Who is behind the 2nd Flotilla...

An assorted group of Islamists and post-modern leftists...

The second flotilla is coordinated by Muhammad Sawalha, a senior UK-based Muslim Brotherhood figure connected to Hamas. Many of the participating organizations can be directly linked with the Union of Good (UoG), a coalition of European charities affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, which in 2008 was designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. Treasury for transferring funds to Hamas. The UoG was initiated by Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood on a global scale, shortly after the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000.

For the Brotherhood, two chief centers of organization can be clearly seen. On the European and global scene, the centrality of its UK-based activists is once again demonstrated, while in the Middle East, its Jordanian branch is noticeable.

Other main organizers include the anti-Israel International Solidarity Movement (ISM), as well as far-left socialists from Europe and the United States. Many of the flotilla's main organizers have stated that its prime aim is to create provocations and harm Israel's image.

Following Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, which ended in January 2009, a series of international conferences was held in Turkey to restructure the struggle against Israel. A conference in February 2009 featured 200 radical Islamist scholars who came to meet with senior Hamas officials to plot a new, "third jihadi front" (in addition to Pakistan and Iraq) centered on Gaza. The conference gave birth to the infamous, pro-Hamas Istanbul Declaration, which also provided justification for attacking foreign navies which might try to prevent arms smuggling to Gaza.

In general, the same organizers stand behind the second flotilla, with several changes. The most important may be the IHH decision not to send the Mavi Marmara, the ship which brought the first flotilla its publicity following violent clashes between IHH activists and the IDF in which nine Turks were killed. Rather than take a leading role, it appears that the IHH will settle this time for sending activists to sail on other ships.

Thus, the flotilla is far from being a peaceful, humanitarian effort to support the Palestinians in Gaza. It should instead be seen as a major, pro-Hamas effort to delegitimize Israel by a "red-green alliance" of leftists and Islamists.

Iran conducting secret ballistic missile tests...

Why are they trying to keep this secret???

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Wednesday that Iran has conducted covert tests of ballistic missiles alongside a 10-day program of public military maneuvers.

Mr. Hague told the House of Commons there had been secret experiments with missiles and rocket launchers.

Iran is conducting 10 days of war games in an apparent show of strength to the West and on Tuesday fired 14 missiles in public tests.

Britain believes Tehran has conducted at least three secret tests of medium-range ballistic missiles since October.

The problems of raised expectations for an independent Palestine...

The latest from Khaled Abu Toameh...

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has officially decided to go to the United Nations in September to ask for recognition of a Palestinian state along the pre-1967 lines.

But how can Abbas go to the UN in New York when he cannot even go back to his home in the Gaza Strip, which has been seized by Hamas?

How can he go to the UN when he cannot visit the Gaza Strip, where more than 1.5 million Palestinians live?

How can Abbas go to the UN when he cannot even visit a refugee camp in the West Bank, Lebanon or Syria?

Even if the UN votes in favor of a Palestinian state in September, how does Abbas plan to implement the decision on the ground? Can he really convince Hamas and Palestinian refugees to accept the two-state solution and abandon the "right of return" to Israel proper?

Hamas, which represents many Palestinians, has made it clear that it would never recognize Israel's right to exist or accept the two-state solution. Hamas will, of course, reject any UN resolution calling for the establishment of a state "only" within the pre-1967 lines.

Hamas's goal is to replace Israel with an Islamic state that may allow some Jews to live under its jurisdiction as a minority. Hamas wants all the land, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River. That is why any resolution adopted by the UN would not bring everlasting and comprehensive peace to the Middle East.

Leaked! Latest Memo from Jack...

June 28th: Lessons from the Filibuster...

The abandonment of Afghanistan....

There's nobody left to help Afghanistan....

In the crudest analysis, the American people are being played for suckers in a contest between the United States and the most sinister elements within Pakistan’s military-industrial complex – those soft-palmed, duplicitous, rosy-cheeked Punjabi colonels who have grown rich and fat on American subsidies. In that contest, the Pakistanis are trouncing the Yanks and kicking sand in their faces and laughing about it. Just ask Zalmay Khalilzad: “Our inability to deal effectively with Pakistan is one of the key factors in the crisis of confidence between the United States and the Karzai government. Karzai wants either more pressure—including attacks on Taliban, Haqqani network and other extremist targets across the border into Pakistan—or a negotiated settlement with Islamabad. He does not want to continue the fight against Pakistani proxy forces in Afghanistan and has grown disillusioned with the U.S. approach. As the Obama administration has been considering a drawdown in recent weeks, Pakistan has been actively encouraging Karzai to turn against the United States.”

Fortini Christia’s letter from Kabul: “Many Afghans understandably fear for their lives. During a large international development agency’s recent meeting in Kabul, an Afghan employee asked ‘What is the plan for evacuating local staff when the United States withdraws?’ Amid charts illustrating dwindling aid deliveries, she foresaw Kabul becoming another Saigon. An Afghan colleague of mine, who has worked for years on development projects with foreigners comes to work every day in his shalwar kameez (the baggy pants and long shirt that many South Asians wear) and changes into Western attire at the office. He drives a beat-up car and routinely moves his family to different rental apartments in Kabul. ‘If the Taliban comes back, and people know I worked for foreigners, I will be found hanging from a lamppost,’ he said.”

Go and read the whole thing...

Shame on the Human Rights Community....

They can't even ask for the release of Gilad Shalit...

Tomorrow marks the five-year anniversary of the Hamas raid into Israel in which Gilad Shalit was wounded and then dragged through a tunnel into the Gaza Strip, where he remains in captivity to this day. To mark the occasion, 12 prominent “human rights” organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B’Tselem, have issued a joint statement.

If a better example of the utter moral collapse of the human rights community exists, it would be hard to find. The statement is one of passionless brevity — just a few sentences long — and expresses no opinion on the standing of Hamas, or on its 2006 raid into Israel, or on the legitimacy of its goals and methods. Remarkably, it doesn’t even demand the release of Gilad Shalit. The most that this allegedly courageous and principled human rights community could bring itself to say to the terrorists of Hamas is that they should improve the conditions of Shalit’s imprisonment. You can read the statement on Human Rights Watch’s website.

Howard Jacobson speaks to Alice Walker regarding the flotilla...

I doubt she'll answer him...

Alice Walker makes plain, "its cargo will be carrying." But what will these letters of solidarity be expressing solidarity with? Solidarity is a political term implying commonality of interest or aspiration. So what interest or aspiration do Alice Walker and her fellow travelers share with the people of Gaza? A desire for freedom? Well we all aspire to that. A longing to live in peace?

