Idiot’s Guide to Islam

DMARTYR (H/T) has alerted me to this site (apparently it’s both MuhammadsQuran and the Idiot’s Guide to Islam, and there’s some relationship to the site In The Name of Allah too).  I don’t know who runs it, but it contains much audio commentary on Islam and the Qur’an.  None of it complimentary (so far, at least).  All of by someone who has obviously studied the subject matter extensively, and is (of course) a native speaker of Arabic.

MuhammadsQuran

Click the image to go to the referenced page at the blog site…I don’t know how to get the code for the control to work here, which is probably just as well.

MUCH, MUCH food for thought.

History Lesson

On the cusp of the 60th anniversary of Israel’s declaration of independence from England, it’s appropriate to remember the perfidy of which England was guilty during the Mandate period…the period during which she undertook the solemn responsibility of doing everything necessary to promote a Jewish National Home, in accordance with League of Nations and United Nations policies. Had England actually fulfilled this pledge, today’s “Palestinian Problem” may well not have ever come to be.

Nod: American Thinker (excerpted)

Britain conquered Palestine from the Turks in 1917-18. First Her Majesty’s Government promised Palestine to the Jews in the Balfour Declaration in 1917, and then again in the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine of 1922, in which it solemnly accepted as “a sacred trust of civilization” to “be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home.” Then it repudiated that promise in a “White Paper” of 1939, which announced her intention to allow only 75,000 Jewish immigrants into Palestine over the next five years (this as World War II and the Holocaust was just beginning) and after that to allow no further Jewish immigration without Arab consent. The White Paper also placed severe restrictions on the purchase of land by Jews. And it promised the Palestinian Arabs that Palestine would become an independent Arab state within ten years. All this was in flagrant violations of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine; the League of Nations Mandates Commission noted this, and refused to ratify the White Paper. Britain implemented it anyway — to the extent of refusing to admit to Palestine 750 Jews who had managed to escape Nazi Europe in a leaky boat while the Holocaust was in full swing. The Jews were forced to turn back into the human-shark-infested waters of the Black Sea, where their leaky crate was torpedoed, and all but one of them killed.

Other Jews who managed to reach the shores of Palestine were deported by the British Navy to the remote island of Mauritius and kept in a detention camp, where many of them died of disease before finally being released after the end of the war. This British measure was strangely reminiscent of an earlier Nazi plan to deport the Jews of Europe to Madagascar, a larger island in the Indian Ocean not far from Mauritius. Still the British detained other Jews who managed to board ships bound for Palestine for years in camps on Cyprus. This was the way His Majesty’s Government kept its promises to the Jews.

Having already promised Palestine to both the Jews and the Palestinian Arabs, Britain after World War II promised it again, this time to Syria! Secret British correspondence, recently discovered by an Israeli scholar, not in the archives of Britain but in those of France, which intercepted British and Syrian communications through espionage, reveals that the British promised to hand over Palestine to Syria in return for making Britain Syria’s “protector” to replace France. The British even assisted the Syrians to carry out a massacre of French civilians and soldiers in order to force France out of Syria.

Britain encouraged the Arab states to form an “Arab League” as World War II came to an end. A British representative sat in on the League’s meetings and raised no objections as the Arab states planned to invade Palestine — even though Palestine was still under British control!

In 1947, Britain referred Palestine to the United Nations and asked it to find a solution to the conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine that Britain had done so much to foster through its contradictory promises to both sides. When the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution recommending that Palestine be partitioned into separate and independent Jewish and Arab states, His Majesty’s Government, through its representative in the United Nations, solemnly promised to help implement the resolution, even though it had not voted for it.

Instead, the British sabotaged the resolution in every way possible. It refused even to allow the commission that had been appointed by the United Nations General Assembly to oversee implementation of the partition resolution into the country. On the other hand, it permitted the Arab states to send troops into Palestine under the guise of “volunteers,” even before the British administration had completed its withdrawal from the country. It stood aside and did nothing to preserve order as war raged throughout the country and thousands of both Jews and Arabs were killed, even though it nominally retained responsibility for the administration of Palestine until May 15, 1948. Worst of all, it withdrew its administration without appointing or recognizing any government, Jewish or Arab, to take its place, or organizing any kind of successor administration. In an unprecedented act in the history of colonialism, the British simply withdrew, leaving the country that they had misgoverned for thirty years in total chaos. One British author has called this bizarre act an “experiment in anarchy.” Another has characterized British policy in Palestine as “divide and lose.”

