"We saw a lot of road kill and thought of you." —my sister
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For Palestinian Christians, the destruction of the ancient Byzantine church ruins is yet a further attempt by Palestinian Muslim leaders to efface both Christian history and signs of any Christian presence in the West Bank and Gaza, under the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas. A growing number of Christians feel they are being systematically targeted by both the PA and Hamas for being Christians. Bulldozers were used to destroy some of the church artifacts; some Palestinian Christians accused both Hamas and the PA of copying ISIS tactics to demolish historic sites. "Where are the heads of the churches in Jerusalem and the world?... Where are the Vatican and UNESCO? Where are the leaders and politicians who talk, talk, talk about national unity and the preservation of holy sites? Or is this a collective conspiracy to end our existence and history in the East?" — Sami Khalil, a Christian from the West Bank city of Nablus. The plight of Palestinian Christians does not interest the international community. That is because Israel cannot be blamed for demolishing the antiquities. If the current policy against Christians persists, the day will come when no Christians will be left in Bethlehem.
I just read a very lengthy and very informative interview with Israeli historian/journalist, Benny Morris. He has spent decades delving into original sources to collect information, and he pulls no punches.
Here are some excerpts, but read the whole thing!
Politically, the thing which has changed for me (and you can see that in my journalism), is my view of the Palestinians and their readiness to make peace with the Israelis. This is the crux. I would say that in the 1990s, while I was not persuaded by Arafat — the man was always a vicious terrorist and a liar — I thought then maybe he is changing his approach, because he now accepts the realities of power and what is possible.
But when it came to the crunch, when he was offered a two-state solution in 2000 by [Ehud] Barak, and then got an even better offer from [Bill] Clinton at the end of 2000, Arafat said ‘no’. And I think this was the defining moment for me. He was simply unable to reach a compromise with Israelis. ...
From that point on, I lost a lot of sympathy for the Palestinians — and I came to understand that they are not willing to reach a two-state solution. And then there was Mahmoud Abbas’s rejection in 2008 of the Ehud Olmert proposals, which were fairly similar to the Clinton proposals of December 2000. Abbas was offered a state with 95 to 96 per cent of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, and he too said ‘no’.
I understood that it wasn’t really a question of a bit of territory here or there — it was a matter of the Palestinians non-acceptance of the legitimacy of the Jewish state. [emphasis added]...
In 1937, the British Peel Commission put the first two-state solution on the table. Haj Amin al-Husseini and the Arab world (save for Prince Abdullah in Transjordan) all said ‘no’, and went back to rebelling against the British. They said ‘no’ to a peace proposal which actually gave them close to 80 per cent of Palestine’s land surface, and gave the Jews 17 per cent. But the Arabs said ‘no, we don’t want this compromise, they [the Jews] don’t deserve one inch of Palestine!’
In 1947, the international community put a second two-state solution on the table in the form of UN General Assembly Resolution 181, on 29 November 1947 — and the Arab world and the Palestinians again rejected it. That resolution offered the Palestinians something like 45 per cent of the country and the Jews 55 per cent.
Their problem wasn’t only in the percentages, which had now turned less favourable to the Palestinians. The problem was with the entire concept of partition and a two-state solution. They said all of Palestine belongs to us, and that is the only solution we will accept. And the Jews, some of them, can live here as a minority. ...
The problem is that the Arabs rejected Zionist and Jewish presence in the area. They rejected the legitimacy of the Zionist and Jewish claims to even part of Palestine, and they continue to do that. But now they say, ‘well, the conflict is because of the settlements and the occupation’. What I would say is this: the settlements and the occupation are obstacles to peace, without doubt; but the bigger obstacle is the essential rejectionism of the Palestinian national movement. The religious wing of the Palestinian movement is open about this, while the so-called secular variety (which is really not so secular) is more subtle. But for both, their rejectionism is the essential driving force of the conflict.
Woman accused of adultery stoned to death by Taliban
On Wednesday, an Afghan official confirmed the Oct. 24 murder of a 22-year-old Afghan woman accused of adultery (Post, Guardian). The woman, identified only as Rokhshana, was forced to stand in a deep hole in the ground while being stoned in Ghor province, according to governor spokesman Abdul Hai Khateby. The stoning occurred after the Taliban’s local tribal council found her guilty of having pre-marital sex with her fiancé, and the fiancé was lashed (Aljazeera). A video of the stoning appeared online late on Monday and has been widely discussed on social media in Afghanistan.
Judeo-Christian traditions have not always been above reproach. But we have made serious progress in comparison with some other cultures. It is reprehensible that some cultures tolerate or even encourage things like this.
Rampant sexual abuse of children has long been a problem in Afghanistan,particularly among armed commanders who dominate much of the rural landscape and can bully the population. The practice is called bacha bazi, literally “boy play,” and American soldiers and Marines have been instructed not to intervene — in some cases, not even when their Afghan allies have abused boys on military bases, according to interviews and court records.
