Religious Hate:

• The Joy of Killing Your Kids

  Creating a supportive social environment for terrorists has been a critical factor in the Palestinian Authority’s successful promotion of suicide terrorism. To this end, PA policy has been to honor terrorists as Shahids (Martyrs for Allah), and to teach Palestinian mothers to celebrate when their children die as terrorist Shahids. Categorizing these dead terrorists as Shahids grants them the highest honor a Muslim can achieve, and is therefore cause for a mother to celebrate, according to this PA teaching. This pressure on Palestinian mothers to celebrate their dead sons as Shahids continues under the regime of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, and even increased this past week with repeated PA TV promotion connected to International Woman’s Day.

• Badria bint Abdallah Al-Bishr, a lecturer in social sciences at King Saud University, relates an episode where her son proclaims Bin Laden a hero, a view he learned in school – one day after the 9/11 attacks. She goes on:

  This happened four years ago, [and] during this time I was angered by instances such as these, which did not stop happening to my children – until the day that we could have anticipated arrived. [emphasis mine]

  On that day, December 30, 2004, her son’s teacher participated in the car bombing of the Saudi Interior Ministry. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. It also has to be said that this very excerpt gives lie to the assertion that Saudi women are entirely without a voice, and that Bin Laden’s support within KSA is universal.

• Extremism does have it’s opponents among the Al-Saud themselves: MEMRI has published an analysis of Saudi Prince Khaled Al-Faisal, governor of 'Asir province. He has some enlightening things to say about Saudi education, claiming that it isn’t the formal but the “informal” curriculum that is a problem. What kind of problem?

  "I will give you an example: last summer I heard that in the city of Abha there is a camp I didn't know about… I sent people to go into the camp and to see what is going on there… [when the organizers heard about it, they] quickly relocated the camp overnight, and left… When the people I sent arrived to ask about them and to look for them, they found that the camp was over and that [its organizers] had taken their cars and left. We found documents that they had left behind in the camp's office in their haste. These documents are filled with sketches of bombs, machine guns, and military plans. And this was supposed to be a camp for youth…" [emphasis mine]

  This is not Daniel Pipes, this is a Saudi prince who is testifying here. Then there’s this:

  “There is a video that is currently circulating in the kingdom…a video of a child who I think is ten years old, or less. He is asked, 'who is your role model,' and he answers, 'Osama Bin Laden.' He is asked, 'what is your nationality,' and he answers, 'Islam.' He is asked as to his homeland, and he answers, 'the world'.

  Are we prepared to chalk this up to a distorted translation by the “Zionist controlled” MEMRI? Read the whole thing.

• And speaking of Saudi education, John R. Bradely writes in the Asia Times that Saudi Arabia may be backsliding on it’s existing reforms of the “official” curricula:

  The al-Saud regime… quietly appointed just one day before the Riyadh elections took place - meaning when everyone was looking the other way - an ultra-conservative religious leader, Abdullah bin Saleh al-Obaid, as the new education minister… The minister al-Obaid replaced, Mohammed al-Rasheed, was a committed reformer who managed to achieve some successes, despite the fact that all the odds were heavily stacked against him… In reality, al-Rasheed was hated and smeared because he tried to expunge from religious textbooks material offensive to Christians and Jews, in addition to chapters celebrating jihad… And lest we have forgotten, we should remind ourselves that we are talking here about a curriculum in which - to take but one example - a passage in one text book, which al-Rasheed had removed, taught 8th-grade students "why Jews and Christians were cursed by Allah and turned into apes and pigs".

  Yep, lot’s of ellipsis here – read the whole thing if you don’t trust me. [Hat tip: Joe Katzman]

• An academic in Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to 200 lashes and time in jail for insulting an Islamist colleague.

• Dr. Amina Wadud a woman who is an Islamic scholar, led a Muslim prayer service last Friday. Recall now that Islam is hardly alone in enforcing a male monopoly on the clergy. But when women have attempted to transgress this gender boundary, I don’t recall a response like this:

  “If this was an Islamic state, this woman would be hanged, she would be killed, she would be diced into pieces.”

  Discarded Lies has much more on Amina Wadud and the death threats she’s received.

