Ezra Levant interviews the always-fascinating Sam Solomon, ex-imam, and now a Christian and advisor on Islam to Western politicians

There is no Israel-Palestinian problem

American Thinker: Eternal Islamic Enmity toward the Jews

In their latest book, Al-Yahud: Eternal Islamic Enmity & the Jews, authors Elias Al-Maqdisi, an expert on Islamic teachings, and Sam Solomon, a former professor of shari'ah law and Christian convert, examine the historical and doctrinal sources of Muslim enmity and the continuing jihad against the Jews and Israel. The work follows their previous book, Modern Day Trojan Horse: The Islamic Doctrine of Immigration, in which they explain how the hijra (migration) and jihad function today to further worldwide Islamic conquest.

Their important new book exposes the story behind the Palestinian "crisis," giving readers new insights into the perceptions and actions of the Arab-Muslim world vis-à-vis Israel, popularly maligned as the "Zionist entity." Al-Maqdisi and Solomon, both raised as Muslims, reveal the truth about the doctrinal foundation of a conflict engineered for Muslim dominance.

The authors detail how, five times daily, observant Muslims worldwide condemn all non-believers in ritual prayers, singling out Jews and Christians. Muslim students readily identify Jews and Christians respectively as "those against whom there is wrath" and "those who are astray," phrases found in the Koran's opening Sura (chapter). This veiled cursing of non-believers has occurred for 1,400 years, even amidst duplicitous attempts to appear conciliatory and engage in interfaith dialogue.

[Truepeers: if I may make a suggestion, have a look at the interpretation of this video by Australian scholar, Mark Durie - here and here.]

Muslim enmity toward Jews is a special, more extreme case than that against other non-believers, Al-Maqdisi and Solomon argue. The dispute with Israel has a religious and moral basis rather than a territorial one. So its presentation as a solvable political crisis over land claims is little more than a smokescreen for an intrinsic, unending jihad against the Jews. The authors draw parallels between Muslim displacement of Arab Jews from Iran, Egypt, the Sudan, Morocco, and Syria in the last century and similar threats facing Jewish (and Christian) populations today in Europe and the Middle East.

In Al-Yahud, the authors reveal how Israel is systematically discredited by the alleged Israeli victimization of Muslim-Palestinians. The so-called Arab-Israeli conflict provides a flash point and platform to advance Islam under cover of a struggle for statehood and "restoration" of "stolen" land. These issues are cloaked in the vernacular of a desperate human rights tragedy; yet, the authors observe, all aid to Arab-Palestinians comes from the non-Muslim world. Fellow Muslims fail to lift a finger to aid their "victimized" brethren. They sabotage efforts to alleviate Palestinian suffering by refusing to accept Palestinians as citizens elsewhere in the Arab world.

While Israelis are denounced as "occupiers" and history is rewritten to deny more than four thousand years of Jewish presence in the land, the reality of terrorist and rocket attacks by Hezb'allah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Iran are largely ignored. The conflict is presented to the West in terms of Israel's recent actions -- the 1948 "occupation," 1967 "expansion," West Bank wall, and "settlement expansion." Recognition of relentless, decades-long Arab attacks on Israel, Jewish rights to the land, and legitimate national security measures of a sovereign state are all ignored or denied. Academia and the media willingly participate in the deconstruction of Israel and the legitimization of "Palestine." So the issue appears to outsiders to be over land, when in reality, the present-day enmity toward Israel is based on the Koran's 7th-century doctrines against the Jews. Modern-day Muslims are seeking to enforce this mandate of the Koran, according to Al-Maqdisi and Solomon.
[...]
In Al-Yahud, Maqdisi and Solomon refer to another doctrine, the Fitrah Doctrine, which Muslims also use to establish present-day land claims. The Fitrah Doctrine proclaims that all mankind from eternity is Muslim. The proclamation is irrevocable and mandatory and labels anyone who is not in observance of it as having gone astray. Jews in particular are viewed as perverted, and they are purported to be followers of the path of Satan for their refusal to recognize the Prophet Mohammed even though being forewarned in the Jewish scriptures.

These proclamations and doctrines help bolster Islamic attitudes in which any perceived criticisms of Islam or the very existence of non-Muslims within a Muslim society is viewed as an attack against Islam. Non-Muslims, simply by their religious choices, are resisting Allah. Thus, kuffars are considered to be in rebellion and must be "returned" to their Muslim faith by "reversion" or by force (jihad). Jihad is always viewed by practicing Muslims as a defensive move against unbelievers for rejecting Islam. Thus, by their deaths, Islamic martyrs receive exalted status, celebrations, and rewards, having gained favor with Allah.

Lamentably but realistically, the authors conclude that there is no Arab-Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but instead, a Muslim-Jewish conflict that dates from the time of Mohammed. They demonstrate through well-researched and extensive citations of passages from Islamic doctrine how the policies of enmity and supremacy have their origin in the Koran and Sunnah, and not in the present-day situation in Israel and the Palestinian territories. They clearly illustrate that throughout Islamic history, treaties with infidels have been employed as temporary deceptive measures to be broken at an advantageous time, in accordance with Allah's instructions and commandments. Al-Maqdisi and Solomon discouragingly surmise that any Israeli attempts to forge land or peace treaties with Muslims are destined for failure, as has been repeatedly illustrated since Israeli statehood.

UPDATE: Vlad Tepes interview of Sam Solomon:

Sign the petition to classify IHH (the Gaza flotilla attactivists) as a terrorist entity under Canadian law

Sign here

Because standing up for the truth and against the most corrosive forces of the present global order is a good thing.

And because, notwithstanding the humanitarian work the IHH does, its Turkish members and supporters are Islamists who take an obvious pleasure in drawing Infidel blood and don't deny that they instigated the Gaza flotilla fight. The close ties of IHH to the present Turkish government that is turning that country away from modernity and liberal democracy, and deepening its alliance with the most tyrannical and regressive forces (Iran) in its quest for leadership of the Islamic Umma, in hopes of building another Turkish/Islamic empire, is all the more reason to sign.

(And even because it pisses off all the right people.)

B'nai Brith has proposed... the petition against the Turkish Islamist group that sent armed "martyrs" to attack Israel and die to serve the cause of a death cult and the blood libel of the Jews who, they allege, have no right to defend themselves.

Background on IHH here:

Though my DIIS paper made no mention of IHH's activities in Gaza or in support of suffering Palestinian refugees, some of those angered by the Israeli flotilla raid have instead turned their emotional animus on past critics of IHH, such as myself. While I certainly can't speak with any authority on what took place on the Gaza flotilla boats, I'm rather mystified why the flotilla killings--whether right or wrong--would have any bearing on the factual question of whether the IHH has engaged in illicit financing and episodic support to extremist groups. The evidence in this regard is fairly weighty, and much of it comes directly from the Turkish government -- not the United States, nor the Israelis.

and here:

In practice, besides its legitimate humanitarian activities, IHH supports radical Islamic terrorist networks. In recent years it has prominently supported Hamas (through the Union of Good). In addition, the ITIC has reliable information that in the past IHH provided logistical support and funding to global jihad networks.

