GayandRight

My name is Fred and I am a gay conservative living in Ottawa. This blog supports limited government, the right of the State of Israel to live in peace and security, and tries to expose the threat to us all from cultural relativism, post-modernism, and radical Islam. I am also the founder of the Free Thinking Film Society in Ottawa (www.freethinkingfilms.com)

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Malaysia bans Cohen's film "Bruno"....

If I had to wager a bet, I bet that bootleg copies of this movie are selling like hotcakes in Kuala Lumpur...
Malaysia has banned U.S. box office hit “Bruno” by Sacha Baron Cohen because it highlights gay life and has gay sex scenes, an official said Tuesday.

“Bruno” – following Baron Cohen’s hit “Borat” – is centered around the adventures of a flamboyant gay fashion journalist from Austria. An official from Malaysia’s Film Censorship Board said the movie was considered unacceptable because of its story line, offensive language, jokes and racy nature. She declined to be named, citing protocol.

“It’s banned because the story is based on gay life … There are a lot of sex scenes,” she said. “It’s contrary to our culture.”

Gay sex, or “carnal intercourse against the order of nature,” is punishable by up to 20 years in jail and whipping in Malaysia. Sex toys, politically incorrect comments and jokes about religion also irked the censors, she said.

Arrest these Greenpeace thugs....

Greenpeace's tactics are just horrible...
Greenpeace activists who stopped two huge conveyor belts that feed a Suncor upgrader on Wednesday breached the site north of Fort McMurray by floating down the Athabasca River.

"I am on a boat under the bridge which connects the mine to the plant, and other people have shut down two conveyor belts on the east side of the river," said Greenpeace executive director Bruce Cox.

This would place the activists between the hopper and crusher, which grinds the chunks of bitumen and sand so it can be mixed with water and put in a slurry pipeline en route to the plant.

Suncor officials have yet to respond to the incident.

Mr. Cox said the site invasion by 23 activists is "to draw international attention to the tarsands. We have activists from Brazil, Germany, France, to name a few, and they have a pretty simple message," he said.

"People are literally dying for leadership on climate change. And we are calling on world leaders to take aggressive action on the UN climate talks taking place in Copenhagen (in December)."
Nobody voted for Greenpeace's leadership on climate change....arrest the bunch.

United National General Assembly Head calls homosexuality unacceptable...

Surprise, surprise....this is what you get when you choose a member of the Qaddafi mafia head of the UN General Assembly..
The newly-installed president of the United Nations General Assembly, Ali Abdussalam Treki, has said that homosexuality is "not really acceptable".

Treki, who is the Libyan secretary of African Union Affairs, opened the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly Friday with a press conference.

One question concerned the UN resolution which calls for the universal decriminalisation of homosexuality.

In reply, Treki said: "That matter is very sensitive, very touchy. As a Muslim, I am not in favour of it . . . it is not accepted by the majority of countries. My opinion is not in favour of this matter at all. I think it's not really acceptable by our religion, our tradition.

“It is not acceptable in the majority of the world. And there are some countries that allow that, thinking it is a kind of democracy . . . I think it is not,” he added.

The ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs committee, Florida's Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, told On Top Magazine: "The anti-gay bigotry spewed by this Qaddafi shill demonstrates once again that the UN has been hijacked by advocates of hate and intolerance."

Virginity tests waste doctors time....

I think I know some friend who might be willing to help out with the tests...this story is from Denmark.
Concerns that an increasing number of young Muslim women are being sent to doctors to prove that they are virgins has social workers and doctors taking steps to help them, reports DR News.

Kristina Abu-Khader Aamand, a social worker and the founder of the website NyMødom.dk (New Virginity), said about a third of the 50 or so girls that contacted her each month, asked about virginity examinations.

‘These girls are incredibly afraid of this examination, because many aren’t virgins,’ she said.

The exams are reportedly used by families when seeking a spouse for their daughters.

Aamand said many parents would refuse to allow their son to marry a woman who wasn’t a virgin. Girls that had lost their virginity feared they would be ostracised by their families, she said.

The virginity exam involves a gynaecologist determining if a girl’s hymen is intact. The gynaecologist then reports the results of the examination to the girl’s general practitioner, who issues documentation of the test’s result.

The Danish Medical Association has urged its members not to carry out virginity exams.

Frederiksberg-based general practitioner Dr Sabbir Ahmed said it was wrong for parents to demand their daughters undergo the examination. But he still issued the documentation if could help his patient.

‘If a piece of paper can help a girl, then I’ll issue it. It’s up to me to decide what’s best for my patients.’

‘The girls are under enormous pressure from their families,’ said Ahmed. ‘I can sense that, and that puts pressure on me as a doctor.’

Is a Third Intifada on the way???

Well, the Palestinians either reject every Israeli offer, or just refuse to talk...
Bassam Abu Sharif, a former senior advisor to late President Yasser Arafat, added his voice to a chorus of those raising the possibility of a third Intifada, or uprising against Israel.

“The Palestinians are preparing themselves to carry out another Intifada of independence and freedom in response to Israeli violations, massacres and policies against the Palestinians and their land, against Jerusalem, the confiscation of land and the geographic separation of the Palestinian territories,” said the former Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) spokesperson in a press conference in Ramallah.

Several political figures from across the Palestinian spectrum have suggested this week that a new uprising is on its way in the wake of the violent clashes with Israeli police at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Sunday.

I hope we flunk Ahmadinejad's test....

Let's show him the love that he deserves...
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday's nuclear talks with the US and five other nations will be a "test" of their respect for Iran's rights.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Honour Killing in Jordan...

Well, she did have a bad reputation....
Three Jordanian men were charged on Tuesday with premeditated murder after allegedly stabbing to death their divorced sister as well as burning her body and house over her "bad reputation," police said.

"The three brothers all under 30, agreed to kill their 40-year-old sister on Sunday because she allegedly had a bad reputation," in Abu Alanda, in southeast Amman, a police spokesman told AFP.

"She was stabbed 15 times. One of the three told police that the mother of five had a love affair with a man and that he found pictures of the woman sitting with her alleged lover."

The spokesman said the suspects "burned the victim's body and set ablaze her house to cover the crime."

"They were arrested at hospital after being treated for burns. They confessed to the murder," added.

Carbon cuts will hurt everybody.....

A nice article by Bjorn Lomborg...
In speech after rousing speech at the United Nations summit on global warming last week, politicians emphasized the need to protect the world's most vulnerable, who will be hit hardest by climate change. The rhetoric did little to disguise an awful truth: If we continue on our current path, we are likely to harm the world's poorest much more than we help them.

Urged on by environmental activists, many politicians are vowing to make carbon cuts designed to keep expected temperature rises under 3.6 degrees (2.0 Celsius). Yet it is nearly impossible for these promises to be fulfilled.

Japan's commitment in June to cut greenhouse gas levels 8 percent from its 1990 levels by 2020 was scoffed at for being far too little. Yet for Japan -- which has led the world in improving energy efficiency -- to have any hope of reaching its target, it needs to build nine new nuclear power plants and increase their use by one-third, construct more than 1 million new wind-turbines, install solar panels on nearly 3 million homes, double the percentage of new homes that meet rigorous insulation standards, and increase sales of "green" vehicles from 4 percent to 50 percent of its auto purchases.

Japan's new prime minister was roundly lauded this month for promising a much stronger reduction, 25 percent, even though there is no obvious way to deliver on his promise. Expecting Japan, or any other nation, to achieve such far-fetched cuts is simply delusional.

Imagine for a moment that the fantasists win the day and that at the climate conference in Copenhagen in December every nation commits to reductions even larger than Japan's, designed to keep temperature increases under 2 degrees Celsius. The result will be a global price tag of $40 trillion in 2100, to avoid expected climate damage costing just $1.1 trillion, according to climate economist Richard Tol, a contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change whose cost findings were commissioned by the Copenhagen Consensus Center and are to be published by Cambridge University Press next year. That phenomenal cost, calculated by all the main economic models, assumes that politicians across the globe will make the most effective, efficient choices. In the real world, where policies have many other objectives and legislation is easily filled with pork and payoffs, the deal easily gets worse.

A little secret about China's wind farms....

Oops...they come with coal-fired plants...
China's ambition to create "green cities" powered by huge wind farms comes with a dirty little secret: Dozens of new coal-fired power plants need to be installed as well.

Part of the reason is that wind power depends on, well, the wind. To safeguard against blackouts when conditions are too calm, officials have turned to coal-fired power as a backup.

China wants renewable energy like wind to meet 15% of its energy needs by 2020, double its share in 2005, as it seeks to rein in emissions that have made its cities among the smoggiest on Earth. But experts say the country's transmission network currently can't absorb the rate of growth in renewable-energy output. Last year, as much as 30% of wind-power capacity wasn't connected to the grid. As a result, more coal is being burned in existing plants, and new thermal capacity is being built to cover this shortfall in renewable energy.

In addition, officials want enough new coal-fired capacity in reserve so that they can meet demand whenever the wind doesn't blow. This is important because wind is less reliable as an energy source than coal, which fuels two-thirds of China's electricity output. Wind energy ultimately depends on wind strength and direction, unlike coal, which can be stockpiled at generators in advance.

We need to go all out in Afghanistan....

David Brooks spells it out - we have no choice but to go all out in Afghanistan and win....
Proponents of withdrawal often acknowledge the costs of defeat but argue that the cause is hopeless anyway. On this, let me note a certain pattern. When you interview people who know little about Afghanistan, they describe an anarchic place that is the graveyard of empires. When you interview people who live there or are experts, they think those stereotypes are rubbish. They usually take a hardened but guardedly optimistic view. Read Clare Lockhart’s Sept. 17 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to get a sense of the way many knowledgeable people view the situation.

Amidst all the problems, the NATO coalition has a few things going for it. First, American forces have become quite good at counterinsurgency. They have a battle-tested strategy, experienced troops and a superb new leadership team. According to the political scientists Andrew J. Enterline and Joseph Magagnoli, since World War II, counterinsurgency efforts that put population protection at their core have succeeded nearly 70 percent of the time.