• A report has been issued on Government bias against minority religions in Pakistan, by the Pakistan National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP – a Catholic NGO)

  The NCJP has said that the attack on minorities' places of worship, instances of forced conversions, discriminatory laws are being used as weapons for political leverage and evictions of minorities indicate the state's failure to ensure not only human rights but implement legislation for effective governance....

  More the situation of religious minorities in Pakistan here.

• We’ve covered the precarious situation of Christians in post-Saddam Iraq here before at Hatewatch. Nimrod Raphaeli of MEMRI has a written a troubling analysis of the plight of Iraqi Christians.

Idiotarian Seethings:

• I hope the CIA doesn't have any more people like Michael Scheuer, he's a disgrace to spies everywhere: Michael Scheuer's Bloody Logic

  Michael Scheuer, whose book Imperial Hubris lambasts US strategy in the war against al Qaeda, has attracted attention for recent public statements on Israel. The former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, Scheuer claimed at the Council on Foreign Relations in February that Israel controls the debate on US foreign policy. As important as Scheuer's hostility to Israel is his underlying message: that to keep Israel happy, the US must kill innocent Muslims.

• First the AdSense terms, then the toolbar, and now Neo Nazi sites in Google News. Now I’m sure that the nice folks at National Vanguard would object to my characterization and protest that they only practice “white identity politics”. But in my opinion, an organization which lists the late William Pierce as a writer and places scare-quotes around Holocaust deserves the label. Charles Johnson reports that Jeff Jarvis is demanding transparency from Google. UPDATE: trying to live up to the corporate motto Don’t be Evil, Google News no longer indexing National Vanguard. Jarvis’s call for transparency is if anything even more appropriate now that Google News has stepped up to the plate and determined to remove “hate” sites.

• A student cartoonist at MIT makes it clear which side he’s on in the battle against the insurgency in Iraq. Can we question his patriotism now? Apparently the Iraqis themselves are getting confused as to who the bad guys are.

• Deborah Lipstadt, author of Denying the Holocaust, has turned down an invitation to appear on C-SPAN – because C-SPAN insists on airing a speech by Holocaust denier David Irving in the name of “balance”.

  ’We want to balance [Lipstadt’s lecture] by covering him [Irving],’ said Amy Roach, a producer for C-SPAN’s Book TV. Her boss, Connie Doebele, put it another way. ‘You know how important fairness and balance is at C-SPAN... We work very, very hard at this. We ask ourselves, ‘Is there an opposing view of this?’

  David Cohen, writing in the Washington Post, nails C-SPAN:

  This is the "Crossfire" mentality reduced to absurdity, if that's possible. For a book on the evils of slavery, would it counter with someone who thinks it was a benign institution? Why does it feel there is another side to the Holocaust or to Irving's assertion that he was libeled? He was not. He was described to a T. [Hat tip: Norm Geras].

  Recall that Lipstadt was sued by Irving in Britain, where she essentially had to prove the Holocaust happened in order to defend herself. She won, of course. Remember, C-SPAN had to work very, very hard at this…

• Lebanese Boycott Eurovision Song Competition Due to Israeli Participant. Supposedly, Lebanon "wasn't aware" that Israel, a three-time winner in the past, was participating in the contest.

• When nationalism and zoology mix, you can guess what the results are: Renaming 'divisive' animals

Race and Culture:

• Increasing anti-Semitism in Turkey: 'Mein Kampf' becomes a bestseller

  Tens of thousands of copies of the book have sold in Turkey in recent months since at least two cheap paperback versions were released.

• Aryan Nations National Director August Kreis:

  I send a message of thanks and well-wishes to the methods and works of groups on the Islamic front against the jew such as Al-Qaeda and Sheik Usama Bin Ladin, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and to all Jihadis worldwide who fight for the glory of the Khilafah and the downfall of the anti-life and anti-freedom System prevalent on this earth today.

  Interesting that Kreis is perceptive enough to identify Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and Al-Qaida as birds of a feather.

• According to an annual report released by Canada's B'nai Brith, anti-Semitism in Canada is at its worst point in more than twenty years: Anti-Jewish incidents mushroom in Canada

• And speaking of Canada: there’s a hate speech law there, and you’d figure that any such law worth its name would prohibit speech which advocated the murder of civilians. But apparently it’s OK, as long as they’re Israeli. Then it’s just a “free flowing discussion”.

