Sued by Hamas in the UK

Not me.  Harry’s Place.

The story, via E.D. Kain, goes like this:

Last Friday, in the wake of a closely argued debate about whether Mohammed Sawalha, the President of the British Muslim Initiative, had used the phrase “Evil Jew” or “Jewish Lobby” in a speech, Harry’s Place received a letter. The letter is from Dean and Dean, a firm of solicitors who are acting for Mr Sawalha. Mr Sawalha has demanded that we take down certain articles from Harry’s Place, and publish an apology “in the attached wording”.

The solicitors have failed to attach the apology that Mr Sawalha insists we publish. That omission matters little, as we have no intention of apologising to him at all, nor of taking down any article.

We have responded to Mr Sawalha’s solicitors, through Mishcon de Reya, who are acting for us.

Mr Sawalha claims that we have “chosen a malevolent interpretation of a meaningless word”. In fact, we did no more than translate a phrase which appeared in an Al Jazeera report of Mr Sawalha’s speech. When Al Jazeera changed that phrase from “Evil Jew” to “Jewish Lobby”, we reported that fact, along with the statement that it had been a typographical error.

Mr Sawalha says that the attribution of the phrase “Evil Jew” to him implies that he is “anti-semitic and hateful”. Notably, he does not take issue with our reporting of the revelation, made in a Panorama documentary in 2006, that he is a senior activist in the clerical fascist terrorist organisation, Hamas. The BBC report disclosed that Mr Sawalha “master minded much of Hamas’ political and military strategy” and in London “is alleged to have directed funds, both for Hamas’ armed wing, and for spreading its missionary dawah”.

The details are posted at the victim’s site, Harry’s Place.  Go, read, and fear for Free Speech.

Then, support Harry’s Place, along with the rest of us, (who’s us? see below) by sending an email to NeoConstant (admin@neoconstant. com) and joining the bust.

Wake-up Call

Al Qaeda’s Plan B

(by Amir Tehari at NY Post - links are mine)

NO one should feel safe without submitting to Islam, and those who refuse to submit must pay a high price. The Islamist movement must aim to turn the world into a series of “wildernesses” where only those under jihadi rule enjoy security.

These are some of the ideas developed by al Qaeda’s chief theoretician, Sheik Abu-Bakar Naji, in his new book “Governance in the Wilderness” (Edarat al-Wahsh).

[...]

Now Naji takes that analysis a step further - suggesting that low-intensity war be extended to anywhere in the world with a significant Muslim presence.

Islamists in the “wilderness” must create parallel societies alongside existing ones, Naji says - but not set up formal governments, which would be subject to economic pressure or military attack.

These parallel societies could resemble “liberated zones” set up by Marxist guerrillas in parts of Latin America in the last century. But they could also exist within cities, under the very noses of the authorities - operating as secret societies with their own rules, values and enforcement.

But they could also take shape in Western countries with large Muslim minorities: The jihadis are to begin by giving areas where Muslims live a distinctly Islamic appearance, by imposing special styles of dress for women and beards for men. Then they start imposing the shariah. In the final phase, they create a parallel system of taxation and law enforcement, effectively taking the areas out of government control.

The “wilderness” will provide the cover for bases for jihad operations. Jihad would be everywhere, rather than in just one or two countries that the “infidel” could hit with superior firepower.

IN a notable departure from past al Qaeda strategy, Naji recommends “countless small operations” that render daily life unbearable, rather than a few spectacular attacks such as 9/11: The “infidel,” leaving his home every morning, should be unsure whether he’ll return in the evening.

Naji recommends kidnappings, the holding of hostages, the use of women and children as human shields, exhibition killings to terrorize the enemy, suicide bombings and countless gestures that make normal life impossible for the “infidel” and Muslim collaborators.

Once parallel societies are established throughout the world, they would exert pressure on non-Muslims to submit. Naji believes that, subjected to constant intimidation and fear of death, most non-Muslims (especially in the West) would submit: “The West has no stomach for a long fight.”

Submit, pay the jizya, or die.  Get it?

Reports of Snow Overblown

AFP reports today:

Two rockets fired from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip slammed into southern Israel on Tuesday, despite an Egyptian-brokered truce between Israel and the Islamist movement which entered its sixth day.

One of the rockets struck the courtyard of a house in the hard-hit town of Sderot, causing some damage, and another struck a field outside town, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

Edmund - you owe me a Coke. 

 

Persecution of the Day

JAKARTA, INDONESIA (BosNewsLife) — Nearly all Christian families in a village on Indonesia’s Seram island, in the religiously volatile Maluku province, were homeless Wednesday, May 21, after a Muslim mob burned their houses and other properties as well as killing four believers and injuring dozens others, investigators told BosNewsLife.