Britain’s two-faced machinations did not prevent Israel from winning the independence that the Jews had been promised, but only at the cost of thousands of lives, and with no help whatsoever from the promise-bearing great power. However, Israel has had to live in a constant state of siege from neighbors who remain at war with her, and who still refuse to allow her the “secure and recognized borders” enjoyed by all other sovereign states in the world.

The Palestinian Arabs never got the state that Britain promised them. Syria never “received” Palestine in accordance with Britain’s secret promise, either. First incited to go to war for Palestine, and then left to shift for themselves by their forked-tongued British ‘friends,” the Palestinian and Syrian Arabs are still fighting Israel for the land that Britain once promised each of them.

Yom HaShoah

by Rabbi Yehudah Prero [excerpted from here]

Shoah is the Hebrew word for “whirlwind.” It is the term used to described the conflagration that swept up six million Jewish souls between 1938 and 1945. A war was waged against the Jews in which unspeakable atrocities were perpetrated against a defenseless people. Men and women, young and old alike, were butchered at the hands of the accursed Nazis, may their name be eradicated for all time. Every year, on Yom HaShoah, we remember the martyrs who sanctified the name of G-d in the camps, the ghettos, and in the gas chambers.

However, we find that many Rabbis, survivers [sic] of the Holocaust, do not refer to it as the “Shoah”. Rather, they use the term “Churban Europa.” In fact, they commemorate the destruction not on Yom HaShoah, but rather on Tisha B’Av, the Ninth of Av. Why do they do this?

While Hitler may have been the last great anti-Semite to plot to destroy us, he was hardly the first. As we read each Purim, Haman actually came just as close to genocide, but through a series of miracles no mass murder took place. Over the intervening millenia, thousands and millions have perished during two conquests of Israel and the destruction of two Holy Temples, the Inquisition, the Crusades, the Chmielnicki Cossack Pogroms - a series of one destruction (Churban) after another that have befallen the Jewish people.

Therefore it is important that we recognize that events over the last 2000 years, though much further from our recollection, are just as much a part of the tragic element of Jewish history. When the Second Temple was destroyed, only swords were available - those who wished to murder us did not have modern tools of mass destruction at their disposal - and yet they still killed hundreds of thousands. In addition, that destruction reduced us from a sovereign nation to a scattered and lonely people, setting the stage for the other tragedies that followed. We still await restoration of a rebuilt Jerusalem, the City of Peace, may it come speedily in our days. None of this reduces the mind-bending tragedy of 50 years ago - but nor should we be guilty of forgetting those other tragedies that came before.

May the merits of six million martyrs rise before G-d, and may their merits - and those of the survivors - succeed in bringing an end to our long dispersion. May we see the building of the Third Temple, speedily in our days, Amen.

Blogburst: Pentagon not the only Department giving the last word to Muslims covering up terror threats

The military’s top expert on jihad ideology was fired last week at the behest of a Muslim aide to Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England . The aide is a friend to the grand-daddy of all modern Islamic terror groups, the Muslim Brotherhood. His influence is penetration of the top levels of the Pentagon by our terror war enemies.

What happened in the Park Service’s Flight 93 memorial investigation is very similar. Our last three blogbursts exposed how two Muslim academics fed the Park Service blatantly dishonest excuses for the giant Mecca oriented crescent in the Murdoch-designed memorial.

Kevin Jaques from Indiana University said that the similarity to an Islamic mihrab should be ignored (a mihrab is the Mecca direction indicator around which every mosque is built) because there has never been a mihrab anywhere near this big before.

Nasser Rabbat said that because the Flight 93 crescent does not point quite exactly at Mecca (it is 1.8° off), it cannot be regarded as a mihrab:

“Mihrab orientation is either correct or not. It cannot be off by some degrees.” [From the Park Service's White Paper.]

Liar. Many classic mihrabs are oriented 10, 20 or 30 degrees from Mecca . The most elaborate mihrab in the world, the mihrab at the great mosque in Cordoba Spain , is oriented more than 45° off Mecca :

Cordoba mihrab points south. Mecca is east-southeast of Spain .