If they have such a longing we must be solid with them in that too, though the firing of rockets from Gaza is not, on the face of it, an expression of such a longing. And what about the declared hostility of Hamas to the very existence of Israel? Hamas, we are often told, is the elected government of Gaza, a government that fairly represents the wishes of its people. In which case we must assume that Hamas's implacable hostility towards Israel fairly represents the implacable hostility felt by the people of Gaza. Are Alice Walker's letters of love and 'solidarity' solid with the people of Gaza in that hostility?

"If the Israeli military attacks us, it will be as if they attacked the mailman," she says. Wrong on a thousand counts. As a writer, Alice Walker must understand the symbolic significance of words. The cargo is a cargo of intention. It is freighted with political sympathy and attitude. It means to blunder into where it isn't safe, clothed in the make-believe garments of the unworldly, speaking of children and speaking like children, half inviting a violence which can then be presented as a slaughter of the innocents.

Even before the deed, Alice Walker has her language of outraged moral purity prepared -- "but if they insist on attacking us, wounding us, even murdering us..." The Israeli response is thus already an act of unprovoked murder, no matter that the flotilla is by its very essence a provocation. Whatever its cargo, by luring the Israeli military into action which can be represented as brutal, the flotilla is engaged in an entirely political act. To call it by any other name is the grossest hypocrisy.

Please read the whole thing...

The Arab States are beginning to notice Israel....

A nice summary from Qatar...

There is no doubt that Israel is superior to all Arab countries in the sphere of Information Technology, a comparative study between Arab nations and Israel on ‘Scientific Research and Patent Rights Compared’ conducted by Dr Khalid Said Rubaia, a Palestinian researcher at American Arab University in Palestine, says.

Israel spends 4.7 percent of its total GDP on scientific research, which is the highest in the world. However, Arab states are spending 0.2 percent of their total incomes and Asian Arab countries around 0.5 percent of their incomes on research, said the report.

Regarding patent rights, Israel has registered 16,805 patents. However, Arab countries have only 836 patents which is 5 percent of what Israel has.

Israel spends 0.8-1 percent of the total expenditure of the world on research work and Arab states spend 0.4 percent. It means Israel spends more than double that spent by Arab countries in this field.

Israel spends 4.7 percent of its income on research. However, Arab countries spend 0.2 percent of their total income on the same. United States spends about 2.7 percent of its income, UK 1.8 and Germany 2.6 percent on research work.

Iran trying to fill American vacuum...

This is very dangerous....

Iran is moving to cement ties with the leaders of three key American allies—Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq—highlighting Tehran's efforts to take a greater role in the region as the U.S. military pulls out troops.

The Afghan and Pakistani presidents, visiting Tehran, discussed with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "many issues…that might come up after the NATO military force goes out of Afghanistan," Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in an interview here Sunday.

"The three presidents were very forthcoming in carrying out the cooperation and contacts so as to make sure things will go as smoothly as it could," he said.

That was a jab at Washington, which is increasingly in competition with Tehran for influence in the region, particularly as popular rebellions have surged across the Middle East and North Africa since January.

The overtures by U.S. nemesis Iran come amid tensions between Washington and three governments that have each received billions of dollars in U.S. aid. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, before traveling to Tehran, welcomed President Barack Obama's announcement on Wednesday that the U.S. would withdraw 33,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan over 15 months.

Building boom in Gaza....

People on the flotilla need luxury hotels...

Two luxury hotels are opening in Gaza this month. Thousands of new cars are plying the roads. A second shopping mall — with escalators imported from Israel — will open next month. Hundreds of homes and two dozen schools are about to go up. A Hamas-run farm where Jewish settlements once stood is producing enough fruit that Israeli imports are tapering off.

Gap between Hamas and Fatah is huge....

Khaled Abu Toameh on the so-called reconciliation...

The Egyptian-brokered reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Fatah, which was announced last month in Cairo, appears to have ended before it started.

It now turns out that the gap between the two rival parties remains as wide as ever, in spite of the accord. Hamas and Fatah continue to disagree on almost everything.

They disagree on who would head a new Palestinian unity government, on members of the government, on the government's political platform, on the future of the peace process with Israel, on security coordination with Israel, on the Palestinian Authority's relationship with the United States and European Union and on the role of the Palestinian security forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

But there are other things where Fatah and Hamas do see eye to eye.

Both parties agree on the need to restrict freedom of speech and the media. The two Palestinian governments continue to display intolerance toward any form of criticism, regardless of its source.

Palestinian journalists and political activists who dare to criticize the governments in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip face arrest, harassment and intimidation. This explains why there is not a single Palestinian opposition newspaper in the West Bank or in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas and Fatah also agree on the need for each party to stay in power at all costs. That's why they don't want to hold new elections. In many ways, the status quo is not bad for the two parties.

In the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority continues to receive millions of dollars in financial aid from the international community. The Palestinian Authority's leaders hold Israeli-issued VIP cards that allow them to travel freely, especially to fancy hotels and restaurants in Tel Aviv.

The VIP cards also allow the Palestinian leaders to pass through Israeli checkpoints without having to wait in line together with ordinary Palestinians.

Leaked! The Latest Memo from Jack...

The Filibuster...

Benny Morris goes to London...

Accosted on the Kingsway...

Last week I had a rather ambivalent experience at the London School of Economics which may point to something beyond the personal—indeed, about where Britain, and possibly Western Europe as a whole, are heading.

I was invited to lecture on the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948. A few hours earlier, a fire had broken out in a nearby building and Kingsway was sealed off, so the taxi dropped me off a few blocks away. As I walked down Kingsway, a major London thoroughfare, a small mob—I don't think any other word is appropriate—of some dozen Muslims, Arabs and their supporters, both men and women, surrounded me and, walking alongside me for several hundred yards as I advanced towards the building where the lecture was to take place, raucously harangued and bated me with cries of "fascist," "racist," "England should never have allowed you in," "you shouldn't be allowed to speak." Several spoke in broken, obviously newly acquired, English. Violence was thick in the air though none was actually used. Passersby looked on in astonishment, and perhaps shame, but it seemed the sight of angry bearded, caftaned Muslims was sufficient to deter any intervention. To me, it felt like Brownshirts in a street scene in 1920s Berlin—though on Kingsway no one, to the best of my recall, screamed the word "Jew."