Motivation:

Ayaan Hirsi Ali recognizes that an honest conversation is one that tries to convert the Other

On why Christians should try to convert Muslims - Books, The Interview - Macleans.ca

Q: One of your more startling arguments in Nomad is that Christian churches should proselytize in immigrant communities to try to convert Muslims.
A: Look at the amount of money Saudi Arabia spends on coming into Muslim communities in America and Europe, building schools and also taking leaders and training them in Mecca and Medina, then replanting them. It’s surprising that no other group of people is targeting the same communities. If you look at Western civilization, at the institutions [and movements] that were engaged in changing people’s hearts and minds—the Christian Church, humanists, feminists—they are doing next to nothing in these Muslim communities. When I was in Holland [recently], I heard about a Christian mission that had been proselytizing in Morocco. The government kicked them out and sent them back to Holland. I thought, “You don’t have to stop proselytizing—just go to the Muslim community in Amsterdam west and carry on there.” But of course there, they’re not only going to face the radical Muslims as opponents, they’re also going to face the multicultural opponents, saying they’re not supposed to be telling people to leave their religion.

Q: So how would they do it?
A: Next to every mosque, build a Christian centre, an enlightenment centre, a feminist centre. There are tons of websites, financed with Saudi money, promoting Wahabism. We need to set up our own websites—Christian, feminist, humanist—trying to target the same people, saying, we have an alternative moral framework to Islam. We have better ideas.

Q: But you also argue that children are indoctrinated very early in Islam. How would you even get them to listen to such a message?
A: They only get indoctrinated if they go to Muslim schools. I would, if I had the power, abolish Muslim schools. Children born to Muslim parents in North America or anywhere else in the West would get Islamic teachings at home, which is fine. But when they go to school, they would get the regular education that’s going to enable them to be absorbed into our society and become law-abiding, well-established citizens.

Q: In a multicultural and democratic society, how could we ban Muslim schools?
A: It depends how we weigh this problem of jihadism and terrorism. If we think it’s a chronic disease we have to live with, and I think that is actually the dominant opinion, people will take more trouble to look at what is going on in these schools and abolish them. If we think of these children as kids who, when they finish school, will be hostile to our society, then I can compile a whole host of arguments why they can and should be abolished.

Q: Let me ask a question you once posed. You said, “Western civilization is a celebration of life—everybody’s life, even your enemy’s life. So how can you be true to that morality and at the same time defend yourself against a very powerful enemy that seeks to destroy you?”
A: That is the big question for the open society today. We want to be distinct from closed societies, have less authoritarianism, allow people to make their own choices. And what we’re seeing now is that as far as that applies to an Islamic subset of society, there are other factors at work that are frightening. To have a whole generation of people just indoctrinated with this jidhadist mentality and for us to do nothing about it, and then every time there’s a terrorist attack, we panic—it’s not viable.

Can someone explain to me what this guy is saying?

Commanded to terrorize South Park, an op ed in today's Vancouver Sun by lecturer Gordon Nickel is a head scratcher for me. I know our public or mainstream media discourse on Islam has become a game of unmentionables, innuendo, and false pieties. But really, I pity the UBC students who have to figure out what this prof. wants them to think or write about Islam. This guy is not obviously an enthusiast for dissimulation or cultural relativism and yet he seems so scared of appearing to say anything a little too declarative that he invents a whole new kind of pointing with eyebrows raised, while saying weird things about Jews. Either that, or he was terribly abused by some newpaper editor with the fear of Allah in mind.

Dhimmi Pricks and Prickesses

U.S. DOCTORS GIVE CONSENT TO MUSLIM PERVERSION | thelastcrusade:

Well, "Muslim perversion" is not a very apt term for what is (female genital mutiliation) only perverse if done from within women-respecting cultures. (I know there are "modernizing" Muslims who argue that the hadith in which Mohammed counsels a mutilator not to cut too severely (hence seeming to sanction some cutting), is of poor authenticity and that female genital mutilation is a pre-Islamic practice not required by Islam. Such pleading for a religion that has not yet often gone out of its way to stop various "tribal" practices, and is in many ways not exemplary when it comes to making women into full persons, does not impress me greatly.)

Nonetheless, despite the emotional headline, the article from an anti-Islam site is of some interest. It seems that the pediatric medical authorities in the (former?) US of A have convinced themselves that female genital mutilation is essentially a "ceremonial procedure", and that if they sanction pin pricking - a "ritual nick" - of the girl's clitoris, so that a drop of blood may be taken, then this will satisfy the modern American Muslims and the American Academy of Pediatrics sanction of this ceremonical procedure will not too often entail families wanting to go further (cutting outside the American medical system), nor will it contradict the American law against female genital mutilation.

In other words, the medical authorities don't seem to think or acknowledge that female genital mutilation has a "rational" purpose: to control and limit women's sexuality. But if this reason is in fact normative, then the sanctioning of pin pricking is but a dhimmi's nod of acquiescence to the authority of a religious-tribal worldview that will often not stop at a mere pin prick. So if this American Academy of Pediatrics policy goes into effect, we will all be able to place our bets on reality: is "female genital mutilation" largely a "ceremonial" practise? Or, has America become a nation of dhimmis?

One of the questions one must ask of modern America is whether the relative feminization of the culture and professional life has so far led to a kind of refusal, in general, to sanction conflict as a necessary aspect of life and has led instead to a compulsion to seek ways to withdraw from (and not merely defer) conflict, howevermuch that cannot be done without someone losing something (without cutting one's own):

A member of the academy’s bioethics committee, Dr. Lainie Friedman Ross, associate director of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago, said the panel’s intent was to issue a “statement on safety in a culturally sensitive context.”

Dr. Friedman Ross said that the committee members “oppose all types of female genital cutting that impose risks or physical or psychological harm,” and consider the ritual nick “a last resort,” but that the nick is “supposed to be as benign as getting a girl’s ears pierced. It’s taking a pin and creating a drop of blood.”

She said the panel had only heard hackneyed anecdotes from worried doctors.

“If we just told parents, ‘No, this is wrong,’ our concern is they may take their daughters back to their home countries, where the procedure may be more extensive cutting and may even be done without anesthesia, with unsterilized knives or even glass,” she said. “A just-say-no policy may end up alienating these families, who are going to then find an alternative that will do more harm than good.”

