation to come and hear about Christianity. Out of curiosity I went. I was very enthusiastic about what I heard. I began to read the Bible every day and I continued with religion lessons. I did it in secret, of course. I used to travel to the Ramallah hills, to places like the Al Tira neighborhood, and to sit there quietly with the amazing landscape and read the Bible. A verse like “Love thine enemy” had a great influence on me. At this stage I was still a Muslim and I thought that I would remain one. But every day I saw the terrible things done in the name of religion by those who considered themselves ‘great believers.’ I studied Islam more thoroughly and found no answers there. I reexamined the Koran and the principals of the faith and found how it is mistaken and misleading. The Muslims borrowed rituals and traditions from all the surrounding religions.”

But they all did that.

He doesn’t respond to this comment directly. “I feel that Christianity has several aspects. It’s not only a religion but a faith. I now see God through Jesus and can tell about him for days on end, whereas the Muslims won’t be able to say anything about God. I consider Islam a big lie. The people who supposedly represent the religion admired Mohammed more than God, killed innocent people in the name of Islam, beat their wives and don’t have any idea what God is. I have no doubt that they’ll go to Hell. I have a message for them: There is only one way to Paradise - the way of Jesus who sacrificed himself on the cross for all of us.”

Four years ago, he decided to convert. He says that nobody in his family knew about it. “Only those Christians with whom I met and spent time knew about my decision. For years I helped my father, the Hamas leader, and he didn’t know that I had converted, only that I had Christian friends.”

I remember how you dressed at the time. How were you accepted in Hamas?

“You have to understand, I was never one of them. Although I helped my father and accompanied him, I was always opposed to the use of terror. Hamas members didn’t like me. I didn’t come to pray in the mosques, I hung around with strangers. They didn’t like my leather jacket or even my jeans. They considered it going astray. But I helped my father and conducted his affairs because he’s my father, not because he’s a leader in Hamas. I’m not a Hamas activist who converted to Christianity. That’s not the story. I wanted to help my father understand that harming innocent people is forbidden and through him perhaps to change other people’s thinking.”

What is Hamas’ attitude toward Christians? What is your father’s attitude?

“When I was with my father, I in effect pushed a moderate Hamas leader into making logical decisions, such as stopping the attacks and establishing two states alongside one another. I felt responsible. It was better for me to be there rather than a gang of fools who would poison his mind. I tried to understand those people, their thoughts, in order to change them from inside by means of a strong person like my father, who admitted to me in the past that he does not support suicide attacks. He thinks that harming innocent people gives the organization a bad name. The sheikh once said to me that when he sees an insect outside the house he is careful not to harm it, ’so what can I say about harming civilians?’

“But within Hamas there were other leaders, mainly from the Gaza Strip and Damascus, who thought they had to continue with suicide attacks as an effective means of achieving their aims. The problem was that they were stronger than my father in terms of their status in the organization. What helped stop the attacks in the final analysis was Israel’s attacks against the Hamas leaders.”

How involved was your father in making decisions in Hamas?

“He had no connection to the military arm, but they always consulted him about strategic decisions. The Hamas leadership did not make decisions only according to the opinion of the organization leaders in Syria or Gaza. However, you have to remember that the Hamas leadership in Damascus was in control of the organization’s money. Therefore it had the most influence on organization policy. They were also the only ones who were not restricted in contacting one another, as opposed to the leaderships in the West Bank and Gaza, so that they also served as go-betweens among all the groups in Hamas. And incidentally, although they now claim that the revolution in Gaza was not planned, I can tell you from clear knowledge that a year earlier, in the summer of 2006, they spoke among themselves to the effect that if the tension with Fatah continued, they intended to take control of the Strip.”

Regards to Israel

Masab-Joseph listens to singer Eyal Golan in his free time. “I’ve been listening to his music for 10 years,” he says. “I like his voice but don’t always understand the words.” However, his favorite singer is Leonard Cohen. “He’s a Canadian Jew,” he explains.

He has a bachelor’s degree in geography and history from the Al-Quds Open University in Ramallah, but in the United States he has difficulty finding work. He has plenty of free time, and participates in religion lessons and prayers in the church at least once a week. Every few days he plays football with friends from the church, and surfing is a must. This is California, after all.

When he was working in his father’s office, he encountered Hamas leaders as well as members of the Palestinian and Israeli security services and Israeli journalists, who often spoke with the sheikh. He does not conceal the fact that he supported contact with the Israeli media and has almost warm feelings for Israel. “Send regards to Israel, I miss it.”

You miss Israel?