Second, the enemy is wildly hated. Only 6 percent of Afghans want a Taliban return, while NATO is viewed with surprising favor. This is not Vietnam or even Iraq.

Third, while many Afghan institutions are now dysfunctional, there is a base on which to build. The Afghan Army is a successful institution. Local villages have their own centuries-old civic institutions. The National Solidarity Program was able to build development councils in 23,000 villages precisely because the remnants of civil society still exist.

We have tried to fight the Afghan war the easy way, and it hasn’t worked. Switching now to the McChrystal strategy is a difficult choice, and President Obama is right to take his time. But Obama was also right a few months ago when he declared, “This will not be quick, nor easy. But we must never forget: This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. ... This is fundamental to the defense of our people.”
Let's hope that Obama embraces McChrystal and sends more troops to Afghanistan.

An ominous presence in Jerusalem...

This is from Haaretz...
During the past year Israel defense officials have often praised the Palestinians on improving their contribution to securing the West Bank, and of the decisive character of the leadership under Fayyad. However, in recent weeks there have been increasing claims that even as the Authority is being praised by Israel and the international community, it is behaving irresponsibly by violating agreements between the two sides.

The Israeli claims focus on the growing presence of Palestinian security personnel in civilian clothing in East Jerusalem, contrary to the obligations of the PA. The security personnel participate in prayers at Al-Aqsa mosque, and at other sites in the city, and have stepped up their presence in the Jerusalem's medical and educational facilities. Moreover, they have also been involved in the abduction of Palestinians suspected of selling property to Jews.

Goldstone's deafness....

This is from today's National Post...
My name is Dr. Mirela Siderer. I am a gynecologist living in Ashkelon, Israel.

Judge Richard Goldstone, in July you invited me to testify. I told you my story. I am known by my patients -- including many women from Gaza. For me, every human being is equal.

On May 14, 2008, my life was changed forever. I was working in my clinic. Suddenly, the building was hit by a missile, fired from Gaza. I was terribly wounded. Blood was everywhere. My patient was also wounded, and more than 100 others. Next month will be my eighth operation.

Judge Goldstone, I told you all of this, in detail. I testified in good faith. You sent me this letter, saying, "Your testimony is an essential part of the Mission's fact-finding activities."

But now I see your report. I have to tell you: I am shocked.

Judge Goldstone, in a 500-page report, why did you completely ignore my story? My name appears only in passing, in brackets, in a technical context. I feel humiliated.

Why are there only two pages about Israeli victims like me, who suffered thousands of rockets over eight years? Why did you choose to focus on the period of my country's response, but not on that of the attacks that caused it? Why did you not tell me that this council judged Israel guilty in advance, in its meeting of last January? Why did you not tell me that members of your panel signed public letters judging Israel guilty in advance?

Judge Goldstone, you, too, signed such a letter, saying you were "shocked" about Gaza. But where were you when Gaza attacked my medical clinic, in violation of international human rights and humanitarian law? Where was this council? Why were you all silent?

Egyptians upset by Virginity Faking Machne...

I wonder if I can get distribution rights for Canada...
Egyptian lawmakers and scholars are furious over an attempt to import a device allowing women to fake virginity, and are demanding death penalty for anyone trying to bring such a device into the country, the British Broadcasting Corporation reported Monday.

Professor Abdul Mouti Bayoumi of the al-Azhar University said supplying the item was akin to spreading vice in society, a crime punishable by death in Islamic Sharia law.

According to the report, the device is said to release liquid imitating blood, allowing a female to fake virginity on her wedding night. In some conservative Arab societies, the BBC says, there is a stigma about pre-marital sex.

The contraption is seen as a cheap and simple alternative to hymen repair surgery, which is carried out in secret by some clinics in the Middle East, the report adds.

The device is produced in China and has already become available in other parts of the Arab world. It is reported to be on sale in Syria for $15.

According to Prof. Bayoumi, it undermines the moral deterrent of fornication, which he described as a crime and one of the cardinal sins in Islam.

Monday, September 28, 2009

International Free Press Day!

The International Free Press Society declares September 30 International Free Press day

On September 30, 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 drawings of Islam’s prophet Mohammed by 12 Danish artists in order to demonstrate that prohibitions on depictions of Mohammed as stipulated by Islamic law (sharia) did not trump Denmark’s freedom of the press.

In an era in which the act of speaking out in the Western world has become increasingly subject to the pressures of what we know as political correctness, this bold affirmation of free press rights by Danish journalists makes September 30 a banner day. In commemoration of their courage, then, the International Free Press Society declares September 30 to be International Free Press Day.

To mark the occasion, the International Free Press Society is presenting artist Kurt Westergaard on his first public tour in the USA, where he will be making appearances in New York City, Yale and Princeton. Since publishing his cartoon, the now-iconic Turban-bomb Mohammed image, Westergaard, 73, has required state security to protect him from violent retribution for violating the tenets of sharia in Denmark. Such threats have included an assassination plot uncovered by Danish police in February of last year. The day after the plot was uncovered, a number of Danish newspapers joined Jyllands-Posten in reprinting the Westergaard cartoon in solidarity with the cause of freedom of the press.

To further advance the cause of freedom of the press, the International Free Press Society takes the occasion of this first International Free Press Day to salute Kurt Westergaard, and to call, once again, for the repeal all blasphemy and hate speech laws that currently inhibit and restrict vital exchange and debate.

Caning sentence in Malaysia upheld...

Nothing like a higher court...
A Malaysian religious court appeals panel on Monday upheld a caning sentence for a woman who drank beer, despite criticism from groups worried about the rise of conservative Islam in the multi-racial Southeast Asian nation.

State news agency Bernama reported that the appeals panel in the state of Pahang, the home state of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on the eastern coast of peninsular Malaysia, had ruled the sentence would be carried out.

No date was set for carrying out the sentence, consisting of six strokes of the cane, Bernama said.

McChrystal has talked to Obama only once....

Gee, you'd think they'd be in regular communication, no?T
The military general credited for capturing Saddam Hussein and killing the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq says he has only spoken to President Obama once since taking command of Afghanistan.

"I've talked to the president, since I've been here, once on a VTC [video teleconferece]," General Stanley McChrystal told CBS reporter David Martin in a television interview that aired Sunday.

"You've talked to him once in 70 days?" Mr. Martin followed up.

"That is correct," the general replied.

The toxic obsession of Zelayonism...

Jonathan Kay is crack on with the latest in viruses...
Pity Manuel Zelaya. Not only has the leftist been turfed from Honduras's presidency, he is now apparently being hunted down by futuristic Jewish commandos.

Zelaya was thrown out of Honduras on June 28, after he tried to hold an illegal referendum. In recent days, he snuck back in, and promptly holed up in the Brazilian embassy. This is where the sinister Semites come in: According to Zelaya, his cramped quarters are under siege from "Israeli mercenaries" armed with what a Miami Herald interviewer describes as "high-frequency radiation" and "toxic gases" that "alter [Zelaya's] physical and mental state."

For their part, Israeli government sources in Miami "could not confirm" the presence of Zionist agents. But I'd say Zelaya's claim is credible: From Tegucigalpa to Toronto, there's no doubt that a lurid obsession with Israeli villainy has altered the "mental state" of many a socialist.

Indeed, this toxic obsession -- let us call it Zelayonism -- has become the leading form of psychosis on the left side of the political spectrum.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

More Christians emigrating from Lebanon....

The country is becoming more Islamized...
Christians are tempted to flee Lebanon as the country becomes increasingly “Islamized,” according to the founder of the Center for Arab Christian Research and Documentation (CEDRAC). One-third of the nation’s Christian population has left since the beginning of the 1975-90 Civil War, and a recent surge in emigration means Christians now make up just 34 percent of Lebanon’s population, Father Samir Khalil, a Jesuit teacher at Beirut’s St. Joseph University’s CEDRAC department, told Vatican Radio last week.

“Christians used to make up 50 percent of the nation’s population; now experts think the Christians are probably not exceeding 34 percent, which is worrying,” Khalil said in the radio interview during a visit to The Holy See.

The Beirut-based researcher expressed concern that Christians in the Arab world are moving abroad to places with higher Christian populations, such as America, Europe and Australia, which is increasing the Muslim majority in countries like Lebanon.

“The same is happening [all over] the Middle East, and this is certainly a very tragic situation, and it will have great consequences in the future,” Father Khalil warned last week on the Vatican Radio station, adding that Christians must stay in the Middle East to keep numbers up.

Large numbers of Lebanese Christians are leaving as they feel their traditional influence in their country is weakening, while an increasing number of crucial political positions are going to Muslims.

In reference to Islamic extremism, Khalil claimed the power of the influential Christian minority to counterbalance it was waning, saying: “Lebanon has always been a bastion of religious tolerance, but now it is moving toward the model of Islamization seen in Iraq and Egypt.”

Christians have taken a backseat in recent times to dominant Sunni-Shiite relations, with key leaders Saad Hariri from the Future Movement representing most Sunni Muslims and Hizbullah of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah leading the Shiites, while the Christian community has less unified representation, split between the country’s rival political camps – the Maronite Catholic supporters of Lebanese Forces and Phalange parties with March 14 and those backing the Free Patriotic Movement led by retired General Michel Aoun, who has formed an allegiance with Hizbullah.

Islam stays home....

Only 5,000 people showed at at the huge Islam rally in DC...
Well their time came and went for this round. There were about 5,000 Muslims on the Mall, praying at the Capitol building and whatnot, so the organizers only missed by 90% or so. I previously wrote this "is going to go over like a lead balloon. It did, just not in the fashion I assumed it would. The event was so underwhelming, that the news barely covered it. Compared to the grand displays Muslims overseas held in front of Christian Holy sites all over Europe last year, this was like Harold & Kumar's birthday party.

Perhaps the next time the activist elements won't be so bold as to declare "OUR TIME HAS COME." Perhaps next time the slogan will be "Why can't we be friends?" or "Please show up in D.C. this time!"

