by Bruce Fierstein, New York Observer EFL'd, go read it all. It's hilarious.
. . . Allow me to introduce myself: I am Ali bin-Zabar, the new public editor of The New York Times. Reporting to no one but the Prophet himself, my goal here is not to defend All the News That Fits, but to make sure The Times publishes only All the News Thats Halal. In short, theres a new imam in town. And with no further ado, let us proceed down the path to righteousness. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
02/22/2006 13:20 ||
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Wait a minute. What about the fashion coverage? Debbie
Dear Ms. T:
Allah has peered inside the tents at your Bryant Park and found nothing but decadence, depravity and semi-naked women whose dress contravenes Sharia law. To paraphrase the Prophet: Im not loving it. Thus, this too is banished.
Dear Ali:
Oh my God. What about the Op-Ed columnists? Debbie
Dear Ms. T:
Tom Friedman is most amusing when he channels conversations with Arab leaders; weve enjoyed Maureen Dowds skewering of Rummy, Scooter and Shooter. But try as we might, we can find nowhere in the Koran where it says that women are entitled to opinions. Thus, Maureen is banished.
Hysterical! I hope this continues - it delivers a coup de grâce in such a subtle manner - humor. This will get through to some of the denser fools. Bruce Feirstein is to be commended!
#1
I saw this a few days ago. It's funny if you consider racism funny. It shows a Hindu in a turban as a "muslim". That said it's pretty much right on about islam.
#5
Tipper, Spod didn't say Muslims don't wear turbans, he said that the animation shows a hindu in a turban as a muslim. Even your link includes Sikhs and Hindus wearging turbans so you should be able to see that the styles are actually noticably different.
#7
The piles of crap muslims wear on their head are totally different than what Hindu and Sikhs wear. That is racial stereotyping. Muslims hate the Hindu and Sikhs as much as they heate the west. The animators were not careful with there images or assertions. It's a hurtful racist pile of crap and hurts the WoT even if the ultimate aassertion is correct.
#1
Wow. Throughout the length of the article, he transitions quite smoothly from giving all religions the benefit of the doubt, all the way to "calling a spade a spade" - and identifying Islam for the brutal, savage pestilence that it truly is.
#2
It is supposed to result in a life improved, one with more meaning and purpose, a life lived better, more nobly, more beneficially through its principles both for ourselves and for those in the society around us.
Excellent article. He puts his finger on the problem with Islam, separate from any other religion. All other major religions inspire good. Islam inspires blame and hatred.
All groups provide through association with others a sense of community and sense of identity. In that sense, Islam is good. But unlike all other religions, it does not inspire individuals to rise up, beyond human frailty of hate, greed, and revenge. Rather, it encourages those human frailties. In that sense it does its followers a disservice and thus it has not moved its adherents forward from the 7th Century as have all other major religions.
#4
Excellent article. He doesn't as much question the truth or falsehood of any religion as much as he concentrates on the question of "What does the religion teach? What does it permit? What does it forbid?"
If a religion doesn't have hypocrites, it's a religion that isn't challenging its adherents. If a religion doesn't have hypocrites, it's a religion that isn't attractive to use as a cover for con artists.
Haitian leader Jean Bertrand Aristide, who is living in exile in South Africa, on Wednesday defended his decision to return home, saying it is his right as a citizen of the Caribbean nation.
"I have the right to be back," he said in an interview with international news agencies in Pretoria.
Aristide (52), who has been living in South Africa since fleeing a popular revolt in Haiti in 2004, on Tuesday announced that he will return to the restive Caribbean state, which recently elected René Préval as its new leader.
Aristide said no date for his return has been set yet, but added: "I know a date will emerge."
He has said he first needs to consult with Préval, his one-time protégé, the United Nations and "other countries" before choosing a date for his return.
He made it clear, however, that he will not return to politics.
"My determination is to be back in education, serving the people, not as a member of the public service but as a citizen," said Aristide, a former priest. The election of Préval and Aristide's return could put an end to much diplomatic wrangling over Haiti since the 2004 revolt.
Préval, who served as prime minister under Aristide for seven months in 1991, was declared the winner of the February 7 presidential election following international mediation. Aristide long maintained that he had been forced to step down under pressure from the United States and France and had urged the African Union to take up his claims of a coup.
