Cultural Tolerance

Sir Charles Napier was a British general and Commander-in-Chief in India in the 1800s. One day, a delegation of Indian locals complained about his interference with suttee, the custom of burning widows alive on the funeral pyres of their husbands.

He replied: "You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and hang them."

200 years later, it seems Pakistan would have greatly benefited from large doses of imperial British "intolerance."

In Karachi, besides damaging gas stations, banks, shops, and cars, Shi'ites burned down a Kentucky Fried Chicken and killed six Pakistani employees, to somehow punish someone because Sunni terrorists car-bombed a Shi'ite mosque. Presumably, the "reasoning" was that the U.S. is responsible for Sunni violence against Shi'ites, and the KFC was just a convenient symbol of America.

In Islamabad, a groom and his family let his friends gang-rape his bride on their wedding night, to somehow punish someone because his brother and her sister had engaged in illicit relations. The "reasoning" here is even thicker, but apparently gang-raping a girl restores the family honor besmirched by her sister's immodesty.

Meanwhile, Britain continues the struggle to tolerate the intolerable right at home. A TV show called The English Harem is in the works, a "romantic" drama about Islam. Martine McCutcheon (EastEnders) "plays a supermarket checkout girl who falls in love with a Muslim restaurant owner and marries him –- despite the fact he already has two wives. . . . her parents are appalled and her racist ex-boyfriend plots to get her back."

Also in Britain, 7- and 11-year-old schoolchildren will soon be part of a project promoting "multi-racial harmony" -- that is, subject to Islamic indoctrination. "Resource packs" containing books, CDs, videos and Islamic artifacts, which cover Muslim beliefs and practices, are being supplied to British schools by the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB).

If you'd like to see what those resource packs might contain, be sure to see the kids' section of islamic.co.uk.

Column of the Day

Sci-fi author Orson Scott Card -- of Ender's Game fame -- forcefully weighs in on The Riots of the Faithful.

What the rioters haven't learned is that blowing up with rage accomplishes nothing except to make themselves look like big babies throwing tantrums. It doesn't make anybody in the world respect Islam more -- it makes us respect Islam less.

After all, when babies are prone to throwing tantrums, we may tiptoe around the house to avoid waking them up, but we don't give them the car keys. It's not respect you're giving them. You can't take them seriously as equals. You only avoid provoking them. They're a nuisance.

Countdown to fatwa in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .

Chirac: "Get the Cow!"

I promise this is the only time I'll ever say this about the French, but I'm impressed. French say not "no," but "hell no."

French voters have overwhelmingly rejected the European Union's proposed constitution in a key referendum.

Almost 55% of people voted "No," with 45% in favour, according to final interior ministry figures. The vote could deal a fatal blow to the EU constitution, which needs to be ratified by all 25 member states.

Turnout was high, at about 70%.

True, many voted against the EU constitution because they're extremists of one odious variety or another. But a landslide rejection of 55% suggests that there's also a silent majority that's sick and tired of being pushed around by arrogant Eurocrats.

The Dutch also appear poised to give the elites a black eye:

All 25 EU members must ratify the text for it to take effect as planned by Nov. 1, 2006 — and nine already have done so [ed. note: eight by parliament; only one by referendum, Spain]. The Dutch vote Wednesday, with polls showing opposition to the constitution there running at about 60 percent.

But the rumblings of the aristocracy are edged with forboding:

President Jacques Chirac accepted the voters' "sovereign decision," but said it created "a difficult context for the defence of our interests in Europe."

And:

France's rejection could set the continent's plans back by years. The nation was a primary architect of European unity.

"There is no more constitution," leading opponent Philippe de Villiers said. "It is necessary to reconstruct Europe on other foundations that don't currently exist."

Of course, hyperbole is the only thing at which French politicians excel, and in reality, life in Europe will go plodding right along as it always has. So it's entirely possible that these self-important sophisticates are simply struggling to contain their boiling hostility for the people whose votes they'll still need at some point or other.

While previous EU treaties have often been put to a vote again and again until the plebes give the answer their masters want, I have doubts that the EU constitution, in its present form, will get off the ground before the Nov. 2006 deadline. Without the French on board, or the Dutch, and thus almost certainly not the British, I smell a power vacuum, which tend not to stay vacant for very long.

Given Islamists' means, motive, and opportunity to conquer Europe, could it be that the EU constitution would have been the lesser of two evils? Or just a streamlining of the inevitable? GWOYKW will keep you posted.

The Road to EUtopia

Mark Steyn: The EU just won't take "no" for an answer.

I haven't seen the official ballot, but the choice seems to be: "Check Box A to support the new constitution; check Box B for genocide and conflagration."

Alas, this tactic doesn't seem to have worked. So, a couple of days before the first referendum, Jean-Claude Juncker, the "president" of the European Union, let French and Dutch voters know how much he values their opinion:

"If at the end of the ratification process, we do not manage to solve the problems, the countries that would have said No, would have to ask themselves the question again," "President" Juncker told the Belgian newspaper Le Soir.