In the lecture hall, after a cup of tea, the session, with an audience of some 350 students and others, passed remarkably smoothly. Entry required tickets, which were freely dispensed upon the provision of name and address. The LSE had beefed up security and several bobbies stood outside the building confronting the dozen or so demonstrators who held aloft placards stating "Benni Morris is a Fascist," "Go home," etc. Inside, in the lecture hall, surprisingly, there was absolute silence during my talk; you could have heard a pin drop. The Q and A session afterwards was by and large civilized, though several Muslim participants, including girls with scarves, displayed anger and dismissiveness. One asserted: "You are not an historian"; another, more delicately, suggested that the lecturer "professes to be a serious historian." However, the overwhleming majority of the audience was respectful and, in my view, appreciative (to judge by the volume of clapping at the end of the lecture and at the end of the Q and A), but a small minority jeered and clapped loudly when anti-Zionist questions or points were raised.

The manner of our exit from the lecture hall was also noteworthy. The chairman asked the audience to stay in their seats until the group on stage departed. I was ushered by the security team down an elevator and through a narrow basement passage full of kitchen stores and out a side entrance. Like an American president in a B-rated thriller.

Another disconcerting element in what went on in the lecture hall was the hosting LSE professor's brief introductory remarks, which failed completely to note the harrassment and intimidation (of which he had been made fully aware) of the lecturer on Kingsway, or to criticize them in any way. My assumption was that some were LSE students.

There was a sense that the chairman was deliberately displaying caution in view of the world in which he lives. Which brings me back to what happened on Kingsway.

Uncurbed, Muslim intimidation in the public domain of people they see as disagreeing with them is palpable and palpably affecting the British Christian majority among whom they live, indeed, cowing them into silence. One senses real fear (perhaps a corner was turned with the Muslim reactions around the world to the "Mohammed cartoons" and the responses in the West to these reactions.) Which, if true, is a sad indication of what is happening in the historic mother of democracies and may point to what is happening, and will increasingly happen, in Western Europe in general in the coming decades. (A video of the LSE talk is on the website. A Muslim cameraman also made a video of the mob scene on Kingsway and posted it on the web—but appears to have thought better of it and subsequently removed it.)

Is this the voice of peace???

Nabil Sha'th, a prominent member of Fatah, spells out his vision of peace...

In response to Kul Al-Arab's question "Do you still believe in two states for two peoples?" Sha'th said: "We do not recognize anything called the state of the Jewish people. We are prepared to recognize the State of Israel, if they say that the Israeli people includes those Muslim and Christian residents who are the true owners of the land. But we do not agree to [two states] for two peoples, which means that Israel belongs to the Jewish people. [Israel must] belong to everyone who lives there, and first and foremost to its original inhabitants. We have never agreed, and never will agree, under any circumstances, to recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people.

"To begin with, we rejected the Partition Plan, and they [the Jews] implemented it only in terms of what concerned them. If they want to implement the plan [as it is written], we will reconsider [our] position and ask for 44 percent of Palestine, rather than 22 percent – in which case all of the Jezreel Valley will be part of Palestinian territory.

"There is a chance for two states: a Palestinian state and a non-Jewish State of Israel. We want a solution that will ensure the rights of the refugees and protect the rights of those Palestinians who live in Israel, since protecting their rights is part of our strategy. The discussion of one state is altogether impossible."

A new fashion crackdown in Iran....

Is there an official dress code somewhere???

It's an Iranian rite of summer: Islamic morality squads pressure women to keep their headscarves snug and coverings in place, and after a few extra tugs for modesty's sake the crackdown inevitably fades.

This year, however, Iran's summer fashion offensive appears bigger and more ominous, and has expanded the watch list to men's hairstyles and jewelry considered too Western.

Wolfowitz on why we need to get rid of Gaddafi...

Why on earth can't we just say it - we need to get rid of him...

The U.S. has a large stake in the outcome in Libya. Not because of its oil production but because of the dangerous nature of the Gadhafi regime—made far more dangerous by the current conflict—and because of the effect that Libya can have on the rest of the Arab world at a critical time in history.

Libya may not rise to the level of a "vital interest," as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and others have assured us, but preventing it from becoming a haven for terrorists if Gadhafi survives comes very close. And while Libya is not as important as Egypt, as Vice President Joe Biden has told us, what happens in Libya affects Egypt and much of the Arab world. The Libyan fighting has burdened Egypt's weak economy with tens of thousands of additional unemployed that it can ill-afford. The same is true for Tunisia.

Gadhafi's fall would provide inspiration for the opposition in Syria and perhaps even Iran, whereas his survival would embolden the regimes in power there to cling on. The sooner Gadhafi goes, the greater the impact will be.

In Libya itself, the U.S. might gain a much-needed friend in the Arab world. A British diplomat in Benghazi, the unofficial temporary capital of free Libya, has said that it is the first time during his many years in the Arab world that he has seen American flags displayed in appreciation. Even in Tripoli, still under Gadhafi's control, people go to the rooftops to whistle in celebration during NATO bombing raids. After a visit to Benghazi last month, Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman wrote: "Imagine walking in the main square of a teeming Arab city and having people wave the American flag, clamor for photographs with a visiting American official, and celebrate the United States as both savior and model."

Appreciation for the United States in the Arab world is something to be welcomed at any time, but particularly now when demands for freedom are sweeping across the Middle East. Yet here in the United States, there seems to be little appreciation for this or for the brave Libyans who are fighting for their freedom with such courage.

There's more...

It's not easy being a hater of Israel....

They ignore the what is happening all throughout the Middle East...

Things must be getting tougher in the Hate Israel industry these days, what with Arab leaders slaughtering their own people everywhere you look, in order to hold onto their jobs.

People were killed in Egypt, people were killed in Tunisia and Bahrain, people are still being killed in Yemen, Libya and especially Syria. They’re being killed because they’d like to change the government, which you can do in Israel just by turning up to vote. They’re being killed because they’d like to be more like Israel. How can you focus the world’s attention on the despicable state of affairs in apartheid Israel when the people in neighbouring countries insist on giving up their lives in hopes of winning similar rights to those Israel already offers? It’s almost like the protesters in all those places didn’t realize that the source of all their troubles lies in Jerusalem, not in their own countries.

Hate Israel people aren’t easy to persuade, though, so they’re persevering despite the headwinds. The folks behind the Canadian boat to Gaza sent their little contingent off on the weekend to join the heroic struggle to break the murderous Israeli blockade of Gaza and bring life-saving supplies to its besieged people. The people of Gaza aren’t really besieged, and it’s not really that hard to send them supplies, if that’s your intention, but admitting as much would spoil all the drama and self-serving bombast of the Hate Israel folks, so they’re pretending otherwise. If they’re really lucky, Israel will try to turn back the boat and they can try to provoke a confrontation, enabling them to get a ton of international publicity for themselves, which is what they live for. It might be a bit more difficult than in the past, though, since Israel may be reluctant to play along, and since the blockade has already been eased. And Turkey, which has been supportive of the flotillas, has its hands full trying to deal with the flood of civilians fleeing Syria to escape the government’s murderous campaign to put down a popular revolt. (Syria is one of those countries that kills people who challenge the government, a state of affairs the Hate Israel people have to studiously ignore.)