No doubt a "just-say-no" policy would alienate some Muslims from the American medical system. But then one needs ask whether or not alienation is something necessary, in all possible human societies. Isn't alienation simply a necessary relationship to one or another social norm? I am alienated in degrees from the norms of my society but I embrace these norms not because, as in leftist thinking (where norms are seen as a source of victimization), I am a "hypocrite" but because I realize that norms (variously old and new) that we can never fully live up to are nonetheless necessary, in some shape or form, to serve as a basis, or focus, for human reciprocity and building order through the exchange of norms, through the different possible ways of re-presenting them in attempts to live up to them. In short, I think we should want to alienate Muslims who want to cut their daughters' genitalia. Alienation can entail dead-end resentment, in the worst cases, but also it can entail a conversion away from one norm or representation to another. But one cannot begin to orient towards something better without first being alienated.

Furthermore, I'll argue that all rituals or ceremonies have a rational element to them, though the reason inherent in a long-lasting ritual's origins may become outdated so that we can, at some point, begin to speak of a "mindless" ritual. But if this is so, it is a fool's game to think one can simply speak of "ritual pricks" without first confronting and subsuming the "reason" with which the ritual of mutilation originated.

I was just reading Barry Rubin's latest column, an homage to Walter Laqueur and it had a couple of observations that are worth repeating here:

I want to get back to why you should read this latest [Laqueur] book. One of the greatest deficits today is the ignorance or distortion of history (most often into an anti-democratic, anti-Western, anti-capitalist narrative), especially the last 90 years since the end of World War One. Walter has lived through this and it has left him with sound and sober judgments.

"Some of the main sources of error [in comprehending history and predicting politics include] mirror imaging ["They are people like you and me"]; the belief of academics that the main assignment of an intellectual is to be critical; the contention that conflicts can always or almost always be evaded; the idea that in the case of a conflict, truth is more often than not to be found somewhere in the middle and that one's own country is very likely to be in the wrong." (p. 17)

There is one story Walter tells in the book that particularly haunts me given attitudes today. During the period before the Nazis came to power, his parents took him on a river cruise. One of the passengers jumped off the boat, swam around for a while, and climbed back. He used the boat’s Weimar Republic flag as a towel to dry himself. Some of the passengers laughed and applauded. When people no longer appreciate their democratic country and the freedom it provides they are well on their way to losing it.

Another reason "Islamism" is a useful concept

Islam has a history that makes it more than what its true believers often argue; both Muslims and anti-Islam polemicists often think the question of what is Islam is exhausted by the foundational texts and so, given the relentless pitting of believers against (frequently cursed) unbelievers in these texts, it is pointless to distinguish, say, radical "Islamism" from Islam. Yet Islam remains a work in progress, as great propagandists have always known, and we need ways to denote what is particular to our times:
Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World :: Reviewed by Daniel Pipes

Ideas the Nazis spread in the Middle East have had an enduring twofold legacy. First, as in Europe, they built on existing prejudices against Jews to transform that prejudice into something far more paranoid, aggressive, and murderous. One U.S. intelligence report from 1944 estimated that anti-Jewish materials constituted fully half of German propaganda directed to the Middle East. The Nazis saw virtually all developments in the region through the Jewish prism and exported this obsession.

The fruits of this effort are seen not only in decades of furious Muslim anti-Zionism, personified by Arafat and Ahmadinejad, but also in the persecution of ancient Jewish communities in countries like Egypt and Iraq, which have now shriveled to near-extinction, plus the employment of Nazis such as Johann van Leers and Aloïs Brunner in important government positions. Thus did the Nazi legacy oppress Jewry in the Middle East post-1945.

Second, Islamism took on a Nazi quality. As someone who has criticized the term Islamofascism on the grounds that it gratuitously conflates two distinct phenomena, I have to report that Herf's evidence now leads me to acknowledge deep fascist influences on Islamism. This includes the Islamist hatred of democracy and liberalism and its contempt for multiple political parties, preference for unity over division, cult of youth and militarism, authoritarian moralism, cultural repression, and illiberal economics.

Beyond specifics, that influence extends to what Herf calls an "ability to introduce a radical message in ways that resonated with, yet deepened and radicalized, already existing sentiments." Although a scholar of Europe by training, Herf's detective work in the U.S. archives has opened a new vista on the Arab-Israeli conflict and Islamism, as well as made a landmark contribution more broadly to an understanding of the modern Middle East.

Islam must always have the final word

Perhaps you have read much about the absurdities of the United Nations "Human Rights" Council. But there is nothing like seeing it in action to really appreciate how we can no longer take seriously, and must work to disband, an organization that refuses to allow any comments that touch on, and might be critical of, "religion", i.e. in this context, Islam.

It is a central belief in today's Islamic world that anyone who does anything that might lead Muslims to call into question their unquestionable faith in their "religion", or the declarations of its powerful representatives, must be silenced. There can be no God - no "human right", no campaign against violence against women - ever higher than the God of Islam. It is simply unthinkable.

Have a look and you will better appreciate why our relations to the Islamic world necessarily involve questions of war or surrender. June 2008 video, edited by vlad tepes
(follow link for additional information and texts) via Gil Bailie.

UPDATE: video currently unavailable (follow comments here for updates and see also full transcript of the video.)

Littman UN video rev 4 from Vlad Tepes on Vimeo.

Mark Durie interview - highly recommended

I'm preparing a blog on Islamic antisemitism that will feature, among others, the work of the Australian scholar and Anglican minister, Mark Durie. So I happened across this interview of Durie by Pamela Geller. And I was impressed by Durie's clarity of mind, his learned understanding of Islam and his explanation of the struggle over world views that defenders of freedom in the West today have to engage. The man is a skilled communicator because he is a civilized man, one whose message for Muslims is not of hate. Yet that does not stop him from recognizing the need to speak frankly about opposing a belief system that widely engenders fear among both Muslims and non-Muslims.

Whether or not you like Pamela's style, don't miss this interview. Did you know that this Sunday is the UN's International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination? Do your duty!

Andrew Bostom responds to Tarek Fatah's identity dance

If you have missed the little brouhaha here in Canada caused by "moderate Muslim" Tarek Fatah's attack on ex-Muslim, Dr. Wafa Sultan, you might pick up the story here.

I would then invite you to listen to Fatah in a couple of clips from the Michael Coren show where he responded to the critics of his attack on Sultan. I am particularly miffed by comments he makes at 5.16-6.00 of the following video, which strike me as dissimulating. I believe him when he says the Saudi Korans that are widely distributed in the West liberally use the word "Jew" as the English translation for less specific epithets in the original Arabic. But he says this with the apparent desire to avoid the question of whether there are not passages in the Arabic Koran that are explicitly anti-Jewish. And this is what Andrew Bostom is calling Fatah to account for, as quoted below.