Sexual abuse of minors and of women is intolerable. I don't care if it is part of the culture, it is wrong.
That having been said, in the diplomacy of "the enemy of my enemy is maybe not my enemy", I can understand the dilemma faced by troops and policy makers.
Nevertheless, I hope all the warm fuzzy multiculturalists who argue that all cultures are equally legitimate will wake up.
Maybe now that piece in the NYTimes has blown the whistle, others will see the horribleness of that culture.
I value freedom more than most other things. And while I guess I'd have no problem with polygamous arrangements between freely consenting adults, it is difficult to believe the parties are freely consenting in situations like this one. Forced marriages, accompanied by or following threats of kidnapping or other reprisals should not be acceptable.
The leader of Russia's southern region of Chechnya has urged men to lock up their wives and ban them from using WhatsApp after outrage over the forced marriage of a 17-year-old girl spread on the messaging service.
Married Chechen police chief Nazhud Guchigov, 47, wed Kheda Goylabiyeva last Saturday after threatening to kidnap the teenager and warning her family of reprisals if they did not agree to the marriage, according to the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta.
Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, who had earlier backed the marriage in apparent violation of Russian laws against polygamy, used an interview with a local broadcaster to condemn discussion of the wedding on WhatsApp.
"Lock them in, do not let them go out, then they will not post anything," Kadyrov was quoted as saying by the BBC.
"The family honor is the most important thing. Men, do take your women out of WhatsApp."
The Chechen leader said in an Instagram post last week that the girl's parents had agreed to the marriage, and criticized Russian media coverage of "this fuss ordered by some liberals."
Polygamy is illegal in Russia, though it is permitted under Islamic law if both the first wife and any future brides consent, and their husband treats them equally.
As I mentioned earlier, I'm delighted that the Pope declared the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians to be a genocide. The evidence certainly suggests that it was.
Was it also a Jihad?
Jeff Jacoby suggests it had some pretty strong similarities to modern-day jihads.
Speaking at the Vatican during a Sunday Mass to mark the centenary of the slaughter, the pope said it is “widely considered the first genocide of the 20th century” — a quote from Pope John Paul II, who used nearly the same words in 2001. But Francis went further, equating the destruction of the Armenians to the Nazi Holocaust and the Soviet bloodbaths under Stalin. And he linked the genocidal Ottoman assault on Armenia, the world’s oldest Christian nation, with the epidemic of violence against Christians today, especially by such radical Islamist terror groups as ISIS, Boko Haram, and Al Shabab. ...
Talaat Pasha, the powerful Ottoman interior minister during World War I, certainly didn’t disguise his objective. “The Government . . . has decided to destroy completely all the indicated [Armenians] persons living in Turkey,” he brusquely reminded officials in Aleppo in a September 1915 dispatch. “An end must be put to their existence . . . and no regard must be paid to either age or sex, or to conscientious scruples.” ...
That key fact is one the pope, to his credit, refuses to downplay: Armenians were victims not only of genocide, but also of jihad. In imploring his listeners on Sunday to hear the “muffled and forgotten cry” of endangered Christians who today are “ruthlessly put to death — decapitated, crucified, burned alive — or forced to leave their homeland,” Francis was reminding the world that the price of irresolution in the face of determined Islamist violence is as steep as ever.
The jihadists of 1915 murdered “bishops and priests, religious women and men, the elderly, and even defenseless children and the infirm.” The world knew what was happening; the grisly details were extensively reported at the time. Just as they are now, and with as little effect.
However, see this from today's NYTimes, which agrees the conflict was between Muslims and Armenians, but which also highlights the political (more than the religious) nature of the genocide:
“They threw them in that hole, all the men,” said Vahit Sahin, 78, sitting at a cafe in the center of the village, reciting the stories that have passed through generations.
Mr. Sahin turned in his chair and pointed toward the monastery. “That side was Armenian.” He turned back. “This side was Muslim. At first, they were really friendly with each other.”
A hundred years ago, amid the upheaval of World War I, this village and countless others across eastern Anatolia became killing fields as the desperate leadership of the Ottoman Empire, having lost the Balkans and facing the prospect of losing its Arab territories as well, saw a threat closer to home.
Worried that the Christian Armenian population was planning to align with Russia, a primary enemy of the Ottoman Turks, officials embarked on what historians have called the first genocide of the 20th century: Nearly 1.5 million Armenians were killed, some in massacres like the one here, others in forced marches to the Syrian desert that left them starved to death.
The genocide was the greatest atrocity of the Great War.
A few weeks ago Margot Wallström, the Swedish foreign minister, denounced the subjugation of women in Saudi Arabia. As the theocratic kingdom prevents women from travelling, conducting official business or marrying without the permission of male guardians, and as girls can be forced into child marriages where they are effectively raped by old men, she was telling no more than the truth. Wallström went on to condemn the Saudi courts for ordering that Raif Badawi receive ten years in prison and 1,000 lashes for setting up a website that championed secularism and free speech. These were ‘mediaeval methods’, she said, and a ‘cruel attempt to silence modern forms of expression’. And once again, who can argue with that?