“I respect Israel and admire it as a country. I’m opposed to a policy of killing civilians, or using them as a means to an end, and I understand that Israel has a right to defend itself. The Palestinians, if they don’t have an enemy to fight, will fight each other. In about 20 years from now you’ll remember what I’m telling you, the conflict will be among various groups within Hamas. They’re already beginning to quarrel over control of the money.”

He does not conceal his abhorrence of everything representing the human surroundings in which he grew up: the nation, the religion, the organization.

“You Jews should be aware: You will never, but never have peace with Hamas. Islam, as the ideology that guides them, will not allow them to achieve a peace agreement with the Jews. They believe that tradition says that the Prophet Mohammed fought against the Jews and that therefore they must continue to fight them to the death. They have to take revenge against anyone who did not agree to accept the Prophet Mohammed, like the Jews who are seen in the Koran as monkeys and the sons of pigs. They speak in terms of historical rights that were taken from them. In the view of Hamas, peace with Israel contradicts sharia and the Koran, and the Jews have no right to remain in Palestine.”

Is that the justification for the suicide attacks?

“More than that. An entire society sanctifies death and the suicide terrorists. In Palestinian culture a suicide terrorist becomes a hero, a martyr. Sheikhs tell their students about the ‘heroism of the shaheeds’ and that causes the young people to imitate the suicide bombers, in order to achieve glory. I’ll give you an example. I once met a young man named Dia Tawil. He was a quiet boy, an outstanding student. Not a Muslim extremist and not radical in his ideas against the Israelis. I never heard extreme statements from him. He didn’t even come from a religious family: His father was a communist and his sister was a journalist who didn’t wear a head covering. But Bilal Barghouti [one of the heads of the military arm of Hamas in the West Bank] didn’t need more than a few months to convince him to become a suicide terrorist.” (Tawil, 19, blew himself up in March 2001 next to a bus at the French Hill junction in Jerusalem; 31 people were wounded.)

“Do you know that Hamas was the first to use the weapon of suicide bombers against civilian targets?” he continues. “They are blind and ignorant. It’s true, there are good and bad people everywhere, but Hamas supporters don’t understand that they are led by a wicked and cruel group that brainwashes the children and gets them to believe that if they carry out a suicide attack they’ll get to Paradise. But no suicide bomber will find himself there and no virgins are waiting for them after they have carried out an attack. They have to understand that Islam was created by people and not by God.”

Were there good people in Hamas?

“In my eyes there were all cruel, ugly inside. But I think that Mahmoud Zahar [one of the leaders of Hamas in Gaza] is one of the worst.”

And yet, in spite of the criticism of the place he left, California can’t make the longings disappear. “I miss Ramallah,” he says. “People with an open mind. I liked to walk around among the buildings, the restaurants, the people, to feel the night life. I have many friends there whom I would like to see and I don’t know whether I’ll be able to do that at all. I mainly miss my mother, my brothers and sisters, but I know that it will be very difficult for me to return to Ramallah soon.”

Cloudy future

In spite of his financial distress, the severance from his family and the loneliness, during the entire interview he sounded determined and sure of himself. “I hope that I’ll succeed one day in becoming a writer, in order to write about my personal story and about the Middle East conflict. But at the moment, at least, my ambitions are only to find work, a place to live. I have no money, I have no apartment. I was about to become one of those homeless people, but people from the church are helping me. I’m dependent on them.”

Why did you leave? After all, there are other Christians in Ramallah.

“I left behind a great deal of property in Ramallah in order to achieve true freedom. I wanted to get to quiet surroundings that would help me to open the eyes of the Muslims and reveal the truth to them about their religion and about Christianity, to take them out of the darkness and the prison of Islam. In that way they’ll have an opportunity to correct their mistakes, to become better people and to bring a chance for peace in the Middle East. I don’t give Islam a chance to survive for more than 25 years. In the past they scared people and in that way they prevented anti-religious publicity, but today, in the modern age, they won’t be able to hide the truth any longer.”

At the moment he doesn’t have a partner, but he is relying on help from above on this matter, too. “I hope that someday God will give the opportunity to meet the right one. She will have to be a believing Christian, and if she’s a Jew who converted, even better.”

There are things that Masab-Joseph is still afraid to talk about. In the middle of the meeting he wanted us to go outside the restaurant in order to make sure that I wasn’t carrying listening or recording devices.