More Rabbat deceptions

Nasser Rabbat’s other lies to the Park Service are just as blatant. One of Rabbat’s “talking points,” as he calls them, questions whether the crescent is really an Islamic symbol at all:

The Crescent is a debatable Islamic universal symbol. Many groups do not use it. I know in fact of no militant group that uses it. Islamic modern states have opted to use it, sometimes with the star, which is a modern symbol with no Islamic connotation.

Appearing on the vast majority of Islamic flags is “no Islamic connotation”?

The specific question Rabbat was supposedly addressing is the use of a crescent for the shape of a mihrab, and here the Islamic usage is undeniable. Lots of mihrabs are pointed arch shaped, but the archetypical mihrab–the Prophet’s Mihrab at the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina –is crescent shaped both in its vertical dimension and its depth dimension:

Rabbat is a professor of Islamic architecture. Mosque design falls within his field of expertise. He knows the traditional crescent shaped mihrab better than anybody and just lies about it, the same way he lies about mihrab orientation having to be exact.

And that bit about not knowing of any militant groups that use the crescent? That would make Rabbat a very rare Syrian, if he has never seen the Hezbollah flag:

When the terror groups have the crescent embrace the globe, they mean that Islam will one day rule the world and subjugate all the infidels.

Here are some more:

Palestinian Liberation Front

Perhaps a better question is whether there are Islamic terror groups that do not identify with the crescent.

At both the Park Service and the Pentagon, Muslim consultants who are engaged in blatant cover up of terror threats are being given the last word by top level administration officials.

Let’s get those Congressional Investigations going.

To join our blogbursts, email Cao ( caoilfhionn 1 at gmail dot com) with your blog’s url.

What are they afraid of?

An editorial (Indiana Jones meets the Da Vinci Code) in today’s online edition of Asia Times takes a look at the recent unveiling of an archive of photos of the Qur’an that may be the oldest known. I say unveiling, but that’s a mischaracterization. The archive was supposedly lost in a bombing event during WWII, but a German scholar disclosed that she had knowingly hidden it for nearly two decades.Many others have written about this in the last few days. It’s not my intention to rehash the story. I find a couple of comments in the editorial noteworthy, however.

It has long been known that variant copies of the Koran exist, including some found in 1972 in a paper grave at Sa’na in Yemen, the subject of a cover story in the January 1999 Atlantic Monthly. Before the Yemeni authorities shut the door to Western scholars, two German academics, Gerhard R Puin and H C Graf von Bothmer, made 35,000 microfilm copies, which remain at the University of the Saarland. Many scholars believe that the German archive, which includes photocopies of manuscripts as old as 700 AD, will provide more evidence of variation in the Koran.

This new story is very reminiscent of the Yemenite fragments unearthed way back in 1972 (the existence of which was widely publicized in the Atlantic Monthly ["What is the Koran", find it here - GdB] in 1999. Again, there was an archive of photographs that at first the Yemeni government tried to confiscate (WHY?). These are also locked up in Germany with limited access (WHY?). Eight years later (35 actually) the world is still waiting for the results of study. (WHY?) The photos either confirm the Islamic ideology that the Qur’an exists “unchanged for over 1300 years” or they don’t. If they do, Islamic leaders should be shouting for the results to be published. If they don’t….

The history of the archive reads like an Islamic version of the Da Vinci Code. It is not clear why its existence was occulted for sixty years, or why it has come to light now, or when scholars will have free access to it.

This is very troubling to me. The archive is an historical treasure. It should be disseminated to scholars far and wide. The only reason I can see to keep this trove hidden, especially now that it’s existence has been verified, is to bury it. Why bury it? Fear. Fear that it’s contents would be too explosive, and the risk to either the health of the researcher or Islam would be too great…that is, Islamic sympathy, if not actual preference.

It may be a very long time before the contents of the Bavarian archive are known. Some Koranic critics, notably the pseudonymous scholar “Ibn Warraq”, claim that Professor Angelika Neuwirth, the archive’s custodian, has denied access to scholars who stray from the traditional interpretation. Neuwirth admits that she has had the archive since 1990. She has 18 years of funding to study the Bavarian archive, and it is not clear who will have access to it.

Again, what’s the holdup? Why the secrecy? It stinks of favoritism.

Apart from the little group at the University of the Saarland and a handful of others, though, the Western Academy is loathe to go near the issue.  In the United States, where Arab and Islamic Studies rely on funding from the Gulf States, an interest in Koranic criticism is a failsafe way to commit career suicide.