Got that? You have the right to vote, but only if you give the answer your rulers want you to give.

Nidra Poller: Referendum on a Constitution for a Patchwork Nation Without Borders.

The Euro-Mediterranean "Dialogue" is a masterpiece of abject surrender. The European Union functions therein as an intermediate stage of an ominous Eurabian project that calls for a meltdown of European culture and its recasting in a monumental paradise of cultural relativism that closely resembles the Muslim oumma [community]. Isn’t this a more accurate vision of what the Union is preparing for its docile citizens? When subversive appeasement hides behind the veil of "Dialogue," what unspeakable ambitions might be dissembled by the noble word "Constitution?"
. . .
Behind the sturdy images of a forthright Europe on the road to a bright future lurks the shadow of a shameful antisemitism that has soaked into the very skin of European society. Economic stagnation and plus 10% unemployment eats away at France’s elegant foundations. Life has become harsh, violence of all sorts is on the rise. The strong euro is no help to French wage earners. Social services are breaking down. Anti-war pro-Palestinian anti-American activism has not even brought hollow victories. Man can not live by bluster alone.

Democracy is leaking out of this tattered Europe. As national sovereignty is handed up to the higher echelons of the European Union, citizens lose their grip on the affairs of state. For all its brand name institutions—parliament, executive, commission, president and now secretary of state—the EU does not have a democratic infrastructure. It is recreating something like an old fashioned European empire where the ruling classes hobnob together in feasts and palaces, and dictate their will to the people.

In the absence of grass roots power, commoners, with no constructive means of expression, resort to the sullen refusal to work, freedom to throw a monkey wrench into the system, go on strike on a holiday weekend, burn down an occasional factory. Some serious analysts of the Constitutional Treaty describe it as a blueprint for gridlock.

I don't know if I'm a serious analyst or not, but I'd say gridlock is going to be the least of the EU's problems. Certainly, the northbound "Mediterranean" freeway will continue to flow at a steady clip; and European Jews and natives are likely to take to the outbound lanes even more than they are already.

MORE:
Oh yeah, all those French territories get to vote too.
Chirac counts on jungle tribes to swing EU vote.

So do a million or so Dutch Muslims, encouraged by Islamonline.net to
vote "yes" on the EU Constitution.

FYI, one of Islamonline's chief advisors is Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a notoriously pro-terror Islamist who condemns homosexuality, advocates wife-beating, describes suicide bombers as "martyrs," and exhorts Muslims to murder Americans in Iraq.

Chirac: "I Shall Taunt You A Second Time!"

Right on schedule. Turmoil as Chirac plots to disregard 'non' vote.

PRESIDENT CHIRAC of France is preparing to throw Europe into confusion and put Britain on the spot by backing moves to keep the European constitution alive if it is rejected in Sunday’s referendum.
. . .
President Chirac was still insisting last night that renegotiation was out of the question if the French vote "no". British ministers believe that the only way that the French could get eventual approval would be to amend the constitution in a way that would make it unacceptable in Britain.

"We do not know if there is going to be a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ but a ‘no’ would create massive uncertainty about what we are supposed to be voting on," a [British] ministerial source said.

Does anyone really know anyway?

Chirac went on French television last night to deliver a dramatic last-ditch appeal for a ‘yes’ vote. He urged the French people not to punish his Government.

Why the hell not? "Chirac" is synonymous with corruption. Why would anyone want more of it?

"The decision before us goes far beyond traditional political divisions," [Chirac] said. The choice was 'about your future and that of your children, of the future of France and the future of Europe. On Sunday, everyone will have a share of the destiny of France in its hands."

Duh. That's why they're voting against it.

He argued that the constitution would strengthen France’s influence in Europe and reinforce the French social model. Rejecting it would create "divisions and doubts" in Europe when "we need a political Europe capable of bringing about a genuine European power."

And Americans are the imperialists? Thanks, Jack, for making the best possible argument against it.

But the latest poll showed the rejectionists’ support growing to 55 per cent — the 13th poll in succession to put the ‘no’ camp ahead. . . . Even as Chirac prepared to deliver his appeal last night the recriminations within his centre-right UMP party had begun, and he was said by colleagues to have accepted that he had bungled by calling a referendum.
. . .
But one option being discussed in senior diplomatic circles is for candidates in the French presidential election in 2007 to promise to ratify the treaty in parliament rather than by referendum.

Yup. Liberte, Equalite, Tyranne.

A detached observer might ask: why are European elites so desperate to ram this through, when so many ordinary folks are opposed to it? One answer GWOYKW cares about: it would consolidate power in the hands of the EU, robbing member state governments of the autonomy to set their own policies on Muslim immigration.

Cultural Suicide

The Clown Eucharist: last Sunday's service at Trinity Episcopal Church in NYC. No, they're not kidding. Don't worry about audio, it was all done in mime.