Perhaps next time, they might want to choose some spokesmen who are a little more cuddly. Hearing Dr. Ahmad Dwidar, Imam of the Islamic Center in New York, say “We are going to the White House, so that Islam will be victorious, Allah willing, and the White House will turn into the Muslim house” is not very all-American, unifying or comforting. It's good thing for him the news was not interested, or this event could have become a circus for Islam on Capitol Hill.

Coming to Canada? Che T-shirts for kids...



This is from a shop in Berkeley...

Salim Mansur on the UN....

Hats off to Salim Mansur for this column...
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked the assembled representatives of the UN member states in New York this week, "Have you no shame? No decency?"

The answer is no. For in inviting once again holocaust-denier and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to address the General Assembly, the majority of member states confirmed how greatly anti-Semitism is now institutionalized at the UN.

Only a few representatives led by Canadian delegates walked out on Ahmadinejad's speech and, thereby, "stood up for moral clarity" in Netanyahu's words.

But finding moral clarity in the UN, as surely Netanyahu and his people know, would be as rare as stumbling upon a virgin in a brothel.

It is no secret that the UN culture is soaked in the world's oldest and most persistent bigotry against one people, the Jews. This bigotry was given official expression -- "Zionism is racism" -- in the notorious General Assembly resolution 3379 of November 1975, and while the resolution was eventually revoked in 1991 the bigotry remains entrenched at the UN.

Behind the cover of supporting Arab-Palestinian rights in historic Palestine anti-Semites everywhere, given new lease after the Holocaust by anti-Jewish bigotry of the Arab-Muslim world, are joined together to cause irreparable injury to Israel. They have succeeded this far in bending the UN to become complicit in their evil purpose.

Any decent human being, including Muslims, should ask the simple question what is the basis of Arab claim to historic Palestine with Jerusalem as its political and spiritual centre? The answer is transparently simple.

Arab rights to historic Palestine rest on the force of arms and military conquest. But what is garnered by sword may also be taken away by sword.

If the claim is to be justified on the basis that Arabs and Muslims (Ottoman Turks) held on to historic Palestine for more than a millennium between 637 and 1918 -- save for the period 1099-1187 when the Christian Crusaders took Jerusalem from Arab rulers -- then for a period far exceeding that of Arab-Muslim rule this territory was inseparable from Jewish history.

The Arab-Muslim claim to Jerusalem and historic Palestine on religious grounds is an invention with no basis in Islam's sacred text, the Qur'an. The only religious claim sanctioned by the Qur'an is for Mecca as Islam's temporal centre, while Jerusalem indisputably was and remains exclusively the holy city for Jews.

An interesting take on the TIFF boycott.....

This article is from a left perspective.....but deserves to be read....
The Toronto Declaration was ostensibly a protest against a festival decision to honor Tel Aviv and its centenary celebrations. But the neo-Socialist Realism text of the open letter went far beyond that. It denounced TIFF for failing to publicly note, for example, that "Tel Aviv is built on destroyed Palestinian villages." An uproar ensued, not least because many observers, including some leftists, saw an implication that Tel Aviv, and, by extension, Israel, was itself occupied territory, bereft of legitimacy.

Jane Fonda, a headliner of the celebrities who signed the declaration Toronto group, came to recant her support, candidly writing in the Huffington Post that that she had "signed the letter without reading it carefully enough" and pointing in particular to the "abandoned villages" passage.

She added that "it can become counterproductive to inflame rather than explain and this means to hear the narratives of both sides, to articulate the suffering on both sides, not just the Palestinians. By neglecting to do this the letter allowed good people to close their ears and their hearts."

The Toronto group was unmoved by Fonda's words. They had achieved their goal, that of turning the spotlight away from Israel and, if only briefly, toward the real martyrs for Palestine - themselves. The web flowed with praise - and even petitions - hailing the courage of the "true heroes" of the Toronto Declaration.

The progression was shocking to watch. The vanity of the movement is matched only by its cluelessness. On the Declaration's blog site, one of the links following the text of the open letter and its framer's protestations that they were not calling for a boycott, was a statement by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel: "We encourage filmmakers and audiences to boycott the Spotlight as it extends a gesture of 'goodwill' to a colonial and apartheid regime which is violating Palestinian human rights with utter impunity."

One of the founding members of PCABI is Omar Barghouti, who, while arguing for a crippling academic boycott against Israel, is currently studying for his master's degree at Tel Aviv University. Asked by the Forward about his affiliation with an institution he wants boycotted, "Barghouti said he would not discuss his personal life."

Citing Barhjouti's refusal to walk the walk, the left-leaning weekly did not mince words in denouncing the BDS movement in an editorial this week. The movement's adherents, it said, "seem uninterested in performing any personal sacrifice, or even measuring their 'success' by hard numbers. They are most intent on sullying Israel's name and bullying anyone who might suggest another path toward peace in the troubled region."

I'm surprised they haven't blamed Israel....

Well, give them a day or so...
Ordinary Palestinians are complaining that the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) Ministry of Social Affairs is distributing inferior quality pita bread to needy families.

After receiving several complaints of inedible bread from families in the West Bank, Ma’an spoke with shop owners who are tasked with delivering the bread to the public. Most of the merchants confirmed that the food-aid bread is completely different from normal pita found in bakeries.

Asked why this bread could be different, shop owners said they believed the bread was made from expired or otherwise poor quality flour.

A tale of compassion from Iran....

These silly people - don't they know all they have to do is convert....
It is not true that the Islamic Republic of Iran lacks compassion. Here is the proof:

Recently, I met Mrs. M was at a gathering of Iranian ex-pats. She is an elderly widow, suffering from a variety of brain, neurological, and vision disorders. She is a lone woman without a country, moving from one shelter to the next.

One day, Mrs. M and her husband were arrested by the IRI agents in the city of Qazvin for being members of the Baha´i Faith. The charges included being members of the ferghe zalleh (misguided sect), mohareb (fighters against God), propagandists for their sect, and agents of the Great Satan and Israel. The couple´s three young children were spared imprisonment and ended up as wards of other Baha´i families in the town.

It is also not true that the Islamists refuse people an opportunity to mend their ways and see things the Islamic way. First, the clerics reason with the candidate and offer a tempting package of incentives such as immediate release from prison, the possibility of a secure job, becoming a local celebrity to be paraded around for the benefit of other infidels to see both sides of the deal, a menu of horrific punishments for refusing to bend, and a set of attractive offerings for complying with the simple thing of accepting Islam as the one true and final religion of Allah.

In the case of Mr. and Mrs. M, all attempts by the Islamic authorities to reason with the couple to deny their religion and convert to Islam failed. The pair insisted that their faith was the most precious treasure to them and no inducement or threat could rob them of it.

The Islamists authorities, angered by the couple´s "obstinacy," initiated their fall-back plan, a plan of cruel psychological torment as well as severe physical tortures; the kind of IRI treatment that brings to mind the worst of the Inquisition centuries ago. The authorities felt that they had exercised great patience, to no avail, to persuade the couple to abandon their blasphemous belief and adopt the one and true faith of Allah—Islam.

Patience is highly regarded in Islam: Allahoma yejezi al saberoon be ajron min ghyre hesab (God compensates those who are patient with infinite rewards). Yet, eventually they ran out of patience and it was time to deal with them as the repentant kafirs (unbeliever in Allah) that they were judged.

After many months of incarceration, interrogation, and persuasion came the trial. All along, the couple were denied access to legal representation of any kind. A barely literate mullah in a perfunctory meeting condemned the couple to death by hanging. Yet, the sentence was not carried out for many months. The couple languished in separate jails with no visitation rights of any kind, either with each other, or their children.

The couple was condemned to death by hanging on the charge of apostasy. The same decree ordered that all their properties and possessions, including household furniture, be confiscated as taking away the possessions of an apostate is halal (religiously approved).

Once a person is judged as an unrepentant kafir by the religious authorities, he or she becomes a target of an unending variety of severe torment, as a kafir is viewed as an enemy of Allah and it is the duty of good Muslims to punish the kafir in any way that their sadistic hearts leads them.

It is beyond the scope of this essay to detail the kind of prolonged torture the couple suffered. There is no reliable information regarding what transpired with regard to Mr. M. during the months of incarceration before he was hanged.


Mrs. M was, from time to time, denied her prison ration of food. She endured long periods of thirst in the deadly heat of the summer. She was even periodically denied access to the washroom for days. All along, she was severely beaten by female jailers. The jailers´ favorite way of beating Mrs. M was hitting her with frying pans on the head, although they also used soda bottles, clubs, and even their bare fists. The beatings were so severe that, on several occasions, blood popped out of her eyes. Head bumps and injury became routine, as she longed to be hanged.

The women jailers seemed intent on matching and even surpassing the brutality of their male counterparts. These Islamists are brainwashed into believing that tormenting non-believers will earn them great merit points from Allah. They truly believe that the greater suffering they inflict, the greater is their reward.

Months later, Mrs. M was informed that the sentence would be carried out at dawn the next day. This presented the last chance for the jailers to beat her as severely as they could before she died. They were intent at making the most savab (performing religiously meritorious acts) they could while they had the chance.

The beating she received on that day was so severe that she lost consciousness. When the executioners arrived to hang her, they could not revive her. They faced a serious problem. How can an unconscious woman who cannot stand on her feet be hanged?

A lynching at Humboldt.....

A nice case study from Mike Adams on how feminist hysteria ruins our classrooms...
During his first year at Humboldt State University (HSU) - as a tenure-track professor in the Psychology Department - faculty and students tried to silence Mark Harwood on a number of occasions. He was hired primarily to teach Human Sexuality—a class he had taught in a variety of settings including a doctoral program in the UC-system, a psychology program in the second highest ranked City College in the nation, and at a private university.

Mark Harwood received excellent reviews from most students; however, with a class as personal as human sexuality, some found a way to be offended. His teaching evaluations were well above average and, in some instances, stellar. His first experience teaching human sexuality at HSU proved to be different. The students in the Master’s program simply couldn’t wrap their minds around the idea that males and females are different. They objected to his emphasis on techniques for treating sexual dysfunction – although this was the primary purpose of the class.