Also see Fatah's vague interpretation of why the prophet Mohammed's wife Aisha was not a little girl upon marriage, here (this is actually the first of the two videos):

And here is Andrew Bostom's rebuttal: Pajamas Media » Silencing the Jews. Let me quote a little of it:

A front-page New York Times story published on January 10, 2009, included extracts from the Friday sermon (of the day before) at Al-Azhar mosque pronounced by Egyptian-government appointed cleric Sheik Eid Abdel Hamid Youssef. Referencing well-established anti-Semitic motifs from the Koran, Sheikh Youssef intoned:

Muslim brothers, God has inflicted the Muslim nation with a people whom God has become angry at [Koran 1:7] and whom he cursed [Koran 5:78] so he made monkeys and pigs [Koran 5:60] out of them. They killed prophets and messengers [Koran 2:61 / 3:112] and sowed corruption on Earth. [Koran 5:33 / 5:64] They are the most evil on Earth. [5:62 /63]

At present, the continual, monotonous invocation by Al-Azhar clerics of anti-Semitic motifs from the Koran (and other foundational Muslim texts) is entirely consistent with the published writings and statements of Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi — Grand Imam of this preeminent Islamic religious institution from 1996 until his recent passing. Tantawi’s academic magnum opus, Jews in the Koran and the Traditions, a 700-page treatise, elucidates the classical, mainstream theology of Islamic Jew-hatred:

[The] Koran describes the Jews with their own particular degenerate characteristics, i.e. killing the prophets of Allah [Koran 2:61/ 3:112], corrupting His words by putting them in the wrong places, consuming the people’s wealth frivolously, refusal to distance themselves from the evil they do, and other ugly characteristics caused by their deep-rooted lasciviousness … only a minority of the Jews keep their word. … [A]ll Jews are not the same. The good ones become Muslims [Koran 3:113], the bad ones do not.

Tarek Fatah, other so-called Muslim moderates of his ilk, and their non-Muslim promoters must be compelled to answer the following question: is it "Islamophobia” to quote such statements — rife with Koranic Jew-hatred, and made by authoritative Muslim clerics representing the Vatican of Sunni Islam — or are Mr. Fatah’s reactions, ignoring the existence of these commonplace, normative Islamic proclamations, and vilifying those who bring them to public attention, especially pernicious forms of taqiyya (religiously sanctioned Islamic dissimulation) and Islamic Jew-hatred?

Elaborating on the depth of Muslim hatred for the Jews in his era, Maimonides (in ~ 1172 C.E.) made this profound observation regarding the Jewish predilection for denial, a feature that he insists will hasten their destruction:

We have acquiesced, both old and young, to inure ourselves to humiliation. … All this notwithstanding, we do not escape this continued maltreatment [by Muslims] which well nigh crushes us. No matter how much we suffer and elect to remain at peace with them, they stir up strife and sedition.

The Jews and their communal leaders like Maimonides living under Islamic rule in the Middle Ages — vanquished by jihad, isolated, and well-nigh defenseless under the repressive system of dhimmitude — can be excused for their silent, submissive denial. There is no such excuse in our era for silently submitting to the threats of disingenuous, hateful Muslim bullies like Tarek Fatah, given the existence of an autonomous Jewish state of Israel and a thriving Western Jewish diaspora, particularly here in the United States, living under the blanket of hard-won protections for their religious freedom, physical security, and dignity.

Hugh Fitzgerald also took some shots at Fatah's recent comments, here.

But I think the most cutting recent remarks directed at Fatah were penned by David Solway, in the midst of a paean to Geert Wilders:

For what you [Wilders] are really saying is that moderate Muslims cannot be devout Muslims or, in truth, cannot be Muslims at all. What sort of Muslim remains after you have factored out shariah law, effectively compared Muhammed to Hitler, and contended that the Koran should be outlawed, or at least designated as a species of hate literature, as you proposed in your letter to the newspaper De Volkskrant on August 8, 2007?

You now find yourself uncomfortably situated, so to speak, between the devil and the deep Red Sea. Not being a Muslim yourself, you don’t have the option of polemical emphasis that derives from rejecting the faith, becoming an apostate-on-principle or converting to another faith, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, Wafa Sultan and Nonie Darwish, among others—all of whom took the second part of your logic to its inevitable terminus. They understood that one cannot honestly profess Islam without abiding by the decrees of the religion and its holy book, including the oft-repeated summons to kill or enslave the infidel, the structure of gender apartheid, the imposition of shariah, and a host of other draconian laws.

In other words, a “moderate Muslim” would have to live in a state of contradiction, and perhaps many do—as does, for example, freedom loving Tarek Fatah, Canadian author of Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State, who calls himself a “hardened secular Muslim.” What exactly is a secular Muslim, whether hardened or soft? Similarly, what could a “secular Christian” conceivably be other than some sort of mythical chimera? (It is different for Jews, of course; a “secular Jew” remains a Jew because the world persists in regarding him as such. But that is another matter.) Fatah is a good man and an important voice in the ongoing debate concerning Islam, but he cannot extricate himself from a legendary infatuation or acknowledge disagreeable historical and theological facts. One cannot cherry pick the Koran or romanticize Islamic history, as so-called “moderate Muslims” are obliged to do, without falling into incoherence. As a character in Hanif Kureishi’s The Black Album says, “our religion isn’t something you can test out, like trying out a suit to see if it fit! You gotta buy the whole outfit!” There is, to put it another way, no such beverage as Islam Lite. One drinks in the real thing or nothing; there is no substitute.

Bangladeshi author and former Muslim Abul Kasem, in a FrontPage Magazine interview, defines the majority of Muslims as believers “in name only.” Kasem is shockingly direct: the existence of a “moderate Muslim” is contingent upon a moderate Koran “since the life force of Islam is the Qu’ran.” But the Koran happens to be an extreme and violent document, and even if it is selectively ignored by practitioners of the faith, its fissile core can be activated at any time. For Kasem, as for the dissidents mentioned above, the term “moderate Muslim” or “secular Muslim” is an oxymoron. The use of the term “moderate Muslim,” he argues, is “truly misplaced” and muddles Western thinking in the attempt to defeat Islamic terror. I’m presuming this is an argument you too would candidly advance if the sociopolitical context were not so precarious, and if your place in Dutch society and as leader of a respectable political party permitted you to do so.

While I don't see great value in arguing that it is impossible to be a "moderate Muslim", as if one cannot be in many respects a Muslim without knowing or wishing to dwell on the violent wording of the Koran (many Muslims don't read the Koran in translation and don't know Arabic), or as if one cannot consciously choose to interpret the Koran and Hadith as documents that must be read in historical context (however heretical that sounds to some), it is obvious today that many Muslims take the Koran all too literally when it comes to the book's frequent cursing of non-believers; and so Solway has much reason to suggest Western thinking is hopelessly muddled by the liberal insistence that (moderate) Islam, in general, not be viewed as a problem.