Ever since I started writing this blog over a decade ago, I have argued that when "freedom of expression" and "freedom of religion" clash, I want us to choose freedom of expression.
I much prefer competition in the marketplace of ideas to stifling the expression of ideas. But, sadly, this competition is being blocked and thwarted by too many people with strong political voices, saying essentially, "If you say that, we will shut you down."
A recent example comes from Trinity University in Dublin [why is it so often universities that try to limit freedom of expression?]:
[T]he cancellation of yesterday's planned lecture on 'Apostasy and the rise of Islamism' by Iranian human rights activist Maryam Namazie is something that should worry us all. ...
There was a telling insight into the mentality of the organisers, the Society for International Affairs (SoFIA) who expressed concerns about their ability to host the event: "In a safe environment where individuals are free to express themselves without fear of being threatened after the discussion."
Just who did they think would cause a disturbance after the event? Namazie's fellow apostates who face an automatic death sentence in 11 countries around the world for seeing sense and leaving their faith?
Or maybe they were worried about how some of Trinity's Muslim students might have reacted? After all, the Trinity Muslim Student Association recently hosted a radical cleric called Sheikh Kamal El Mekki, who was there to explain why apostasy and infidelity are sufficient reason to kill people.
Freedom of expression for me but not for thee? This sounds amazingly unbalanced.
Universities used to be bastions of the defence of freedom of expression. They used to defend mightily their explorations of unpopular ideas. And yet, it appears, many universities nowadays shy away from challenging the extremist Islamists.
It's time for universities to regrow a backbone. It is time for universities to renew their role of encouraging students (and faculty members!) to explore diverse views and to provide a safe, if uncomfortable, environment for these journeys.
Addendum: See this, in which a professor strongly negative views about Hamas and is bullied by students at Connecticut College. It is a lengthy piece, but it looks as if he was targeted not just for that expression but for his other views as well.
Also, see this, which I wrote many years ago about my late friend BenS and his confrontation with the speech police.
Lest you think from my various pro-Israel posts that I am an uncritical supporter of Israel, I'm not. In addition to questioning the continued expansion of settlements into the West Bank, I find some of the things mentioned in this article as disturbing as I would find them in any country.
The rest of the world was shocked, but the fact is that Israel has become a right-wing society where nakedly racist language is common. “Arab taste” is a well-known term for vulgar, ostentatious style, for example. Right-wing legislators have in recent years physically assaulted Arab Knesset members while they were giving speeches. There are many examples that would shock Western liberals but are shrugged off in Israel. Members of the Knesset have given speeches in which they referred to migrants from Sudan as “a cancer in our body.”
Right, left, it doesn't matter. What matters is the apparent racism.
There are many things in that article which seem stretched or slanted, but there is no excuse for racism nor for pandering to racism. That should apply in Israel (and the arab countries in the Middle East!), as well as the rest of the world.
As a vociferous critic of the Israeli government, I have participated in demonstrations and activities supporting Palestine for many years. Yet in a discussion about the conflict, I was horrified to hear a fellow student, supposedly a scholar of international relations and politics, complaining about “the f---ing Jews.” What bothered me even more than such bigoted rhetoric was that the individuals who voiced these extreme positions appeared to do so with impunity. ...
From my experiences, I believe that the university is unwittingly complicit in perpetuating such radicalization, as it has often allowed Islamist extremism to go unchallenged. I don’t think the university itself is advocating extremism, but by failing to prevent the advocacy of such ideas, the institution is attracting students who are sympathetic to them. Students who do not identify with extreme Islamist ideology are being put at risk of discrimination, intimidation and potentially radicalization by the university’s failure to properly handle the situation. ...
I hope that the humiliation of having Jihadi John among its alumni leads Westminster to implement big changes to quell extremism. If it does not, I fear for how many new recruits the Islamic State might garner from the graduating class of 2015.
Several friends have highly recommended this piece on ISIS in The Atlantic. I haven't finished it yet. It is about 10K words, a very lengthy essay.
For those who don't even want to start it, let me recommend this summary blog post by the Elder of Ziyon. It is lengthy for a blog post, but it's really the equivalent of only a page or two. Some highlights:
[A]s you read it, you see that outside of military annihilation, there is no way to defeat it anyway (although Wood thinks that containment can work over time, causing new recruits to become disillusioned at the failure of the caliphate to continuously expand.)
One major point is that their leaders are not crazy. Their beliefs are consistent and if you are willing to listen to them, they will tell you their strategy and tactics. ...
IS cannot be stopped by religious arguments - because their entire point is to bring Islam back to the 7th century, back to Mohammed's own practices. And any Muslim who argues that Mohammed's methods don't apply nowadays cannot win an argument against IS... [emphasis in the original]...