Meanwhile, an entirely serious and vocal Sheik Ibrahim Mudeiris exhorts the faithful during Friday prayers in the Palestinian Authority: Muslims Will Rule America and Britain, Jews Are a Virus Resembling AIDS. Transcript, video.

UPDATE: Muslim protesters burn a cross outside the U.S. embassy in London.

Euro-Pansies Cave -- Again

Unbelievable. In March, Giuliana Sgrena, an Italian "journalist" for the Stalinist newspaper Il Manifesto, was freed unharmed by her captors in Iraq. As she was giving sympathetic coverage to the holy warriors in Fallujah, it is likely that her "kidnapping" was staged, to raise quick cash for the muj.

Under pressure from hysterical protesters, the Italian government quietly complied, sending Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari -- and a suitcase full of cash -- to collect Sgrena in Baghdad. Six million euros can buy a lot of VBIEDs, so the Italians kept the U.S. in the dark. As her vehicle sped toward a checkpoint on the way to the Baghdad airport, U.S. soldiers warned and then fired on the vehicle, regretfully killing Calipari.

Sgrena has milked the incident for anti-U.S. agitprop ever since. Meanwhile, a spike in car bombings has coincided with the infusion of cash, and 80,000 euros were found with Zarqawi's laptop last month.

Having learned absolutely nothing, it seems our Italian "allies" are at it again:

Afghanistan hit back at Italy yesterday for meddling in negotiations to free an aid worker kidnapped ten days ago, escalating a war of words between Rome and Kabul.

Clementina Cantoni, who works for CARE International, was dragged from her car in Kabul by armed gunmen in an incident which has prompted foreigners to tighten security measures.

"The Italian Embassy, without informing us, has set up some contacts with the alleged kidnappers. We believe these kind of contacts are not helpful for the negotiations and the safe release of Clementina,” Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal told AFP.

“We were suggesting that the contacts should be made from one channel, from the Afghan side only,” Mashal said.

Fabrizio Quattrocchi is proof that Italians are made of sterner stuff. So where are they?

Oh, right.

Bring Us . . . A Shrubbery!

But not too expensive. (Hat tip: TC.)

The reward to Iran for renewing its pledge to refrain from developing nuclear weapons came swiftly Thursday; Tehran won approval to begin talks aimed at membership in the World Trade Organization.

The European Union has been telling Iran that the 25-nation bloc would support Iranian membership in the WTO if Tehran keeps its nuclear program within bounds. The EU also has told Iran it can expect economic and technical cooperation.

Translation: Cha-ching!

The foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana met for three hours with Iranian negotiators Wednesday in Geneva under an implied threat that Tehran could be hauled before the U.N. Security Council to face possible international sanctions over its nuclear program.

AIEEEE!! An implied possibility of a possibly strongly-worded resolution!

"Iran has for its part reaffirmed its commitment not to seek to develop nuclear weapons," Straw told reporters. "The freeze of the enrichment program will continue until Saturday an agreement is reached."
. . .
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said, however, that the Europeans never had to resort to threats. "I'm happy that it didn't come to that," Fischer said.

Goodness, no, we wouldn't want to threaten anyone with missiles that can almost reach Munich.

UPDATE: Oh yeah. One more thing: Iran warns latest nuclear deal could still unravel.

Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani warned on Thursday an agreement with the European Union on Wednesday to provide a two-month breathing space in nuclear talks could still unravel if Iran’s leadership objects.

"We told them (the EU) we neither reject your proposal nor accept it," Rohani told state television the day after talks with the foreign ministers of Britain, Germany and France appeared to avert a major showdown over Iran’s nuclear plans.

"We will take it to Tehran and if it is acceptable to Tehran then we can discuss it and finalize the talks. But it might be totally unacceptable to Tehran," he added.

Meanwhile, Geostrategy reports that Iran is ready to rock, now that the Norks have kindly provided a big fat shipment of plutonium.

U.S. intelligence officials have told President Bush news that has left him stunned: Iran has completed all of the elements required for an atomic bomb. . . . The development suggests Iran now has the capability to launch a missile tipped with a nuclear warhead.

"It's an incredible piece of intelligence that overshadows everything we thought we knew on Iran's nuclear program," one U.S. intelligence source said. . . . The CIA, while dismayed by Iranian efforts, was confident that Teheran needed at least another three years to assemble a nuclear bomb.

Instead, the entire Iranian uranium enrichment effort appears to have concealed a much more immediate aim. The clerical regime in Teheran did not plan to wait several years for a nuclear option and obtained plutonium and components from North Korea.

How many nuclear warheads could Iran produce immediately? The CIA has learned that Iran could assemble several nuclear warheads for the Shihab-3 arsenal. This means that U.S. forces in Iraq and southern Europe are under immediate Iranian threat. Israel and Saudi Arabia are already under Iranian nuclear threat.

In 1994, the CIA obtained the first reports of Iran obtaining plutonium components from North Korea. But the latest information comes from a new and far more reliable source.

Great. It's the Soviets on crack.