But I disagree with Solway that a "secular Christian" cannot exist. I won't rehash my arguments now, but I see Western secularism as quite distinctively an outgrowth of Christianity. A Christian might well see many of the secular political religions as heretical; a Christian might well see many secular values as antithetical to the model of Jesus. Still, as thinkers like Rene Girard argue - a sincere Christian himself - the motivating drives of modern secularism are in many respects characteristically Christian, most notably in their rebellions against the established order that are conducted in the name of one or another sacred victim, or in the name of transcending our culture's need for victims once and for all.

So, long story short, to my mind, a secular Jew is someone who has adapted to the modern world by becoming somewhat more Christian, and somewhat less Jewish, in character. Still, a secular Jew, as long as he is aware of his Jewishness, carries with him many habits and ways of seeing that are characteristically Jewish.

But like Solway, I have asked in the past, in regards to Tarek Fatah, whether one can make any sense of the concept of "secular Muslim". A secular Jew at least remains part of a distinctive national and familial identity that is Jewish. Fatah, on the other hand, is a Pakistani-Canadian. In Fatah's secular identity, just what is residually Islamic, and what Pakistani, and what Western? I don't have a ready answer but it strikes me as a more interesting question that whether he is a "moderate Muslim". That "moderate" debate is overly fixated on the worship of mere words.

In defence of Muslims

Canada's leading Ismaili intellectual, Salim Mansur, writes:

As the trial of Dutch MP Geert Wilders for offending Muslims unfolds in Amsterdam, I am reminded of Oriana Fallaci’s post-9/11 writings on how she saw Europe wasted from within by the alien cultural force of Islam.
[...]
Fallaci attributed her understanding of Europe’s fate in part to the writings of another woman of great courage. In Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide and Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, Bat Ye’or, a Jewess born in Egypt and forced into exile, documented the recent history of Europe’s partnership with Arab states.

This Euro-Arab relationship has meant increased sensitivity in European capitals and among its political-intellectual elite for Arab-Islamic politics and culture. It is this sensitivity as political correctness that is on display at the Wilders’ trial.

But this sensitivity also inhibits the political-intellectual elite in Europe and North America from discussing the outrageousness of putting on trial Wilders, or anyone else, for speaking and writing on matters that might offend Muslims.

The demand by Europe’s officialdom — Canada’s officialdom is on the same page — that “free speech” must also meet the requirements of “responsible speech” when the subject is Islam is tantamount to repudiating Europe’s history that made her the cradle of the modern world of science and democracy.

The Wilders trial is indicative of Europe’s bleak future, as Fallaci had warned. This trial amounts to appeasing official Islam, which has demanded “defamation of religions,” according to a resolution adopted in the UN General Assembly in March 2008, be prohibited.

Moreover, in trying Wilders, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal has conceded space to the Islamists by accommodating, in practical terms, their demand for acceptance of Shariah (Islamic law) within secular society.

Abandonment

This can only mean abandoning those Muslims, especially women, who escaped from Islamic countries seeking freedom. They will become vulnerable once again to Islamists enforcing Shariah rule inside enclaves where Muslims reside within Europe.

And a Europe that appeases official Islam, while punishing its critics, will also be uncaring about the struggle for reform inside the Arab-Muslim world as in Iran. Such a Europe, as Fallaci so passionately raged against, will be then sliding into a new dark age.

And what does this darkness look like? Brendan O'Neil:

That relativism has been elevated over liberty can be seen in the fact that at the same time that more ‘extremists’ are allegedly running riot on campus, there are more and more codes of speech governing the extent to which other people can question, ridicule or mock these ‘extremists’, or even moderate religious and political speakers. At the end of last year I was invited to debate the head of the UK wing of Hizb ut-Tahrir at Queen Mary Westfield College in London. But under pressure from censorious student groups and the university’s administration, the debate was banned. It was moved to the University of Westminster a couple of weeks later, and there, both me and the representative of Hizb ut-Tahrir were informed about what we could and could not say. The university’s religious affairs liaison – a white convert to Islam – told us that before being allowed to speak we would have to read a document telling us not to insult or ridicule anyone else’s religious beliefs, political affiliations, sexual preferences and so on.

I read it, and ignored it, and later got booed for saying ‘Sharia law is inferior to Enlightenment-derived laws’. Yet this experience reveals much about the crisis of freedom in British universities. In one serious London university a debate is banned outright because the ‘extremist’ might corrupt the pathetic students, and in another serious London university the debate is allowed to go ahead but is severely governed by informal codes designed to preserve ‘respect for identities’. Such codes now exist on campuses across the UK. The extremist is allowed to speak, but no one is really allowed to say to him: ‘You’re talking bollocks, mate, and here’s why…’ Such informal rules protecting all belief systems and granting equal weight to all lifestyle choices really demonstrate what lies behind the ‘let the extremists speak’ argument: a relativistic climate in which universities doubt whether it is their job to assert Truth with a capital T over madder, weirder small-t ‘truths’, and where what looks like free speech is actually something very different.

If a student at a British university starts believing that some radical form of Islam is ‘the Truth’, it is most likely as a result of this intellectual cowardice rather than the strength of conviction of some visiting preacher. It is the climate of non-debate, of listening and nodding along to everyone, that can make things seem like the Truth by default. This creation of a relativistic mishmash of equally valid views sells students short as surely as does the outright censorship of ‘extremists’: it, too, creates a climate of conformism and question-avoidance, where the extremists are allowed to speak but only because ‘everyone must be heard and treated with respect’.

(HT: Blazing Cat Fur)

Canada, loony bin

How much hate can a country of stoned death hippies "tolerate"? The story from Terry Glavin:

“Long live the Taliban” might seem an unlikely thing for a prominent anti-war figure to declare, but that’s today’s peace movement for you. Stranger still, the man who recently uttered those words, Azzam Tamimi, is a central figure in a new Toronto-based institute that is embarking upon what it describes as a national campaign to cultivate wholesome, faith-based civic virtues among Canada’s young Muslims.

The Al-Fauz Institute for Islamic Thought says its purpose is to teach young Muslims how to apply Islamic ideas to Canada’s pluralistic society and “prepare young minds that will take up the mantle of the Muslim community.” Tamimi is scheduled to launch the institute’s ambitious public-relations and proselytizing efforts in Canada with a July 24-27 Islamic history course at Ryerson University.

But Tamimi has loudly renounced democracy, explicitly praises suicide bombers, and he’s said he’d even be happy to blow himself up in Israel: “It’s the straight way to pleasing my God and I would do it if I had the opportunity.” Tamimi distinguishes good Muslims from their adversaries this way: "We love death. They love life."

Tamimi recently proclaimed: “I don’t believe in democracy anymore,” and it was at an anti-Israel rally in Dublin only three months ago that Tamimi declared: “With regard to their attitudes to liberation, I say ‘Long Live the Taliban’.”

You’d never know any of this from the billing the Al-Fauz institute gives Tamimi. He’s presented as a Palestinian-born British academic and a “political activist.” His leading role with Britain’s Stop The War Coalition is noted. But nowhere does the institute mention that Tamimi is also high-ranking ideologue for Hamas, one of the deadliest organizations listed under Canada’s anti-terrorism laws.