[...]

“Three of the four [murdered] victims had their throats slit, but all were attacked in other ways as well,” the group said in a statement. “Mrs. Welhelmina Pattiasina, 47, was first tortured, and her grand-daughter Yola, 6, had her stomach cut open.”

[...]

The Muslim mob also “burnt down 120 houses, three churches and the village school,” during the attack, in which also 56 people were wounded, Barnabus Fund claimed. In addition, fifteen hectares of crops were destroyed as well as 20 fishing boats and two motor-cycles, the group added.

Persecution of the Day

From Mission Network News:

Bernie Daniel with Voice of the Martyrs-Canada says the details about the April 22^nd killing have only recently emerged. “A Christian brother by the name of David Abdulwahab Mohamed Ali who was only 29 years old–an active evangelist–was killed by the same militia that avowed the attacks on the teachers, the Al Shabab militia, which is a militant Islamic organization affiliated with Al Qaeda.”

According to a report from the International Christian Concern, David converted to Christianity in 1995. He was living in Yemen but had to flee to Ethiopia because of government persecution. This April, David returned to Somalia to visit family, where Al Shabab found him.

The group is fighting to implement Sharia law in Somalia and create an Islamic state. They have vowed to eradicate Christianity. That threat causes great concern for the church body there. Less than three percent of the population is Christian, and the rest is Sunni Muslim.

Al Shabab has claimed responsibility for killing four Christians over the last six months. Daniel believes this will intensify. “The situation for our Christian brethren in Somalia is very dire. It’s a very tiny community in a militant Islamic society, so there is a kind of open season on Christians in Somalia.” 

 

Tales of the unExpected

Who knew that once the Gazans could move freely into Egypt, this kind of thing would occur?

Anyone?

Yeah, me too.

Woman killed in Dimona explosion

A woman was murdered Monday morning and about 10 people were injured in a terror attack carried out by a suicide bomber at a commercial center in the southern Israeli city of Dimona. 

Palestinian sources estimated that the terrorist was sent by the Islamic Jihad organization. The bomber is believed to have taken advantage of the breached border at the Rafah crossing in order to infiltrate to Egypt and into the Negev.

Those bastards from Hamas are at it again, eh?  Not this time.

Fatah: Bombers infiltrated Israel through Egypt

In Gaza press conference, members of Fatah’s military wing, PFLP say suicide bombers who carried out Dimona attack entered Sinai from Strip. ‘Attack has been planned for a month, but was only made possible due to breach in border,’ says al-Aqsa Brigades spokesman

You mean moderate Fatah did this?  I thought they wanted peaceful coexistence? Oh, wait a minute…

Hamas, of course, is fully supportive.

Hamas referred to the Dimona attack as “a heroic act”, which constitutes “a natural response to the crimes of the occupation.”

Yeah…let’s give them a state.

An admission from a “Palestinian”

Nod:  IsraPundit

“Islam is intolerant to everything non-Muslim”

By Ayman Hassan (who just joined the Walid Shoebat Foundation in support of Israel)

Shalom. As an Arab Muslim I once asked myself: Why do I hate Israel? I really thought about this question. After little deliberation the answer was clear, because I am a Muslim and Islam is extremely intolerant. It’s the intolerance to everything non Muslim, that is the problem and I say this as a Muslim, but today I have rejected the teachings of Islam for this very reason. I have left Islam. As an Arab “Palestinian”, living in Lebanon, coming from a Muslim family, I was brought up with the hatred of Jews, Christians, and all non Muslims. Now I’m 24, I have matured enough to view the world through a different perspective; I reviewed real history and studied the sequence of events before and after the restoration of the State of Israel. I decided to step outside the mindset of a typical Muslim. It didn’t take long to realize that I was on the wrong track and I moved quickly to the other side. In order to be at peace with myself I have come to reject the hatred of Israel and now love my former enemy. I have not embraced another religion but I am pursuing a new spiritual path.

It’s not a struggle of so called “Palestinians” to establish a country and retain some land, which was never theirs, I know because I studied the real history. The real problem is racism and the intolerance of Muslims, the blind hatred and jealousy to see a flourishing, strong and modern country where people from other faiths can live peacefully. Why are the Jews forbidden to have a country? These people have contributed much to the world’s culture and offered the best scientists, artists, doctors and have been victims of intolerance throughout history? Why are they forbidden to live in their national Zionist dream and return to their homeland, which was some desert which they cultivated and transformed in to one of the most beautiful landscapes on earth? Why do the Arabs and the Muslim world have to take everything, and claim every land they step on to be theirs. “Palestine” never existed [as a nation or state - GdB], and should never, and that is coming from me an Arab who is classified as a “Palestinian.” The creation of a Palestinian state would be the biggest threat to the existence of Israel and would not bring one day of peace to Israel; I know how my people think! It should never be allowed. In fact supporting a Palestinian State is the equivalent of supporting Nazi Germany and the persecution of Jews.