Oriana Fallaci sued for Defaming Islam

This al-Reuters correspondent doesn't seem to know the difference between a criminal and a civil suit. Well, in Italy, maybe there isn't a difference. Anyway, an Italian judge has allowed a civil defamation suit against Fallaci to proceed.

ROME (Reuters) - A judge has ordered best-selling writer and journalist Oriana Fallaci to stand trial in her native Italy on charges she defamed Islam in a recent book.

The decision angered Italy's justice minister but delighted Muslim activists, who accused Fallaci of inciting religious hatred in her 2004 work "La Forza della Ragione" (The Force of Reason).

Fallaci lives in New York and has regularly provoked the wrath of Muslims with her outspoken criticism of Islam following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. cities.

In "La Forza della Ragione," Fallaci wrote that terrorists had killed 6,000 people over the past 20 years in the name of the Koran and said the Islamic faith "sows hatred in the place of love and slavery in the place of freedom."

State prosecutors originally dismissed accusations of defamation from an Italian Muslim organization, and said Fallaci should not stand trial because she was merely exercising her right to freedom of speech.

But a preliminary judge in the northern Italian city of Bergamo, Armando Grasso, rejected the prosecutors advice at a hearing on Tuesday and said Fallaci should be indicted.

Grasso's ruling homed in on 18 sentences in the book, saying some of Fallaci's words were "without doubt offensive to Islam and to those who practice that religious faith."

MUSLIMS HAIL DECISION

Adel Smith, a high-profile Muslim activist who brought the original law suit, hailed the decision. "It is the first time a judge has ordered a trial for defamation of the Islamic faith," he told reporters. "But this isn't just about defamation. We would also like (the court) to recognize that this is an incitement to religious hatred."
. . .
Fallaci received numerous death threats following its launch [The Rage and the Pride] and "La Forza della Ragione" was billed as her response to the outpouring of anger.

Was anyone indicted for all those death threats? Anyone? Bueller?

EU = European Ummah

Turkey Convinces Europe to Fight Against Anti-Islamism (hat tip: BZB.)

The Council of Europe is set to fight against anti-Islamism as a priority policy for the first time.

Anti-Islamism has been included in the text as a dangerous inclination that has to be fought against upon the insistence of Turkey at the historic summit that 46 Council members attended. The conclusion draft of the summit included the notion of "Islamophobia". The inclusion of this notion in the European organizations' documents for the first time is described as the success of Turkey. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan basically has a gun to his head prioritized the issue on the agenda during his speech at the summit on May 16 and asked the Council to adapt effective mechanisms against anti-Islamism.

With Turkey's support again, member states of the Council asked for the encouragement of inter-cultural and inter-religious dialogue to develop universal tolerance and reconciliation in the final solution declaration. A decision envisioning the Council to appoint a coordinator regarding this issue and a Local Administration Congress to take effective action has also been stated in the action plan.
. . .
Thus, anti-Islamism as well as anti-Semitism [as though they are equivalent] will be dealt with within the framework of legal proceedings. The Council reports will include anti-Islamist movements. The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) will closely monitor these movements. The Commission will record in which country anti-Islamism increases or how it is reflected.

I don't s'pose any of these suicidal dhimmis would be interested in seeing what the U.S. National Intelligence Council has to say about all this. See especially the Caliphate Scenario, in the form of a fictional letter written in 2020 by a grandson of OBL, Khalifa Said Muhammad Bin Ladin.

UPDATE: Not to be outdone by his European betters, Detroit Dhimmicrat John Conyers has introduced House Resolution 288 against religious intolerance:

Resolved, That the House of Representatives–

(1) condemns bigotry, acts of violence, and intolerance against any religious group, including our friends, neighbors, and citizens of the Islamic faith;

(2) declares that the civil rights and civil liberties of all individuals, including those of the Islamic faith, should be protected;

(3) recognizes that the Quran, the holy book of Islam, as any other holy book of any religion, should be treated with dignity and respect; and

(4) calls upon local, State, and Federal authorities to work to prevent bias-motivated crimes and acts against all individuals, including those of the Islamic faith.

Take heart. At least when Dhimmicrats "take action," it's invariably in the form of non-binding resolutions, strongly-worded letters, endless task forces, or some other comically impotent measure.

Race to the Bottom

An in-depth look at the French street's view of the upcoming referendum on the EU Constitution comically skims past every major issue.

1. A former EU commissioner expresses concern that a no vote will turn Europe into "a suburb of Shanghai." No one seems concerned that a yes vote will turn it into a suburb of Algiers.

2. Most of the Constitution's supporters are socialists. Most of the opposition is Communists and Nazis. A huge void fills the center, which should be the group asking if it's in Europe's best interests. But "Europe" can no longer be clearly defined, culturally or geographically, so no one knows what those best interests might be anymore.