• Anti-Semitic violence in Switzerland: Fires strike synagogue, store in resort town in Switzerland

  “This kind of violence against Jewish institutions in Switzerland is new. Nobody remembers a similar act,” said Thomas Lyssy, a spokesman for the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities.

  Another sign that anti-Semitism is on the increase in Europe.

• Anti-Semitic attacks in France are at the highest point in ten years, and most attacks are perpetrated by those from an “Arab-Muslim” background.

  Schools were an area where anti-Semitic incidents were ``very present,'' the report noted, adding that ``anti-Semitism is becoming established in a continuous and lasting manner.''

  Attacks against Muslims are also up, more than double the previous year, and mostly perpetrated by the far right. Norm Geras has more.

• For those who may think that modern anti-Semitic expressions of dual loyalty and conspiracy mongering, however regrettable, have nothing to do with US interests, consider this from columnist Ferruh Sezgin writing the nationalist-Islamic daily newspaper Yenicağ about U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Eric Edelman:

  "On behalf of the U.S., of which he is a citizen and a high-ranking official, or the country of his race Israel? Which one would you serve, if you were Edelman?... Every kind of pressure is being applied to prevent [Turkish President Ahmet] Sezer from going to Syria.

  "But it is becoming more and more apparent that the culprit in Hariri's murder, which they use as a pretext, is not Syria. As the fog lifts, suspicions are focusing on [the] U.S.-Israel [duo].

  Edelman had the arrogance to suggest that Turkey should support the consensus of the international community regarding UNSC resolution 1559 demanding Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. Edelman has since resigned as Ambassador to Turkey.

• I seem to recall reading pieces about the rebirth of Nazism in Germany for many years now – so why does this piece from the Times of London grab my attention? Udo Voight’s NDP exercises discipline, over his followers and himself (skirting the anti-Nazi laws in Germany), and channeling some of the electorate’s frustration with immigration and growing identity as “victims” of WWII into support for his party. Worth reading.

A Hopeful Note:

• Via Dhimmi Watch, a rousing and scathing piece by Brigitte Gabriel, a Lebanese Maronite Christian who recounts her childhood indoctrination in Jew-hatred and how she overcame it, eventually moving to Israel and working as a TV News anchor. Her estimation of the purpose of campus anti-Semitism is uncompromising:

  I see another parallel involving history that is happening here at Columbia and on other campuses. Anti-Semites and anti-Israelis have tapped into that part of the DNA of most Jews that paralyzes them from being confrontational when attacked. It's as if the Arabs studied Kristallnacht, the ‘night of broken glass' (November 9th, 1938) in Nazi Germany: scare Jews off and they will not respond or won't come back. Turning academic freedom into academic intimidation is the tactic being used here at Columbia and other campuses across the nation.

  Her indictment of academia is particularly damning in light of her background, having herself received death threats from Hizballah. Read the whole thing.

• Norm Geras notes the opening of a new Holocaust museum – this one in the West Bank town of Nazareth:

  [Khaled] Mahamid, a lawyer by trade, told Ynet he believes the lack of knowledge about the Holocaust among Arabs fuels the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

  .....[L]ack of knowledge, he says,... prompts illogical statements, such as "what the Germans did to the Jews is what they (Jews) are doing to the Palestinians."

  He’s got that right.

• Iran's Festival of Fire

  Many celebrators were seen shouting slogans against the regime and its leaders, such as, "Marg bar Jomhoori e Eslami" (Down with Islamic Republic), "Marg bar Taleban e Iran" (Down with Taleban), "Toop, Tank, Feshfeshe, Bassiji bayad Koshte She" (Gun, Tank, Fire Cracker, Militia must be killed) and "Referendum, Referendum, in ast Shoar e Mardom" (Referendum, Referendum, this is the people's slogan) by making reference to a genuine election, expressed so many time since three years ago, and after the total fall of the Islamic regime and without giving any chance to some so-called redempted 'former' factions of the regime to surf again over the popular aspiration.
  
  Other slogans stating about a dangerous level of the popular exasperation, such as, "Bush, Bush, kush? Kush?" (Bush, Bush, Where's He? Where's He?) were also shouted along with some unprecedented public attacks against EU members, such as, France and Germany.