Note to academia: Your job is to teach, not indoctrinate. You do not have the right to avoid or hide facts that disagree with your points of view, or those of your funders. STOP TAKING MONEY FROM THE SAUDIS!

Neuwirth has led the attack on “Christoph Luxenburg” and other Koranic critics who dispute the traditional Muslim account. According to Higgins, “Ms Neuwirth, the Berlin Koran expert, and Mr Marx, her research director, have tried to explain the project to the Muslim world in trips to Iran, Turkey, Syria and Morocco. When a German newspaper trumpeted their work last fall on its front page and predicted that it would ‘overthrow rulers and topple kingdoms’, Mr Marx called Arab television network al-Jazeera and other media to deny any assault on the tenets of Islam.”

True colors always show. The custodian of the archive is not interested in any criticism of the Qur’an that deviates from Muslim theological doctrine. Pathetic.

The story thus far recalls the ending of another Indiana Jones film (Raiders of the Lost Ark), in which the Ark of the Covenant is filed away in an enormous warehouse, presumably never to be touched again. The Muslim world will continue to treat Koranic criticism as an existential risk, and apply whatever pressure is required to discourage it - albino monks presumably included.

If that happens, it will be a travesty of historical proportions. Non-muslims have the right to know if the Qur’an can support it’s claim to be the eternal unchangeable word of God. More importantly, MUSLIMS have the right to know. Prolonging Promoting a delusion is simply unconscionable.

But that is not the end of the matter. The Islamic world is forced to adopt an openly irrational stance, employing its power to intimidate scholars and frustrate the search for truth. It is impossible for Muslims to propose a dialogue with Western religions, as 38 Islamic scholars did in an October 13 letter to Pope Benedict XVI and other Christian leaders, and rule the subject of text criticism out of the discussion.

Precisely for this reason, Church leaders see little basis for a dialogue with Islam. Jean-Louis Cardinal Tauran, who directs the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, told the French daily La Croix, “Muslims do not accept discussion about the Koran, because they say it was written under the dictates of God. With such an absolutist interpretation, it’s difficult to discuss the contents of the faith.”

Throughout the Internet, Islamist sites denounce the work of a handful of marginalized scholars as evidence of a plot by Christian missionaries to sabotage Islam. What the Muslim world cannot conceal is its vulnerability and fear in the face of Koranic criticism. In the great battle for converts through the Global South [anyone know what this means? - GdB], this may turn out to be a paralyzing disadvantage.

The Bible has been subjected to textual and historical criticism for centuries, and Christianity (and, of course, Judaism) has survived. What is Islam afraid of?

Suicide by Inches

I believe it was Karl Jung who coined this theory – that the typical suicide is not one final desperate act, but a series of small ones that inevitably lead to self-destruction.  I think he’d find a good example in Ehud Olmert.

Report: Olmert Agrees to Allow in 50,000 Arab ‘Refugees’

by Hillel Fendel (Israel National News)

Channel Ten reported Thursday night that in a private meeting between Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman Abu Mazen, the two agreed that in the final-status agreement, Israel would withdraw from 92% of Judea and Samaria, including all the non-Jewish neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem.  It was also agreed that 50,000 “refugees from 1948″ would enter and live in the State of Israel. 

That’s a lot of potential muhahideen, eh?  And continuing to harp, there is Hamas; their “Prime Minister” in Gaza reiterating the demand:

“A Palestinian state in the pre-1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital, the destruction of all the settlements, the release of all the Palestinian prisoners, the ‘right of return’ of all the Palestinian refugees, and continued adherence to the strategy of not giving up on even one inch of all of Palestine.”

In other words, give us our state in Gaza and Judea/Samaria, so we can continue in our attempts to utterly destroy Israel. 

Hamas:  Let me in, and I’ll burn your house down!

Olmert: Uh..don’t you mean “OR you’ll burn our house down?”. 

Hamas: No, I mean AND!

Olmert: Oh…uh…OK.

 On a happier note, also included in the article is a small history lesson for those willing to not be blind. 

Israel liberated Judea and Samaria during the Six Day War in 1967, capturing it, essentially, from no one. No country in the world, other than Great Britain and Pakistan, recognized Jordan’s control over Judea and Samaria between 1948 and 1967.

Oft-forgotten is the fact that the refugee problem was not caused by Israel, but by the Arab states.  “The Arab States encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies,” according to the Jordanian newspaper Filastin (February 19, 1949). 