The author underplays the appeal of a non-hypocritical Islam, when Islam itself has no theological alternative to believing that Mohammed was the perfect prophet and example to mankind. Young people who embrace Islam will be far more likely to choose the strain that is the most internally consistent, and as it stands, that is IS.
In other words, neither arguments nor diplomacy nor military strength will defeat ISIS. It is difficult to pray for world peace under these circumstances, other than as a wonderful dream and hope. To follow this thought, read the Elder's post even if you don't read the more lengthy piece in The Atlantic.
In today's story about the Danish shootings, the New York Times headline reads,
Terror Attacks by a Native Son Rock Denmark
One might reasonably be led to believe that the most important characteristic of the shooter was that it was a Dane who shot up the free-speech meeting and the synagogue.
It is not until the 6th and 7th paragraphs that we read,
Though the gunman’s name and basic biographical details were still unclear late Sunday, he appears to have shared some traits with at least two of the militants responsible for the Paris violence, notably a criminal record and an abrupt transition from street crime to Islamic militancy.
The Danish news media identified him as Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein, but the Copenhagen police did not confirm his name. [emphasis added]
A native son, maybe, but also an Islamic militant.
Numerous cartoonists have reacted to Islamic terrorist murder of the staff at a French publication that wrote satire, criticizing Islamic extremists. Many are summarized in the Washington Post.
My favourite captures the essence of the attacks on "Freedom of Expression".
The assailants are as yet at liberty. I hope they’ll be dead by the time you read this. But if not:. You want me too? Come get me. Because nothing short of killing me — and many more of my kind — will ever shut us up.
And if you don’t believe that now, you’ll believe it very soon. Because there are more of us willing to die for that freedom than those of you eager to take it from us. And soon you will find out that those of us willing to die for that freedom are also much better at killing than you.
Since I began blogging nearly a decade ago, I have argued that freedom of expression must take precedence when it conflicts with freedom of (or from) religion. Perhaps it is because I'm an academic; perhaps it is because I am mostly non-religious. But whenever I see any religious group try to stifle expression, including satire of their religion or their leader, I am upset and concerned.
The latest incident involves murders of at least 12 people in France because of cartoons like this and the proposed issue making fun of sharia law:
"100 lashes if you don't die of laughter" is what some people say is the proper translation.
Hooded gunmen shot dead at least 12 people at the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical publication firebombed in the past after publishing images lampooning Muslim leaders, in the worst militant attack on French soil in recent decades.
Another 20 people were injured, including five critically, in the incident. Police union official Rocco Contento described the scene inside the offices as "carnage."
Renowned pro-Israel writer, Melanie Phillips, will be visiting London, Ontario, on October 28th. I am delighted, and I will make sure I go to see her.
I have been following Melanie Phillips' writings for nearly a decade, including her early blogging, and while I was teaching in England we corresponded about the growing influence of Islam in London, England. Her book, Londonistan, was published about that time and I think it was one of the last books I ever bought in hardback.
Here are the details about her upcoming visit to this London:
Melanie Phillips
Columnist for the Times of London, Jerusalem Post and Jewish Chronicle, and author of Londonistan, The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth and Power, and Guardian Angel.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014 at 7:30 pm
London Jewish Community Centre
536 Huron Street, London Tel: 519-673-3310 Free Event
With thanks to Eva, Mary Lou, Susan, and many others for helping to make this happen.
Israelis who spent this past summer dodging Hamas rockets and sending their sons to fight in Gaza must wonder why it is "critical" to implement Obama's solution to their problems rather than to defeat terrorism and more broadly the ceaseless Arab and Muslim assaults on the Jewish state. Why are these not the status quo that the whole world agrees is unsustainable?
Today Israel has both peace treaties and close and cooperative security arrangements with Egypt and Jordan. Several of the most important Arab regimes (Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia), as well as the PA in the West Bank, share with Israel a common view of the major dangers facing them. For each, as Jonathan Rynhold of the Begin-Sadat Center at Bar-Ilan University describes it, "the key threats come from Iran and from radical Sunni Islamists, including the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. They seek to maintain and promote a balance of power against these forces."
In the latest Israel-Hamas conflict, all of these states and the PA were clearly hoping for an Israeli victory and a real setback for Hamas. They are all fighting the same enemies - enemies who wish to overturn the regional order and establish either an Iranian hegemony or an Islamist caliphate. All this leaves Israel and many Arab heads of state eyeing each other as potential allies rather than as perpetual foes.
Netanyahu might not have a magical solution to the conflict with the Palestinians, but the "solutions" on offer are dead in the water. After this summer's war, there is little taste for taking chances with national security.
In 2005, when the PA still ruled all of Gaza, we drafted an "Agreement on Movement and Access," which provided detailed rules for how people and goods could pass into and out of Gaza. The lack of trust between the sides, combined with deliberate Hamas efforts to render implementation impossible, destroyed the agreement before the ink was dry. It's easy to say that, for instance, the cement now needed for reconstruction would be closely monitored for proper use and not diverted to building more Hamas tunnels. But who exactly would be the monitors, working inside Gaza and in the face of Hamas intimidation?
