Hatewatch Briefing 2005-02-18

Welcome! This briefing will be looking hard at the dark places the mainstream media sometimes seem determined to look away from, to better understand our declared enemies on their own terms and without illusions. Our goal is to bring you some of the top jihadi rants, idiotarian seething, and old-school Jew-hatred from around the world, leaving you more informed, more aware, and pretty disgusted every month. This Winds of Change.NET HateWatch briefing is brought to you by Lewy14, and zorkmidden of Discarded Lies. Past briefings and posts on related topics can be found here. Entil'zha veni!

HIGHLIGHTED TOPICS

• Religious Hate: Freedom House report on Saudi religious hate; Saudi indoctrination in Germany; Saudi cleric: The Jews and Christians are enemies of God; A horrific murder of a 13-year-old Kuwaiti girl by her father; New preacher at Finsbury Park Mosque; in Pakistan, new cases of violence and torture against Christians; persecution of Assyrian Christians continues in Iraq; a young man with Down's syndrome was used as a suicide bomber in Iraq; Rabbi: God caused tsunami to punish nations not supporting Israel; Christian “Reconstructionists”.

• Idiotarian Seethings: Dutch schools ban students from displaying the flag as not to anger Muslim minorities; Bombed Israeli bus: rally and counter protest at UC Irvine; Rounding up Ward Churchill; Terrorist’s lawyer convicted of terrorism.

• Race and Culture: European Roma are still facing discrimination and harassment; violent anti-Semitic attacks reaching alarming levels in Britain; London mayor calls a Jewish journalist "a concentration camp guard"; honour crimes in the E.U.; Kuwaiti article slanders Franklin, Jews; Neo-Nazis play victim, Wagner; American Nazi Party “adopts a road”; PA TV still advocating destruction of Israel.

• A Hopeful Note: An Iranian professor suggests educating Muslims about the Holocaust will help achieve peace in the Middle East; a Yemeni judge engages in theological dialogue with terrorists with some surprising results.

Religious Hate:

• Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom has published a report on inflammatory and hateful Saudi religious publications available in US mosques. [Full report here]. Most of the over 200 publications cited by the report were published in the ‘80s and ‘90s, but remain available in mosques. In the “anti-America” section there is this, from a document published by the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Sciences in America, and collected in a DC mosque:

  “I am the first to reject it [freedom] and take it as an enemy, and seek closeness to Allah through denying it and its propagators…we disbelieve in you and enmity and hate is between us, until you believe in Allah alone.” [Document No. 48]

  Compare, e.g., to Zarqawi. Other sections cover Jews, Christians, and “Infidel conspiracies.” Caveats: The title of the report, “Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Fill American Mosques”, appears under-supported: a report which surveyed “over a dozen” mosques (of the several thousand in the US) cannot claim to determine what “fills American Mosques”. Being decades old in some cases, the publications aren’t dispositive evidence of the current official Saudi government position. But taken as a survey of officially sanctioned Saudi religious thought over a long and crucial period, the report paints a damning picture.

• Saudi religious propaganda is not of course limited to American mosques: Germany has schools which teach jihad:

  The infants-to-teens King Fahd Academy narrowly escaped closure last year after education officials discovered teachers were calling for a holy war against Christendom at school assemblies and the children spent more time in indoctrination than on the three Rs.

  The son in law of an instructor is said to have volunteered as a suicide bomber in Iraq. While this connection is tenuous and the instructor in question may have opposed such “martyrdom”, it must be difficult to maintain a moderate stance in the face of decades of indoctrination against the infidel enemies of God. And why does this school remain open?

  German intelligence agencies have closely scrutinized the school and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder been to Riyadh to complain to Saudi leaders about it. Government officials only let the school continue so as to avoid a foreign-relations crisis.

  What would shift this calculus is only too clear and too sad.

• If the Kingdom is supposed to be cracking down on religious hatred and incitement, apparently Saudi cleric Musa Al-Qarni hasn’t gotten the memo:

  “Let’s have a look at what is written in the Koran. What position must we adopt towards Allah’s enemies? Is it the position we have adopted? First of all, we must be aware of the fact that at present we see that [the West] doesn’t want us even to say the words ‘Allah’s enemies.’ They don’t want us to say that the Jews and the Christians are Allah’s enemies. They don’t want us to say that the Jews and the Christians are the enemies of the Muslims and the enemies of Islam. “This is fixed and established in the Koran and in the tradition...