Joan Peters, in her classic work “From Time Immemorial,” quotes (on page 13) an Arab-sponsored Institute for Palestine Studies finding that “the majority” of the Arab refugees in 1948 were not expelled, and that 68% left without seeing an Israeli soldier.

On April 27, 1950, the Arab National Committee of Haifa informed the Arab States: “The removal of the Arab inhabitants… was voluntary and was carried out at our request… The Arab delegation proudly asked for the evacuation of the Arabs and their removal to the neighboring Arab countries.”

Zuheir Muhsein, the late Military Department head of the PLO and member of its Executive Council, told the Dutch daily Trouw, March 1977, “The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity… Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people… to oppose Zionism.”

No good deed goes unpunished

After Israel’s decisive victory over the Arab aggressors in 1967, one olive branch she offered was to let the Islamic Waqf control the Temple Mount.

Most Muslims believe that the Al Aqsa mosque built there on the ruins of the Jewish Temple is the same as “the farthest mosque” to which Muhammad supposedly went on his night journey, which is why this particular piece of real estate is so often referred to as “the third holiest site in Islam”. A little bit of sense would tell anyone that since this mosque did not exist during Muhammad’s lifetime, it can’t be “the farthest mosque” from wherever he was when he experienced that hallucination.

Anyway, there are many who will continue to insist that Jerusalem should not belong to the Jews out of fear of them (the Jews) not allowing people of other faiths to convene in the holy sites. That is, the mosque I mentioned, and the historical and religious affiliations with Christianity that exist there as well (I personally think it would be an overwhelming experience to pray at the Western Wall of the temple where Yeshua prayed). Interestingly, the Waqf has done exactly that - ok, not exactly (the Jordanians did during their control of the area before 1967). But they do limit the hours available to non-Muslims to approach and forbid praying by Jews and Christians. Recently they have been doing excavations and “trench-digging” that archaeologists say are causing incalculable damage to Jewish antiquities, which actually has been going on for more than a decade (some troubling details here).

My point (so far): Israel did not have to allow the Arabs to control the Temple Mount. It was a gift from Israel. A nice, peaceful, naive & wasted conciliatory gesture.

Today, in the Apartheid State of Israel™ the KNESSET MEMBER, Israel’s ARAB Minister of Science, Culture and Sport, Raleb Majadle said that the Temple Mount is Islamic, period, and will be under Islamic, not Israeli, law.

From Israel National News.

Speaking before the Knesset plenum, Majadle replied that the digs carried out on the Mount were coordinated, accompanied and supervised by the Antiquities Authority.

This is interesting, since according to this account, “The [Antiquities] Authority, which digs for religious artifacts across the State of Israel, has not inspected construction on Judaism’s holiest site even once since the work began, despite continuous calls for the construction to be supervised and halted.”

MK Eldad asked Majadle pointedly from the plenum floor: “Does Israeli law apply on the Temple Mount or does it not?”

Majadle answered: “In my opinion, certainly not.” Eldad reminded him that in answering parliamentary questions he speaks for the entire government, but Majadle was unfazed: “I will say my opinion. Before I am a government minister I am first and foremost a person and a citizen and a Muslim. With all due respect for the law, the law was meant to respect the religion [?], the person and the citizen and protect him, and not the other way around, enslave him,” he explained. “Therefore I say clearly: Al-Aksa, Al-Haram al-Sharif [as the Temple Mount is called by Muslims – ed.], cannot be under the authority of Israeli law.”

Eldad interrupted him repeatedly, reminding him that he had sworn allegiance to the State of Israel and its laws, but Majadle insisted: “I hereby inform you, esteemed MK Eldad, that I may be a minister for one, two or ten years but I was born a Muslim, and a Muslim I shall die.  I respect Israeli law…but if there is a contradiction between the law and my deep faith as a Muslim, I announce that I will know what to choose.”

On one hand, I understand.  My faith in Christ is more important than my citizenship.  However, if I know going into a job that it will conflict with my faith, it is incumbent on me to find another job.  The Knesset is for Israeli law, not Islamic law.  If Majadle can’t function that way, he should quit or be fired (more appropriately, he should never have taken the job).