Netanyahu may actually have a strategy for the Palestinian conflict, as Jonathan Spyer argues in explaining why he resisted conquering Gaza. Netanyahu's caution derives from "his perception that what Israel calls 'wars' or 'operations' are really only episodes in a long war in which the country is engaged against those who seek its destruction....In such a conflict, what matters is...the ability to endure, conserve one's forces - military and societal - and to work away on wearing down the enemy's will."
"This view" is sensitive to "the essentially implacable nature of the core Arab and Muslim hostility to Israel. So it includes an inbuilt skepticism toward the possibility of historic reconciliation and final-status peace accords. At the same time, [it] does not rule out alliances of convenience with regional powers."
Quite frankly, I doubt it. Not for a loonnnnggg time.
But you might find this article by my friend and former colleague, Salim Mansur, of interest. Excerpts:
The Arabs were not prepared then, as they are not prepared even now, to recognize the Jews – the "other" – as being equal. The Jews also thought they had their own legitimate rights to statehood, which could not be denied on either a religious and political or a moral basis.
It is this denial of the "other," the refusal to recognize that the "other" also has equally legitimate rights and claims in history, which has made the history of Arabs and Muslims in dealing with "others" – regardless of whether the "others" are ethnically or religiously different – a hideous travesty right into our time. This history, with its ancient tribal roots, is unfolding right before our eyes as Islamist warriors or "jihadis" rampage across the lands of the Fertile Crescent, and as tribal wars with modern weaponry consume Arabs and Muslims. Ancient animosities of Sunni-Shi'a sectarianism are revived and minorities, such as the Christians in Iraq and Syria with their history going back to the time of the Apostles, appear doomed in the face of the whirlwind of Islamist bigotry sweeping across the region.
This denial of the "other" also makes any claim of moral righteousness, or historical justice by Arabs and Muslims sound specious and self-serving. When Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, goes public in stating that the actions of the Israeli government, in dealing with the indiscriminate firing of rockets from Gaza by Hamas, exceed Hitler in barbarism, what we have is a demonstration of how unhinged Muslim leaders have become – or have been for a very long time – when it comes to understanding the history of the "other." ...
The Jews – as a people with a history that might be described as the "mother of history of the Semitic people" – have consistently recognized the "other" as they sought recognition from "others" of their own rights.
Arabs and Muslims need only to read sincerely the Quran, which they believe is God's Word, to find for themselves how clearly the history of Jews has been laid forth in their sacred text. Sincerity of reading, however, requires as a prerequisite a cleansing of the heart. The Quran states, "Not blind are the eyes, but blind are the hearts within the breasts" [22:46]. In other words, without a heart illuminated by sincerity, any strivings for peace and justice – as Arabs and Muslims claim their struggle against Jews amount to – is not only a futile exercise but also making a mockery of what is sought by denying the same respect to the "other."
... While Israel's Operation Protective Edge is making the lead story around the world, few are aware of Pakistan's Operation Zarb-e-Azb (Strike of Prophet Muhammad's Sword) underway against the Taliban inside Pakistan.
Israel's military operations have killed about 200 and displaced about 17,000 Palestinians from their homes in Gaza.
Pakistan's military operations, on the other hand, have killed over 400 and made over 900,000 Pashtun Pakistanis homeless and destitute in their own country.
While the 17,000 Palestinians are finding shelter in United Nations Relief and Works Agency structures, nearly one million Pakistanis are facing a catastrophe that has triggered neither media coverage, nor international aid or protest.
On Monday, a day after an Israeli missile killed 18 family members of the Hamas police chief in Gaza, Iraqi men in Baghdad slaughtered 28 Iraqi women.
There was plenty of fury over the dead family, almost none for the women, for they were alleged to be residents of a brothel, as if that mattered.
Allah's "best of peoples, evolved for mankind", clearly live by a double standard, the one that triggers mammoth support for Palestinians but absolutely none for Pashtuns.
Here's why. It is not the race or religion of the victim that counts, but the identity of their tormentor.
As long as it's an Arab army annihilating fellow Arabs or a Muslim military murdering fellow Muslims, too many Muslims simply shrug away our responsibility and say, "leave it to Allah" as the Qur'an supposedly commands.
However, if the Muslim falls victim to the "kuffar" — meaning the Jew, Christian or Hindu — then many of our clerics take to the pulpit and deliver fiery, end-of-times lectures, using the tragedy as a reason to ignite hatred against the other, in most cases "The Jew".
I wonder if God has heard this mosque sermon by a prominent Pakistani cleric.
"And a time is about to come when Allah would bestow such a success on Islam that there would not be a single Jew left on the face of the earth. … And when the last Jew will be killed from this world, then peace would be established in the world …"
Recently, Milos Zeman, President of the Czech Republic, made a very strong statement about Islam, Israel, and Anti-Semitism [via MA]. Here are some excerpts:
“The only holiday of independence which I can never leave out is the celebration of the independence of the Jewish State of Israel,” Zeman said.