3. The entire campaign leading up to the May 29 referendum has consisted not so much of rival political parties jockeying to persuade voters, but of government officials forecasting doom if the people fail to rubber-stamp their power grab. In The Netherlands,

The government is spending $4.4 million on last-minute campaigning, saying it is confident it can still swing the vote. Government ministers have hit the streets to pass out leaflets and talk up the constitution. Mailboxes are stuffed with pro-Europe brochures, printed at taxpayer expense.

Europe has merely exchanged their titled aristocracy for an army of faceless bureaucrats, who remain as distant and unresponsive as ever.

4. France and Germany, the EU's biggest economies, have boasted annual growth rates around 1%, unemployment rates around 10%, crushing tax burdens, and entitlement systems on the verge of collapse. European companies desperate for cash flow are happy to do business with the world's blood-soaked dictators, and their governments, desperate for the tax revenues, are happy to let them. Like all preceding EU treaties, the EU Constitution pays ample lip service to free markets. But socialist Europe has long struggled to stay afloat, and has had to auction off its security and identity to do so.

The EU Constitution (all 325 pages of it) will only entrench delusional elites and guarantee more of the same failures. Either way, what Muslim invaders could not achieve at Vienna in 1683 will soon be easy pickings. Gates of Vienna has more.

UPDATE: The EU Constitution does not specify the method of ratification, only that all 25 member states must somehow "get to yes." 15 member states are submitting it merely to a parliamentary vote: Belgium, Germany, Italy, Austria, Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary, Greece, Malta, Cyprus, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. 10 are holding a popular referendum: Portugal, Spain, France, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Ireland, U.K., Denmark, the Czech Republic, and Poland.

In those ten states, Eurocrats are concerned that, especially in France and The Netherlands, the populace will vote no. There is no reason to be gratified if they do. The EU Constitution is a done deal. Too many elites have invested too many millions of man-hours compromising, writing, and building their careers on it. It can't be renegotiated and they won't give up. Thus, leaders of any member state whose voters reject it will likely submit it to parliament. Member state politicians, as power-hungry as the next petty Eurocrat, are sure to vote yes.

The popular vote is just to give it a sheen of legitimacy -- and is just as optional -- as in Cuba or Iran. Resistance is futile.

Romanian Journalists Freed in Iraq

In late March, three Romanian journalists and their translator were kidnapped in Baghdad, after interviewing Iraqi PM Iyad Allawi. Over the weekend, the four were released, and Romanian PM Traian Basescu insists that his government has made no foreign policy concessions nor paid a ransom.

Great news. Problem is, it appears to have been a fake kidnapping. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's report sure is interesting:

it appears to have been part of an elaborate scheme allegedly hatched by Syrian-Romanian businessman Omar Hayssam (aka Haytham al-Umar) and his Iraqi-American business partner Muhammad Munaf. Hayssam is currently being investigated on a number of charges related to his business dealings in Romania. He is reportedly one of the top 300 richest businessmen in that country.

It appears possible that the motive for the kidnapping is the enhancement of Hayssam's reputation with the government. Moreover, it could be an attempt to profit from the current security situation and the absence of a rule of law in Iraq. . . . It remains unclear whether profit might have been a motivator in the kidnapping of the Romanian journalists. Businessman Hayssam had said he was prepared to pay the ransom in the bogus abduction.
. . .
The kidnapped Romanian journalists were Prima television correspondent Marie Jeanne Ion and her cameraman Sorin Miscoci, along with Eduard Ovidiu Ohanesian of "Romanian Libera." Also "kidnapped" was Iraqi-American Muhammad Munaf, a Romania resident (and Hayssam's business partner), who helped facilitate the journalists' travel and interviews in Iraq. Romanian media reports indicated that Munaf also financed part of the trip.

Ion was able to call Romania during the abduction (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 30 March 2005), while Hayssam told reporters the same day that the kidnappers had called him on 29 March demanding the ransom. Hayssam immediately declared himself the intermediary in the case, and offered to pay the ransom.

Whether money did, in fact, change hands, or Hayssam was, ah, encouraged to call off the fraud, we can be confident that the bad guys have not suddenly decided to comply with the Geneva Conventions.

In fact, jihadis specifically train to kill journalists.

Anarchy in the U.K.

Two Minutes' Hate in Airstrip One. (hat tip: MF.)

Muslim protesters today called for the bombing of New York in a demonstration outside the US embassy in London.

There were threats of "another 9/11" from militants angry at reports of the desecration of the Koran by US troops in Iraq.

Some among the crowd burned an effigy of Tony Blair on a crucifix and then set fire to a Union flag and a Stars and Stripes.

Led by a man on a megaphone, they chanted, "USA watch your back, Osama is coming back" and "Kill, kill USA, kill, kill George Bush". A small detail of police watched as they shouted: "Bomb, bomb New York" and "George Bush, you will pay, with your blood, with your head."

Note that this took place directly after Friday prayers. LGF has some postively medieval pictures.

On Saturday, British officials and "peace" protesters join with genocidal Islamists to call for the peaceful annihilation of Israel.

A central London rally organized by the British Palestine Solidarity Campaign on Saturday heard Respect Party MP George Galloway advocate a general boycott of Israel, as well as other speeches calling for Israel's destruction.