So anyway, in return for Israel allowing the Muslims to retain civil control over their holy shrines (as questionable as the claim may be), the Muslims there are busily and intentionally destroying the evidence of the Jews’ well-documented historical ties to the land. Perhaps Olmert (and his successors) should keep this in mind - along with all the other oh-so-successful attempts at appeasing the Arabs - when considering re-dividing Jerusalem and giving the Arabs another state.

Sign the Jerusalem Petition

As pressure builds against Israel to cede political and security control over the united city of Jerusalem:

United Jerusalem Petition

• I support a unified Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty, to ensure free and open access for all people to the holy sites of the three major religions – Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

• I support a unified Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty, as an expression of the unique relationship between the Jewish People and its eternal capital.

• I support a unified Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty, so as never to return to the dark period of 1947-67, when Arab control over an artificially divided Jerusalem meant religious persecution, desecration of holy sites, and wanton destruction.

• I support a unified Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty, according to the current municipal boundaries, set in the wake of Israel’s defensive 1967 Six Day War.

• I support a unified Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty, where Jews may enjoy the right to pray on the Temple Mount, the holiest site in the Jewish world.

Go here to sign the petition, and make sure to check the box to sign the Preserve the Temple Mount petition.

Brutally Honest

From Emet m’Tsiyon.

Nod:  Sheik Yer’mami

A Prescription for War & Genocide — Stop the Annapolis Conference Now!!!

The history of international conferences and congresses –with or without the “peace” label– is not one to inspire confidence. Think of the conferences of Berlin [circa 1878], Versailles [circa 1918-1920], and Munich [1938]. They only laid the groundwork for future wars and massacres, the Second World War in the case of the Munich Conference. Today US secretary of state, Condoleeza Rice, arrived in Israel to pressure the basically unfit, incompetent, corrupt olmert government of Israel to make more concessions to the Arabs. She does this in the name of setting up a “palestinian state” for a fictitious people known as “palestinians” in the international media and diplomatic circles, claiming that such a state would bring peace with Israel in its wake. Yet, there never was a “palestinian” people in all history. Those now called palestinians are in fact Arabs and call themselves Arabs. The charter of the PLO states in Article I that the “Palestinian Arab people is part of the Arab nation and Palestine is part of the great Arab fatherland.” So they consider themselves Arabs first of all. Only Judeophobes pretend that they are a separate people.

Rice wants to set up another Arab state, to be called “palestine,” in Judea-Samaria, the very heart of the ancient Jewish homeland. This area was, however, allocated as part of the Jewish National Home set up by the San Remo Conference [1920], part of the post-World War One peace conferences. The Jewish National Home principle was ratified by the League of Nations in 1922. The borders of the National Home, as finally delineated in 1925, included both sides of the Jordan. But Britain, which committed itself to fostering development of the Jewish National Home by accepting the League of Nations mandate, violated its commitment, the mandate that had been entrusted to it. Britain limited Jewish immigration to the Jewish National Home when the Jews most needed a home, before and during the Holocaust, through the 1939 “Palestine White Paper.” Very few Jews fleeing the Nazis were allowed into the National Home by the British governing authorities from 1939 to Israel’s independence in 1948. So here we have a major Western power that violated a commitment to the Jews at a time very vital for saving Jewish lives. Moreover, the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission found that the UK government had violated its mandate. However, the British government did not change its policy.

We see frequent violations of commitments to the Jewish people and of commitments to international law on the part of major powers. Just a few years ago the the USA, the EU [including the UK], the UN and Russia issued the so-called Road Map. This document indicated stages to go through before an Arab state called “palestine” would be set up. The first stage included disarming of all militias that were not officially part of the Palestinian Authority armed forces, such as the militias [= terrorist groups] of Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc. This has not been done. The first stage also included ending the incitement to kill Jews, hate Jews, make war against Israel, on the palestinian authority media. This too has not been done.

Yet, Rice now wants to forget all about the commitment of the US, EU, UN, and Russia, as well as the palestinian authority, to the Road Map’s principles. The Arabs have shown very clearly that they do not want peace with Israel. Abu Mazen makes more and more demands which do not deserve to be met –and he does not deserve to be called a “moderate.” Fools or liars [take your pick] like olmert, Rice, tsipi Livni [Israel's mentally defective foreign minister], and others persist in calling Abu Mazen [Mahmud Abbas] a “moderate” despite all of the evidence. It turns out that the secretary of state [= foreign minister] of the US president who proclaimed a “War on Terrorism” is now aiding and encouraging terrorism — and not merely terrorism against Israel. After all, if other Arab and Muslim factors see that the terrorism, the acts of mass murder, of Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad go unpunished, or even seem to be rewarded by the mighty Western powers, then they will be tempted to use terrorism against other targets of their hatred, prejudice, greed, and so on.