“There are other nations with whom we share the same values, whether it’s free elections or a free market economy, but no one is threatening to delete those states from the map. No one shoots at their border towns and no one wants to see the citizens of those nations driven out of their country.”
“There is a term called political correctness and I consider it to be a euphemism for political cowardice. So I refuse to be cowardly.”
“It is necessary to name the enemy of human civilization and this enemy is international terrorism associated with religious fundamentalism and religious intolerance. ...
“I am not reassured by the claims that this is the work of only a small fringe group. Quite the contrary. I believe that xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism stems from the essential ideology that these fanatical groups are based on.”
“And let me provide a proof of this assertion in a quote from one of its sacred texts. ‘The Jews will hide behind stones and trees. Then the tree will call out, ‘A Jew hides behind me, come and kill him.’ The stone will call out, ‘A Jew hides behind me, come and kill him.’
“I criticized those who call for the killing of the Arabs, but I don’t know of about any mass movement that calls for the mass murder of Arabs. I do however know of an anti-civilizational movement which calls for the mass murder of the Jews.”
“One of the articles in the Hamas Charter calls for killing Jews.”
“Do we really want to pretend that this is only a small group of extremists? Can we really be politically correct and insist that they are all good and that only a tiny number of the extremists and fundamentalists are committing these crimes?” [emphasis added]
My friend Salim Mansur is part of a group of friends who are hosting/sponsoring a showing of a documentary, Honor Diaries, on Friday, May 29th at the Wolf Performance Hall, 6:30 - 8:30pm. He has written to me,
The showing of this documentary about the status of women in the Arab-Muslim world -- the misogyny, the persecution and abuse of women -- has brought the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) related Islamist organizations to mount their offensive to stop public showing of this documentary....
They succeeded in forcing the University of Michigan and the University of Illinois to withdraw the screening of the documentary. At Brandeis University these organizations forced the university administration to dis-invite Ayaan Hirsi Ali and withdraw the presentation of an honorary degree that had already been publicly announced. ...
It will be shown at the Wolf Performance Hall, London Public Library, 251 Dundas Street, London, Ontario.
The date and time are: Thursday, May 29, 2014, 6:30-8:30 pm.
Please come out and see this documentary, and support the struggle against honour-killings, female genital mutilation, child marriage, and women sold into slavery, as we now witness the horror of kidnapping of young girls in Nigeria by Boko Haram and their being sold into slavery.
At least one of the women in the documentary, Raheel Raza, will be among us. ... Raheel has very bravely agreed to engage in a Q & A following the showing of the documentary with the audience members.
It cannot be emphasized how important this documentary is in bringing to the North American public the awful reality of gender exclusion and gender oppression in the Arab-Muslim world, and equally important to screen it in public despite the opposition and the equally awful silence of the mainstream media on the subject and the effort mounted to prevent public screening of "Honor Diaries."
Quite frankly, I would love to hear the feedback about this film from all the people in Regina who gave Salim such a hard time while he was there a few years ago.
Several years ago, Salim Mansur published a book that challenges the holus bolus endorsement of multiculturalism. In fact, it refers to multiculturalism as The Delectable Lie.
The book, The Delectable Lie, was quite well-received by many people who knew about it. Current reviews on Amazon.com give it about 4 1/2 stars, pretty much in line with my own impression of the book.
For some reason, the major media didn't pay much attention the carefully reasoned volume. I suspect that most members of the major media didn't like his message, if they bothered to find out what it was.
Despite this notable lack of attention from the media, The Delectable Liehas been awarded the Eric Hoffer award. From the award's website,
Each year, the Eric Hoffer Award for books presents the Montaigne Medal to the most thought-provoking book(s). These are books that either illuminate, progress, or redirect thought. The Montaigne Medal is given in honor of the great French philosopher Michel de Montaigne, who influenced people such as William Shakespeare, René Descartes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Eric Hoffer. This is an additional distinction beneath the Eric Hoffer Award umbrella.
Isn't it interesting that the panel of judges who made this decision to award the book are Americans, and that an American award was given to a book whose subject is of particular and immediate concern for Canadians.
It would be fitting if the Canadian media recognized this award. It would also be fitting if Salim Mansur were recognized for this accomplishment by The University of Western Ontario, where he teaches political science.
Salim is a classical, 19th-century-type liberal or what might these days be called a quasi-libertarian. Appropriately, he has agreed to run for a seat in the next provincial election for the Freedom Party of Ontario.
Some friends went to the local mosque last night to what they believed was a public event. Here is their description of what happened:
Hi Folks:
For those who don't know, [we] went to the mosque tonight for [what they believed to be] a public event to hear the police chief, key note speaker, talk about diversity and tell new immigrants what services are available to them. Twenty three hours prior to this evening's event, the mosque posted that it was also a recruitment evening for the police force and that anyone interested should take their resume and fill out an application.