Since arriving to a red-carpet welcome in May 2004, Aristide, together with his wife and two daughters, has been living in a government-provided home in Pretoria and been provided with security and a car. Aristide swept to power in Haiti in 1990, only to be overthrown in a coup eight months later. With backing from the US, he returned to power in 1994 but fell out of favour with Washington amid claims of vote-rigging in the 2000 elections and political violence.
Face with an armed insurrection and large street protests, Aristide fled Haiti on February 29 2004 and was granted political refuge in South Africa three months later. Besoeker post.
Call it what you will various other commentators have favored volk-Marxism or postmodern leftism. Ive called it suicidalism. It was designed to paralyze the West against one enemy, but its now being used against us by another. It is no accident that Osama bin Laden so often sounds like hes reading from back issues of Z magazine, and no accident that both constantly echo the hoariest old cliches of Soviet propaganda in the 1930s and 40s.
....
The first step to recovery is understanding the problem. Knowing that suicidalist memes were launched at us as war weapons by the espionage apparatus of the most evil despotism in human history is in itself liberating. Liberating, too, it is to realize that the Noam Chomskys and Michael Moores and Robert Fisks of the world (and their thousands of lesser imitators in faculty lounges everywhere) are not brave transgressive forward-thinkers but pathetic memebots running the program of a dead tyrant.
Blasphemy doesn't begin with caricatures of the Prophet nor does it end with lampooning Islam, says Kanchan Gupta
The violent protest by Muslims across the world against the publication of 12 caricatures of Prophet Mohammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten is showing no indication of petering out. Regardless of abject apologies by Danish authorities and the attempt by some Muslim leaders to calm passions, each day brings its share of stories of Muslims going on the rampage and clerics encouraging the faithful to slaughter the cartoonists and reap rich rewards for the murders in both this and the other world.
While there has been no outpouring of support for those who have been attacking Danish diplomatic missions and burning that country's national flag, the flood of commiseration for hurt Muslim sentiments is truly awesome. Condemnation of the wilful attempt to mock the Prophet is entirely justified, as is the demand that those who decide media content should exercise greater caution in future.
There can, however, be no support for those Muslims who have been indulging in wanton violence -- looting of Hindu shops, as happened in Hyderabad after Friday prayer or the murder of a 60-year-old Catholic priest, Fr Andrea Santoro, in Turkey, apart from the torching of Danish missions -- nor should any legitimacy be accorded to the call for killing the cartoonists -- Al Qaeda has announced a bounty of 100 kg of gold, a Pakistani cleric has offered $ 1 million and an animal fat trader who enjoys the exalted position of Minister for Minority Welfare in Uttar Pradesh has promised Rs 51 crore to those willing to murder in the name of Islam.
But those who are seeking to play a pro-active role in assuaging "hurt" Muslim sentiments, including the UPA Government which has preposterously conveyed a formal protest to Denmark, the Congress Government of Andhra Pradesh which has equally ludicrously dragooned the State Assembly into passing a resolution condemning the cartoons and what AP has described as "Muslim supporters of Hindu right wing nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party" burning the Danish national flag in a pathetic me-too-outraged response, are unwilling to accept that blasphemy does not begin with caricaturing Prophet Mohammad, nor does it end with lampooning Islam.
In 2002, Egyptian and other Arab television channels telecast a 41-part serial, A Knight Without a Horse, based on the spurious document called "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion", a work of fiction produced in Russia in 1903 to incite and legitimise anti-Jewish pogroms. Under pressure from American Jews and the Government of Israel, the US lodged a half-hearted protest with the Egyptian Government and Arab regimes where the programme was telecast. Predictably, the 'protest' was ignored by both Arab palace and street. As if that were not enough, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, funded by liberal Governments in Europe and hailed as a symbol of secular knowledge, put on public display what it claimed to be an ancient copy of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion".
There was no outrage, not even a whimper of protest by secular Governments at this insidious attempt to legitimise anti-Semitism. Nobody dashed off letters of protest, nor were resolutions passed condemning this disgraceful incitement of anti-Jewish sentiments. On the contrary, the overwhelming sentiment, more so in Scandinavian countries, was that of "serves the Jews right".