. . . a crowd waving Palestine flags and anti-Israel banners filled the square to hear speakers shout vitriolic anti-Israel speeches. Demonstrators chanted Islamic slogans and flags calling for "victory to the intifada" were waved. Leading figures in Britain's anti-Israel coalition also lined up to attack Israel.

Andrew Birgin, of the Stop the War Coalition, urged the destruction of the State of Israel. "Israel is a racist state! It is an apartheid state! With its Apache helicopters and its F-16 fighter jets! The South African apartheid state never inflicted the sort of repression that Israel is inflicting on the Palestinians," he said to loud applause. "When there is real democracy, there will be no more Israel!" concluded Birgin. "Allahu Akbar!" yelled several men repeatedly in response.

Consider these events against the backdrop of a recent British ruling that grants Muslim girls the "right" to attend school in a burlap sack. Theodore Dalrymple writes in the National Review:

In the long annals of judicial stupidity, there can rarely have been a more idiotic judgment than that recently given by Lord Justice Brooke of the British Court of Appeal. It reads like the suicide note not of a country alone, but of an entire civilization.

A young Muslim girl, Shabina Begum, who attended a state school in Luton, England, four-fifths of whose pupils were Muslim, started a legal battle when she was 13 to be allowed the jilbab, a form of dress that leaves only her face and hands exposed. She was almost certainly put up to this by her older brother, a supporter of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a Muslim party [ed. note: terrorist group] that seeks to establish a Muslim world state, that believes democracy is blasphemy, and that denies that the Western citizenship of Muslims is real or meaningful, or confers any privileges or imposes any duties.

Eventually she brought a case, supported and possibly funded by the Hizb ut-Tahrir, under the U.K.’s Human Rights Act. She claimed that the school was denying her right to an education. She lost the case, and also an appeal, but won at the last hurdle. The Guardian reported that after her victory, she said she “could scream with happiness.”

When they heard of her victory, many Muslim women around the country must have wanted to scream with quite different emotions, despair and rage prominent among them. For Lord Justice Brooke’s ruling, that Shabina Begum’s human rights had been denied, and that she had been discriminated against illegally on religious grounds, displayed a complete and invincible ignorance of the social context of the case. Lord Justice Brooke saw no evil, heard no evil, and felt no evil. In effect, therefore, he was giving succor to those Muslim men who still abuse women in a medieval fashion.
...
The Muslim Council of Britain [the British version of CAIR] welcomed the judge’s ruling as a victory for religious freedom (of precisely the kind that the Hizb ut-Tahrir is dedicated to destroying). . . . One is strongly reminded of Communist tactics: to denigrate and take advantage of freedom at the same time. And having seen that British society is so weak and unwilling to defend itself against an alien culture, the fanatics will next demand that girls at school be allowed on the grounds of religious freedom to cover themselves up even more.

Or the "right" to not go to school at all. The punch line: Shabina Begum was represented by Cherie Blair, wife of Labour Party Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Puttin' the Global in GWOYKW

Spencer's Jihad Map.

There's the stuff we expect. Such as:

The official Palestinian Authority website -- the Arabic version, that is, not the English one -- has published the text of the viciously anti-Jewish Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Islamist hard-liners in Indonesia rally to advocate the killing of anyone who desecrates the Qur'an.

A Saudi official quashes a rumor that the government may consider permitting women to drive. Last month in Riyadh, 40 Christians were arrested for praying.

The genocide in Sudan is a jihad against infidels in Darfur, who are being slaughtered by the thousands.

But then, there's the stuff we don't expect. Somehow, what we discuss openly when it happens in, say, Pakistan, is off-limits when it happens in a Western country. For example:

The German state of Hesse plans to make Islamic instruction available in every school. Meanwhile, Germans look the other way as Muslim women are honored-killed on the streets of Berlin.

Swedish home furnishings retailer Ikea is so concerned about offending Muslim immigrants that they won't depict women in their instruction pamphlets. Fjordman chronicles how Sweden is fast becoming "the Bosnia of northern Europe."

Two Christian pastors in Australia -- one of them a Pakistani -- have been convicted of vilifying Islam by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, under a new "religious hatred" law.

Similar legislation is under consideration in Britain, as is a tax proposal that would recognize polygamy "for some religious groups." And traitor to civilization George Galloway was just re-elected to Parliament in a predominantly Muslim district.

Finally, a definitive study by the Center for Religious Freedom recently found that mosques in the United States are filled with hatred, xenophobia, and violence. Naturally, the Islamic Political Party of America -- "the Party of Peace" -- doesn't have anything to say about that.

Now, Abed al-Tahawi, a terrorist on trial in Jordan, asserts that OBL and Zarqawi will soon be back on the scene to set up the caliphate. That is, a global state ruled by Islamic Shari'a law. I'd say they've prepped the battlefield pretty well.

Eurocrats: All is Well

Iranian activists descended on Brussels to protest the EU's total indifference to the situation in Iran. (Hat tip: Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi).