The violation by Rice of the Road Map in setting up the Annapolis Conference [May it fail!!] is reminiscent of Britain’s violation of its commitment to the Jewish National Home principle in 1939 by issuing the White Paper. Now, if major Western powers cannot be relied upon to honor their commitments, then what is the purpose of Israeli concessions when the other side so lightly violates its commitments? When I say, “the other side,” I am not talking merely about the Arabs, notorious for violating commitments, but about the Western powers which are not reliable either. Of course the powers may offer Israel “international guarantees” in return for concessions. But there really is no such thing as an “international guarantee.” The very offer of such a guarantee is a hostile act. These “international guarantees” are easily violated and forgotten like other international commitments.

Therefore, why should Israel give away tangible strategic assets, like the strategic Judea-Samaria north-south mountain ridge, in exchange for paper concessions from the Arab side, concessions that can be easily revoked, if they are ever honored, like an ending to ethnic and religious incitement, which the Arabs were to have done long ago, as per the 1998 Wye Plantation accords????

 

Please read it all.

The Madman’s Rant

I found this item at Pajamas member Brutally Honest (posted online at this Washington Post site). It’s the speech sermon delivered by Iran’s President to the U.N. Assembly during his recent visit to New York. Some (de)constructive criticism and analysis is in order.

————————————————————————————————————————–

In the name of God, the compassionate and the merciful, oh, God, hasten the arrival of Imam al-Mahdi and grant him good health and victory and make us his followers and those who attest to his rightfulness.

The presence of the Mahdi is a precursor to the Islamic version of the return of Jesus. This Jesus will then smash all the crosses…meaning that he will obliterate the falseness of Christianity. I suppose that since the current U.N. staff is so cowed by the OIC, no one raised an eyebrow at this.

Mr. President, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased and grateful to the almighty to have the opportunity once again to attend this important universal forum.

In the present tumultuous world and with the predominance of loud outcries, [do you think he means cartoon-rage versions 1 and 2, or perhaps Rushdie-rage versions 1 and 2? Probably not…] threats [like the one I mentioned here, where Iran’s religious leaders cite 20 million suicide bombers?] and tensions [like these?], and at a time when the big powers are unable to solve present problems [like Iran’s resumed interest in creating nuclear weapons], when mistrust in regional and international arenas is on the rise [gee…why would there be mistrust in the world with venerable leaders like him?], when the psychological security of societies is being targeted by an onslaught of political and propaganda designs [Propaganda? Like Farfur and his insectoid successor teaching hatred of Israel? Or putting hostages on television in hijab?], and disappointment prevails over efficacy of policies and actions of the international organizations in the establishment of a durable peace and security [can’t argue with that…I’m EXTREMELY disappointed in the UNHRC and IAEA, not to mention the General Assembly, for not putting this idiot out on his ear.], and the protection of human rights is being weakened [Does he mean like the right to pursue ones own sexual proclivities, to dress or cut one’s hair as one pleases, or pursue any religion], I plan to touch upon and explain the roots of and the ways out of these predicaments and some of the principal challenges facing our world.

I will also speak to you about the need for remedying the present situation, prospects for a brighter and more hopeful future, and about the appearance of the sublime and beauty, compassion and generosity, justice and blossoming of all the God-given human talents and the prominence of faith in God and realization of the promise of God. [Too bad he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.]

I will then submit to your judgment the nuclear issue of Iran as a reality and testing ground for the measurement of honesty, efficacy, steadfastness and accomplishment.

In the closing part of my statement, I will offer my proposals.

AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): Dear friends and colleagues, as you are all aware, mankind is currently facing important, numerous and diverse challenges and I will refer to some of them.

One, organized attempts to destroy the institution of family and to weaken the status of women. Family is the most sacred and valuable human institution that serves as the center of the purest mutual love and affection amongst mothers, fathers and children, and as a safe environment for the nurturing of human generations and a fertile ground for the blossoming of talents and compassion. [Safe, that is, unless you’re suspected of lewdness and must therefore be killed by your “loved ones”]

This institution has always been respected by all peoples, religions and cultures. [Right…] Today, we are witnessing an organized invasion by the enemies of humanity and plunderers to destroy this noble institution that is targeted by promoting lewdness, violence and by breaking the boundaries of chastity and decency.