"The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" owes its origin to anti-Semitism of early-20th century that paved the way for Adolf Hitler's gas chambers and the Holocaust. It purports to be a secret blueprint prepared by Zionists to establish Jewish control over the world. It is sufficient to incite the cruellest of passions among those who have been taught from childhood to hate Jews. It is as spurious as the Islamists' cockamamie claim that 9/11 was a Jewish conspiracy. It is as despicable as the sly inclusion of a photograph of a pig squealing contest, organised by farmers in rural France, in the inflammatory booklet that has been put out by clerics of Denmark to draw the ummah's attention to the caricatures of the Prophet.
But it is not Jews alone who have had to suffer anti-Semitism in silence with the liberal world refusing to condemn the hateful propaganda of Arabs and thus mollycoddling spiteful Muslims who make no effort to hide their contempt for the faith of others. Copts in Egypt dare not display the symbol of their faith or its substitute, a fish, because it would invite instant violent retribution. An Indian Hindu expatriate who died in Cairo and whose family did not have the resources to fly her body to India for cremation, had to consign the mortal remains to the flames of a garbage incinerator. Next day, local newspapers criticised the Government for allowing such pagan practices.
Elsewhere in Arabia, public display of any faith other than Islam is prohibited; violation of the law could lead to public decapitation. The hugely influential Sunni imam Youssef al-Qaradawi, who as a guest of London's Red mayor Ken Linvingstone praised suicide bombers at an official reception, runs a popular website which lists several fatwas justifying jihad against Hindus and Hinduism and encourages Muslims to join terror brigades to fight India's infidels.
In Iran, newspapers routinely organise competitions to caricature Jews and deride their faith. No Islamic country acknowledges the Holocaust which Muslim scholars wave away as Jewish propaganda.
Such blatant abuse, of course, has never invited the mildest criticism, nor have the hate-mongers been rebuked in a manner remotely similar to the reprimand to which Jyllands-Posten and the Danish cartoonists are now being subjected. Hate speech is illegal, as it should be, in most European countries, including Britain. But Muslims are spared from its purview on the specious plea that the hate they spew is integral to their faith.
Yes, this is ridiculous. But so is the move to impose a ban on Christmas, Santa, kissing in school plays, piggy banks and Winnie the Pooh because they "hurt" Muslim sentiments. As Daniel Pipes writes in one of his incisive articles, "The benefits department at Dudley Council, West Midlands, instructed employees that all pig-related novelty items are henceforth banned from its offices, so as not to offend Muslim staff. This includes pig toys, porcelain figures, calendars, and even a tissue box featuring Winnie the Pooh and Piglet."
The reason for such capitulation that has emboldened the tribe of Haji Yaqoob Qureshi can be found in Youssef al-Qaradawi's boastful claim, "We must tell Europeans, we can live without you. But you cannot live without us." He might as well have said the world can't live without being in thraldom of frightful Islamist retribution. For evidence, look at the violence that has been unleashed in the name of protesting against caricaturing the Prophet.
Posted by: john ||
02/22/2006 15:08 ||
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Pics at link.
Note to Hamas: Some of "us" can read Arabic - so hiding images of the Star of David being nuked on Arabic pages doesn't work!
Well, it seems that the "peace-loving", "democratically-elected" folks in the military wing of Hamas have forgotten one key point: some infidels read Arabic too! The Arabic version of the website of the Ezz el din Qassam brigades shows the following images of the Star of David being destroyed in a nuclear explosion.
Arabic words then appear saying "Only the Ezz el din Qassam website tells the whole story of the most elusive squad [to be uncovered] in the history of the Entity [Israel], in the city of Ramallah." Every few seconds there are repeated images of a nuclear explosion destroying the Star of David.
The English version of their website doesn't show the images - instead it opts for a much more politically correct appearance.
(Special thanks to the Palestinian Media Watch for pointing out the images.)
[Editor's Note: Below are selected excerpts from Brigitte Gabriel's speech delivered at the Intelligence Summit in Washington DC, Saturday February 18, 2006].
We gather here today to share information and knowledge. Intelligence is not merely cold hard data about numerical strength or armament or disposition of military forces. The most important element of intelligence has to be understanding the mindset and intention of the enemy. The West has been wallowing in a state of ignorance and denial for thirty years as Muslim extremist perpetrated evil against innocent victims in the name of Allah.
I was ten years old when my home exploded around me, burying me under the rubble and leaving me to drink my blood to survive, as the perpetrators shouted Allah Akbar! My only crime was that I was a Christian living in a Christian town. At 10 years old, I learned the meaning of the word "infidel."