Leaked! The latest Memo from Jack...

Feedback from the Convention...

Elena Bonner speech at the Oslo Freedom Forum..

Elena Bonner just recently passed away....

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Friends,

In his invitation to this conference, the president, Thor Halvorssen, asked me to talk about my life, the suffering I have endured, and how I was able to bear it all. But today all that seems to me quite unnecessary.

So I will say only a few words about myself.

At the age of 14, I was left without my parents. My father was executed, my mother was sent for 18 years to prison and exile. My grandmother raised me and my younger brother. The poet Vladimir Kornilov, who suffered the same fate, wrote: “And it turned out that in those years there were no mothers. There were grandmothers.” There were hundreds of thousands of such children. Ilya Ehrenburg called us “the strange orphans of 1937”.

Then the war came. My generation was cut off nearly at the roots by the war, but I was lucky. I came back from the war. I came back to an empty house. My grandmother had died in the blockade of Leningrad. Then came a communal apartment, six half-hungry years of medical school, falling in love, two children, and the poverty of a Soviet doctor. But I was not alone in this. Everyone lived this way. Then there was my dissident period followed by exile. But Andrei and I were together! And that was real happiness.

Today, summing up my life (at age 86, you think about this every day you’re still alive), I can sum up my life in three words. My life was typical, tragic, and beautiful. Whoever needs the details -- read my two books, Alone Together and Mothers and Daughters. They have been translated into many languages. Read Sakharov’s Memoirs. It’s a pity his Diaries haven’t been translated; they were published in Russia in 2006. Apparently, the West isn’t interested now in Sakharov.

The West isn’t very interested in Russia either. There are no real elections there, no independent courts, and no freedom of the press. Russia is a country where journalists, human rights activists and migrants are killed regularly, almost daily. And extreme corruption flourishes of a kind and extent that never existed earlier in Russia or anywhere else. So what do the Western mass media discuss mainly? Gas and oil -- of which Russia has a lot. Energy is its only political trump card, and Russia uses it as an instrument of pressure and blackmail. And there’s another topic that never disappears from the newspapers -- who rules Russia? Putin or Medvedev? But what difference does it make, if Russia has completely lost the impulse for democratic development that we thought we saw in the early 1990s. Russia will remain the way it is now for decades, unless there is some violent upheaval.

During the years since the fall of the Berlin wall, the world has experienced incredible changes in an exceptionally short period. But has the world become better, or more prosperous for the six billion 800 million people who live on our small planet? No one can answer that question unambiguously, despite all the achievements of science and technology and that process which we customarily call “progress”. It seems to me that the world has become more alarming, more unpredictable, and more fragile. This alarm, unpredictability, and fragility is felt to some extent by all countries and all individuals. And civic and political life becomes more and more virtual, like a picture on a computer screen.

Even so, the picture of life, formed by television, newspaper or radio remains the same as earlier -- there is no end to the conferences, summits, forums, various competitions -- from beauty contests to eating sandwiches. There is talk about people coming together -- but in reality, they are growing apart.

And that isn’t because an economic depression suddenly burst forth, and swine flu to boot. This began on September 11. At first, anger and horror was provoked by the terrorists who knocked down the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and by their accomplices, the shahids, suicide bombers who blew themselves up together with discotheques, wedding parties, and many civilian targets in London, Madrid and other cities; their families were paid $25,000 by Saddam Hussein for these atrocities. Later, Bush was blamed for everything, and as always, the Jews -- that is, Israel. An example was the first Durban Conference, and the growth of anti-Semitism in Europe, noted several years ago in a speech by Romano Prodi. Then there was Durban-2; the main speaker was Ahmadinejad proposing to annihilate Israel.

So it is about Israel and the Jews that I will speak. And not only because I am Jewish, but above all because the Middle Eastern conflict since the end of World War II has been a platform for political games and gambling by the great powers, the Arab countries and individual politicians, striving, through the so-called “peace process,” to make a name for themselves, and perhaps win a Nobel Peace Prize. At one time, the Nobel Prize was the highest moral award of our civilization. But after December 1994, when Yasir Arafat became one of the three new laureates, its ethical value was undermined. I haven’t always greeted each selection of the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Storting with joy, but that one shocked me. And to this day, I cannot understand and accept the fact that Andrei Sakharov and Yasir Arafat, now posthumously, share membership in the club of Nobel laureates.

In many of Sakharov’s publications (in his books Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom and My Country and the World, in his articles and in his interviews), Andrei Dmitrievich wrote and spoke about Israel. I have a collection of citations of his writing on this topic. If it were published in Norway, then many Norwegians would be surprised at how sharply their contemporary view on Israel differs from the view of Sakharov.

Here are several citations from Sakharov:

«Israel has an indisputable right to exist,”; “Israel has a right to existence within safe borders,” “all wars that Israel has waged have been just, forced upon it by the irresponsibility of Arab leaders,” “with all the money that has been invested in the problem of Palestinians, it would have been possible long ago to settle them and provide them with good lives in Arab countries.”

Throughout the years of Israel’s existence there has been war. Victorious wars, and also wars which Israel was not allowed to win. Each and every day -- literally every day -- there is the expectation of a terrorist act or a new war. We have seen the Oslo Peace Initiatives and the Camp-David Hand-shake and the Road-map and Land for Peace (there is not much land -- from one side of Israel on a clear day you can see the other side with your naked eye).

Now, a new motif is fashionable (in fact it’s an old one): “Two states for two peoples.” It sounds good. And there are no objections inside the peace-making Quartet, made up of the U.S., the UN, the EU, and Russia (some great peace-maker, with its Chechen war and its Abkhazian-Ossetian provocation). The Quartet, and the Arab countries, and the Palestinian leaders (both Hamas and Fatah) put additional demands to Israel. I will speak only of one demand: that Israel accept back the Palestinian refugees. And here a little history and demography are needed.

