Religious Hate:

• Whoever had the idea that we aren’t supposed to fight during Ramadan has obviously not gotten through to the folks at Sawt Al-Jihad:

  Jihad fighters everywhere! This month of Jihad has come with all its blessings and with the double reward [is that like “double miles?” – ed] in its course. Come closer to Allah through the blood of infidels, do not relent in spilling [their blood], and through [this blood] wipe out humiliation and disgrace from among your Muslim nation! Make this month like the month of the Battle of Badr, the conquest of Mecca, of Shaqhab, and other Islamic victories.

  Closer to Allah through the blood of Infidels. Monotheists or Vampires? Zayad at Healing Iraq has more comments on fighting and Ramadan.

• Make a film critical of the treatment of women under Islam – and get killed. Eight have been arrested in connection with the murder of controversial Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, whose controversial film Submission portraying the abuse suffered by a Muslim woman had recently aired on Dutch TV.

  Dutch Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner said the suspect "acted out of radical Islamic fundamentalist convictions" and added that he had contacts with a group that was under surveillance by the Dutch secret service.

  • From the AP account, it does not appear Van Gogh was an attractive personality. Still, on her way to the impromptu shrine marking the spot where he was slain, one woman had this to say.

    "This is an attack on my country," said Masite Halici, a young Dutch woman who came with a rose. "I didn't enjoy his art at all, but we need people who stand up for what they think."

    What the killers were thinking about was apparently jihad.

• The Dutch blog Zacht Ei offers excellent, ongoing coverage of this situation from Amsterdam.

• The problem of radical Islamist “education” in Pakistani madrassas is by now well know, but apparently the problem of Jihadist education goes deeper within the educational system. Via Jihadwatch, the Times of India cites a Pakistani media source for the following:

  "The official Curriculum Document, Primary Education, Class I-V specifically prescribes 'simple stories to urge jihad '. Under Activity 4, the specific prescription for three and eight-year-old Pakistanis is: 'To make speeches on jihad and shahadat '," Pakistani weekly The Friday Times said in an article…"The Curriculum Wing of the Ministry of Education, more often than not, equates jihad with guerilla warfare. Our primary, middle and high school curricula continue to equate Pakistan, Islam and jihad. Our Ministry continues to inspire our children to become guerilla fighters," the article said.

  I’d be happier if there were links to the original Pakistani article, but the specificity of the charges is troubling at best.

• The Muslim Students Association at Northeaster Illinois Universtiy organized an event (since canceled) honoring Hamas found and spiritual leader terrorist Sheik Yassin, who met his end in an Israeli missile attack earlier this year. I cannot improve here on the context provided by Charles Johnson:

  Hamas is on the US State Department’s list of terrorist organizations, and no person more symbolized their evil agenda than Yassin. It’s outrageous that the MSA would openly pay tribute to this monster, and that university facilities will be provided to them for such an abhorrent purpose.

  Indeed.

• Stop it, we’ve heard this one before:

  VANCOUVER (CP) - The leader of a Vancouver mosque attended regularly by a local man reported killed in Chechnya has preached the virtues of jihad and called Jews "the brothers of monkeys and swine." In a lecture posted on the mosque's website, Sheik Younus Kathrada tells an audience all real Muslims want to be martyred. "It is inconceivable that a true believer will not desire martyrdom," Kathrada says.

  It would be nice to believe that the teachings of this Muslim cleric in Canada were aberrant, but Robert Spencer explains how they are in fact authentic. Now Kathrada claims his words were taken out of context. Stop it. You’re killing us.

• We hear about every bombing in Baghdad, and Darfur is now on the radar – now the story of religious conflict in the south of Thailand looms. Via Instapundit, Mary at exit zero rounds up stories on the violence and the Wahhabi influence in the region:

  Groups of Thais are known to have been trained in the 1990’s in Afghan terror camps and Wahhabi mosques are now dotting the southern landscape. In earlier deadly attacks this summer, police found Arabic-language pamphlets calling for the creation of a Muslim homeland on the bodies of some of the dead. Southern Thailand also features the Yala Islamic College run by Wahhabi cleric Ismail Lutfi with an estimated 8,000 followers installed throughout the south in key Islamic posts.

  Sadly, the Thai government seems to be responsible for the deaths of almost 80 Muslims taken into custody, in what would at best be a case of criminal negligence.

• In my last update, I cited victims of the Darfur crisis in Sudan who attested to the ethnic component of the conflict. This month we have evidence of the religious aspect:

  Even though I'm a Muslim, we want religion to be a personal thing with every citizen having the freedom to practice what he believes in," he [Mahgoud Hussein, spokesman for the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement] explained. The rebel demand was immediately rejected by government negotiators, who insisted that mainly-Muslim northern Sudan, including Darfur, should be governed under the principles of Islamic law.

  It would appear that the conflict has both ethnic and religious roots.