Professor Harwood’s second semester was even more distressing and he almost left HSU to take a position elsewhere. During the spring semester, he taught the undergraduate course in human sexuality. The course was cross-listed with Women’s Studies. Before the semester began, a student from the Women’s Studies department asked if he would allow her to be the T/A for the course. He agreed.

About four weeks into the course, the T/A indicated that she would like Dr. Harwood to cover domestic violence. He replied that because domestic violence isn’t directly related to human sexuality, he had not included it on the syllabus; however, he said that if they covered all the material in the syllabus and had time at the end of class, he would be happy to address this issue. As it turned out, he had the time.

Dr. Harwood sees domestic violence as a complex problem. Overall, he sees it as a relationship problem with both partners contributing to the dysfunctional relationship and one or both of them playing a role in the initiation and maintenance of the violence. This is recognized by virtually all experts in the field of family therapy. But to the Women’s Studies students, domestic violence is always entirely the fault of the male.

During class one day, Dr. Harwood handed out two peer-reviewed articles. The major findings of the articles were:

1. Women are more likely than men to initiate domestic violence.

2. Women are more likely than men to maintain domestic violence.

3. Women are more likely than men to report that they were victims of domestic violence.

4. Women suffer more serious physical injury than men when involved in domestic violence.

5. Women do not fear retaliation for physically abusing their male partner.

Before all the empirically supported findings had been presented, the class erupted with outbursts, primarily from the Women’s Studies students. One actually yelled that Dr. Harwood was a “privileged, rich, white male.”

The Women’s Studies students continued to disrupt class so it was generally unproductive—they simply didn’t want to hear what the researchers had discovered. What angered them the most was the applause Dr. Harwood received at the end of class by a large number of students who appreciated that he presented material most professors would shy away from.

A day or two after the class, Dr. Harwood received a call from the Chair of the Women’s Studies department, Kim Berry. She wanted to meet with him and the department Chair to discuss the complaints she received from some of her students.

Based on the complaints from some students, she decided that the way Harwood presented the research was improper. Berry did not bother to get feedback from the students who applauded after the lecture. Mark Harwood replied to Kim Berry saying that his time was limited. A meeting never took place. Instead, she called his department chair and insisted that he never be allowed to teach the class again. She threatened that she would not allow her Women’s Studies students to take the class if he taught it.
Now, go and read the whole story...

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Muslim who was 'insulted' by hotel owners now wants to wear a burka in court....

I hope she tries it...
The Muslim woman whose complaint about two Christian hoteliers led police to charge them with a religiously aggravated offence is a British-born convert who turned to Islam a year ago.

Ericka Tazi, 60, told police she was offended by alleged remarks made about her faith by Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang during a heated exchange at the breakfast table when she was staying at their hotel.

As The Mail on Sunday revealed last week, the couple are now being prosecuted under public order laws originally aimed at targeting yobbish and abusive behaviour on the streets.

Last night Mrs Tazi, who married Muslim painter and decorator Mohammed three years ago, defended her actions, claiming that the couple had been 'nasty' and had 'all but' called her a terrorist - an allegation they strongly deny.

The charges against the Vogelenzangs relate to a conversation the pair had with Mrs Tazi in March on her final day at their Bounty House Hotel in Liverpool after she came down to breakfast wearing a hijab.

She had been staying at the hotel near Aintree for four weeks while receiving treatment for a neurological disorder at nearby Walton Hospital, but the couple had reportedly not seen her in religious garb before.
The pair are alleged to have said that Mohammed, the founder of Islam, was a warlord and that Muslim dress for women was a form of bondage.

The conversation was heard by several guests at the hotel, which charges £95 a night for a double room.

Mrs Vogelenzang, 54, and her 53-year-old Dutch-born husband, whom sources have described as a 'mild-mannered couple', are members of the Bootle Christian Fellowship and are now receiving backing from the independent lobby group, the Christian Institute.

Mrs Tazi, a former carer and the mother of two sons from a previous marriage, insisted she had done nothing to provoke the incident.

Speaking from her £120,000 terrace house in Warrington, Cheshire, she said: 'I am no fanatic, as people have tried to make me out to be.

'I only took up the Muslim faith a year ago. And it had nothing to do with my husband. Although he was born into the Muslim faith, he is as English as I am. He goes around in jeans and T-shirts and has even got a season ticket for Everton.

'I arrived at the Muslim faith quite independently from him.

'I am a Warrington girl through and through. I loved The Beatles and all the things an ordinary English girl enjoys. I used to go to the Cavern Club. I was brought up a staunch Catholic and only turned to Islam about a year ago.
Bounty House Hotel in Liverpool

'I have embraced the religion and always try to wear the hijab. It gives me peace and satisfies me spiritually.'

Mrs Tazi said when she first went to the Bounty House Hotel she decided not to wear the hijab because she did not want to stand out. But during her treatment for the debilitating illness fibromyalgia she decided to follow her beliefs.

She said: 'It was the last morning, and I decided to wear what I was comfortable in. I went downstairs and was utterly shocked by the reaction of the hotel owners. They became nasty and all but called me a terrorist.'

She added: 'Since it hit the newspapers, I have been too afraid to go out. All sorts of Right-wing groups are commenting on their websites.

'I am really afraid. I just can't understand it. There seems to be so much hatred out there.'

She said she was considering wearing the full burka when she attends court in Liverpool in December.

Mugabe, Chavez, and Qaddafi meet at summit....

If only I could have been a fly on the wall at this conference....
Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez hosted some of Africa's longest-ruling leaders at a Caribbean resort on Saturday for a summit he says will help end Western economic dominance.

Chavez set a provocative early tone with an announcement on Friday by his government that it is working with Iran to find uranium in Venezuela.

That came amid a fresh uproar and sanctions threats from the West over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

Chavez's high-profile summit guests included Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, who is celebrating four decades in office and had a white limousine flown to Venezuela to meet him at the airport. Also present was Robert Mugabe, 85, who has led Zimbabwe since the end of British rule nearly 30 years ago.

Hosni goes back to his anti-Israel roots...

He moderated his views to get the UNESCO presidency....since that didn't work, he can no go back to his roots...
Several days after having lost the vote for UNESCO's leadership, Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni declared Saturday his intention to "launch a culture war against Israel."

In an interview with Egyptian newspaper al-Masri al-Yaum, Hosni charged that he lost the UN vote because of "radicalism, racism, and the Jews," who he claied attacked him over his harsh views against cultural normalization vis-à-vis Israel.

Hosni used the interview to declare what he referred to a "culture war on tyranny," vowing to challenge Israel on all fronts, thereby dwarfing its status vis-à-vis Egypt.

"Israel's position prompted me to challenge it on a series of issues in order to dwarf Israel vis-à-vis Egypt and its culture he said. However, he clarified that he is declaring "a culture war against tyranny, rather than against the culture itself."

The Egyptian minister also accused America's UNESCO representative, as well as the envoys of Eastern European states, Japan, and the Jews for undermining his candidacy.

On Friday, United Arab Emirates newspaper al-Khalig published another interview with Hosni, where he stated that he is reverting to his traditional stance against normalization with Israel. The Egyptian minister softened his rhetoric ahead of the UN vote, ostensibly in a bid to boost his chances.

In previous interviews Hosni claimed that he received harsh emails that included "curses from Israelis and from the Israeli lobby, which controls the media."

The truth about Arctic Ice....

You can count on scare stories every couple of weeks...
The Arctic ice “is melting far faster than had been previously supposed,” we heard this week from the UN’s Environment Program, in releasing its 2009 Climate Change Science Compendium.

This same week, National Geographic reported that the Arctic ice is probably melting far slower than previously supposed. After ramping up the rhetoric — two years ago National Geographic told us that “the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions,” and last year that “Arctic warming has become so dramatic that the North Pole may melt this summer” — National Geographic now advises that “the Arctic probably won’t experience ice-free summers until 2030 or 2040.”

If you’re confused by stats on Arctic melting, you have lots of company. Arctic stats are easy to misunderstand because the Arctic environment is unlike our own — the Arctic magnifies the changes we experience in the temperate regions. In summer, our days get longer and theirs get really, really long, just as in winter, when our days gets shorter, theirs all but disappear. By analogy, the Arctic also magnifies temperature variations, and resulting changes to its physical environment.

In the Arctic, the ice has indeed been contracting, as the global warming doomsayers have been telling us. But it has also been expanding. The riddle of how the Arctic ice can both be contracting and expanding is easily explained. After you read the next two paragraphs, you’ll be able to describe it easily to your friends to set them straight.

Each winter, the Arctic ice pack rapidly expands and each summer it rapidly contracts, as you can see thanks to photos from a Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency satellite that tracks the changes in the ice pack. On its website, you can also get data showing the area of sea ice for every month going back to 2002.

Compare March of this year to previous Marches, for example, and you’ll see that the Arctic ice has been expanding of late — a story rarely told. But compare August of this year to previous Augusts and you’ll see that the August ice over the years has tended to contract — this is the basis of the scary stories that we hear about the Arctic ice disappearing. A snapshot of the Arctic ice, without knowledge of the bigger picture, can lead to scary conclusions.

To give your friends an even bigger picture, inform them that during the Little Ice Age, in the 1600s, much of the continent was frozen over. New Yorkers in winter could walk from Manhattan to Staten Island. Ever since, the ice has been contracting, spurring attempts by fabled explorers such as Henry Hudson and Sir John Franklin to seek a Northwest Passage through Canada’s Arctic. By the early 1900s, as we continued to come out of the Little Ice Age, the ice had receded enough to allow Roald Amundsen to traverse the Northwest Passage in fits and starts, his ship needing three years to navigate through the ice. Not until 1944 did the ice recede enough to allow a schooner to cross the Northwest Passage in a single season. The Northwest Passage remains too risky to allow commercial shipping to thrive, and although some have confidently predicted the advent of commercial shipping, the insurance premium required to navigate through the perilous ice floes effectively rules it out for the foreseeable future. If a new Little Ice Age soon sets in, as many scientists consider likely, commercial shipping will not happen in our lifetimes.