We weren't there but 10 minutes when we were escorted out by 5 police officers who threatened to arrest us and charge us with trespassing if we didn't leave peacefully and immediately. We were told that this was a private event for muslims only. Some diversity!
I have no idea what happened to provoke this result. But it certainly seems as if the local mosque [here in London, Ontario] is trying to hide something. Did my friends misunderstand in thinking it would be a public meeting? or was it a public meeting only for muslims? And if the latter why? What were they (and the police??!!) trying to hide?
The Elder of Ziyon makes some telling points about the recent attack on people (not all Jews, it turned out) at Jewish centres in Overland, Kansas.
In general, the US is a great place for Jews to live. Jews have little to fear in most of their communities. It is not at all like many places in Europe or in the Arab world.
But antisemitism exists, both from the right and the left, and it regularly manifests itself with extreme violence.
Yet when was the last time antisemitism merited a front page story in a major newspaper or magazine?
Time Magazine in 2010 had a cover story on Islamophobia. As I noted then, the number of antisemitic incidents in the US in 2010 dwarfed the number of anti-Muslim incidents.
Unless I am mistaken, there has not been a single Muslim fatality due to an anti-Muslim hate crime in the US since 9/11. (One Sikh was killed in an anti-Muslim attack and two other Sikhs were killed since 9/11 under unclear circumstances, plus a horrific murder of six Sikhs who were killed by a white supremacist.) .)
There is real hate out there in the US, and real people willing to kill people in service of that hate. And the objects of that deadly hate are not Muslims.
Outside of occasional stories like these, you wouldn't know that.
If Brandeis University doesn't want Ayaan Hirsi Ali for their commencement speaker, and apparently doesn't want me (at least I haven't received a call or email from them yet), perhaps they should invite this man [ht MA].
[Alain] Finkielkraut, 64, the son of a Polish Jew who survived Auschwitz, is retiring as a professor of philosophy and the history of ideas at the world-famous Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, a post he held since 1989. ...
Finkielkraut’s proud Jewish origins, his pro-Israel opinions and open Zionism, his critiques of Islamism and massive immigration to Europe, and of racism, have been for a long time controversial in the country, but much more since he published in late 2013 L’identité malheureuse (“The Unhappy Identity”), a book on the crisis of French (and European) identity.”...
He has been accused of Islamophobia (and of being an”agent of Sharon” after he defended during second intifada the right of Israel to exist and to defend itself – he participated to demonstrations for IDF soldier Gilad Schalit, then a captive in the Gaza Strip).
JAMIE WEINSTEIN: And people when they get honorary degrees, it's not like they only go to non-political people. Universities have awarded them in the recent past to people that want Israel to be wiped off the map and destroyed. Is that not right?
MS: Yeah, that's true. And that was Brandeis, a guy called Tony Kushner... I stand back and occasionally roll my eyes at the dreary left-wing hacks invited to give commencement speeches, garlanded with state honors, things that if you trend to the right side of the spectrum, you know you're going to be labeled 'controversial conservative', and you'll never get anywhere near. But this woman is a black, feminist atheist from Somalia. And so what we're learning here, which is fascinating, in the hierarchy of progressive-politics identity-group victimhood, Islam trumps everything. Islam trumps gender. The fact that she's a woman doesn't matter. It trumps race. The fact that she's black doesn't matter. It trumps secularism. The fact that she's an atheist doesn't matter. They wouldn't do this if it was a Christian group complaining about her, if it was a Jewish group complaining about her. But when the Islamic lobby group says oh, no, we're not putting up with this, as I said, these jelly-spined nothings at Brandeis just roll over for them.
I have sat through many, many convocation/graduation ceremonies. Steyn is right. Pronouncements from left wing, caring, elitist interventionists proclaiming moral superiority are common; among the most egregious at UWO was Maude Barlow. Only rarely are outspoken pundits from the right (e.g. Mark Steyn? or EclectEcon?) invited to such events.
Those who talk of “role models” for young women can search the globe, and will not find a more dignified, accomplished and courageous exemplar. In the Netherlands she was constantly under siege from radical Islamists and others, but courageously continued her public life speaking for the rights and dignity of women — especially, as she saw it, for the rights of women trapped in Islam. ...
And students at the university, deploying the other cant formulation for unacceptable ideas — “hate speech” — collected 85 names from a 350-person faculty petitioning the offer be rescinded. Their petition carried the now-familiar prissy, hollow whines that some students would be “uncomfortable,” would “not feel welcome,” if Ali, with her learned views on Islam and women — derived mainly from her personal life experience, mind you — were to be honoured.
Is this what Western thought and philosophy at the university has come to — setting up intellectual quarantines lest the immature and frightened be made uncomfortable or to feel unwelcome? Is this university or daycare? Giving into such adolescent whimpering is despicable; giving in to in on a university campus is unforgivable. ...
