Religious Hate:

• The AP figures out that the Beslan massacre Islamist terror attacks elsewhere might actually be connected:

  MOSCOW (AP) — The brutality and meticulous planning of the school hostage-taking and other recent terror attacks in Russia have focused new attention on the growing influence of Islamic extremists over Chechen rebels and raised suspicions of a global terror connection.

  Further, NBC news has reported that Al Qaida is using the Beslan outrage as a recruiting tool - even though the connection to Al Qaida “remains murky”. It’s deadly clear from where I sit. Someday if the MSM sees this well enough, Hatewatch will be out of a job. Faster, please.

• The International Association of Muslim Scholars condemns hostage-taking. Good news? Not so fast – according to Robert Spencer this condemnation is easily refuted. The problem once again is with the Hadith: Since the prophet is the perfect man, who himself took hostages and ransomed them, how can the hostage takers in Iraq be condemned? Also, for more on the practice of beheading, see Spencer’s comments on Amir Taheri’s article in OpinionJournal on the authenticity of the Islamic tradition of “Exhibition Killing”. Sadly, there appears to be broad support for the beheading fetish.

• Rape is part of the signature of Islamist terror, as exemplified in the recent atrocity at Beslan as well in the ongoing Darfur crisis. Robert Spencer tracks the origins of this dehumanizing aspect of Jihadi ideology.

• Perhaps this should be a “hopeful note”, in that an Egyptian scholar is speaking up about this, but the litany of jihad taught at Egypt’s Al-Azhar University is pretty depressing. Sayyed Al-Qimni, who lectures on the sociology of Religion at Cairo University, writes in the Egyptian weekly Roz al-Youssef:

  If we examine some of the extremist curricula, we will find that the principle of fighting any non-Muslim and killing him is not an offensive innovation by [founder of Wahhabism] Sheikh Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab and by [ Ayman ] Al-Zawahiri, [Osama bin Laden's deputy and the head of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organization]. This [is] because a book of the Hanafi [school of thought], ' Al-Ikhtiyar fi Ta'lil Al-Mukhtar ' [by Abdallah Ibn Mahmoud Al-Mawsily ] teaches the next generation that 'the war against the infidels is an obligation of all intelligent, healthy, free, and able men…

  And so on.

• I hope I don’t hear this guy referred to as a “moderate Muslim”:

  Basim Ghozlan, the manager at Det Islamske Forbundet, one of the largest Muslim organizations in Norway, stated that suicide bombers are accepted if they kill enemies.

  Apparently, 6 in 10 Palestinians agree. But whatever you do, don’t refer to the suicide bombers as “Kamikazes” – because you will insult the actual Kamikazes!

• A Danish born Muslim believes his own country’s leaders are legitimate targets of terror

  Abderahmane himself said later that he while did not intend to promote violence or terrorism, it had to be said that Denmark was at war with an Islamic nation and that made its leaders legitimate targets according to Islam.

  N.B.: This is a jihadi that we released from Guantanamo.

Idiotarian Seethings:

• Via Jihadwatch, we learn of an editorial in the Daily Times of Pakistan critical of Senator Prof Khursheed Ahmad of the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami party. Dr Ahmad’s intellectual contribution is the harmonization of the extreme left’s rejection of the global economic system with the Islamic tradition of Jihad.

• A diptych on the western political influences on Islamist ideology: Former Federal prosecutor John Loftus explains the connections between the Nazi’s and the forerunners of the modern Al Qaida in David Horowitz's Frontpage Magazine. The CIA, the British, and “blowback” figure prominently. Next, David Horowitz himself, but writing at Human Events, describes the confluence of Islamist ideas with the Left. In my opinion, neither article is without flaws, but then neither is without insight, either.

• This article in Frontpage by Benjamin Kerstein has attempts to establish that anti-Semitism is an authentic aspect of Leftist ideology and is well founded in the canon texts thereof. The phraseology of Chomsky’s comments on anti-Semitism is thereby deconstructed. I’m not an expert on the Left but I found Kerstein’s article persuasive. [Hat tip – Rochi Ebner]

• Via LGF:The International Herald Tribune’s Jonathan Power claims that the way to persuade Iran to drop their nuclear program is to make Israel give up their bombs. Honest Reporting objects in detail. I say res ipsa fisquitur. [Note: I’ve taken a look at the list of columns by Power; I’m hesitant to label him an “idiotarian”. (a term which, like “bling”, is probably nearing it’s “sell by” date anyhow). Not thoughtless, just, well, wrong.]