“Many people will hate me for this interview, but I’m telling them that I love all of them, even those who hate me. I invite all the people, including the terrorists among them, to open their hearts and believe. Now I’m trying to establish an international organization for young people that will teach about Christianity, love and peace in the territories, too. I would like to teach the young people how to love and forgive, because that’s the only way the two nations can overcome the mistakes of the past and live in peace.”

Just remember, these POS’s aren’t freedom fighters, and they don’t represent the Afghani people…

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) — At least 24 people were killed on Sunday in a suicide attack at a crowded bazaar in southern Afghanistan, police said, raising an earlier toll.

“Some people died in the hospital. We have now 20 civilians and four police officers killed,” said Juma Gul Hemat, the police chief of Uruzgan province.

“In the hospital we have 27 people wounded,” he said.

The suicide attacker rammed a bomb-filled vehicle into a police van in the centre of a busy bazaar in the Deh Rawood area, about 400 kilometres (250 miles) southwest of the capital Kabul.

Many of the casualties were shopkeepers, witnesses said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but the insurgent Taliban movement has been behind a wave of such blasts across Afghanistan.

You might recollect the Danish cartoons that got the jihadists all crazy, and sparked a world-wide “Lego-burning” phenomenon. Well, I’m publishing them out of principle.

America has self-censored itself plenty, along with the rest of the world, because members of Islam are offended by cartoons. Muslims burn American and Israeli flags, and extremists incite violence and terror on the civilized world, yet the Islamic world takes offense when a Danish cartoonist draws their Prophet. They should take more offense when a suicide bomber blows himself up in the name of their religion, their prophet, and their Allah.

Can anything even come remotely close to this preposterous? I don’t mean to bash Islam–though I guess, actually, yes I do mean to bash Islam, in a sense. I mean to bash Islamism, which is the attempt by Orthodox Muslims and radicals to bring about a global Caliphate.

I’m not big on organized religion in the first place. Radical Christians scare me. There are plenty of moderate Christians, though, who can shrug off any satire of their religion. They may not like it, but they can take it with a grain of salt.

They aren’t too concerned that Jesus will be offended, using the logic that he is probably above such things, you know, being a divine entity and all….

Can’t You Take a Joke?

Muslims are so prickly when it comes to Muhammad that they threatened to behead a school teacher when she lets her class name a Teddy Bear after him. Half the Muslim world is named Muhammad but if you name a toy after the Prophet, that is obviously a crime against Allah, and punishable by lashings, imprisonment, and death.

Like Jesus, I’m pretty sure the Prophet himself wouldn’t have been too concerned with a stuffed animal sharing his name. He might have even thought of it as cute. What’s cuter than a Teddy Bear named after a Prophet? And after all, when Mr. Muhammad showed up on the Mesopotamian scene he came as a reformer.

Muslims today seem to forget this, using the inherent Orthodoxy of Islam, and the Prophet’s writings as a means to subjugate the masses, elicit violence, and justify all sorts of violence against women, members of other faiths, and innocents across the globe. You can even use the Koran to justify “wiping Israel off the map” if you try hard enough.

This is not to say that all Muslims are bad. Far from it. Many are educated and moderate.

But “many” here equates to a minority–at least in terms of the ripple effect that Islamism is having on the world, if not in actual numbers. Moderation is not accepted in this religion. Adherence to extremism, salafism, and blind orthodoxy are the status quo. Perhaps this isn’t the religion itself; perhaps Islam is undergoing its own Dark Ages.

Nevertheless, like the Catholic Crusades, the Islamism of today seeks to bring about the institution of Sharia, or Islamic Law, across the globe.

(more…)

~by Robin Simcox

[TO JOIN THE BLOGBURST CLICK HERE]

Events are currently unfolding in Britain which will almost certainly not penetrate any international newsreels (or any in the UK for that matter), but the importance of which transcends the geographical boundaries of the British Isles. It concerns an organisation known as the British Muslim Initiative (BMI).

The BMI have been accused of being a front group for terrorist organisation Hamas. BMI President Mohammad Sawalha was formerly the head of the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), the British wing of the Muslim Brotherhood (of whom Hamas are the Palestinian wing). He has been accused by the BBC in 2006 of being a key political and military strategist for Hamas, and one of BMI’s senior members, Azzam Tamimi, has declared his wish to become a suicide bomber in Palestine.

On 29th June, a rally celebrating Israel’s 60th birthday was held in London’s Trafalgar Square. In response, Sawalha gave an interview in Arabic to the al-Jazeera news channel. This interview was translated by the UK blog Harry’s Place, which describes itself as “an open forum for the democratic, secular, anti-fascist, liberal, anti-totalitarian left”. Their translation of al-Jazeera’s initial transcript showed Sawahla commenting that “We, the Arab and Islamic community, gather here today to express our resentment at the celebrations by the Jewish community and the evil/noxious Jew in Britain”.