By taking a snapshot in time, and by ignoring the history and the ecology of the Arctic, global warming alarmists can make a grim case for a disappearing Arctic, and even fool themselves. In May of this year, a six-country effort involving 20 scientists an aircraft outfitted with precision equipment to Canada’s Arctic in an expedition designed to prove that the Arctic ice was thinning. The expedition found the opposite — newly formed ice was up to four-metres thick, twice what was as expected. Around the same time, three other explorers, on behalf of the Catlin Arctic Survey in London, set off on skis on a trek to the North Pole to measure the thickness of the melting spring ice. Unprepared for blizzard winds of 40 knots and Arctic temperatures of 40 degrees below zero, the expedition made little headway, ran out of food, suffered from frost-bite, and finally had to be airlifted to safety — at their slow-going rate of progress, they couldn’t have survived the 82 days required to travel the remaining 542 kilometers.

More Palestinian rockets fired into Israel....

The Palestinians keep proving why they don't deserve a state of their own...
Hours after an IAF strike in the northern Gaza Strip killed three members of a terrorist cell, Palestinians fired several Kassam rockets into southern Israel on Saturday morning. The rockets struck open areas in the Eshkol region, causing no casualties.

Also Saturday, Islamic Jihad vowed to revenge for the previous day's air strikes.

On Friday evening Israeli planes intercepted a vehicle which was transporting rockets to be fired into the country. In a statement released directly after the strike, the IDF said that the terrorists had exited the vehicle and were unloading weapons when the IAF fired missiles at them.

The IDF added that the three had been involved in launching rockets into Israel in recent weeks.

Reuters quoted the Islamic Jihad as saying that the men, operatives from the terrorist group, were killed near the Jabalya refugee camp.

Palestinians reported that there were six Islamic Jihad operatives traveling in the car, of which three were killed, and three were seriously wounded.

Since Operation Cast Lead, the IDF has responded to sporadic Palestinian rocket fire by destroying smuggling tunnels along the Philadelphi Corridor, on the Gaza-Egypt border.

Palestinians have fired about 300 rockets and mortars into Israel since the end of the campaign, the IDF said.

Flights over Oktoberfest banned....

It seems that Al-Qaeda is showing Germany a little love...
German authorities banned all flights over Munich's annual Oktoberfest beer festival on Saturday after a series of Islamic terror threats targeted Germany for its role in Afghanistan.

Some 6 million visitors a year pack the massive tents that dot Munich's sprawling 77-acre (31-hectare) Theresienwiese beer garden during the 16-day festival known across the globe. This year's event began Sept. 19.

The ban - a measure normally reserved for high-ranking state visits - is to remain in place through the end of the festival on Oct. 4.

Islamic terror groups such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban have directed threatening videos and audio messages at Germany in the past two weeks as citizens prepared to vote Sunday in national elections. The latest video, released by the Taliban late Friday, included pictures of Oktoberfest and threatened attacks on Germany in revenge for its military presence in Afghanistan.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Swedish Education Minister punts...

Another boneless wonder....
Education Minister Jan Björklund says he doesn't want to legislate against the use of headscarves, niqab, and burkas in Swedish schools.

Teachers unions have called for common rules for teachers and teaching students working in the Swedish education system, as it is currently up to each school to decide, which can sometimes cause conflict with students and teachers.

In a recent case a niqab-wearing teaching student was told that she couldn't wear the face-covering head scarf by a school she was going to work in.

Björklund says that he doesn't want to regulate schools ad infinitum, claiming that "one day teachers say there are too many regulations, the next they say there aren't enough". He says that headmasters should ban them if they think it affects teaching, and to simply allow them if they don't.
He's worried about how teacher feel about regulations??? So, that's his excuse for not acting?

Text of Netanyahu's Speech....

President, Ladies and Gentlemen...

Nearly 62 years ago, the United Nations recognized the right of the Jews, an ancient people 3,500 years-old, to a state of their own in their ancestral homeland. I stand here today as the Prime Minister of Israel, the Jewish state, and I speak to you on behalf of my country and my people.

The United Nations was founded after the carnage of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust. It was charged with preventing the recurrence of such horrendous events. Nothing has undermined that central mission more than the systematic assault on the truth.

Yesterday the President of Iran stood at this very podium, spewing his latest anti-Semitic rants. Just a few days earlier, he again claimed that the Holocaust is a lie.

Last month, I went to a villa in a suburb of Berlin called Wannsee. There, on January 20, 1942, after a hearty meal, senior Nazi officials met and decided how to exterminate the Jewish people. The detailed minutes of that meeting have been preserved by successive German governments.

Here is a copy of those minutes, in which the Nazis issued precise instructions on how to carry out the extermination of the Jews. Is this a lie?

A day before I was in Wannsee, I was given in Berlin the original construction plans for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Those plans are signed by Hitler's deputy, Heinrich Himmler himself. Here is a copy of the plans for Auschwitz-Birkenau, where one million Jews were murdered. Is this too a lie?

This June, President Obama visited the Buchenwald concentration camp. Did President Obama pay tribute to a lie? And what of the Auschwitz survivors whose arms still bear the tattooed numbers branded on them by the Nazis? Are those tattoos a lie?

One-third of all Jews perished in the conflagration. Nearly every Jewish family was affected, including my own. My wife's grandparents, her father's two sisters and three brothers, and all the aunts, uncles and cousins were all murdered by the Nazis. Is that also a lie?
Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium. To those who refused to come here and to those who left this room in protest, I commend you. You stood up for moral clarity and you brought honor to your countries.

But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency? A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state. What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations!

Perhaps some of you think that this man and his odious regime threaten only the Jews. You're wrong. History has shown us time and again that what starts with attacks on the Jews eventually ends up engulfing many others.

This Iranian regime is fueled by an extreme fundamentalism that burst onto the world scene three decades ago after lying dormant for centuries.

In the past thirty years, this fanaticism has swept the globe with a murderous violence and cold-blooded impartiality in its choice of victims. It has callously slaughtered Moslems and Christians, Jews and Hindus, and many others. Though it is comprised of different offshoots, the adherents of this unforgiving creed seek to return humanity to medieval times. Wherever they can, they impose a backward regimented society where women, minorities, gays or anyone not deemed to be a true believer is brutally subjugated.

The struggle against this fanaticism does not pit faith against faith nor civilization against civilization. It pits civilization against barbarism, the 21st century against the 9th century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death. The primitivism of the 9th century ought to be no match for the progress of the 21st century. The allure of freedom, the power of technology, the reach of communications should surely win the day.

Ultimately, the past cannot triumph over the future. And the future offers all nations magnificent bounties of hope. The pace of progress is growing exponentially. It took us centuries to get from the printing press to the telephone, decades to get from the telephone to the personal computer, and only a few years to get from the personal computer to the internet.

What seemed impossible a few years ago is already outdated, and we can scarcely fathom the changes that are yet to come. We will crack the genetic code. We will cure the incurable. We will lengthen our lives. We will find a cheap alternative to fossil fuels and clean up the planet.

I am proud that my country Israel is at the forefront of these advances - by leading innovations in science and technology, medicine and biology, agriculture and water, energy and the environment. These innovations the world over offer humanity a sunlit future of unimagined promise.

But if the most primitive fanaticism can acquire the most deadly weapons, the march of history could be reversed for a time. And like the belated victory over the Nazis, the forces of progress and freedom will prevail only after a horrific toll of blood and fortune has been exacted from mankind.

That is why the greatest threat facing the world today is the marriage between religious fanaticism and the weapons of mass destruction, and the most urgent challenge facing this body is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Are the member states of the United Nations up to that challenge? Will the international community confront a despotism that terrorizes its own people as they bravely stand up for freedom?

Will it take action against the dictators who stole an election in broad daylight and gunned down Iranian protesters who died in the streets choking in their own blood? Will the international community thwart the world's most pernicious sponsors and practitioners of terrorism? Above all, will the international community stop the terrorist regime of Iran from developing atomic weapons, thereby endangering the peace of the entire world?

The people of Iran are courageously standing up to this regime. People of goodwill around the world stand with them, as do the thousands who have been protesting outside this hall. Will the United Nations stand by their side?

Ladies and Gentlemen, the jury is still out on the United Nations, and recent signs are not encouraging. Rather than condemning the terrorists and their Iranian patrons, some here have condemned their victims. That is exactly what a recent UN report on Gaza did, falsely equating the terrorists with those they targeted.

For eight long years, Hamas fired from Gaza thousands of missiles, mortars and rockets on nearby Israeli cities. Year after year, as these missiles were deliberately hurled at our civilians, not a single UN resolution was passed condemning those criminal attacks.

We heard nothing - absolutely nothing - from the UN Human Rights Council, a misnamed institution if there ever was one. In 2005, hoping to advance peace, Israel unilaterally withdrew from every inch of Gaza. It dismantled 21 settlements and uprooted over 8,000 Israelis. We didn't get peace. Instead we got an Iranian backed terror base fifty miles from Tel Aviv. Life in Israeli towns and cities next to Gaza became a nightmare.

You see, the Hamas rocket attacks not only continued, they increased tenfold. Again, the UN was silent. Finally, after eight years of this unremitting assault, Israel was finally forced to respond. But how should we have responded? Well, there is only one example in history of thousands of rockets being fired on a country's civilian population. It happened when the Nazis rocketed British cities during World War II.

During that war, the allies leveled German cities, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties. Israel chose to respond differently. Faced with an enemy committing a double war crime of firing on civilians while hiding behind civilians - Israel sought to conduct surgical strikes against the rocket launchers.

That was no easy task because the terrorists were firing missiles from homes and schools, using mosques as weapons depots and ferreting explosives in ambulances. Israel, by contrast, tried to minimize casualties by urging Palestinian civilians to vacate the targeted areas. We dropped countless flyers over their homes, sent thousands of text messages and called thousands of cell phones asking people to leave.

Never has a country gone to such extraordinary lengths to remove the enemy's civilian population from harm's way. Yet faced with such a clear case of aggressor and victim, who did the UN Human Rights Council decide to condemn? Israel. A democracy legitimately defending itself against terror is morally hanged, drawn and quartered, and given an unfair trial to boot.