I had a crash course in survival. Not in the Girl Scouts, but in a bomb shelter where I lived for seven years in pitch darkness, freezing cold, drinking stale water and eating grass to live. At the age of 13 I dressed in my burial clothes going to bed at night, waiting to be slaughtered. By the age of 20, I had buried most of my friends--killed by Muslims. We were not Americans living in New York, or Britons in London. We were Arab Christians living in Lebanon.
As a victim of Islamic terror, I was amazed when I saw Americans waking up on September 12, 2001, and asking themselves "Why do they hate us?" The psychoanalyst experts were coming up with all sort of excuses as to what did we do to offend the Muslim World. But if America and the West were paying attention to the Middle East they would not have had to ask the question. Simply put, they hate us because we are defined in their eyes by one simple word: "infidels."
Under the banner of Islam "la, ilaha illa allah, muhammad rasoulu allah," (None is god except Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah) they murdered Jewish children in Israel, massacred Christians in Lebanon, killed Copts in Egypt, Assyrians in Syria, Hindus in India, and expelled almost 900,000 Jews from Muslim lands. We Middle Eastern infidels paid the price then. Now infidels worldwide are paying the price for indifference and shortsightedness.
Tolerating evil is a crime. Appeasing murderers doesn't buy protection. It earns one disrespect and loathing in the enemy's eyes. Yet apathy is the weapon by which the West is committing suicide. Political correctness forms the shackles around our ankles, by which Islamists are leading us to our demise.
America and the West are doomed to failure in this war unless they stand up and identify the real enemy: Islam. You hear about Wahabbi and Salafi Islam as the only extreme form of Islam. All the other Muslims, supposedly, are wonderful moderates. Closer to the truth are the pictures of the irrational eruption of violence in reaction to the cartoons of Mohammed printed by a Danish newspaper. From burning embassies, to calls to butcher those who mock Islam, to warnings that the West be prepared for another holocaust, those pictures have given us a glimpse into the real face of the enemy. News pictures and video of these events represent a canvas of hate decorated by different nationalities who share one common ideology of hate, bigotry and intolerance derived from one source: authentic Islam. An Islam that is awakening from centuries of slumber to re-ignite its wrath against the infidel and dominate the world. An Islam which has declared "Intifada" on the West.
America and the West can no longer afford to lay in their lazy state of overweight ignorance. The consequences of this mental disease are starting to attack the body, and if they don't take the necessary steps now to control it, death will be knocking soon. If you want to understand the nature of the enemy we face, visualize a tapestry of snakes. They slither and they hiss, and they would eat each other alive, but they will unite in a hideous mass to achieve their common goal of imposing Islam on the world.
This is the ugly face of the enemy we are fighting. We are fighting a powerful ideology that is capable of altering basic human instincts. An ideology that can turn a mother into a launching pad of death. A perfect example is a recently elected Hamas official in the Palestinian Territories who raves in heavenly joy about sending her three sons to death and offering the ones who are still alive for the cause. It is an ideology that is capable of offering highly educated individuals such as doctors and lawyers far more joy in attaining death than any respect and stature, life in society is ever capable of giving them.
The United States has been a prime target for radical Islamic hatred and terror. Every Friday, mosques in the Middle East ring with shrill prayers and monotonous chants calling death, destruction and damnation down on America and its people. The radical Islamists deeds have been as vile as their words. Since the Iran hostage crisis, more than three thousand Americans have died in a terror campaign almost unprecedented in its calculated cruelty along with thousands of other citizens worldwide. Even the Nazis did not turn their own children into human bombs, and then rejoice at their deaths as well the deaths of their victims. This intentional, indiscriminate and wholesale murder of innocent American citizens is justified and glorified in the name of Islam.
America cannot effectively defend itself in this war unless and until the American people understand the nature of the enemy that we face. Even after 9/11 there are those who say that we must engage our terrorist enemies, that we must address their grievances. Their grievance is our freedom of religion. Their grievance is our freedom of speech. Their grievance is our democratic process where the rule of law comes from the voices of many not that of just one prophet. It is the respect we instill in our children towards all religions. It is the equality we grant each other as human beings sharing a planet and striving to make the world a better place for all humanity. Their grievance is the kindness and respect a man shows a woman, the justice we practice as equals under the law, and the mercy we grant our enemy. Their grievance cannot be answered by an apology for who or what we are.