• The weird, sad tale of “Commander Khalid:” a Tajik boy kidnapped and compelled to fight jihad in Northwest Pakistan. It would seem not all was against his will.

  He said that he had learnt to offer his prayers in Shakai and saw 'true Islam being practised in the tribal region'. The only time that he probably betrayed his real self when a colleague photographer began taking his pictures. "Why are you taking so many pictures. I am not a commander?" he remarked. When a colleague journalist retorted by calling him "Commander Khalid". He smiled back and said "Insha Allah".

  “Commander Khalid” is fifteen years old.

Idiotarian Seethings:

• The Iranian parliament votes to pursue the peaceful use of nuclear power, passing a bill requiring Iran to resume Uranium enrichment – while screaming “Death to America”. Again – when do we take them at their word?

• For the past four years, the Palestinian Solidarity Movement has held conferences at US universities: Berkely, Michigan, Ohio State, and last month, Duke. Frontpage contributing editor Lee Kaplan went undercover to report on this event, from which the press was barred. These “conferences” attract not only terrorist sympathizers but actual terrorists, as Kaplan explains:

  The first workshop I attended on Saturday morning was given by this year's guest of honor, Mazin Qumsiyeh (a previous guest of honor at the Michigan conference, Sami al Arian, sits in jail today as the U.S. head of Islamic Jihad, a group that murdered over 100 people in Israel, including American citizens).

  Kaplan lays out the evidence for the case against the organizers, for whom a “two state solution” is unacceptable. The goals ranged from removing the Jewish state from the map to removing the Jews themselves. Eyed Khalaf, who led a workshop on how to advocate for Israeli divestment, had this to say:

  I asked him [Khalaf] if any Jews in Israel had claim to live in the Holy Land at all. He replied that the Jews were all settlers from Europe.

  So much for a roadmap to a negotiated settlement. What about terrorist violence? According to the “conference principles”, it isn’t appropriate to “dictate strategies and tactics”. Even this meager wiggle room was subsequently disavowed:

  Surprisingly, two resolutions had been introduced to condemn suicide bombings and terrorism. The resolutions proposed amending principle #5 of the conference principles, which currently fails to reject such attacks. An organizer announced that these anti-terrorist resolutions were the only ones that failed to gain approval. On hearing this, the audience erupted into wild cheers and applause. Some people stood up, screaming for joy.

  Kaplan smuggled a tape recorder and camera into the conference. John Burness, Duke's Vice President for Governmental Affairs, recognized and ejected him before he could report on the final sessions. Burness was incensed by Kaplan’s Pakistani disguise, writing to Frontpage editor David Horowitz:

  At one of the sessions that was closed to the media, Mr Kaplan attended in a Clouseau-like disguise with make up, dyed hair and a fake beard, wearing a Kaffiyeh.

  I wonder if Kaplan also wore Salwar Kameez, authentic Pakistani clothing which resembles – that’s right –pajamas! Read the whole thing.

• Via Instapundit comes this article in Austrialia’s “The Age”, in which a former Australian labor party member reflect bitterly on the “evolution” of his former party:

  This trend reached a crescendo in the aftermath of September 11. For me September 11 was the clearest demarcation ever between good and evil. Yet many Australians could not contain their glee that at last "the Yanks had got their just deserts".

  Ah yes, the worldwide solidarity we so thoughtlessly squandered.

  Before the Iraq war one of the most senior NSW right-wing MPs told me: "I understand and support Israel's position, but in my group, I'm the only one." Soon after I told a Labor legend: "Anti-Semitism is now rampant in the Labor Party." I expected a vigorous denial. His response confirmed my worst fear: "I know," he said.

  Anti-Semitism? I thought it was all simply anti-Zionism. [Hat tip: Rochi Ebner]

• Mohamed Elmasry, president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, has dealt with the issue of killing civilians in Israel – it’s not a problem, because there aren’t any. He explains on live TV:

  The show's moderator followed with another question: "Anyone in Israel, irrespective of gender, over the age of 18 is a valid target?"
  "Yes, I would say," Elmasry responded.

  Elmasry later appologized - but for what, exactly?

• The assertion that Bin Laden’s latest rant explicitly threatens states which vote for Bush originates with this translation by MEMRI. It’s been suggested that this is a bad translation, but others point out that the “by state” interpretation is explicitly endorsed by the Jihadis themselves:

  The Islamist website Al-Qal'a explained what this sentence meant: "This message was a warning to every U.S. state separately. When he [Osama Bin Laden] said, 'Every state will be determining its own security, and will be responsible for its choice,' it means that any U.S. state that will choose to vote for the white thug Bush as president has chosen to fight us, and we will consider it our enemy, and any state that will vote against Bush has chosen to make peace with us, and we will not characterize it as an enemy.

  Hang together, hang separately, etc.