By these twisted standards, the UN Human Rights Council would have dragged Roosevelt and Churchill to the dock as war criminals. What a perversion of truth! What a perversion of justice!
Delegates of the United Nations, will you accept this farce? Because if you do, the United Nations would revert to its darkest days, when the worst violators of human rights sat in judgment against the law-abiding democracies, when Zionism was equated with racism and when an automatic majority could declare that the earth is flat.

If this body does not reject this report, it would send a message to terrorists everywhere: Terror pays; if you launch your attacks from densely populated areas, you will win immunity. And in condemning Israel, this body would also deal a mortal blow to peace. Here's why. When Israel left Gaza, many hoped that the missile attacks would stop. Others believed that at the very least, Israel would have international legitimacy to exercise its right of self-defense.

What legitimacy? What self-defense?

The same UN that cheered Israel as it left Gaza and promised to back our right of self-defense now accuses us -my people, my country - of war crimes? And for what? For acting responsibly in self-defense. What a travesty!

Israel justly defended itself against terror. This biased and unjust report is a clear-cut test for all governments. Will you stand with Israel or will you stand with the terrorists? We must know the answer to that question now. Now and not later. Because if Israel is again asked to take more risks for peace, we must know today that you will stand with us tomorrow. Only if we have the confidence that we can defend ourselves can we take further risks for peace.

Ladies and Gentlemen, all of Israel wants peace. Any time an Arab leader genuinely wanted peace with us, we made peace. We made peace with Egypt led by Anwar Sadat. We made peace with Jordan led by King Hussein. And if the Palestinians truly want peace, I and my government, and the people of Israel, will make peace. But we want a genuine peace, a defensible peace, a permanent peace.

In 1947, this body voted to establish two states for two peoples - a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews accepted that resolution. The Arabs rejected it. We ask the Palestinians to finally do what they have refused to do for 62 years: Say yes to a Jewish state.

Just as we are asked to recognize a nation-state for the Palestinian people, the Palestinians must be asked to recognize the nation state of the Jewish people. The Jewish people are not foreign conquerors in the Land of Israel. This is the land of our forefathers.

Inscribed on the walls outside this building is the great Biblical vision of peace: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. They shall learn war no more." These words were spoken by the Jewish prophet Isaiah 2,800 years ago as he walked in my country, in my city - in the hills of Judea and in the streets of Jerusalem. We are not strangers to this land. It is our homeland.

As deeply connected as we are to this land, we recognize that the Palestinians also live there and want a home of their own. We want to live side by side with them, two free peoples living in peace, prosperity and dignity. But we must have security. The Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves except those handful of powers that could endanger Israel.

That is why a Palestinian state must be effectively demilitarized. We don't want another Gaza, another Iranian backed terror base abutting Jerusalem and perched on the hills a few kilometers from Tel Aviv.

We want peace.

I believe such a peace can be achieved. But only if we roll back the forces of terror, led by Iran, that seek to destroy peace, eliminate Israel and overthrow the world order. The question facing the international community is whether it is prepared to confront those forces or accommodate them.

Over seventy years ago, Winston Churchill lamented what he called the "confirmed unteachability of mankind," the unfortunate habit of civilized societies to sleep until danger nearly overtakes them.

Churchill bemoaned what he called the "want of foresight, the unwillingness to act when action will be simple and effective, the lack of clear thinking, the confusion of counsel until emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong."

I speak here today in the hope that Churchill's assessment of the "unteachability of mankind" is for once proven wrong. I speak here today in the hope that we can learn from history -- that we can prevent danger in time.

In the spirit of the timeless words spoken to Joshua over 3,000 years ago, let us be strong and of good courage. Let us confront this peril, secure our future and, God willing, forge an enduring peace for generations to come.

Thank you very much.

Dershowitz on Goldstone...

Why the Goldstone report pushes back the chances for peace...
There are many things wrong with the Goldstone report, which accuses Israel of deliberately targeting civilians in order to punish the people of Gaza.

First, its primary conclusions are entirely false as a matter of demonstrable fact. Second, it defames one of the most moral military forces in the world, along with one of the most responsive legal systems and one of the freest nations in the world when it comes to dissent. Third, it destroys the credibility of “international human rights,” and proves that this honorable concept has been hijacked for political purposes directed primarily against one nation—Israel.

But fourth, and most important, it has set back prospects of peace by making it far more difficult for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank. When Israel was considering its withdrawal from Gaza, some critics predicted that the transfer of Israeli troops out of this dangerous area would encourage terrorists to fire rockets at Israeli civilians who live in close proximity to the Gaza Strip. Those who favored the withdrawal argued that if Palestinian terrorists were to fire rockets from the unoccupied Gaza, Israel would have a perfect right to do whatever it took militarily to stop its civilians from being targeted by enemy rockets. They pointed out that every country has the right to self defense under the United Nations Charter and under the rules of international law. (I favored the withdrawal, as did many liberal supporters of Israel and believed that Israel had the military capacity to respond to any rocket attacks.)

As soon as the Israeli army left the Gaza Strip, Hamas decided to launch rocket attacks on Israeli civilian targets. The Hamas website proudly proclaimed, “The Zionist Army is afraid that the Palestinians will increase the range of the new rockets, placing the towns and villages in the [Zionist] entity in danger.” These Hamas rocket attacks increased over the years until more than a million Israelis were within range. Thousands were traumatized, dozens were injured and several were killed by the thousands of anti-personnel rockets that targeted children, women and other civilians. As candidate Barak Obama said when he went to visit Sderot, the town most devastated by these unprovoked Hamas war crimes:
“The first job of any nation state is to protect its citizens. And so I can assure you that if…If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Israeli to do the same thing.”
Israel protested these rocket attacks to the United Nations, but to no avail. They increased in frequency and range.

The citizens of Israel, especially those in range of the attacks, demanded that their army protect them and not wait until a rocket hit a school bus filled with children or a nursery. Since most of the rockets were fired while children were on route to or just beginning their classes, the risk of a cataclysmic tragedy were considerable. Finally after enduring years of rocket attacks, Israel decided to undertake military action to stop them.

Just before the hostilities began, Israel offered a carrot and a stick: it reopened a checkpoint to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza. It had closed the point of entry after the checkpoint had been targeted by Gazan rockets. (On several prior occasions, Hamas rockets had targeted Israel points of entry through which aid had been provided. It was as if Hams was deliberately trying to manufacture a humanitarian crisis. Israel’s Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, also issued a stern, final warning to Hamas that unless it stopped the rockets, there would be a full-scale military response.

This is the way Reuters reported it:
“Israel reopened border crossings with the Gaza Strip on Friday, a day after Prime Minister warned militants there to stop firing rockets or they would pay a heavy price. Despite the movement of relief supplies, militants fired about a dozen rockets and mortar shafts from Gaza at Israel on Friday. One accidentally struck a house in Gaza, killing two Palestinian sisters, ages 5 and 13. [T]he deliveries could ease the tensions that might have led to a military action to end the rocket attacks. Palestinian workers at the crossings said fuel had arrive for Gaza’s main power plant and about a hundred trucks loaded with grain, humanitarian aid and other good were expected during the day.”
Finally in desperation Israel launched an attack designed to stop the rockets. It succeeded in large part though some rocket attacks have continued. Because Hamas fired its rockets from behind human shields, it was inevitable that there would be civilian casualties, despite Israeli efforts to reduce them by making hundreds of thousands of phone calls and leaflet drops warning civilians to stay out of the streets.

Goldstone’s one-sided condemnation on Israel will make it far more difficult for Israeli leaders to persuade their citizens to remove their soldiers from the West Bank. Rockets fired from the West Bank would endanger far more Israeli civilians and threaten to close the Ben Gurion Airport. Israel now knows that if it were to try to defend itself against such rockets, it would once again be condemned by the United Nations. It will now be far more difficult for Israelis who oppose a continued presence of Israeli troops on the West Bank to persuade a majority of Israelis that the army can protect them even if they leave the West Bank, without incurring the wrath of the international community.

Dismantle the Palestinian Refugee Camps....

Why on earth Palestinians still live in refugee camps is beyond me...
Recently announced plans for a new, upscale Palestinian settlement in the West Bank are impressive. The projected town, some six miles north of Ramallah, will one day house some 40,000 people, making it the same size as the Israeli settlement towns of Beitar and Modiin. The settlement is named Rawabi, and Qatar is a primary investor. Details are being negotiated with Israeli authorities on issues such as free access across Israeli-controlled areas.

Rawabi’s slick website promises that the town’s
commercial activity will be launched from a hub of high-tech and research-related businesses in a variety of sectors. These local and international activities will provide rewarding jobs for Palestinians. Rawabi’s commercial components will be seamlessly integrated with modern, comfortable and affordable housing as well as high-quality public services designed for Palestine’s rapidly growing class of young professionals.

Meanwhile, in a pro-peace op-ed in the Washington Post this summer, Crown Prince Khalifa of Bahrain lamented that “far too many [Palestinians] live in refugee camps in deplorable conditions.” Such camps exist in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, and Lebanon, but Khalifa’s contention is particularly true for those living in areas under Hamas and Palestinian Authority control. Why are these Palestinians stuck in teeming refugee camps when new towns like Rawabi could be built for them?

With the help of Gulf countries, led by Qatar and Bahrain, any number of affordable and suitable communities and productive industrial zones could be built on land controlled by the PA and Hamas. Ten Rawabis should be built, including some on the scorched earth in Gaza where Jewish communities once existed. These towns could provide construction jobs and low-cost housing for both local Palestinians and refugee families, many of whom have been on the UNRWA dole for 60 years. In many cases their new homes would be just a few miles from homesteads where their grandparents claimed to have lived.

There are two problems with this plan. First, has any part of Rawabi been set aside for refugees? It’s unlikely; reading between the lines of the marketing spiel, it is apparent that Rawabi was built to serve the housing and employment needs of the grown children of the Palestinian bourgeois and the yuppie offspring of Palestinian Authority officials on the West Bank.