  Hey, when he’s right, he’s right: yes, Musa, we don’t want you to say these things.

• A Kuwaiti man, member of the ultra-fundamentalist group Al-Takfir Wa Al-Hijra (Excommunication and Exile), came back from Hajj and slaughtered his 13-year-old daughter in front of her siblings. (Warning: not for the faint-of-heart.) Here's some background on the Takfiris.

• Via Jihadwatch: Abu Abdullah, Abu Hamza’s successor at Finsbury Park Mosque is profiled in this piece by the Daily Mirror, who sent a reporter undercover to listen to Abdullah’s sermons. Here’s Abu Abdullah on his co-religionists:

  He says [of the Muslim Council of Great Britain]: "Like the Jews that practise the Torah, they want to practise what's good for them and brush aside or sweep under the carpet what they dislike. "Stand up against these murtads (leavers of the faith) who say they're the spokesmen or they represent the Islamic community in this country."

  I saw Abu Abdullah on a PBS Frontline episode, and he struck me as a clown more than anything.

• Here's one more story you won't see in your 5 o'clock news: New cases of violence and torture against Pakistani Christians

  Shahbaz Masih, 22, is a Christian shopkeeper in the small village of Talwandi, Punjab province. He was violently assaulted by Ahmed Ali, a Muslim client, over a TV rental. After insulting Mr Masih for being Christian, the client attacked him with a butcher’s axe and chopped off his left arm. Pakistan Christian Post reports another incident involving a 55-year-old Christian mother, Hanifan Bibi, who was abducted along with her family, sexually assaulted and tortured in front of her husband and sons.

  In this incident as well, the attackers are said to be protected by local authorities and people in high places, i.e. Muslim members of the Punjab Legislative Assembly.

• And in Iraq, persecution of Assyrian Christians is continuing daily:

  Every day there is some report of Assyrian Christians being kidnapped, Christian churches desecrated, and the raping of Christian women. Christian students are prohibited from attending university classes. The females are forced to wear the Islamic veil. Assyrians are forced to protect their holy sites and themselves from Islamic murderers.

• Who says terrorists are not cowards? What would you call someone who uses a young man with the mind of a four-year-old as a suicide bomber?

  Unconfirmed reports of insurgents co-opting two other people with Down syndrome (both plots were foiled) suggest that Amar's death was part of a deliberate city-wide plan, rather than the action of a rogue unit.

• More from the “Tsunami victims had it coming” religious insanity watch, this time from Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, a former chief rabbi of Israel.

  …when God is angry at the nations of the world for not aiding Israel - they want to evacuate, to disengage, to interfere in our affairs, He claps his hands, causing an earthquake.

  Comforting, in a way, that self righteous delusion knows no apparent sectarian bounds.

• Glenn Reynolds links to an essay on “Christian Reconstructionists” by Walter Olson in Reason Online. Published in ’98, the essay briefly outlines the origins and influences of this movement, which demands adherence to the Mosaic code. (Most of it, anyway: eating pork is OK).

  So when Exodus 21:15-17 prescribes that cursing or striking a parent is to be punished by execution, that's fine with Gary North. "When people curse their parents, it unquestionably is a capital crime," he writes. "The integrity of the family must be maintained by the threat of death."

  And though you might not be interested in the Kingdom, the Kingdom is interested in you:

  "World conquest," proclaims George Grant, in what by Reconstructionist standards is not an especially breathless formulation. "It is dominion we are after. Not just a voice... not just influence...not just equal time. It is dominion we are after."

  According to this puff piece, Grant has schools in Iraq - great. For further reading, I found this site useful, and for a Reconstructionist in his own words, see here. It must be said that these folks do not advocate establishing their Christian Republic by the sword, but by proselytizing, till Kingdom come – literally.

Idiotarian Seethings:

• Schools in the Netherlands have been prohibiting students from carrying the Dutch flag on their backpacks in case it angers Muslim minorities.