Race and Culture:

• The Palestinian Media Watch shows us how the Palestinian Authority TV poisons the minds of the young, in this case with pernicious talking birds:

  Talking Chick: “I have two trees in front of my house.”
  Girl: “If a little boy cuts them down, what will you do to him?”
  Talking Chick: “What I'll do to him?
  I'll fight him and make a big riot,
  I'll call the whole world and make a riot.
  I'll bring AK-47s [assault rifles] and the whole world,
  I'll commit a massacre in front of the house".
  

  There’s much more where this came from. I wonder how this stuff is funded.

• If you too have begun to feel jaded in the face of Islamist propaganda, I recommend you click through to the pictures. (warning: graphic, and likely not “work safe”). This story detailing the glorification of a young woman who blew her self up at an Israeli checkpoint on Sept 22 is genuinely sad and disturbing. That Hamas uses gruesome images to desensitize kids to violence can only be called mass brainwashing. [Hat tip: Rochi Ebner]

• More desecrationof the graves of the dead in France, this time in the Jewish cemetery of Brumath, near Strasbourg. The pictures speak for themselves.

• Via Jihadwatch: Tragedy was compounded in central China last month when a taxi driver fatally killed a 6 year old girl, and subsequent riots killed 148 people. The NYT blames ethnic tensions (the taxi driver was a Hui Muslim, the little girl was Han). It could have been even worse:

  One person briefed about the clashes said that authorities may have been particularly alarmed after police stopped a 17-truck convoy carrying Hui men to the area from other counties and provinces as it passed through Qi County, near Zhongmou.

  I don’t agree with Spencer’s assessment here, I think he misreads the article, and I find this comment persuasive.

• I’m often called on to address domestic hatred from the right. The paleo-conservative VDARE site recently made the news with a NYT article which quotes VDARE contributor Steve Sailer as claiming Bush has a higher IQ than Kerry (an issue tangential to this post, and hopefully one we can agree is now moot). Following a lead in a comment by praktike, I found via Tacitus, this primer by the Southern Poverty Law Center on the modern “paleocon” movement. The SPLC labels VDARE a “hate site”. They would seem to have a case:

  Brimelow's site carries archives of columns from men like Sam Francis, who is the editor of the newspaper of the white supremacist Council of Conservative Americans, a group whose Web page recently described blacks as “a retrograde species of humanity”.

  Damning quote, almost too good to check – so I checked. Now it may be that the CCC is savvy about purging the Google cache, but I could discover no such quote from them – only many links to repetitions of this charge by the SPLC. Further, the CCC is not part of VDARE, only “linked” (through Francis). I’m not comfortable assigning the “hater” label to VDARE. But consider this long defense of paleocons in Frontpage: I’m not comfortable with practitioners of “white identity politics”, either. A lot of daylight exists in the moral gulf between the likes of Sam Francis and the likes of Al-Zawahiri – but why let the Jihadists set the bar?

A Hopeful Note:

• MEMRI reports on a seminar on the “Islam and Reform” held last month in Cairo. A couple weeks ago I broached the idea of de-sacrelizing the Hadith as a path to reform in Islam. The conference participants concur: Item 2 from the seminar recommendations:

  Implementing a radical revision of the Islamic heritage that involves all Islamic scholarship relating to Islamic Jurisprudence and the Sunna, the Traditions of the Prophet – all of which were founded during the first three centuries of Islam. The participants called for reliance on the Koranic text as the sole authentic source to be utilized for reviewing the entire Islamic heritage.

  As you can imagine, the reaction of the clerical establishment is not positive. Still, the reformers don’t back down:

  Does Sheikh Al-Azhar have the right to accuse a portion of the Muslim intellectuals of breaking off from Islam? Isn't this equivalent to accusing us of apostasy and [thus] putting our lives in danger? Were not similar accusations responsible for the murder of Farag Fouda and the attempted murder of the internationally renowned author Naguib Mahfouz? We call on Al-Azhar not to descend to the path of takfir [accusation of apostasy], which is a means employed by groups [characterized by] violence and extremism…"

  Brave men and women, these reformers. See also this debate between Robert Spencer and Mustapha Akyol on the topic of the Hadith, and this post by Joe Katzman commenting on the Cairo conference.

• Israeli Arab author and poet Salman Masalha has a formula for the success of Arab society: The Arab Man is the Problem,The Arab Woman is the Solution. I don’t agree with Masalha about the need for “laws to restrict birthrate”, but his ideas about elevating the status of women in order to elevate society as a whole are spot on. In a nutshell:

  If we glance at the world around us, we see that the developed peoples are those whose women have high status in society.

  Bingo.

• Finally, Mohammed at Iraq the Model conveys to us an important message on behalf of Ayatollah Sistani: “Those who don’t participate in the elections will end up in hell.” Sure hope everyone voted on Tuesday.