Based on reports from Belgium, [on] Wednesday, May 18th a large number of Iranian activists from the opposition gathered in front of the European Union offices in Brussels in order to protest this organization's ongoing deals with the bloodthirsty regime of the Mullahs.

The protesters who were supporters of the Constitutional Monarchist Association, gathered, chaining their automobiles together and began chanting anti-Mullah slogans in Persian and English.

Based on reports from BELGA, the Belgian news agency, the protestors who had converged upon Brussels from various countries across Europe, sounding the horns of their cars and in unison, raised their voices against the exceedingly distasteful and hypocritical relationship of the E.U. with the criminal regime of the Mullahs. They demanded that the business deals, discussions, concessions and "breaks" that they give the Mullahs come to an immediate end. They chanted: "Stop protecting the Mullahs".

. . .

The protestors alleged to have been physically attacked by Belgian riot police who had completely surrounded the protestors.

Note from the Editor:

In recent years various officials of the European Union have treated Iranian activists of all political persusasions who are in opposition to the Mullahs, with utter disregard or disdain. Various members of the opposition have met, time and time again, with the techno-bureaucrats politicians of the European Union and they were verbally abused. The E.U. officials' lack of compassion and graciousness as well as their utter disregard for the plight of the Iranian people (and the greater Middle-East) is nothing short of hypocritical to their intellectual heritage and their so-called "principles"; their willingness to continue filling the pockets of the brutal Islamo fascists is nothing short of accessory to the Mullahs' tyranny, considering the fact that the Mullahs mean to inflict every bit of harm to all Western values.

European citizens are heedless of the fact that their countries' leaders wishful thinking and dirty deals cannot buy their long term security and that in fact their very lifestyle is being targeted. If the E.U. continues to accomodate these assassins, it will have essentially bankrolled its own demise. And if Europeans continue to persist with their political dogfight against the U.S., when the U.S. is out of the picture, Europe and Europeans will be next on the docket and can and will be easily subjugated by the forces of the radical Islamists who have already spread like cancer, throughout the continent, having already penetrated every fiber of European life.

Well said. Will Europe's love affair with fascism never end?

Double Secret Probation

Another one for the Leftist Dhimmitude file:

DePaul University administrators have suspended Professor Thomas Klocek without a hearing after he engaged in an out-of-class argument with pro-Palestinian students at a student activities fair. When the students complained to administrators, Klocek was denied the rights that DePaul guarantees to professors accused of wrongdoing and immediately suspended. Statements from DePaul administrators indicate that Klocek was disciplined because of his harsh criticism of the students’ viewpoint, despite DePaul’s stated commitments to free speech and academic freedom.

“DePaul has unquestionably violated Professor Klocek’s due process rights, and the university did so because his statements were allegedly offensive,” commented David French, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which wrote to DePaul on Klocek’s behalf.

The incident in question occurred on September 15, 2004, when Professor Klocek engaged in conversation with students representing Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and United Muslims Moving Ahead (UMMA). According to the DePaulia student newspaper and other sources, during the debate, Klocek cited a Chicago Sun-Times article that quoted the general manager of the Al-Arabiya television network as saying, “It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims.”

A heated but strictly verbal argument ensued during which Klocek argued that a Christian viewpoint, in addition to Muslim or Jewish ones, should be considered in discussing Israel and Palestine. According to Klocek, SJP and UMMA students (several of whom had gathered around Professor Klocek) made their own controversial statements comparing Israeli Jews to Nazis. The argument concluded when Klocek walked away from the SJP and UMMA tables and thumbed his chin at the students in what he believed to be an Italian hand gesture meaning “I’m outta here.”

The offended students complained to DePaul administrators, who moved quickly to punish Professor Klocek for his part in the argument. Klocek reports that on September 24, 2004, Dean of the School of New Learning Susanne Dumbleton informed him that the university had received letters of complaint from SJP and UMMA students and had met with the students and their faculty advisors the previous evening. Dumbleton immediately suspended Klocek with pay and ordered him to stay off campus. Klocek was never given a copy of the complaint letters, nor was he given a hearing or any other chance to face his accusers before his suspension.

Klocek's predicament goes beyond just the usual antics of petty campus tyrants. In the Dar ul-Harb (land of war) non-Muslims must learn to bow and scrape. Klocek's crime was failing to behave as a proper dhimmi -- although we can be confident that Dumbleton has no idea what a dhimmi is.

Only WE can do that to our pledges!

Zarqawi reassures the muj that killing Muslims in the course of jihad is okey-dokey.

Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq defended the killing of "innocent Muslims" in suicide bombings against U.S. forces, saying it was legitimate under Islam for the sake of jihad (holy war), according to an audio tape attributed to him on Wednesday.

"The killing of infidels by any method including martyrdom (suicide) operations has been sanctified by many scholars even if it means killing innocent Muslims. This legality has been agreed upon ... so as not to disrupt jihad," Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said on the tape posted on an Islamist Web site.