  Daily news paper Telegraaf now says that their are more schools who ban the Dutch flag. They write that Groene Hart Lyceum in Alphen aan den Rijn already ban the Dutch flag for nearly a year. They deny access to students who have flags on their bags or cloth. The school says they need to do this because of the new social climate. But they say prohibition is a big word, they do it in consent with the pupils...

• Via LGF, Adam Cooper at UC Irvine contrasts two recent demonstrations there: an anti-terrorism rally featuring the bombed out shell of an Israeli bus (previously featured at a Berkeley rally), the other organized by the Muslim Student Union and featuring one Amir-Abdel Malik Ali, who preached against “the apartheid state of Israel” and solidarity with the insurgency in Iraq. Cooper directs a pointed criticism at the MSU:

  The MSU’s events are exclusively anti-Israel, but in front of Bus 19, Nonie Darwish spoke of the “famous Muslim generosity,” and called terrorism a dark spot on the Muslim soul.

  Coincidently, that week’s issue of the New University had a feature on a Muslim student, Layla Shaikley, who spoke of wanting to educate her fellow students about “a religion of peace” that shouldn’t be “stigmatized by people who commit acts of terror.”

  I applaud that, and wish the MSU would do the same. Instead, the only Muslims I get to hear are the ones celebrating those acts of terror.

  On the other hand, perhaps the problem at Irvine is larger:

  On UC Irvine's campus, the administration has told campus Jewish leaders that they are not to refer to themselves as Zionists because that will "undermine dialogue" with Muslims on campus.

  Developing…

• By now most everyone knows about Colorado professor Ward Churchill and the cancellation of a panel discussion at Hamilton College due to threats of violence directed at his participation. Beyond referring to victims of the World Trade Center attacks as “little Eichmans”, Churchill feels more 9/11 style attacks may be “necessary”, faked native American heritage, fabricated an account of the intentional spread of smallpox among Mandan Indians, and has been named an honorary Raelian priest - go figure. Further, he might have been hired because of his views, not in spite of them. If you want more, LGF links to a compendium of Churchill links, and Glenn links to a roundup on Colorado media coverage of Churchill. Much (too much) has been said about this guy, but I must add this: that the Hamilton panel was shut down by threats of violence is reprehensible and should be strongly condemned. Violence and threats of violence against controversial college speakers is absolutely the wrong way to modulate discourse on campus, and I’m afraid this point is becoming lost in the noise.

• Lynn Stewart, lawyer for blind sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, was convicted of giving material support to terrorists and other charges which could send her away for 20 years. In her own words:

  “To rid ourselves of the entrenched, voracious type of capitalism that is in this country that perpetuates sexism and racism, I don’t think that can come nonviolently.”

  Good riddance.

Race and Culture:

• Europe, as usual, has been too busy criticising America to notice her own problems: Get out of here, Gypsy!

  In the Czech Republic, 79% of respondents to a 2003-04 survey said they wouldn't want Roma as neighbors, according to an EU report released in November. The report also said leaders in the Slovak village of Svinia refused more than a million euros ($1.3 million) in aid because the funding would have helped the Roma.

• Meanwhile in Britain, violent anti-Semitic attacks have reached alarming record levels.

  The Community Security Trust, which represents Britain's 290,000-strong Jewish community on security matters, said there had been 532 "anti-Semitic incidents" - defined as malicious acts toward Jews - in 2004, including a record 83 assaults.

  The total, which included abuse and threats, was a rise of 42 percent from the CST's 2003 figure, and well above the previous record high of 405 in 2000.

  "This increase is extremely alarming. The transfer of tensions in the Middle East to the streets of Britain has resulted in an unprecedented level of anti-Semitic incidents," said Michael Whine, director of communications for the CST.

• And speaking of British anti-Semitism, London Mayor Ken Livingstone, who called a Jewish journalist "a war criminal" and "a concentration camp guard," refuses to apologise because "it would make him a liar."

  I could apologise but why should I say words I do not believe in my heart? Therefore I cannot.

• We think honour crimes only happen in third-world countries, right? Let's think again: Honor killings through the E.U.