According to the UN’s official definition, refugees are considered those who fled from violence and wars, but not their descendants who are born in another land. At one time the Palestinian refugees and the Jewish refugees from Arab countries were about equal in number -- about 700-800,000. The newly-created state Israel took in Jews (about 600,000). The UN officially acknowledged them as refugees (Resolution 242), but did not help them. Palestinians, however, are considered refugees not only in the first generation, but the second, third, and now even the fourth generation. According to the UN Works and Relief Agency’s report, the number of registered Palestinian refugees has grown from 914,000 in 1950 to more than 4.6 million in 2008, and continues to rise due to natural population growth.
The entire population of Israel is about 7.5 million, of which there are about 2.5 million ethnic Arabs who call themselves Palestinians. Imagine Israel then, if another five million Arabs flood into it; Arabs would substantially outnumber the Jewish population. And adjacent to Israel a Palestinian state will be created, completely cleansed of Jews. In addition to the demand that Palestinian refugees return to Israel, there is also the demand that Israel give Judea and Samaria to Palestinians and cleanse the area of Jews -- today in Gaza, there is not a single Jew.

The result is both strange and terrifying, not only because Israel will essentially be destroyed – after all, it will be another time and other Jews. It is terrifying because it shows what a short memory the august peace-making Quartet, their leaders and their citizens will demonstrate if they let this happen. Because the plan “two states for two peoples” is the creation of one state, ethnically cleansed of Jews, and a second one where there will be the potential to do the same thing. A Judenfrei Holy Land. The dream of Adolph Hitler will at last be realized. So think again, those who are capable of objective thinking, who are the fascists today and where can they be found?

And another question that has been a thorn for me for a long time. It’s a question for my human rights colleagues. Why doesn’t the fate of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit bother you in the same way as the fate of the Guantanamo prisoners?

You fought for and won the opportunity for the International Committee of the Red Cross, journalists, and lawyers to visit Guantanamo. You know the conditions of the prisoners, their lives, their food. You have met with those prisoners who have suffered torture. The result of your efforts has been a ban on torture and a law to close this prison. President Obama signed it in the first days of his coming to the White House. And although he, just like Bush before him, does not know what to do with the Guantanamo prisoners, we can hope that the new Administration will think up something.

But during the two year Shalit has been held by terrorists, the world human rights community has done nothing for his release. Why? He is a wounded soldier, and should fall under the protection of the Geneva Conventions. The Conventions say clearly that hostage-taking is prohibited, that representatives of the Red Cross should be allowed to see prisoners of war, especially wounded prisoners, and there is much else written in the Geneva Conventions about their rights. The fact that representatives of the Quartet conduct negotiations with the people who are holding Shalit in an unknown location, in unknown conditions, vividly demonstrates their scorn of international rights documents and their total legal nihilism. Do human rights activists also fail to recall the Geneva Conventions?

And yet I still think (and some will find this naïve) that the first tiny, but real step toward peace must become the release of Shalit. Release, and not his exchange for 1000 or 1,500 prisoners who are in Israeli prisons serving court sentences for real crimes.

Returning to my question of why human rights activists are silent, I can find no answer except that Shalit is an Israeli soldier, Shalit is a Jew. So again, it is conscious or unconscious anti-Semitism. Again, it is fascism.

Thirty-four years have passed since I came to this city to represent my husband, Andrei Sakharov, at the 1975 Nobel Prize ceremony. I loved Norway. The reception I received filled me with joy. Today, I feel Alarm and Hope (the title Sakharov used for his 1977 essay written at the request of the Nobel Committee).

Alarm that anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli sentiment is growing throughout Europe and even further afield. Hope that countries, their leaders, and people everywhere will recall and adopt Sakharov’s ethical credo: “In the end, the moral choice turns out to be also the most pragmatic choice.”

What if Jews had followed the Palestinian path???

This shows the absurdity of keeping Palestinian refugees in camps...

In 1945, there were hundreds of thousands of Jewish survivors living in DP Camps (displaced persons) across Europe. They were fed and clothed by Jewish and international relief organizations. Had the world's Jewish population played this situation as the Arabs and Palestinians have, everything would look very different today.

To begin with, the Jews would all still be living in these DP camps, only now the camps would have become squalid ghettos throughout Europe. The refugees would continue to be fed and clothed by a committee similar to UNRWA—the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (paid for mostly by the United States since 1948). Blessed with one of the world's highest birth rates, they would now number in the many millions. And 66 years later, new generations, fed on a mixture of hate and lies against the Europeans, would now seethe with anger.

Sometime in the early 1960s, the Jewish leadership of these refugee camps, having been trained in Moscow to wreak havoc on the West (as Yasser Arafat was) would have started to employ terrorism to shake down governments. Airplane hijackings in the 1970s would have been followed by passenger killings. There would have been attacks on high-profile targets as well—say, the German or Polish Olympic teams.

By the 1990s, the real mayhem would have begun. Raised on victimhood and used as cannon fodder by corrupt leaders, a generation of younger Jews would be blowing up buses, restaurants and themselves. The billions of dollars extorted from various governments would not have gone to the inhabitants of the camps. The money would be in the Swiss bank accounts of the refugees' famous and flamboyant leaders and their lackies.

So now it's the present, generations past the end of World War II, and the festering Jewish refugee problem throughout Europe has absolutely no end in sight. The worst part of this story would be the wasted lives of millions of human beings in the camps—inventions not invented, illnesses not cured, high-tech startups not started up, symphonies and books not written—a real cultural and spiritual desert.

None of this happened, of course. Instead, the Jewish refugees returned to their ancestral homeland. They left everything they had in Europe and turned their backs on the Continent—no "right of return" requested. They were welcomed by the 650,000 Jewish residents of Israel.

An additional 700,000 Jewish refugees flooded into the new state from Arab lands after they were summarily kicked out. Again losing everything after generations in one place; again welcomed in their new home.

UN Human Rights Council shows how ridiculous it is...

Guess who called the Palestinians trash???

The Mufti of Lebanon...

The mufti of Lebanon, Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani, was quoted this week as saying that Palestinians are no longer welcome in his country. He also condemned Palestinians as “trash,” and said that he’s not afraid of their weapons.

Sheikh Qabbani’s remarks were made during a meeting he held in his office in Beirut with a Palestinian delegation, representing refugees and various Palestinian factions in Lebanon.

The furious mufti later kicked the Palestinian representatives out of his office.

More than 400,000 Palestinians live in Lebanon, most of them in extremely harsh conditions in refugee camps.

Leaked! Latest memo from Jack!

On the convention!

Does Abbas represent anybody???

He has no mandate for anything...

It is time that someone in Washington started asking Abbas whether he has a clear mandate from his people to make historic decisions, including signing a peace agreement with Israel.

As the Palestinian Authority continues to threaten to ask the United Nations in September to recognize a Palestinian state along the pre-1967 lines, someone needs to ask President Mahmoud Abbas whether he really has a mandate from his people to embark on such a step.