Why is there so little concern among the elite of Palestine for the poorest of their fellow citizens? Because “Palestinian” is an artificial category, and a very weakly felt one. The track record dating back to 1947 provides little evidence that the Palestinians’ new-found national identity trumps their clan, religious, political, or class differences. In Israel, we shuddered at the barbarism of the Fatah-Hamas fratricide in Gaza in 2006 — the Palestinian “wakseh” or humiliation — when Palestinian families were gunned down by other Palestinians and political opponents were thrown from tall buildings.

During the waves of immigration to Israel of Soviet and Ethiopian Jewry in the 1980s and 1990s, I recall dozens of my neighbors donating furniture to the new immigrants and assigning companions to help settle them in the neighborhood and maneuver through the absorption bureaucracy. Children were happy to tithe from their toys for the new kids on the block who arrived with nothing. If only such a spirit were evident among the Palestinians.

Beyond the Palestinians’ lack of community feeling lies the so-called “right of return.” Palestinian leaders claim that each family has a right to reoccupy the land it held before Israel’s war for independence. Settling refugees comfortably in other areas would weaken their claim to this “right,” while keeping them in camps is a harsh but effective way to maintain pressure against Israel from the international community. What stands in the way of prosperity for Palestinian-controlled areas is the deep brainwashing of Palestinian children that there must be an actual physical return to their ancestral homes, along with an international and Israeli recognition of the “injustice” done to them.

Is this the next Palestinian leader???

If so, we're in a lot of trouble...
The fact that an issue that is supposedly the most important, high-priority question in the world is studied so little has a simple explanation. The contemporary narrative is that the Palestinian leaders yearn for a state, an end to the conflict, and peace, while the failure to achieve these can be blamed on Israel. Yet even the slightest real examination shows the exact opposite is true.

This point is only underlined by looking at the current candidate for next leader, Muhammad Ghaneim, often known as Abu Mahir. Of all those who might credibly have been considered for the leadership of Fatah - and hence of the PLO and Palestinian Authority (PA) - he is probably the most hardline.

WHILE MEDIA coverage of the 2009 Fatah Congress may have stressed the accession of "young" and "more flexible" leaders, the 72-year-old Ghaneim certainly doesn't fit that description.

Born in Jerusalem on August 29, 1937, his first political involvement was with the Muslim Brotherhood, but he became a founding member of Fatah in 1959 and has been active ever since, involved mainly in recruitment and organization.

It is difficult to say to what extent Ghaneim's early involvement with radical Islam has shaped his thinking, and whether it would make it easier for him to reconcile with the even more radical Hamas. Most Fatah and PLO members came from more secular Arab nationalist or leftist movements. The only prominent leader who seemed to blend an Islamist background with nationalism was Arafat himself.

Ghaneim's big career break came in 1968 when, at the age of just 30, Arafat appointed him commander of Fatah's forces in Jordan. Later that year, he was put on Fatah's Central Committee, in charge of organization and recruitment.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of these two jobs. At that time, Jordan was a Fatah stronghold and the group constituted a shadow government alongside that of King Hussein, the country's nominal ruler. Fatah guerrillas - and shortly after Arafat took over, the whole PLO - had military bases from which they launched attacks on Israel across the Jordan River. Arafat must have had an extraordinarily high opinion of Ghaneim to appoint him to such a sensitive post.

Since so much of this task was involved with military matters, Ghaneim took a short officers' course in China. On his return in 1969, Arafat gave him a third chore, as his deputy for military issues. While the details aren't clear, this means Ghaneim must have played a central role in planning and implementing scores of guerrilla and terrorist attacks. Ghaneim played a central role in selecting those to be given key jobs and just how much authority each had. Of course, everyone was far below Arafat, but Ghaneim was about as essential as a second-tier figure could be.

In 1970, Fatah overplayed its hand, was defeated by Jordan's army, and had to flee to Lebanon. Ghaneim continued his organizational and military duties there. When the PLO and Fatah were forced out of Lebanon in 1982, Ghaneim accompanied Arafat to Tunis. From 1982 to mid-2009 he remained there, though he may have begun visiting the PA-ruled territories as early as July 2007.

Ghaneim didn't return with Arafat in 1994 because, despite serving Arafat closely and loyally for 35 years, Ghaneim rejected the 1993 Oslo accords as too moderate. Only armed struggle, total victory, and Israel's destruction were worthy goals in his eyes.

While Arafat sought these things covertly, the compromises involved in such a pretense were too much for Ghaneim. He stayed in Tunisia despite numerous invitations from Arafat, starting in October 1994, to join the PA, and instead insisted Arafat cease all negotiations with Israel.

Ghaneim moved closer to the popular Farouq Kaddumi, often referred to as the second most powerful man in Fatah. Kaddumi rejected the Oslo agreement and kept up a close connection with Syria. Arafat undercut him, but Kaddumi was so strong in the movement that he could never be fired altogether.

Finally, Ghaneim decided to return and support Mahmoud Abbas. While the details are not clear, this coincided with Abbas naming him as successor. Despite some who claim Ghaneim has moderated his positions, there is absolutely no evidence of this.

Thank God Hosni wasn't chosen head of UNESCO...

And, he's pissed that he was passed over...
"Farouk Hosni's latest anti-Semitic outburst shows that UNESCO was right not to elect him to the head of an organization that is supposed to combat the epidemic of anti-Semitism around the world," a senior Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post Thursday.

Hosni, who has served as Egypt's culture minister for the past 22 years, lost the race for UNESCO's top job to Bulgarian Irina Bokova in a Tuesday vote in Paris by UNESCO's executive board, amid accusations of anti-Semitism over his 2007 promise to burn Israeli books and multiple earlier statements against Israeli culture and Jews.

Speaking to reporters at the Cairo airport on Wednesday upon his return from Paris, Hosni said a Western conspiracy "cooked up in New York" prevented him from winning, and that "European countries and the world's Jews" wanted him to lose.

Israel had not opposed his candidacy after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reached a deal over the matter with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The details of the agreement have not been made public.

But, speaking anonymously, the Israeli official, who is part of Israel's diplomatic planning team, said that "the primitive notion that Jews are to blame for everything is not fitting for someone who competed for the job of UNESCO head."

The official added that it was Hosni's own statements, and European and international disquiet, rather than "the Jews," that cost him the job.

"It's only natural that anyone who examines his psychocultural mindset would be frightened. It's natural that someone who called for burning books - and who five minutes after failing to be elected blamed the Jews - should not be elected head of UNESCO," said the official.

Iran's little secret....

Well, gee who would have guessed they'd have a second enrichment facility hidden in a mountain?
Iran has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that it has been building a previously undeclared nuclear facility to enrich uranium, raising fears that Tehran is closer to acquiring an atomic bomb than has been predicted up until now.

The presence of a secret second site – built inside a mountain near the holy Shia city of Qum – has been known about by American and other Western intelligence agencies for some time, although nothing has been revealed until now.

Iran’s formal letter to the IAEA in Vienna, sent on Monday, pre-empted an announcement to be made today by President Obama, Gordon Brown and President Sarkozy of France before the opening of the G20 economic summit in Pittsburgh, in which Tehran will be accused of building the secret facility about 100 miles southwest of the Iranian capital.

Although the CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) has been tracking construction of the plant for several years, Mr Obama decided it was time to put maximum pressure on Tehran by revealing its existence.

Mohammed cartoonist goes to Yale...

I hope he gets a big crowd...
The artist behind the infamous Mohammed cartoon, Kurt Westergaard, and the president of the International Free Press Society, Lars Hedegaard, will speak to Yale University students as a new book about the cartoon crisis is set to be published.

Yale University Press, an autonomous publishing house associated with the university, is releasing Danish author Jytte Clausen’s book ‘The Cartoons That Shook The World’ on Monday. The publisher has removed images of the cartoons from the book, reasoning that they might incite violence.

Westergaard’s cartoons, one of which depicts the prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his turban, were first published by Jyllands-Posten newspaper in 2005.

He and Hedegaard have been invited by a student organisation to speak at the university campus on 1 October, just three days after the book’s scheduled release.

Hedegaard told The Copenhagen Post that he would talk about the background of the crisis and the situation today. He expected Westergaard to talk about his art and what he wanted to express through his drawings.

The timing of the talk was appropriate, he said.

‘The decision of Yale University Press is of course despicable and a sign of censorship and fear. It’s a sad comment of our times that a well-respected company should bow to fear of threats,’ Hedegaard said.

Hedegaard also noted that 30 September is the fourth anniversary of the original publication of the drawings and announced plans to establish an annual event promoting free speech.

When asked if creating an International Free Speech Day on the cartoon anniversary would stir up negative feelings, Hedegaard said that it was not his intention to offend people.

‘We are simply making a statement that we have free speech in our country so that any ideology, or group or political party can be exposed to ridicule,’ said Hedegaard. ‘We can’t control people’s feelings’.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Netanyahu's speech at the UN...



This is just part one...but there are links for all four parts...essential viewing.

Ambercrombie & Fitch are right....

They should be allowed to have a dress code...particularly since they are in clothing...
Given the hyper-sexualized advertising that Abercrombie & Fitch has long embraced, it is no surprise that the company encourages its employees to let their hair down. But is the company practicing discrimination if it won't hire a young woman who covers her head for religious reasons? Yes, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Last week the EEOC filed suit against Abercrombie on behalf of Samantha Elauf, a 19-year-old community college student from Tulsa, Okla., who is Muslim. The suit alleges that Abercrombie "refused to hire Ms. Elauf because she wears a hijab, claiming that the wearing of the headgear was prohibited by its Look Policy," or employee dress code. The suit says that Abercrombie "failed to accommodate her religious beliefs by making an exception to the Look Policy. These actions constitute discrimination against Ms. Elauf on the basis of religion."