Glavin also has a count of the Taliban's latest bombings and death toll.

Mail Minister Jason Kenney kennej@parl.gc.ca and his Communications Director Alykhan Velshi alykhan.Velshi@cic.gc.ca to ask that Canadian Border Services be informed on this guy so they can make the right decision on allowing him entry.

The man who won't lie for peace

Wishful thinking pervades discussion of some fancied Middle East "peace process". Here's an excellent video of a lecture given at Yale by Prof. Barry Rubin that touches on many issues but especially on the nature of Arab antisemitism and why, at the end of the day, Israel simply cannot exist in the Arab mind. That's to say, the predominant ideology in the Arab world, in which Jews are but weak, evil, and dhimmis, believes Israel is but a short-term fluke, a Western mistake, or conspiracy, that is bound to fail; and hence it is worth doing whatever it takes to wait for the final victory when Israel will be wiped off the map. Rubin does not tell us what the "liberal" West wants to hear about some "solution" to the Arab-Israeli problem being already known, if only everyone can compromise a little. He refuses to lie for peace. The West, he says, has fancied that it can reshape the Arab and Muslim worlds to adapt liberal values. What is really going on is that Western thinking is being reshaped by Arab and Islamic antisemitiam and anti-Western values. It's a long video but, as Gil Bailie (ht) says, worthwhile. It seems that Rubin believes that in the short term, at least, it is ordinary Muslims whose live are much more threatened by the Islamists and the lies the West tells, than is Israel where people have actually learned from experience. Indeed the great threat is the expected appeasement, by the Arabs, of Iran, when the latter gets nuclear weapons. This, Rubin suggests, will increase the likelihood of something akin to the Iranian Revolution, or Talebanization, in the Arab countries.

Professor Barry Rubin - "How the PLO 'Adapted' Antisemitism as 'Anti-Zionism'" from YIISA on Vimeo.

The Nazi-Islamist Cabal

This ad appeared in today's National Post (HT: BCF):



Comments welcome.

Bruce Bawer just spoke in Montreal

Blazing Cat Fur sent the notice around, but I didn't get the live feed for the Bawer conference up in time. But here's the link to the videos (in English with a few introductory words in French):





And here is the French-language introduction of Bawer by PointdeBascule's Marc Lebuis:

Sept. 11

This would be a good day to take an hour and listen to Gil Bailie's July talk to the Colloquium on Violence and Religion. It is exemplary of the kind of moral striving and frank, courageous, informed and irenic talk we all need to pursue if the West is to save itself from its own decadence and from its religious-political rivals who take from what remains of the legacy of Western freedom, science, and free economies, but have, to be blunt, as yet little to offer the cause of this freedom's renewal and survival.

The talk is found in three audio files currently at the top of this page.

What is primitive man?

He who thinks he can kill Jesus, in 2009, or the lowest peasant in the land?

DHAKA, Bangladesh, August 4 (Compass Direct News) – At the urging of local Muslim leaders, police in western Bangladesh have tortured a pastor and two other Christians for legally proclaiming Christ.
[...]
“Police told us, ‘We will teach you in the camp how to forget your Christ,’ while dragging us to the vehicle,” said Rahman.

Police blindfolded them after reaching the camp and took them to three separate rooms.

“I heard blood-curdling scream from other rooms,” Rahman said. “I was sitting on the floor blindfolded. I could not understand what was happening around me. Later several police came to me and one of them kicked me on the back of my head, and my head ricocheted off the wall. They also kicked my waist.”

Ordering him to say how many people he had converted to Christianity in the Muslim-majority nation, the commander said he would kick him a like number of times. The official told him to call out to Jesus, saying he wanted to see how Jesus would save him, Rahman said.
[...]
Police officers told Rahman to admit that whatever he had done in his life was wrong, he said. When they sent them to Boalia police station early the next morning, dozens of Christians arrived to try to obtain their release.

Police, however, were reluctant to release the detained Christians.

“Some Christian villagers then said, ‘We are also criminal because we believe in Christ like Habibur Rahman and the other two Christians,’” Rahman said. “They told police, ‘If you do not release them, then arrest us and put us in jail.’”

Police did not release the three Christians until 9:30 that night.

The next day, June 10, thousands of Muslim villagers demonstrated in front of a local government office called the Zamzami Union Council chanting, “We want a Christian-free society,” and “We will not allow any Christians in Cuadanga.”
[...]
There are 176 Christians in the area where Rahman works as an evangelist and pastor, he said.

“The local government council chairman told me two times not to come in this area,” Rahman said. “He said, ‘There is no Christian in this area, so why do you come here to make Christians?’”

Local Muslim villagers have since refused to give work to area Christians, most of whom are day laborers dependent on obtaining daily jobs to survive.

Which covenant, whose freedom, will you defend?

Let's play, Spot The Hate Monger: Vote, with peaceful reasons, in comments

Contestant #1 (HT: Catfur) consistently refuses to acknowledge the Judeo-Christian roots of Western civilization, as we see in MEMRI: Special Dispatch - No. 2332

>In an interview published April 23, 2009 in the Saudi Daily 'Okaz, reformist thinker Ibrahim Al-Buleihi expressed his admiration for Western civilization. The interview was posted on the same day on the Elaph website.[1] Al-Buleihi calls on the Arabs to acknowledge the greatness of Western civilization, and to admit the deficiencies of their own culture. He states that such self-criticism is a precondition to any change for the better. Ibrahim Al-Buleihi is a member of the Saudi Shura Council. [2]
[...]
'Okaz: "I begin with the crucial issue which distinguishes your thought and which your opponents always raise against you - namely, your being completely dazzled by the West, while you completely belittle Arabic thought. Truly, this is the most outstanding feature of your writings. There is also extreme self-flagellation which many see [in your writings]. What is the cause of this?"

Buleihi: "My attitude towards Western civilization is an attitude based on obvious facts and great accomplishments; here is a reality full of wonderful and amazing things. [Recognizing] this doesn't mean that I am blindly fascinated. This is the very opposite of the attitude of those who deny and ignore the bright lights of Western civilization. Just look around… and you will notice that everything beautiful in our life has been produced by Western civilization: even the pen that you are holding in your hand, the recording instrument in front of you, the light in this room, and the journal in which you work, and many innumerable amenities, which are like miracles for the ancient civilizations.… If it were not for the accomplishments of the West, our lives would have been barren. I only look objectively and value justly what I see and express it honestly. Whoever does not admire great beauty is a person who lacks sensitivity, taste, and observation. Western civilization has reached the summit of science and technology. It has achieved knowledge, skills, and new discoveries, as no previous civilization before it. The accomplishments of Western civilization cover all areas of life: methods of organization, politics, ethics, economics, and human rights. It is our obligation to acknowledge its amazing excellence. Indeed, this is a civilization that deserves admiration. … The horrible backwardness in which some nations live is the inevitable result of their refusal to accept this [abundance of Western ideas and visions] while taking refuge in denial and arrogance."