Today, there is no Palestinian leader who has a mandate to make any concessions to Israel in return for peace – especially when it comes to explosive issues such as the future of Jerusalem or the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees.

The US Administration needs to ask Abbas whether he is also speaking on behalf of millions of Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and around the world. It is not even clear these days if Abbas speaks on behalf of a majority in the PLO and Fatah.

Abbas's term in office expired in early 2009 and since then Palestinians haven't been given a chance to choose a new president through free and democratic elections.

Abbas has used Hamas's violent takeover of the Gaza Strip [in 2007] as an excuse for not holding parliamentary or presidential elections in the Palestinian territories. This sounds like a reasonable excuse in light of the split between the West Bank and Gaza Strip and Hamas's refusal to allow Palestinians to go to the ballot boxes.

The Hamas-Fatah power struggle has also paralyzed parliamentary life in the Palestinian territories. The Palestinian parliament, which is known as the Palestinian Legislative Council, has ceased to function since Hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip.

In the absence of parliament and elections, the international community needs to ask Abbas about the decision-making process in the Palestinian territories and whether he represents a majority of Palestinians.

Another biased IPCC report: This time Greenpeace wrote the report!

I think we need a tad bit of reform on the IPCC...

The world's foremost authority on climate change used a Greenpeace campaigner to help write one of its key reports, which critics say made misleading claims about renewable energy, The Independent has learnt.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), set up by the UN in 1988 to advise governments on the science behind global warming, issued a report last month suggesting renewable sources could provide 77 per cent of the world's energy supply by 2050. But in supporting documents released this week, it emerged that the claim was based on a real-terms decline in worldwide energy consumption over the next 40 years – and that the lead author of the section concerned was an employee of Greenpeace. Not only that, but the modelling scenario used was the most optimistic of the 164 investigated by the IPCC.

Critics said the decision to highlight the 77 per cent figure showed a bias within the IPCC against promoting potentially carbon-neutral energies such as nuclear fuel. One climate change sceptic said it showed the body was not truly independent and relied too heavily on green groups for its evidence.

The allegations are particularly damaging as they represent the second controversy to hit the IPPC in a matter of years. In 2009, a tranche of emails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit were leaked two weeks before the crucial Copenhagen climate summit. Climate change sceptics said they showed scientists manipulating data to talk up the threat of global warming, as well as trying to suppress their critics.

A New mini-Ice Age??

I find these sort of claims interesting...but hard to evaluate...

What may be the science story of the century is breaking this evening, as heavyweight US solar physicists announce that the Sun appears to be headed into a lengthy spell of low activity, which could mean that the Earth – far from facing a global warming problem – is actually headed into a mini Ice Age.
Average magnetic field strength in sunspot umbras has been steadily declining for over a decade. The trend includes sunspots from Cycles 22, 23, and (the current cycle) 24. Credit: NSO/AAS

Ice skating on the Thames by 2025?

The announcement made on 14 June (18:00 UK time) comes from scientists at the US National Solar Observatory (NSO) and US Air Force Research Laboratory. Three different analyses of the Sun's recent behaviour all indicate that a period of unusually low solar activity may be about to begin.

The Sun normally follows an 11-year cycle of activity. The current cycle, Cycle 24, is now supposed to be ramping up towards maximum strength. Increased numbers of sunspots and other indications ought to be happening: but in fact results so far are most disappointing. Scientists at the NSO now suspect, based on data showing decades-long trends leading to this point, that Cycle 25 may not happen at all.

This could have major implications for the Earth's climate. According to a statement issued by the NSO, announcing the research:

An immediate question is whether this slowdown presages a second Maunder Minimum, a 70-year period with virtually no sunspots [which occurred] during 1645-1715.

As NASA notes:

Early records of sunspots indicate that the Sun went through a period of inactivity in the late 17th century. Very few sunspots were seen on the Sun from about 1645 to 1715. Although the observations were not as extensive as in later years, the Sun was in fact well observed during this time and this lack of sunspots is well documented. This period of solar inactivity also corresponds to a climatic period called the "Little Ice Age" when rivers that are normally ice-free froze and snow fields remained year-round at lower altitudes. There is evidence that the Sun has had similar periods of inactivity in the more distant past.

During the Maunder Minimum and for periods either side of it, many European rivers which are ice-free today – including the Thames – routinely froze over, allowing ice skating and even for armies to march across them in some cases.

"This is highly unusual and unexpected," says Dr Frank Hill of the NSO. "But the fact that three completely different views of the Sun point in the same direction is a powerful indicator that the sunspot cycle may be going into hibernation."

Leaked! Memo from Justin Trudeau...

Our first memo from Justin Trudeau...

Big surprise: Assad orchestrated Nakba raids on Israel....

He. Needs. To. Be. Removed.

I have just been forwarded what appear to be Syrian state documents leaked by the governor of al-Qunaitera, in south-west Syria, which suggest that the regime fully orchestrated the “Nakba Day” raids of Palestinian refugees into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on May 15.

The document (below) which bears the Syrian Republic emblem, is dated May 14, 2011 and describes an “urgent meeting” of Major General Asef Shawkat, the Deputy Chief of Staff for the Armed Forces, and the chiefs of security and military intelligence branches in the province in Al-Qunaitera, which is located at the Syrian-Israeli border. The memorandum outlines how the regime ordered the dispatching of 20 buses, each one with a passenger capacity of 47, to cross the border into Majdal-Shamms in the Golan Heights in order to precipitate a confrontation between Palestinian refugees and Israeli soldiers and UN peacekeeping forces, thereby distracting international attention from the Syrian revolution.

I quote the entire document, attributed to the “Office of the Mayor” in Al-Qunaitera province:

After an urgent meeting convened by the security committee on Saturday in the presence of the Mayor of al-Qunaitera, Major General Asef Shawkat -Deputy Chief of Staff for the Armed Forces-, and chiefs of security and military (intelligence) branches in the province, the following was decided:

All security, military, and contingent units in the province, Ain-el-Tina and the old al-Qunaitera are hereby ordered to grant permission of passage to all twenty vehicles (47 passenger capacity) with the attached plate numbers that are scheduled to arrive at ten in the morning on Sunday May 15, 2011 without being questioned or stopped until it reaches or frontier defense locations.

Permission is hereby granted allowing approaching crowds to cross the cease fire line (with Israel) towards the occupied Majdal-Shamms, and to further allow them to engage physically with each other in front of United Nations agents and offices. Furthermore, there is no objection if a few shots are fired in the air.

Captain Samer Shahin from the military intelligence division is hereby appointed to the leadership of the group assigned to break-in and infiltrate deep into the occupied Syrian Golan Heights with a specified pathway to avoid land mines.