Elauf, who had experience working in retail, interviewed for a position at a Tulsa Abercrombie Kids store in June 2008. During the interview, she wore a black hijab, or headscarf, in line with Muslim religious tradition. According to the EEOC, Elauf got word through a friend, who worked in the store, that the headscarf cost her the job. The EEOC alleges that during its investigation, Abercrombie & Fitch flatly told the agency, in a position statement, that "under the Look Policy, associates must wear clothing that is consistent with the Abercrombie brand, cannot wear hats or other coverings, and cannot wear clothes that are the color black." Elauf is suing for back pay and compensation related to emotional pain and anxiety. "If these allegations are true," says Chuck Thornton, deputy director of the ACLU of Oklahoma, "they are serious. In this day and age, it's not acceptable. Certainly, a headscarf is part and parcel of the Islamic experience."
Sorry, I think the ACLU has this one wrong. Surely, the Islamic experience is more than a head scarf??? No one is forcing this person to work at Abercrombie & Fitch.

American Apostates.....

This is from the Gates of Vienna...
Nonie Darwish is a well-known former Muslim. She was born in Egypt, converted out of Islam, and now lives in the United States. But even here — in a country where freedom of speech and freedom of religion are constitutionally guaranteed — she faces intimidation and harassment for daring to leave Islam.

As Phyllis Chesler wrote yesterday:
Nonie DarwishNonie Darwish, the warmest, sanest, least prejudiced Egyptian whom I know, has both been attacked and has not been defended by the administrative elite at the Whittier College Law School where she is scheduled to speak later today. According to Steven Emerson, the Muslim Student Association on campus defamed Darwish and tried to stop or at least delay her presentation.

Not surprising. They specialize in such demonization and censorship campaigns. Darwish pleads the case of Muslim women whose human rights are seriously violated by shariah law. But the academic administrators at Whittier Law School have not strongly defended her right to speak, nor have they praised her work. This is unforgivable; according to Emerson, many happen to be women who are also feminists.
This is a process that has become all too familiar in recent years as courageous apostates from Islam have been abandoned by both civil libertarians and feminists. The hypocrisy of the progressive Left is now completely exposed: the human rights that they have putatively championed for all these years are not universal. When Islam walks through the door, the Left falls suddenly and mysteriously silent about the right of Muslims to choose their own destiny.

However, America’s former Muslims aren’t waiting for the approval of the Left to assert their freedom. They’ve organized a new group called Former Muslims United under the leadership of Nonie Darwish, Mohammed Asghar, Amil Imani, Wafa Sultan and Ibn Warraq:
Former Muslims United was formed in September, 2009 by a group of leading American apostates from Islam — Nonie Darwish (Director), Mohammed Asghar, Amil Imani, Wafa Sultan and Ibn Warraq — to educate the American public and policymakers about the need for Muslims to repudiate the threat from authoritative Shariah to the religious freedom and safety of former Muslims. Our national campaign for civil rights and physical safety for former Muslims was launched with the creation of a pledge for Muslim leaders to sign — “ The Muslim Pledge for Religious Freedom and Safety from Harm for Former Muslims.”

The first group of Muslim leaders were sent pledges to coincide with the date September 25, 2009.
I’ll have more to say about the Pledge below. But first, some excerpts from the group’s mission statement:
1. Develop a legal framework for and ensure the civil of American individuals and organizations to provide sanctuary for former Muslims without being subject to legal penalties or threats.
2. Call on all Muslims and their spiritual leaders to reject, publicly and without reservation or exception, all Sharia doctrine that permits or calls for punishment or discrimination against former Muslims, including intimidation and threats against person or property. This rejection of violence applies to individuals, Sharia authorities, Muslim courts or other Sharia bodies, governments, and quasi-governmental bodies.
3. Form a support group to empower and give comfort to former Muslims enabling them to stand up for their religious liberties under the US Constitution.
[…]
7. Demand Muslim leaders reject and denounce all Islamic literature which calls for death or other punishments for former Muslims.
The members of Former Muslims United are tackling the most urgent issue that can be faced by those who have chosen to leave Islam. In any country where there are significant numbers of Muslims, apostates face the risk of death at the hands of their former fellows. Islam permits — indeed, it requires — the death penalty for apostasy, as well as for other crimes such as blasphemy and adultery.

Since the strictures of Sharia run contrary to the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, Former Muslims United requests that Muslim leaders in the United States specifically and unequivocally affirm the civil rights of former Muslims by renouncing Sharia wherever it contradicts those rights.

On Friday September 25th — the day after tomorrow — 50,000 Muslims are scheduled to gather for prayers on Capitol Hill. FMU has chosen this occasion to present American Muslim leaders with the Freedom Pledge. The cover letter for the pledge states:
We send this letter to you to be received by September 25, 2009. On that date 220 years ago in 1789, the U.S. Congress passed the Bill of Rights. This is a fitting date to put our pledge to the world, for the first of those rights guarantees religious freedom and freedom of speech. These rights are, as our Declaration of Independence states, unalienable — they cannot be denied to any of us. For former Muslims, who throughout history have lost their liberties and lives when they left Islam, both the First Amendment and the Declaration of Independence have special significance.

As founders of Former Muslims United, we now pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor to achieve for former Muslims their unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We claim these rights as the foundation for our right to freedom from Shariah. We urge you to join us.

Our request is simple. The need is urgent. Please sign the pledge and encourage others in your organization to do so as well. We await your response.
And the Freedom Pledge itself reads:
- – - - – - – - -
The Muslim Pledge for Religious Freedom and Safety from Harm for Former Muslims

Whereas:

All four schools of Sunni Islamic law (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, and Hanbali), as well as the other main schools of Shia Islamic law (al-Isma iliyyun and Ithna ashariyya), unanimously agree that a former Muslim male, also known as an apostate, must be executed. While some hold that an apostate woman should also be executed, the Encyclopedia of Islamic Law: A compendium of the Major Schools, adapted by Laleh Bakhtiar, states that she should be imprisoned or beaten five times a day until she repents or dies. These specific world renowned Islamic legal authorities join in this consensus:

Head of the Fatawa Council of Al-Azhr, Abdullah al-Mishadd, Al-Azhar University, the pre-eminent Shariah legal authority, Fatwa issued 23rd September 1978: “This man has committed apostasy; he must be given a chance to repent and if he does not then he must be killed according to Shariah. As far as his children are concerned, as long as they are children they are considered Muslim, but after they reach the age of puberty, then if they remain with Islam they are Muslim, but if they leave Islam and they do not repent they must be killed…”

Mufti of Lebanon, Beirut, Fatwa issued 13 November 1989: “Now, should the apostate (male or female) persist in his apostasy, he should be given the opportunity to repent, prior to his being put to death, out of respect for his Islam. A misunderstanding on his part may have taken place, and there would thus be an opportunity to rectify it. Often apostasy takes place on account of an offer (of inducement). So Islam must be presented to the apostate, things should be clarified, and his sin made manifest. He should be imprisoned for three days, so that he may have the opportunity to reflect upon his situation. This three-day period has been deemed adequate. But if the man or the woman has not repented of his or her raddah, but has continued to persist in it, then he or she should be put to death…”

Ibn Rushd (Averroes), The Distinguished Jurist’s Primer, “Chapter on the Hukm of the Murtadd (Apostate),” Volume II, (p. 552), Section 56.10: “An apostate, if taken captive before he declares war, is to be executed by agreement in the case of a man, because of the words of the Prophet (God’s peace and blessings be upon him), “Slay those who change their din:. They disagreed about the execution of a woman and whether she to be required to repent before execution. The majority said that a woman (apostate) is to be executed…”

Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri, Reliance of the Traveller, translation approved by Al-Azhar Islamic Research Academy and IIIT, 1994. (p. 595): “ o8.1 When a person who has reached puberty and is sane voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed….o8.4 There is no indemnity for killing an apostate (O: or any expiation, since it is killing someone who deserves to die).”

Ismail R. Al-Faruki, the Founder of International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), Islam, 1979, (p. 68): “That is why Islamic Law has treated people who have converted out of Islam as political traitors…[Islam] must deal with the traitors when convicted after due process of law either with banishment, life imprisonment, or capital punishment…but once their conversion is proclaimed, they must be dealt with as traitors to the state.”

Louay Safi, the former Executive Director of IIIT and the Executive Director of the Islamic Society of North America’s (ISNA) Leadership Development Council, Peace and the Limits of War, IIIT publication, 2003 (p. 25): “A quiet desertion of personal Islamic duties is not a sufficient reason for inflicting death on a person. Only when the person’s desertion of Islam is used as a political tool for instigating a state of disorder, or revolting against the law of Islam, can the individual apostate then be put to death as a just punishment for his act of treason and betrayal of the Muslim community.”

Shaikh Syed Abul A’ala Maududi, Pakistani Islamic authority, The Punishment of the Apostate According to Islamic Law, translation by Syed Silas Husain, 1994: “In any case the heart of the matter is that children born of Muslim lineage will be considered Muslims and according to Islamic law the door of apostasy will never be opened to them. If anyone of them renounces Islam, he will be as deserving of execution as the person who has renounced kufr to become a Muslim and again has chosen the way of kufr. All the jurists of Islam agree with this decision. On this topic absolutely no difference exists among the experts of shari’ah.”

Therefore:

To support the civil rights of former Muslims, also known as apostates from Islam, I sign “The Muslim Pledge for Religious Freedom and Safety from Harm for Former Muslims”:

I renounce, repudiate and oppose any physical intimidation, or worldly and corporal punishment, of apostates from Islam, in whatever way that punishment may be determined or carried out by myself or any other Muslim including the family of the apostate, community, Mosque leaders, Shariah court or judge, and Muslim government or regime.
This inspired initiative is a precision weapon aimed at the very heart of the dilemma faced by American Muslims.

If, as they repeatedly claim, Muslim leaders truly support political liberty and the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution, then they should have no trouble signing it.

On the other hand, if they do sign it, they’re violating the tenets of their own religion, as codified in the Koran and the hadith and backed up by 1400 years of Muslim juridical tradition. Those who agree to sign the pledge would thus become vulnerable to retaliation by the very same people who threaten Nonie Darwish, Wafa Sultan, and all the other Americans who have chosen to leave Islam.

American Muslim leaders are being backed into a corner. How will they respond?
Thanks to Vlad Tepes for sending this out....