The Jordanian militant, Washington's biggest foe in Iraq, quoted Muslim scholars to justify the loss of Muslim lives in suicide attacks in Iraq. His message appeared aimed at winning Sunni Muslim support for the insurgency.

"Protecting religion is more important than protecting (Muslim) lives, honour or wealth," said the man who sounded like Zarqawi. "The shedding of Muslim blood ... is allowed in order to avoid the greater evil of disrupting jihad."

Is there any time it isn't okay to kill?

Profile: The Murder of Rashad Khalifa

Dr. Rashad Khalifa was an Egyptian biochemist living in Tuscon, Arizona, and was the imam of a local mosque. He had employed a complex numerological technique to prove -- depending on the report -- either that the hadiths are forgeries, that the Qur'an was written by God, or that Khalifa himself was a prophet.

He was murdered in 1990 by members of Al-Fuqra, a domestic terror group with an estimated 1000-3000 members. No shooter has ever been convicted.

The year before, 38 Saudi clerics had issued a fatwa calling for the assassinations of Salman Rushdie and Rashad Khalifa: "both Rashad and Rushdi are apostate."

Wadi El Hage, Osama bin Laden's personal secretary, was involved.

Al Fuqra is also known as Jamaat ul-Fuqra, Community of the Impoverished. Profiles of the group are here and here.

Thou Shalt Not Flush

Here we go again, another declaration of shananigans.

A group of Afghan Muslim clerics have threatened to call for a holy war against the United States in three days unless it hands over military interrogators reported to have desecrated the Quran.

The warning on Sunday came after 16 Afghans were killed and more than 100 hurt last week in the worst anti-U.S. protests across the country since U.S. forces invaded in 2001 to oust the Taliban for sheltering Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network.

The clerics in the northeastern province of Badakhshan said they wanted U.S. President George W. Bush to handle the matter honestly "and hand the culprits over to an Islamic country for punishment."

"If that does not happen within three days, we will launch a jihad against America," said a statement issued by about 300 clerics.

The really fun part about all this, of course, is that Newsweek's anonymous source may have been remembering a report that a Muslim detainee tore pages out of a Qur'an and flushed them, to clog the toilet in protest.

The other fun part is that Gitmo policy since 2003 has permitted only chaplains to touch copies of the Qur'an, and even then they must do so only while wearing rubber gloves. Heather MacDonald chronicles just what cream-puffs we've become.

UPDATE: Krap King introduces the Islamoflusher, large and square enough for all your holy book flushing needs. Heh.

Thou Shalt Not Kill

Last year, Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh directed a short film called "Submission," which portrays Muslim women struggling to reconcile their faith in Allah with Islam's brutal treatment of them. On 2 Nov 2004, Van Gogh was slain in broad daylight in an Amsterdam street by Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch-Moroccan and a member of the Hofstad Group.

A document purporting to be an unclassified Norwegian-Dutch joint intelligence report "makes the case that the murder of Van Gogh was a terrorist attack implemented by an al-Qaida inspired radical Islamist group within the framework of global jihad, and not an act of religious violence by a lone fanatic."

The report also describes the murder in detail:

"Muhammad Bouyeri attacked Theo Van Gogh as he was riding his bicycle in Linaeusstraat near the Oosterpark in central Amsterdam. The assassin cycled up to his victim, stepped off the bike, drew an automatic pistol, and shot Van Gogh several times. He fell off his bike but managed to cross the street heading towards a public building for shelter while begging for mercy.

However, Bouyeri was determined, and even beforehand he had written an answer to the filmmaker’s final plea on the five-page letter written in Dutch he pinned to the victim’s body, 'There will be no mercy for the wicked, only the sword will be raised against them.' The killer followed Van Gogh across the street and shot him several times, and then he slit his throat and attempted to decapitate him with a butcher’s knife, before he stabbed a smaller knife through the two letters he had brought with him, and into his chest. He then walked slowly away from the murder site and headed for Oosterpark.

Police from a nearby police station followed him to the park, and there was a shootout in which one police officer, the assassin, and one bypasser were wounded. Muhammad Bouyeri was taken into custody, body searched and interrogated. It turned out he was carrying a 'last will' in his pocket, strongly indicating that the attack was planned as a suicide mission. The letter read, 'So these are my last words… riddled with bullets . . . baptized in blood . . . as I had hoped.' It seems Bouyeri wanted to be shot by the police and thus become a martyr."

The report concludes that Hofstad is basically a Dutch subsidiary of Al Qaeda. That's nice, but it misses the broader point. Communist expansionism had ideological underpinnings and political goals, and no one was afraid to discuss them.

So why are we so terrified to look Islamism in the eye, and discuss the ideology and goals? For example, we should ask why beheading is so often a central feature of Islamic terrorism. It wouldn't have anything to do with "when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks" (Qur'an 47:4), would it?

UPDATE: A chilling video suggesting what's in store for the Netherlands. Mostly in Dutch, but words are hardly necessary.