It is essential to ensure that no one carries military identification or a weapon as they enter with a strict emphasis on the peaceful and spontaneous nature of the protest.

The provincial security committee meeting is considered in constant deliberation in coordination with the Center.

May you be the source of prosperity for the nation and the party

(signature)

Dr. Khalil Mash-hadiya
Mayor of Al-Qunaitera

Italy against the Jews....

This is very disturbing....

The first months of 2011 have confirmed Italy’s status as one of Iran’s biggest European trade partners, all while the ayatollahs pursue the means to perpetuate a second Holocaust. Rome is doing business as usual with the greatest totalitarian threat to international peace and security since the defeats of Soviet communism and Nazi fascism, providing a lifeline to an Iranian regime that is cruel at home, sponsors terror abroad and preaches anti-Jewish revolt.

Meanwhile, a murky wave of anti-Israel zeal is also growing at an alarming rate in Italy. “The old anti-Jewish libels are now aimed at the State of Israel”, says Stefano Gatti, one of the top researchers at the Center for Documentation in Milan.

Pro-Palestinian activists are threatening to “ignite” Milan, the financial capital of Italy where an Israeli exhibit is going displayed in a central square. Meanwhile, the city of Turin hosted a “cultural festival” where the image of Shimon Peres was used as a shoe-throwing target. For one euro, Italian students had the chance to hit the face of Israel’s president, who was fitted with a Nazi-style Jewish nose.

An Israeli student at the University of Genoa has been harassed and threatened with death by Arab students. Muslim students shouted at him “Allahu Akbar” (God is great) and “Itbach el Yahud” (slaughter the Jews.) Another Israeli student at the University of Turin, Amit Peer, confessed that “the Jews here are hiding their own identity because they risk becoming a target.”

Meanwhile, demonization of the Jews is spreading in the liberal media. Leftist newspaper “Il Manifesto” published a caricature of a Jewish candidate for parliament, Fiamma Nirenstein, with Fascist insignia, a campaign button and a Star of David. The cartoon “Electoral Monsters” was dubbed “Fiamma Frankenstein.”

L’Unità, the official newspaper of the leftist Democratic Party, published an interview with anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes, where she claimed that Israel is a world leader in organ trafficking. The accusation resembled that of the Middle Ages blood libel whereby Jews were accused of kidnapping Christian and Muslim children before Passover in order to murder them and use their blood for matza.

Massacre is a family tradition in Syria....

The Assad family are experts in massacre...

Until the Arab Spring, nothing had stirred in Syria in nearly three decades. President Hafez al-Assad and his murderous younger brother Rifaat had made an example of Hama in 1982 when they stamped out a popular uprising by leveling much of the city and slaughtering thousands. Now, the circle is closed. President Bashar al-Assad and his younger brother Maher, commander of the Republican Guard, are determined to subdue this new rebellion as their father did in Hama—one murder at a time. In today's world it's harder to turn off the lights and keep tales of repression behind closed doors, but the Assads know no other way. Massacre is a family tradition.

It took time for the diplomacy of the West to catch up with Syria's horrors. In Washington, they were waiting for Godot as the Damascus regime brutalized its children. In his much-trumpeted May 19 speech from the State Department—"Cairo II," it was dubbed—President Obama gave the Syrian ruler a choice. He could lead the transition toward democracy or "get out of the way." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has since used the same language.

But one senses this newfound bravado is too little too late. With fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq and now Libya, few leaders in the U.S. or Europe want to see the Assad regime for what it truly is. Yet the truth is there for all who wish to see. Ask the Syrians deserting their homes and spilling across the Turkish border about the ways of Bashar and his killer squads and vigilantes with their dirty tricks. They will tell us volumes about the big prison that the regime maintains.

Arab bloggers with a turn of phrase, playing off the expression of "only in Syria," have given voice to the truth about this dreadful regime. Only in Syria, goes one formulation, does your neighbor go to work in the morning and return 11 years later. Only in Syria does a child enter prison before entering school. Only in Syria does a man go to jail for 20 years without being charged and is then asked to write a letter thanking the authorities upon his release. The list goes on. At last, in Damascus, the mask of this regime has fallen, so late in the hour.

More atrocities in Syria....

I'm waiting for the protests here in the West...

An estimated 3,000 mourners on Saturday filed through the coastal city of Latakia for the funeral of one of at least nine protesters shot dead by security forces the day before, activists said.

Around the country, 25 people were killed on Friday, including three in the Qabun district of Damascus, after protesters took to the streets following the main weekly Muslim prayers, activists said.

As the death toll mounted, detailed accounts emerged from some of the thousands who fled to Turkey from the bloodshed in the northwestern town of Jisr al-Shughur.

Among them were Syrian army deserters who told of atrocities committed by soldiers in suppressing protests, who themselves were under the threat of execution if they disobeyed orders.

Tahal al-Lush described the operation, in Ar-Rastan, a town of 50,000 people in Homs province, that had pushed him to desert.

"We were told that people were armed there. But when we arrived, we saw that they were ordinary civilians. We were ordered to shoot them," said Lush, with a blank stare in his eyes.

"When we entered the houses, we opened fire on everyone, the young, the old... Women were raped in front of their husbands and children," he said.

He showed his military passbook and other papers as proof of identity.

A second conscript, Mohammed Mirwan Khalaf, said he had been in a unit stationed at Idlib, near the border.

"Just in front of me, a professional soldier pulled out his knife and stabbed a civilian in the head, for no reason," he said.

In the Turkish city of Antakya, Nabil, one of the last Syrian aid workers out of Jisr al-Shughur, recalled the roar of helicopters and a "skull split in two" before he collapsed with a bullet in his back.

US turned back North Korean missle shipment...

Going to Myanmar...

The United States Navy intercepted a North Korean ship it suspected of carrying missile technology to Myanmar two weeks ago and, after a standoff at sea and several days of diplomatic pressure from Washington and Asia nations, forced the vessel to return home, according to several senior American officials.

Leaked! Latest memo from Jack Layton...

The Canadian Boat to Gaza...

Leaked! The latest memo from Jack: Brigitte Marcelle

You can check out the latest memo here....

Michael Totten interviews Claire Berlinski on Turkey...

An essential interview...

MJT: What’s up with this second Turkish flotilla to Gaza? Surely the government knows about it if you and I know about it, and the government clearly did not try to stop it. What is Ankara hoping to achieve with this stunt?