Why in Aristotle’s name do institutions dedicated to higher learning tolerate these rags of verbal flannel — uncomfortable, unwelcome — from putative adults? Damn it, a university exists to unsettle, to throw down established attitudes, to shine the searchlight of reason on all ideas. Universities are supposed to be bold, confident, courageous institutions, whose biggest duty to their students is to expand the range and depth of their ideas, not confirm their prejudices.
Brandeis, on this account, is a failure. It cringed at the first criticism. It suggested Ali somehow offended its “core values” — and what would those be? Surrender at first fire, perhaps, and gaudy specious rationalizations afterwards? — and had the gall to talk of respecting debate....
Universities are losing their halo. They are now factories for reinforcing received opinions, what the market holds as right and true — so-called “progressive” ideas. They have a deep hostility to ideas and opinions that wander outside their small circle of acceptability. They choose which protests they endorse and which they deplore. Oprah can get 10 honourary degrees and a winsome reception for her third-rate psuedo-therapies. But a real warrior in the cause for woman’s rights — a woman who truly rose by virtue of her courage, intelligence and industry — must walk, shamed, away from the platform she was invited to.
Every other university on the continent should have something to say about Ali’s treatment, but very few will. Because they are all of the same timid herd: great trumpeters of intellectual freedom and courage, which when faced any real test of independent thought or challenge to comfortable assumptions are sheepish, intimidated, closed shops.
1. I have a cap and gown that have been described as cool or sexy (click here to see a photo). [apparently that link no longer works. see photo below]
2. I look very professional and academic with my gray beard and glasses.
3. I have considerable experience listening to bad commencement addresses, so I know what not to do or say.
4. I am an award-winning professor, with considerable acting and speaking experience.
5. I promise not to cuss (unless you want me to).
There are some additional points made in that original posting that do not apply in this case. For example, I would NOT promise to be silent about the Ayaan Hirsi Ali uninvitation. And I would seriously criticize those who favoured that uninvitation. But Brandeis, if you can live with this understanding, I'm your man.
Over the past year, Brandeis University worked on having Ayaan Hirsi Ali speak at the spring commencement and receive an honourary degree. Not surprisingly, given her outspoken criticism of fundamentalist religions that promote female genital mutilation, forced child marriages, wife-beating, and child-beating [notably Islam in many places], their decision was criticized.
Brandeis caved. What's worse nearly a quarter of their faculty members signed a letter asking that she be uninvited. I find that appalling, even unsettling.
In their most caring, open-mindedness, one person wrote,
...if I were a Muslim, I would be deeply offended by her comments against my entire religion. (Which I don't believe she has stepped away from.) Of course, she has the right to make those comments, but whether she deserves an honor like this in light of them is a different question."
Given what her former religion has done to her, I see no reason for her NOT to have made the comments she has made. And I would gladly cheer on any institution that has the, not strength or anything like that, the decency and the commitment to human rights and would invite her to be a commencement speaker. As others have responded,
"Brandeis has honored Tony Kushner and Desmond Tutu, who made similar comments about Jews, and without the factual predicate of being a victim of FGM and subject to fatwas. It wouldn't be too hard to find honorees who've criticized Christianity, I imagine. I'm deeply offended that a critic of Islam is considered beyond the pale of Brandeis."
and,
"Would Brandeis shrink from offering an honorary degree to a prominent Western feminist who has used strong language to condemn Christianity's impact on Western society -- for instance decrying it as inherently patriarchal, racist, sexist, even fascist?"
Brandeis University, you are a bunch of illogical, disgusting, pandering, inconsistent, wimps. I hope this incident steers many good faculty members and students away from what otherwise could have been a fine institution.
When Brandeis approached me with the offer of an honorary degree, I accepted partly because of the institution’s distinguished history; it was founded in 1948, in the wake of World War II and the Holocaust, as a co-educational, nonsectarian university at a time when many American universities still imposed rigid admission quotas on Jewish students. I assumed that Brandeis intended to honor me for my work as a defender of the rights of women against abuses that are often religious in origin. For over a decade, I have spoken out against such practices as female genital mutilation, so-called “honor killings,” and applications of Sharia Law that justify such forms of domestic abuse as wife beating or child beating. Part of my work has been to question the role of Islam in legitimizing such abhorrent practices. So I was not surprised when my usual critics, notably the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), protested against my being honored in this way.
What did surprise me was the behavior of Brandeis. Having spent many months planning for me to speak to its students at Commencement, the university yesterday announced that it could not “overlook certain of my past statements,” which it had not previously been aware of. Yet my critics have long specialized in selective quotation – lines from interviews taken out of context – designed to misrepresent me and my work. It is scarcely credible that Brandeis did not know this when they initially offered me the degree.
What was initially intended as an honor has now devolved into a moment of shaming. Yet the slur on my reputation is not the worst aspect of this episode. More deplorable is that an institution set up on the basis of religious freedom should today so deeply betray its own founding principles.
Just in case there is any question, the shaming is all on the shoulders of Brandeis, which should be deeply ashamed of its wishy-washy-ness and for its backhanded implicit approval of the very things Ali has challenged.
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