Our mediocre attitude of not confronting Islamic forces of bigotry and hatred wherever they raised their ugly head in the last 30 years, has empowered and strengthened our enemy to launch a full scale attack on the very freedoms we cherish in their effort to impose their values and way of life on our civilization.
If we don't wake up and challenge our Muslim community to take action against the terrorists within it, if we don't believe in ourselves as Americans and in the standards we should hold every patriotic American to, we are going to pay a price for our delusion. For the sake of our children and our country, we must wake up and take action. In the face of a torrent of hateful invective and terrorist murder, Americas learning curve since the Iran hostage crisis is so shallow that it is almost flat. The longer we lay supine, the more difficult it will be to stand erect.
America cannot effectively defend itself in this war unless and until the American people understand the nature of the enemy that we face. Even after 9/11 there are those who say that we must engage our terrorist enemies, that we must address their grievances. Their grievance is our freedom of religion. Their grievance is our freedom of speech. Their grievance is our democratic process where the rule of law comes from the voices of many not that of just one prophet. It is the respect we instill in our children towards all religions. It is the equality we grant each other as human beings sharing a planet and striving to make the world a better place for all humanity. Their grievance is the kindness and respect a man shows a woman, the justice we practice as equals under the law, and the mercy we grant our enemy. Their grievance cannot be answered by an apology for who or what we are.
#1
Lewis contends that traditional Anti-Semitism has been disguised to be more socially and intellectually acceptable. What he calls Political-cum-ideological Judeophobia allows Isreals adversaries to be judged by a lower standard. Therefore this false perception unfairly affects behaviors and policies.
Whether Lewis is right or wrong, IMHO, countries should focus their attention more on reality and less on perception. And people should be less concerned with the past and concentrate more on how the present and will affect the future.
#2
How is this different from the Muslim mindset blaming Jews for all of their problems? Here he blames Christians.
I wonder if Bernard Lewis has ever been in a church or knows any believing Christians. If he did, he'd realize that the Jewish belief that Christians run around blaming the Jews for the death of Jesus has no basis in fact. Zero. Pilate is blamed for washing his hands. Oh sure, you can find some nuts who will say it, but then you can find nuts who say anything.
It's not about religion or skin color or nationality that creates problems - it's about people who rally other people to be against people who are different to obtain power. Christians do it, Jews do it, Nations do it, political parties do it, children do it.
Bernard Lewis stoops to blaming Christians for blaming the jews. Not a great man.
#3
2b, some Christians have in fact blamed Jews "for all their problems" from time to time. I think you are correct that it is essentially an "otherness" issue, but there's no denying that the rabble-rousers used claims from Christian heritage, if not Christian doctrine, to stir up the crowds.
Posted by: James ||
02/22/2006 12:59 Comments ||
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#4
well said, but I know plenty of Jews who blame Christians for just about everything wrong in the world. I know because I listen to it first hand on a regular basis.
The idea - put forth here by Lewis and given an entire room in the Holocaust museum that Christians are to blame because they blame Jews for killing Jesus - is not something you will hear in Christian Churches. Pilate is blamed for washing his hands. He had the responsibility to undo it, he failed. I've never been in a church anywhere (and I've moved around quite a bit) that viewed it any other way.
Whats funny about the "new antisemitism" that Lewis thinks it's the old imagined anti-semitism rather than what makes up the virulent new anti-semitism. It's not Christians who are anti-semetic - it's liberals. All of the Bush hating people that I know have become virulently anti-semtic. Of course - it's just Israel and the Zionists that are screwing up the world. They have nothing against Jews, in fact, many of their friends are jews so they can't be anti-semetic. Just anti-zionist.
#5
hmmm... I might have to modify my comments. When searching for a new church in VA, it became clear to me that many of the Methodist, Episcopalian, Protestant and Lutheran have the same talking points as the democratic party. It was uncanny. Read it on democraticunderground on wednesday and hear it in church on Sunday. And of course, they all disinvested in Israel. I stopped attending.
So...maybe things have changed - but then it's also different to hear preachers preaching about global warming and the need for the Boyscouts to admit homosexuals and why we should care about terrorists and vote for Kerry. Bleah. So maybe they are busy blaming the zionists cabals these days But if so, that's news to me.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