Harry’s Place dutifully reported its findings, which is where the controversy begins.

Al-Jazeera physically changed its report, with the word “?????? ” (translated as a variant of “evil”) replaced with “?????? ” (“lobby”). Harry’s Place then received a letter from BMI saying they had “inexplicably grossly mistranslated [Sawalha’s] reference to the Jewish ‘Lobby’” and that unless an immediate apology was issued, they would pursue the matter legally. An al-Jazeera reporter explained that he had made a mistake in his initial report, and Sawalha had, indeed, referred to the “Jewish Lobby”. Al-Jazeera, then, had made the error; Harry’s Place were simply reporting the translation as it originally appeared.

(more…)

Al Qaeda’s 9/11 sneak attack cast suspicion on all Muslims. After the hijackers hid amongst us, pretending to be trustworthy friends while plotting acts of war, how can we know that other Muslims are not doing the same?

American Muslims could undo much of this suspicion by helping to expose the terrorist memorial mosque that architect Paul Murdoch is trying to plant on the Flight 93 crash site

Non-Muslim Americans can tell themselves that the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent is esoteric or unimportant (even if they go by semi-Islamic sounding names like Allahpundit), but every Muslim will instantly recognize this orientation as the central symbol of Islam.

Other Americans can also get confused about the direction to Mecca, thinking that the northeast facing crescent memorial CAN’T point to Mecca because Mecca is south of us. Not American Muslims, who all know that the shortest-distance direction to Mecca is to the northeast, since the overwhelming majority of them face this direction for prayer:

A person facing into the Crescent of Embrace (which remains completely intact in the “broken circle” redesign) will be facing almost exactly at Mecca (the Muslim “qibla,” or prayer direction.)

(more…)

Unlike the previous Gulf War, the United States mustered a smaller coalition of nations willing to engage in the liberation of Iraq prior to the invasion in 2003. Much has been made of the weaknesses in the international alliance, in so far as it did not include powers such as Germany and France, two pivotal players on the European mainland. Germany and France, for reasons cultural, strategic, and financial, where unwilling to work with the Bush administration’s stated goals for dealing with Saddam Hussein’s government in 2003, and this has plagued relations between the U.S. and its traditional allies in Europe since.

Yet, other European nations bucked the leadership coming from the old continental forces. A number of these “new” European states were formerly members of the communist Eastern-bloc, and sided with the American mission to topple Iraq’s totalitarian government and establish a democracy in its remains. One of the key nations in this union was Poland, lead by Aleksander Kwasniewski’s government, which headed the nation between 1995 and 2005. (more…)

(more…)

There is little doubt that the notion most Americans have in their heads of neoconservatism has been at least temporarily skewed due to the perceived failures in Iraq. Regardless of the fact that things are actually improving on the ground finally, the bad taste left in many proverbial mouths when uttering the term “neocon” is more than apparent.

Of course, the fact is what the vast majority of people associate with neoconservatism is, in fact, a complete misconception of what it actually means to be a neoconservative. Even Kristol’s article may be only one aspect, one perspective on what it means to be a neocon. Indeed, a whole new generation of neoconservative thinkers is sprouting up, both here in the US and overseas.  Why?  Irving Kristol says it well,

(more…)

In 2004, Scotland Yard detectives slept on the floor of their offices as they gathered evidence that could be used in court against a terrorist network led by Dhiren Barot. The intelligence was overwhelming but it was only in the final moments of the two week time period that they were able to prevent the release of Al Qaeda terrorists onto the streets of London.

As The Telegraph noted: “Two years later, they pleaded guilty to plotting to make a dirty bomb and to kill fellow citizens in huge numbers.”

Many journalists, politicians and bloggers like to make comparisons of Islamic terrorism to the atrocities of the IRA. Former British Prime Minister Sir John Major made the astoundingly naive claim that the United Kingdom had, “faced far more regular - and no less violent - assaults from the IRA”.

(more…)

In the context of the 2006 stalemate, progress in Iraq post-surge has been a success beyond what even the most optimistic of supporters of the invasion could have expected. The indicators are all pointing in the right direction- violence incidents at a 4 year low, the Iraqi army taking control of Sadr City and Basra, oil production rising, an expansion in Iraqi army and munitions, the flow of refugees reversed and the operational abilities and manpower of al-Qaeda severely damaged.

(more…)