'Okaz: "Sir, you can admire this civilization as much as you want, but not at the expense of others, especially our own civilization."

Buleihi: "My admiration for the West is not at the expense of others; rather, it is an invitation to those others to acknowledge their illusions and go beyond their inferiority and liberate themselves from backwardness. [Those others] should admit their shortcomings, and make an effort to overcome them; they should stop denying the truth and closing their eyes to the multitude of wonderful achievements. They should be fair towards those nations that achieved prosperity for themselves but did not monopolize it for themselves and instead allowed the whole world to share the results of this progress, so that other nations of the whole world now enjoy these achievements. Furthermore, Western civilization has given to the world knowledge and skills which made it possible for them, the non-Western nations, to compete with it in production and share markets with it. Criticizing one's own deficiencies is a precondition to inducing oneself to change for the better. Conversely, to glorify one's backward apathetic self is to establish and fortify backwardness, to strengthen the shackles of apathy, and to eradicate the capabilities of excellence. Backwardness is a shameful reality, which we should resent and from which we must liberate ourselves."

"Western Civilization is the Only Civilization that Liberated Man From His Illusions and Shackles; It Recognized His Individuality and Provided Him With Capabilities and Opportunities to Cultivate Himself and Realize His Aspirations"

'Okaz: "This may be so, and I'm with you in this demand but, sir, would you summarize for us the reason for your admiration of Western culture, so that we can have a basis for discussion?"

Buleihi: "There is no one reason, there are a thousand reasons, which all induce me to admire the West and emphasize its absolute excellence in all matters of life. Western civilization is the only civilization that liberated man from his illusions and shackles; it recognized his individuality and provided him with capabilities and opportunities to cultivate himself and realize his aspirations. [Western civilization] humanized political authority and established mechanisms to guarantee relative equality and relative justice and to prevent injustice and to alleviate aggression. This does not mean that this is a flawless civilization; indeed, it is full of deficiencies. Yet it is the greatest which man has achieved throughout history. [Before the advent of Western civilization,] humanity was in the shackles of tyranny, impotence, poverty, injustice, disease, and wretchedness.

"It is an extraordinary civilization, and it is not an extension of any ancient civilization, with the exception of Greek civilization, which is the source of contemporary civilization. I have completed a book on this great extraordinary civilizational leap, titled The Qualitative Changes in Human Civilization. Western civilization is its own product and it is not indebted to any previous civilization except for the Greek one … It has revived the Greek achievements in the fields of philosophy, science, literature, politics, society, human dignity, and veneration of reason, while recognizing its shortcomings and illusions and stressing its continuous need for criticism, review and correction."

'Okaz: "In your words here, you completely wipe out all the endeavors and creativity of previous civilizations such as the Islamic one, by stating that the West not indebted to it."

Buleihi: "Indeed, it is not, nor is it indebted to any other previous civilization. Western civilization has its foundation in Greece in the sixth and fifth centuries BC; then it stopped in the Middle Ages, but resumed its progress in modern times, when its benefits have come to include all nations. It is really extraordinary in every meaning of the word - excellence, uniqueness, and novelty… It has components and qualities which distinguish it from all previous and subsequent civilizations. It is the product of philosophical thinking invented by the Greeks. The Europeans have based themselves on this kind of thinking, especially on its critical aspect, which developed the capability of producing objective knowledge that is always open to review, correction and progress…"

'Okaz: "Some Western thinkers wrote that Western civilization is an extension of previous civilizations. How can you, a Muslim Arab, deny this?"

Buleihi: "When we review the names of Muslim philosophers and scholars whose contribution to the West is pointed out by Western writers, such as Ibn Rushd, Ibn Al-Haitham, Ibn Sina, Al-Farbi, Al-Razi, Al-Khwarizmi, and their likes, we find that all of them were disciples of the Greek culture and they were individuals who were outside the [Islamic] mainstream. They were and continue to be unrecognized in our culture. We even burned their books, harassed them, [and] warned against them, and we continue to look at them with suspicion and aversion. How can we then take pride in people from whom we kept our distance and whose thought we rejected?...
[...]
'Okaz: "A cog in a machine? Do you believe that this is true also of Islamic civilization?"

Buleihi: "We sharply distinguish between Islam in itself and what people do in its name. The great principles of Islam and its sublime doctrines that emphasize and uphold human value and dignity have not had a chance throughout history to establish themselves. Ever since the end of the period of the rightly-guided Caliphs, man's individuality was eradicated in Arab history and his value has been linked to his political, religious, regional, or tribal affiliation… The only civilization which acknowledges and respects man as an individual is Western civilization… Behavior in any field is not the outcome of teachings, as such, but rather of practice and actual experience...."

'Okaz: "Has this been the case throughout all of Arab history, in your opinion?"

Buleihi: "Yes, all of Arab history can be characterized in this gloomy way, except for the period of the rightly-guided Caliphs and discrete periods such as the reign of Omar ibn 'Abd Al-'Aziz. One should not confuse the sublime principles and doctrines of Islam with its history, which is full of mistakes, transgression, and tragedies. When the Abbasids overcame the Umayyads, they covered the bodies of the dead with rugs and held a feast over the bodies in a display of vengeance. When [Caliph] Al-Ma'mun defeated his brother Al-Amin, he flayed him like a lamb. This scene recurs throughout our history. Political power is the pivotal value in Arab culture. In our age, there have been recurrent military coups in the Arab world, in a struggle for power, but not in an attempt to bring about a change for the better. Each successive regime is worse than its predecessor."

'Okaz: "Mr. Buleihi, haven't you read in the history of your people about hundreds of scholars who had significance and impact and whose lives are studied to this day, even though they possessed no power, tribe, or religious affiliation, and who are valued for their scholarship?"

Buleihi: "This is a general statement which is not backed by fact. Arab history, with the exception of the period of the rightly-guided Caliphs, was dominated by politics. When the Fatimids took over Egypt and North Africa, these areas became Shiite, and when Salah Al-Din Al-Ayyubi [i.e. Saladin] put an end to the Fatimids, he drove out everything that had any relation to Shiism. The same happened when the Safavids converted Iran to Shiism, which then led the Ottomans to act the same way [in imposing Sunnism]. Thus Arab history, or Islamic history, in the wider sense, is the outcome of political ups and downs…."

"Those Exceptional [Arab] Individuals Were Not the Product of Arab Culture, But Rather Greek Culture... We Don't Deserve to Take Pride In Them, Since We Rejected Them and Fought Their Ideas"

So, no credit to Mohammed for learning from the Jews.