The precious existence of women, as the manifestation of divine beauty and as the peak of kindness, affection and purity has been the target of heavy exploitation in recent decades by the holders of power and the owners of media and wealth.

In some societies, this beloved human has been reduced to a mere instrument of publicity and all the boundaries and protective shields of chastity, purity and beauty have been trampled. This is a colossal betrayal of human society, of succeeding generations and an irreparable blow to the pillar of social coherence, the family. [Of course, forcing them to make sure that they cover all of their hair and hide any hint of their figure is freeing and protecting these “beloved humans”]

Two, widespread violations of human rights, terrorism and occupation.

“Facts” on the Ground

This woman, posing as an academician, but who is obviously in reality merely a propagandist, does not deserve tenure as a professor.  Anyone guilty of ignoring facts, or worse yet inventing facts, has no place in a position of educational authority.

It may be true that she’s a great person, and that her students love her…but our Universities should be a place for education, not indoctrination and misinformation.

Remember….”history must serve theology“

See more here.

Nadia Abu El Haj is a young professor at Barnard College. She is the author of a single book, Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society.  Since this is her only offering to justify such a prestigious honor, and the book itself has major flaws and inaccuracies (see Academic and Peer Reviews), a controversy has developed over the question of whether Nadia Abu El Haj’s work merits the honor of tenure at Columbia.

 

Facts on the Ground is best understood as a post-modernist effort to deconstruct the existence of the ancient Hebrew kingdoms and nullify the connection between modern Jews and the ancient Hebrew people. Put simply, for Abu El Haj, if you can deny the ancient Jewish connection to the land of Israel, you can delegitimize the current Jewish presence there. This, and not truth and research, is her goal.

 

In Facts on the Ground, Abu El Haj asserts that the ancient Israelite kingdoms are nothing but a  “pure political fabrication” and “a tale best understood as the modern nation’s origin myth.” Despite all evidence to the contrary, Abu El Haj puts forth the notion that the ancient Jewish presence in the Land of Israel is not a matter of history, but a mere “belief,” a “tale or historical myth,” and that Herodian Jerusalem was “not a Jewish city,” it was “inhabited primarily by ‘other’ communities.”

 

Scholarly criticism of Abu El Haj’s methodology, especially her deliberate omissions and distortions of the archaeological evidence, has been severe.

Below is the text of a petition asking for support in denying Abu El Haj tenure.

 

 

Naqba

Another from Front Page.

Israel gained its independence in a war of liberation during 1948 and 1949, in which - despite being poorly equipped and enormously outgunned - Israel defeated the combined military forces of the Palestinians militias and the organized armies of the independent Arab states. As in any war, some “Palestinian” Arabs suffered during it. In that war thousands of Jews (often civilians) were murdered by those same Arabs. It was a war that could have been avoided altogether had the Arabs made their peace with the UN Partition Resolution of 1947, which proposed splitting Western Palestine into two states – one Jewish and one Arab – with roughly equal territory. The Jews accepted that Partition Resolution, including its proposal for an Arab Palestinian state; the “Palestinian” Arabs and the Arab states rejected it. The Arab armies then invaded Western Palestine and illegally annexed most of the territories that had been earmarked to form a Palestinian Arab state. They held those territories illegally until they lost them to Israel in six days, when they launched yet another war of aggression in 1967. Israel liberated those territories from their illegal occupiers in 1967 and has held most of them since, while expressing willingness for a territorial compromise in exchange for peace.

Characterizing any suffering by “Palestinian” Arabs during and subsequent to the 1948-9 war of Israeli independence as a “Naqba” is as mind-numbingly stupid as characterizing the existence of the United States as a catastrophe because of the tragic suffering of the 100,000 or so Tory loyalists forcibly evicted by the United States during its War of Independence. Those Tory refugees from the colonies were absorbed by the countries to which they fled, mainly Maritime British Canada. They forfeited all their property left behind in the United States. The American Patriot leaders opposed any sort of compensation or settlement for them, including Benjamin Franklin. They would never be granted any “right of return” to the territories they had left.

Indeed…so it has been with war since the beginning.  Those who flee or are forced to leave are not invited to bring their culture and persons back to the land lost