Read the rest at IsraPundit.

More deceptions from Muslim advisor regarding Flight 93 mosque

Nasser Rabbat, a Syrian professor of Islamic architecture at MIT, told the Park Service not to worry about the giant Mecca oriented crescent at the center of the Flight 93 Memorial. He said that since it does not point quite exactly to Mecca (it is off by 1.8°) it can’t be considered a proper mihrab (the central feature around which every mosque is built).

Liar. Many of the most famous mihrabs face as much as 20 or 30 degrees off of Mecca.

Here is another Rabbat deception:

Mosques are never in the shape of a crescent or a circle. This defeats the purpose of lining up the worshipers parallel to the Qibla wall (Mecca orientation), which usually translates into a rectangular shape, or sometimes a square. [From the White Paper released by the Memorial Project in August 2007.]

It is true that most mosques are rectangular, the more clearly to mark the direction to Mecca, but this is certainly not a requirement, given that the two most religiously significant sites in Islam are round mosques. Significant site #1 is the Sacred Mosque in Mecca:

Second most significant is the Mosque of Omar, also called the Dome of the Rock, on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, from which point Muhammad supposedly ascended into heaven:

Perhaps because of the prominence of these precedents, a small but significant number of mosques around the world follow the round model.

There is the Tun Abdul Aziz mosque built in Malaysia in 1975, referred to colloquially as the “Masjid Bulat,” or “round mosque.”

There is the new 5,000 person Arafat Mosque in Nigeria, which the architect claims is “the only round mosque in Africa,” but he is wrong. Another round mosque, Al Nileen, sits at the confluence of Blue and White Nile rivers in Khartoum:

[From Google Earth. Look up "alnileen mosque".]

Africa is also home to some older round mosques. Here is a round mosque from the Ivory coast. Similar mosques have also been found in Sierra Leone.

Here is a modern Russian mosque, laid out in shape of an eight point star.

There is even a famous round mosque right in the heart of the EU, at the northwest corner of the Parc du Cinquantenaire in Brussels.

There is a round mosque in Kuwait, a round mosque in Kadavu India, and probably many more.

At the Islamic architecture website Archnet, a Muslim architect (not a native English writer) explains the problem with round mosques:

… a circular mosque can not function well because a mousqe should have an oriantation to kibla and as we all know that a circle does not have an orientation, How can we know the kibla wall if it is a circle ?

This problem does not afflict Paul Murdoch’s mosque design for the Flight 93 memorial because Murdoch’s giant crescent does create an orientation. Face into the crescent to face Mecca, just as with a smaller size mihrab.

Geometrically, Murdoch’s Crescent of Embrace is just a gigantic Islamic prayer rug:

A Muslim prayer rug is a two dimensional mihrab, laid out to face Mecca, just as the Crescent of Embrace is.

Notice that to a person looking into the Flight 93 crescent, the irregularity of the outer arc of the crescent is not visible. The radial arbors are all behind the double row of red maples that line the walkway. The ends of the crescent are also well defined by the end of the walkway of red maples at the bottom and the end of the thousand foot long, fifty foot tall Entry Portal Wall on top. This is a perfectly comprehensible and recognizable Mecca direction indicator.

Rabbat’s comments to the Park Service do not even pretend to be objective. He lists “talking points” in defense of the crescent design without ever even pretending to weigh the merits of the case against the design.

Most obviously, Rabbat never considers the almost exact Mecca orientation of the giant crescent as a grounds for concern, but limits his remarks to possible excuses for not worrying about this obviously worrisome fact. The same for all of his other talking points. He only even considers ways to absolve the crescent design.

In short, Rabbat is as overtly biased as he could possibly be, yet the Park Service has no qualms about this overt bias. Rabbat gives them the excuses for unconcern that they want and they eagerly embrace him. The Park Service investigation into warnings of an enemy plot was a total fraud.

What Works for Israel:

 

The Security Fence (the “Wall”)

 What Doesn’t Work:

Giving land and control to the “Palestinians”.

Let’s give ‘em a State!!

Nod: Solomonia

More Love in Iraq

Updating this story, the Catholic News Agency reports:

More bomb attacks on Iraqi churches, severe material damage caused

Kirkuk, Jan 9, 2008 / 10:06 pm (CNA).- Continuing a trend of attacks on Christian buildings, two car bombs exploded outside churches on Wednesday in the northern Iraq city of Kirkuk.The attacks, which took place within two minutes of each other, damaged buildings, cars and surrounding houses but caused no injuries, Agence France Presse reports.