Now we turn to contestants #2 Youth for Western Civilization; and #3 Heidi Beria of the Southern Poverty Law Center:

A student group that bills itself as "America's right wing youth movement" focused on countering radical multiculturism, socialism and mass immigration is causing a stir on a growing number of college campuses across the country.

The conservative political group Youth for Western Civilization is currently organized on at least seven university campuses. According to its Web site, the group hopes to inspire Western youth on the "basis of pride in their American and Western heritage," counter and ultimately defeat "leftism on campus" and create a social movement in which a right-wing subculture is an alternative to what it calls a "poisonous and bigoted" campus climate.

"A great part of college is definitely meeting people of different backgrounds, but a multicultural ideology teaches that we should appreciate things just because they're different from our culture with no regards to the quality of the culture and that all cultures are inherently equal," said Trevor Williams, president of YWC's Vanderbilt chapter. "I absolutely disagree."

But students who lean left are not welcoming their new neighbor. Those opposed to YWC say its message teeters on hate speech and has no place at institutions of higher learning.

"'Western' is a veiled term that means 'white,'" University of North Carolina graduate student Tyler Oakley wrote in an e-mail to FOXNews.com. "I believe that our democracy is strong enough to allow extreme forms of speech, but YWC's message is essentially a negative one, an assault on not being white or non-Western, and is therefore hateful, if not blatant hate speech."

While its numbers are small, YWC members hope a well-publicized April 14 event featuring the group's honorary chairman — former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo — at UNC's Chapel Hill campus, will help mobilize conservative students and attract new members.

Tancredo's speech opposing in-state tuition benefits for illegal immigrants was shut down after a window was smashed and a banner reading "No One Is Illegal" was unfurled across the former Republican lawmaker's face. One UNC student, Helen Elizabeth Koch, was arrested for disorderly conduct in the incident, which was widely distributed on YouTube and is also featured on Youth for Western Civilization's home page.

Officials at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which identifies and tracks hate groups in the U.S., told FOXNews.com that the YWC is not currently on its list, but some of the group's views are "suspect," including the notion that Western civilization is somehow superior.

In February, following YWC's debut at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, SPLC linked the group's founder, Kevin DeAnna, to several posts on the Spartan Spectator, the Web site of Michigan State University's chapter of Young Americans for Freedom.

SPLC identified MSU-YAF as a hate group in 2007; DeAnna vehemently denies posting the material attributed to him.

"We're definitely monitoring them," said SPLC spokewoman Heidi Beirich. "We will look at them for hate group status."
[...]
Jesse Jones, a freshman at Vanderbilt, where YWC hosted former U.S. Treasurer Bay Buchanan last month, acknowledged the group's right to organize and share its views.

"But their fascist-like logo, their name echoing 'Hitler Youth,' and Tom Tancredo's call of 'this is your country — take it back' all quite frankly scare me," Jones wrote in an e-mail to FOXNews.com.

Jones said he's also disturbed by the group's call to restore a "curriculum that focuses on Western history, not political correctness," according to its Web site.

"They want to change the curriculum to emphasize 'classical learning' and get rid of 'trendy multiculturalism,'" Jones continued. "In practice this means firing professors with the wrong views and hiring those with the 'right' views.

"Even assuming there is a 'right' view on a given issue, the point is to get students to come to this opinion on their own, given the facts. In this way, YWC's views on education are inherently anti-intellectual."
[...]
"It's got nothing to do with racism, it's got nothing to do with extremism," Tancredo told FOXNews.com. "It has to do with celebrating the benefits Western civilization has brought to mankind, not the least of which is the concept of law. It's designed to bring attention to the issues, discussions and points of view that aren't readily available in the typical classroom on liberal colleges run by left-wing loonies."

A woman in hijab is gunned down in the streets of California...

...The suspect is Hispanic. What is the first thing that comes to your mind: anti-Islamic hate crime? family feud contract killing? drug dealers' war? Miss Kelly : Passing Off Rumor as Fact, Alia Ansari's Tragic Death describes the industry that makes a living from promoting one scenario.

Italian judges hate women, roll over and die.

Via Ghost of a Flea, my first exposure to this amazing story: Shari'a making inroads in the West | Op-Ed Contributors | Jerusalem Post

In Italy, three members of a Brescia-based Maghrebi family (father, mother and eldest son) were accused of beating and sequestering their daughter/sister Fatima because she had wanted to live a "Western" life.

In the first trial, the three were sentenced for sequestration and abuse. The court acknowledged that the teenager had been "brutally beaten up" for having "dated" a non-Muslim and, in general, for "living a life not conforming with the culture" of her family. But on appeal, the family was acquitted because the court deemed that the young woman had been beaten for "her own good."

The Bologna public prosecutor's office then disputed the acquittal of the three accused parties, but the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation dismissed it and ruled in favor of the charged parties.

Interestingly, two Italian political leaders on opposite sides of the political spectrum - Isabella Bertolini, vice president of the MPs of the right-wing party Forza Italia, and Barbara Pollastrini, a post-communist former minister - condemned the Supreme Court decision, calling it "one of the darkest pages in the history of the law in our country." Bertolini was upset that the court had "allied itself with radical Islam." Pollastrini is now pushing for parliament to pass a law condemning violence against women. "Now more than ever, it is urgent to defend the rights of a large number of immigrant women victims of an intolerable patriarchal culture," she says.

Muslim women were quick to denounce the Supreme Court's decision. Among them was Souad Sbai, president of the Organization of Moroccan Women in Italy. She said, "It is a shame, this verdict is worthy of an Arab country where the Shari'a is vigorously enforced. In the name of multiculturalism and respect for traditions, the judges apply two kinds of rules: one for the Italians and one for the immigrants. A Catholic father who had acted this way would have been severely sentenced."

According to her organization, at least nine Muslim women have recently been killed in Italy by close relatives. The number of young girls forced to wear the hijab "as early as eight or 12" is on the rise, as is the number of female teenagers fleeing home, and "lots of them are looking to flee to France." But France might not be the panacea either...

One wonders how such madness inflicts a judiciary in what was at least to some degree a Western democracy founded on the sacredness of the Christian person: do they suffer some confused idea that recognizing "diversity" in this way is tto maintain social peace and order? But how can any thinking person come seriously to think that a people living under different laws in the same state can come together in anything other but a seriously diminished capacity for building a common order? I fear that Flea has it right:

It is not only the Swat Valley that has been conceded to the Taliban. For many in the West, there is nothing to surrender - no patriotism, no pride, no history, no civilization - so why not get it over with. The nullity they have made of modern life makes the prospect of a new Dark Age appealing to them.

As to their sisters and wives and daughters - let alone their daughters' daughters - to hell with them. Such is the selfish logic of a suicide.

And so our only response is to act and say to hell with those who have given in to nihilism and civilizational despair. To hell with those who would procure our young women, our fellow citizens under our common law, for the brutal trade in sharia.

Condemn the nihilist, wherever you find him.