Race and Culture:

• Iraqi columnist Majid Aziza describes the sad state of Christians in the Arab and Islamic world:

  "The Christians have lived in the territory currently referred to as [the Arab countries] for centuries alongside other religious groups, and particularly with Muslims who shared with them the afflictions of life. But the Christians have lost their partners for many reasons, including religious extremism among some Muslims, the demographic increases out of religious reasons, and the acts of discrimination, coercion, and individual and collective expulsion of Christians, and the pressures placed upon them even when they were serving their countries. There are many examples of that in Palestine, Iraq, Sudan, Lebanon, Egypt, and other countries.

• Via Instapundit: Ehud Barak is apparently too much of a “security threat” to be allowed to speak at Concordia University. The “threat” to “security” is posed by the “activists” who the university fears will disrupt the relative peace and calm of the campus. Welcome to the peace of the cowed, and the beaten. See also this post chez nous.

• Interesting article by Dr Robert Wistrich published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, examining the connection between European anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.

  Europe cannot fight anti-Semitism if it appeases terrorists or blackens Israel's name. We need to insist that a linkage exists between blind Palestinophilia, being soft on terror and jihad, defaming Israel, and the current wave of anti-Semitic violence.

  While the charge of anti-Semitism cannot insulate the Israelis from criticism, neither can anti-Zionism act as a shield for those whose true agenda is the hatred of Jews. Will Europe remain a place where a Jew can remain a Jew and live in peace? If Europe fails in this, it will be “a devastating indictment of its self-proclaimed values”, in Dr. Wistrich’s words. [Hat tip: Rochi Ebner]

• The MEMRI TV Project documents public attitudes about Jews in Saudi Arabia. “If a child asks, ‘who are the Jews’, what would you answer?” The answer that really gets to me: “Our eternal enemies, of course”. Something to remember in the context of the Israeli / Palestinian conflict, or the Israeli / Iranian conflict (see above).

• Charles Johnson provides some necessary background on SoundVision, which is producing an Islamic talk radio show in Chicago.

• I have questions about this MEMRI analysis of Islamist influence in Iraq. The sources cited are mostly Arabic papers in London; a picture of neo-Talibanesque social restrictions is painted a bit too vividly in my opinion, just judging from the TV footage and pictures I’ve seen. Opinions and first hand data would be welcomed.

• Iraq has a long way to go in many aspects; sadly, it would appear that tolerance of Jews can be added to the “to-do” list.

• Robert Spencer weighs in on Cat Stevens Yussuf Islam:

  So in essence, if Cat Stevens is not a proponent of the global jihad, he is, by his own admission, a dupe. He sent thousands to Israel to support his “brothers and sisters in Palestine”; even if he really didn’t intend it to go to Hamas, it did. This is an indication of what Muslims who do not support terrorism face daily: so many Islamic “charities” have turned out to be terrorist fronts that many whose intentions were quite different have ended up being supporters of terror unwittingly.

A Hopeful Note:

• MEMRI rounds up reaction to Sheikh Al’Qaradhawi’s fatwa (more on him here) calling for the killing of American civilians in Iraq: Definitely a mixed bag, but there are some voices of reason: consider this by Dr. Ahmad Al-Rub'i writing in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat:

  "The difference between madness and reason, and between extremism and moderation, is clear. Al-Qaradhawi, who lives a life of comfort and luxury in Doha, publishes a Fatwa to kill U.S. civilians, while the four Shi'ite Imams who convened at Al-Sistani's home in Najaf and who live under occupation, call to refrain from violence against the U.S. forces. That is the difference between responsible thinking and irresponsible thinking - between thinking that calls to protect peoples' lives and thinking that calls for their murder, all the while lecturing about moderation.

  The struggle continues. This site is cited in the MEMRI footnotes as a venue for progressive Muslim writers, and looks interesting. If anyone reading this has a reading knowledge of Arabic and would like to help me monitor this site, let me know.

• Dr. Abd Al-Hamid Al-Ansari was a professor at the University of Qatar – former dean of the faculty of Sharia, no less! Writing in the Qatari paper Al-Raya, he traces the cultural and religious origins of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in the Islamic world, and how commonplace belief in Jewish conspiracy is preventing the Arab world from dealing honestly with Islamist terrorism.

• Dr. Iqbal Al-Gharbi of Al-Zaytouna University in Tunisia advocates that the hadiths be ignored, pointing out that this is exactly what the first four Caliphs did.

• Finally, if you missed it, check out this post on Islamic satire.