Similar attacks on churches have also taken place recently. On Sunday a car bomb attack on a monastery in the northern Iraq city of Mosul wounded four people, while six other attacks on Christian buildings also took place elsewhere in Mosul and Baghdad.

Meanwhile, in what can only be described as the height of denial (or, actually, it’s probably an appeasement gesture):

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The spiritual leader of Iraq’s Catholics said on Tuesday that a recent wave of bomb attacks on churches in Baghdad and Mosul was aimed at showing Iraq was not at peace rather than singling out Christians for persecution.


“This act was not specifically against Christians. The aim was to convince the world that so far there is no peace and security in Iraq,” said Emmanuel III Delly, the Chaldean patriarch of Baghdad, adding that he forgave the perpetrators.

So it’s Christian buildings that are being attacked, but it’s not aggression against Christians? Right. That’s why the Christian population in Iraq is only 50% of what it was a few years ago, and there are mounting fears of “religious cleansing” among the REST of the remaining Christians in Iraq.

Stop the Memorial Blogburst

Blogburst blockbuster: Professor who white-washed the Crescent of Embrace was Paul Murdoch’s classmate at UCLA

An excerpt from the Park Service investigation into the Flight 93 memorial identifies one of their consultants as a scholar from MIT who “wishes to remain anonymous.” Another document identifies this person as a religious scholar or a professor of Islamic architecture. MIT does not have a religion department, and they only have one professor of Islamic architecture: Professor Nassar Rabbat, who has confirmed that he is the Park Service consultant.

A check of Rabbat’s background shows that he was a classmate of Paul Murdoch, both getting masters degrees in architecture from UCLA in 1984 and both doing their masters work on Middle Easter subjects. Murdoch wrote a “masters project” titled: “A museum for Haifa, Israel.” Rabbat did a masters thesis titled: “House-form, climactic response and lifestyle: a study of the 17-19th century courthouse houses in Cairo and Damascus.”

This connection between Murdoch and Rabbat raises the possibility that Murdoch himself orchestrated the Park Service investigation into warnings about his own design. Rabbat denies knowing Murdoch, but given the blatant dishonesty of what he told the Park Service, that denial cannot be trusted.

Rabbat lied about something that every practicing Muslim knows

Rabbat’s first “major talking point” (from the Memorial Project’s White Paper, towards the bottom) is a blatantly dishonest excuse for why the Park Service should not be concerned about the almost exact Mecca orientation of the Crescent of Embrace. A crescent that Muslims face into to face Mecca is called a mihrab and is the central feature around which every mosque is built. Rabbat assures the Park Service that because the Mecca orientation of the Crescent of Embrace is inexact, it can’t be seen as a mihrab:

Mihrab orientation is either correct or not. It cannot be off by some degrees.

Absolutely false, and Rabbat certainly knows it. This goes to the most basic principle of mosque design: that all mosques are expressions of Muhammad’s prototype.

Feeling the Love in Iraq

Courtesy of “the best of peoples”

(AINA) — At five o’ clock today, a few hours after the bombs had detonated; one of the churches in central Baghdad held an Epiphany mass.

“We have decided to continue to go to church, let them bomb us, we’ve had enough. It’s our country too. If they want to wipe us out, they’ll be able to do it anyway. I will die proud,” said my colleague and friend, Daniel, angry but decisive, when I eventually got hold of him.

“He has it completely correct. They tricked the Christians; they let them celebrate Christmas in peace, made them believe that the Islamic community had accepted the birth of Jesus, when it was only so they wouldn’t disrupt Eid, their own religious festival. For me this is no surprise. Fundamentalists have decided to drive us to flee once and for all. Instead of aiming their weapons at the Americans they are aiming them at us. This is not the first time. The USA and the rest of the world can no longer close their eyes to this attempt at ethnic and religious cleansing. There is genocide at work in front of the whole world and no one intervenes.

“Do you think that we can really call this genocide?” I asked him carefully.

“What is genocide if not a wiping out, if all the Christians are forced to flee, then they are wiped out, at least from what has been our homeland for more than five thousand years.” He answered angrily.

“It’s a war but we are not at war. We are not a part of this war. We carry no weapons. We kill no one. We turn the other cheek. A day doesn’t go by without us hearing reports about Assyrians, also called Chaldeans and Syrians, who have been killed.”

More background info at Dhimmi Watch (note the first line of Robert’s post text - too funny).

Catholic churches and institutions in Baghdad and Mosul, Iraq were hit by a series of bombing attacks on Sunday, January 6, the AsiaNews service reports.