  But despite the conspiracy of silence, the one-way overseas trips and cover-ups, police estimate that there are 117 "honor killings" still unsolved in Britain. According to London's Daily Telegraph, Scotland Yard, announcing an initiative, said there is "growing evidence that women in the Asian community [British media code for Muslim] are being subjected to violence and sometimes murdered for defying cultural traditions." According to the same article, the initiative was prompted by the conviction of Abdalla Yones, who stabbed his 16-year-old daughter 11 times and cut her throat after she began seeing a Christian boy, was jailed for life. London police say that at least two young Asian women are reported missing under mysterious circumstances every week.

• Muhammad Yousef Al-Malifi , writing in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassa, recycles a Nazi forgery which puts the following words (among others) in the mouth of Ben Franklin:

  O Americans, I warn you: If you do not expel the Jews for good, your children and your children's children will curse you in their graves.

  The article is titled ‘Satanic Spirits and American Documents’. Al-Alifi manages to slander a founding father and the Jews with a single story – how efficient.

• Five thousand neo-Nazis marched on the 60th anniversary of the Dresden bombing in an expression of hatred against, well, just about everyone it would seem. And what did the black clad fascist wannabes do when confronted by a loud counterprotest?

  The organisers merely turned up the volume and played the Ride of the Valkyries.

  You can’t make this stuff up. Later in the evening, 50,000 Dresdeners turned out to remember all of the victims of the war.

• Call it “gaming the system”: the American Nazi Party figures out how to get its sign posted – by adopting a road near Salem, OR.

  “To me, it just screams hate,” said Jacque Bryant of Salem. “It screams doesn’t belong here.”

  Subsequently vandals stole the sign. Pity.

• B’nai Brith Canada examines anti-Semitic patterns in UN voting:

  In each of the nineteen Middle East resolutions passed at the 2004 United Nations General Assembly, at least one of the three “Ds” was always found to be present. Without exception, all resolutions reflected either a demonizationof Israel, or a double standardbeing employed, or a deligitimizationof the Jewish State, or a combination thereof. In not one instance was a resolution free from any of these elements, each of which carries antisemitic overtones.

  But I'm sure they have nothing against Jews as such...

• While Mahmoud Abbas has ordered “less blood” appear on Palestinian TV, selling the peace process as a means to destroy Israel is still apparently a valid tactic. Will Abbas actually lead Palestinians away from a future of further violence? Isn’t acceptance of the Israeli state essential in this?

A Hopeful Note:

• While the Tehran Times is denying the Holocaust, there's one dissenting voice. One can only hope for more:

  In an article on an unofficial Iranian news Web site, Dr. Kaveh L. Afrasiabi says it is "the moral imperative in the enlightened Muslim countries to rise above their intense anti-Zionist feelings and emotions and find the hidden reservoir of sympathy and solidarity with an entire religious group which was persecuted and exterminated en masse barely over a half century ago."

  Afrasiabi, who holds a PhD from Boston University and has completed postdoctoral studies at Harvard University and UC Berkeley, believes that public education about the Holocaust is a necessary ingredient for regional peace.

  "If the future of peace in the Middle East depends in part on better Muslim-Jewish dialogue," Afrasiabi wrote two years ago, "then there is no doubt that this should entail what is clearly lacking in Iran and other Middle East countries, namely, the minutest public education about the Holocaust."

  He gives his colleagues a job: "The task of Muslim intellectuals today consists of deepening the interreligious dialogue and understanding [that] this means the courage and determination to educate the Muslim masses about the horror of the Holocaust."

• A judge in Yemen is engaging in theological dialogues with militants with some surprising results:

  "If you can convince us that your ideas are justified by the Koran, then we will join you in your struggle," Hitar told the militants. "But if we succeed in convincing you of our ideas, then you must agree to renounce violence."

  The prisoners eagerly agreed.

  Now, two years later, not only have those prisoners been released, but a relative peace reigns in Yemen. And the same Western experts who doubted this experiment are courting Hitar, eager to hear how his "theological dialogues" with captured Islamic militants have helped pacify this wild and mountainous country, previously seen by the US as a failed state, like Iraq and Afghanistan.