The blockade-busting Mavi Marmara

Claire Berlinski: Of course Ankara knows about it. The government is hoping to keep this whole issue from blowing up in its face before the election, and plans to think about it afterwards–right now it’s dealing with a head-spinning number of domestic and foreign policy crises, and I mean crises. The flotilla is on page 60 of their list of “emergencies to worry about.” I wrote about this here and here, and I don’t think I can put it better:

They let that genie out of the bottle. They’ve got no idea how to stuff it back in. Davutoğlu pretty much admitted this a couple days ago: No, he said, the government would not try to stop the new flotilla, because it couldn’t:

The government also refuses to pressure İHH to stop the new flotilla, saying it is a civilian initiative and, as a democratic country, it cannot intervene in the decisions of civil society groups.

“It is an Orientalist belief that nongovernmental groups in Turkey move when they are told by the state to move and stop when they are told to do so,” he said.

Do not be skeptical: I suspect he’s telling the truth. It is a very telling statement. They can’t control this little monster they nourished. It looked so cute when it was a puppy, but now that thing weighs 800 pounds. They’re just praying that if they keep feeding it, somehow it will stay focused on Israel, not them–oh, and on Syria, by the way. Lately the IHH has been staging protests in Istanbul against the Syrian regime. That’s awkward, too.

Wind farms are a folly......

No matter how you measure it, wind farms just don't add up...

These turbines produce small amounts of electricity at great cost to the taxpayer and electricity consumer. The money being invested would be far better spent developing nuclear power – especially thorium reactors, which have none of the risks and waste associated with the uranium fission cycle. Thorium is a cheap, clean and safe alternative, and there are plentiful deposits in Cornwall and in Wales.

Instead of covering the countryside in wind turbines, which are an expensive and inefficient way of generating sustainable energy, the sensible policy would be to plough money into thorium reactors, or even shale-gas extraction. But the very green lobby that has, bizarrely, allied itself to big business to push for wind turbines is also opposed to nuclear power. And its political clout is considerable, as seen in Germany recently. It is the greens, not the opponents of wind farms, who
are the true heirs of the 19th-century Luddites, standing in the way of an energy policy that would benefit us all – and protect our landscape.

Leaked: Memo from Jack now on a new blog...

The latest memo is up and is now on a stand-alone blog...

Bruce Bawer & Hege Storhaug in Ottawa - June 8th

June 8, 2011, 7 PM
Library and Archives Canada
395 Wellington
Admission $20 ($10 for students/seniors)

Please join us for an amazing evening when Bruce Bawer returns to Ottawa with his colleague Hege Storhaug to speak on the problems of immigration in Europe.

Hege Storhaug is the information director of Human Rights Service in Norway and the author of several books on immigration and integration, forced marriage, women in Pakistan, and related subjects.

Bruce Bawer is an internationally-acclaimed author, whose recent book is "Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom". and here are some short reviews:

"Bruce Bawer has yet again written an excellent book....I truly hope that it will serve as an eye-opener for everyone."
Geert Wilders

“Written with an urgency and clarity that makes it hard to stop reading and re-reading it. It should be studied by all who wish to understand the forces at work in the West that make an Islamic ‘House of Peace’ a brewing nightmare.”
Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Bruce has translated Hege's new book, "But the Greatest of These Is Freedom: The Consequences of Immigration in Europe."

The authorized English translation of the explosive Norwegian bestseller about the consequences of immigration in Europe.

From Norwegian and Danish reviews:

“A necessary and brave book.”
Henrik Gade Jensen, JYLLANDS-POSTEN

“A sharp and necessary book, one of the most important of the season.”
Lars Saabye Christensen

“A painful but necessary book to read. It is the most important contribution ever to the Norwegian immigration and integration debate….It should be obligatory reading for everyone who works with foreigners in Norway.”
Tore Andreas Larsen, FREMSKRITT

“If Hege Storhaug’s revelations about how our country and other Western societies are being attacked by Islamic fundamentalists…are not taken seriously by the powerful politicians, we will, within a few years, see a different, illiberal European in which a mentality out of the Middle Ages will wield absolute power…..One of the most important opinion books that have come along in recent years.”\
Oddbjørn Solstad, DRAMMENS TIDENDE

Fred Litwin

Free Thinking Film Society

www.freethinkingfilmfest.ca

Bruce Bawer returns to Ottawa...

For more details on tickets, please visit our web site.

Fatah has never recognized Israel.....

And Fatah is the moderate faction!

Fatah has never recognized Israel’s right to exist and will never do so, according to Azzam al-Ahmed, a member of the Fatah Central Committee who is closely associated with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Ahmed, who is also head of the Fatah negotiating team with Hamas, said PA security forces in the West Bank were arresting Hamas supporters to protect them from being targeted by the IDF.

Ahmed’s remarks were made in an interview with the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al- Youm.

Asked whether Fatah had spoken with Hamas about recognizing Israel, the senior Fatah official said, “Fatah has not recognized Israel. I challenge anyone who says that the case is otherwise, whether it’s Hamas or others. Neither Fatah nor Hamas is required to recognize Israel. Only governments and states extend recognition. It was the Palestinian government that recognized Israel, just as the Israeli government recognized us.”

It gets better....

Kudos to the SF Giants for making an anti-homophobia video!

A Fatah Performance....

Global warming rapture????

They keep warning us of dire consequences....

By now, of course, few things are more familiar than predictions of the environmental catastrophe to which the use of carbon-based energy has supposedly condemned us. In 1992, Al Gore claimed that “evidence of an ecological Kristallnacht is as clear as the sound of glass shattering in Berlin;’’ nearly 20 years later he is still warning of “an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.’’ Like Camping, Gore and other climate alarmists keep forecasting a Day of Doom that never arrives. And like Camping — who now says the world will end on Oct. 21 — they continue to be sure that disaster is just around the corner.

But hyperbolic climate rhetoric doesn’t scare as many people as it used to. Gallup reported in March that of nine leading environmental issues, global warming is the one Americans worry about least. In Britain too, as The New York Times noted last spring, fear of climate change has receded, as more and more people conclude that the dangers have been over-hyped.

Take the recent increase in global CO2 emissions. Is the Guardian’s panicked anxiety — “Climate on the brink’’ — really a sensible response? Writing in the journal First Things, the distinguished Princeton physicist William Happer makes a compelling case that rising carbon-dioxide levels are neither unprecedented nor anything to fear.

“Carbon is the stuff of life,’’ he points out. “Our bodies are made of carbon.’’ Yes, atmospheric CO2 is higher today than it was before the industrial age — 390 parts per million now vs. 270 ppm then — but there was a time when “CO2 levels were several thousand ppm, much higher than now. And life flourished abundantly.’’ Indeed, greenhouse operators artificially boost CO2 concentrations in order to grow better flowers and fruit.

Phelim causes trouble again...