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REMEMBERING ISRAEL’S FALLEN
Let's get real - if only for today -Susie Weiss
 Here we go again. The anguish, sadness, frustration and grief that are bottled up all year long are about to burst through the floodgates of emotion we call Remembrance Day. The new members join the old, who join generations of Jewish people who fought for our right to simply just be…But guess what? They have broken our spirit. I'm not ashamed to admit the bitter truth: Our lives are forever marred. Purim will forever be saddened; Pessah seders will always seem empty. Any family simcha now will always be diminished. They have broken my spirit and that of my family. Yes, I know, we are told not to let them in on that little secret, because that is their goal. And if they know this, then they have won, and a victory for them is the last thing we want…BUT I have news for you: Their goal is not to break our sprit, nor is it to shatter our pride, but to break our bones and shatter the State of Israel, so that it exists no more. Frankly, I don't give a damn what they think. Their considerations are at the bottom of my emotional totem pole, and I don't care what they "think" I feel…But I do care about how we think and how we feel. When a devastating blow of a soldier being killed, or the cream of our youth being slaughtered, or unthinkable random acts of bloodshed befall our people, we should be outraged, grief-stricken and mortified. Yet we are shockingly restrained in our reaction. We hold no immediate national days of mourning; we don't stop our daily routine for a second. The bizarre obsession to continue life "as normal," to go on as if nothing happened is absurd and obscene. (JPost)
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THE GIFT OF THE JEWS
ISRAEL’S GIFT TO THE WORLD-Alan Dershowitz
As Israel celebrates its 60th birthday, the world should recognize the enormous gifts the Jewish state has given the world. Israel has exported more lifesaving medical technology to the far-flung corners of the earth than any nation of comparable size. It has done more to protect the environment, to promote literature, music, the arts and sciences, to spread agricultural advances and to fight terrorism within the rule of law…Yet despite these disproportionate contributions to the world, Israel has proportionally more enemies than any nation on earth. Moreover, the intensity of the enmity directed against the Mideast's only democracy is unexplainable on any rational basis…It is remarkable indeed that a democratic nation born in response to a decision of the United Nations should still not be accepted by so many nations, groups and individuals. No other United Nations member is threatened with physical annihilation by other member states so openly and without rebuke from the general assembly or security counsel. (NYPOST)
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60 YEARS ON, SAME HATRED, NEW EXCUSE
Our World: Anti-Zionism at 60 -Caroline Glick
Israel's 60th Independence Day is an excuse for the international media to weigh in on the state of the Jewish state. Given the anti-Israel bias of most of the international media, not surprisingly, most of the reports reveal less about Israel's status at 60 than they reveal about how anti-Zionists perceive Israel at 60. Two critiques - both cover stories of major magazines - stand out in this regard. In Canada, Maclean's magazine's May 5 cover pictures three Israeli soldiers struggling to raise the national flag. The headline reads, "Why Israel Can't Survive." In the US, the cover of The Atlantic Magazine's May edition sports a Star of David painted in Palestinian colors of red, black and green ensconced in a PLO flag. The headline asks, rhetorically, "Is Israel finished?" The authors of the two articles - Michael Petrou in Maclean's and Jeffery Goldberg in The Atlantic come to their subject from different angles. Petrou writes as an emotionally disengaged observer. Goldberg, who made aliya in the 1980s, writes as a disillusioned Zionist who abandoned Israel and moved back to America. Petrou writes of Israel's certain demise with amoral detachment. Goldberg's dispatch is a deeply emotional attempt to justify his decision to abandon Israel. (JPost)
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DEBUNKING ISRAEL’S ORIGINAL SIN
1948, Israel, and the Palestinians The True Story - Efraim Karsh (from issue: May 2008)Sixty years after its establishment by an internationally recognized act of self-determination, Israel remains the only state in the world that is subjected to a constant outpouring of the most outlandish conspiracy theories and blood libels; whose policies and actions are obsessively condemned by the international community; and whose right to exist is constantly debated and challenged not only by its Arab enemies but by segments of advanced opinion in the West. During the past decade or so, the actual elimination of the Jewish state has become a cause célèbre among many of these educated Westerners. The “one-state solution,” as it is called, is a euphemistic formula proposing the replacement of Israel by a state, theoretically comprising the whole of historic Palestine, in which Jews will be reduced to the status of a permanent minority. Only this, it is said, can expiate the “original sin” of Israel’s founding, an act built (in the words of one critic) “on the ruins of Arab Palestine” and achieved through the deliberate and aggressive dispossession of its native population. (Commentary)
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60 YEARS ON, SAME HATRED, NEW EXCUSE
Our World: Anti-Zionism at 60-Caroline Glick
Israel's 60th Independence Day is an excuse for the international media to weigh in on the state of the Jewish state. Given the anti-Israel bias of most of the international media, not surprisingly, most of the reports reveal less about Israel's status at 60 than they reveal about how anti-Zionists perceive Israel at 60. Two critiques - both cover stories of major magazines - stand out in this regard. In Canada, Maclean's magazine's May 5 cover pictures three Israeli soldiers struggling to raise the national flag. The headline reads, "Why Israel Can't Survive." In the US, the cover of The Atlantic Magazine's May edition sports a Star of David painted in Palestinian colors of red, black and green ensconced in a PLO flag. The headline asks, rhetorically, "Is Israel finished?" The authors of the two articles - Michael Petrou in Maclean's and Jeffery Goldberg in The Atlantic come to their subject from different angles. Petrou writes as an emotionally disengaged observer. Goldberg, who made aliya in the 1980s, writes as a disillusioned Zionist who abandoned Israel and moved back to America. Petrou writes of Israel's certain demise with amoral detachment. Goldberg's dispatch is a deeply emotional attempt to justify his decision to abandon Israel. (JPost)
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DEBUNKING ISRAEL’S ORIGINAL SIN
1948, Israel, and the Palestinians The True Story -Efraim Karsh From issue: May 2008Sixty years after its establishment by an internationally recognized act of self-determination, Israel remains the only state in the world that is subjected to a constant outpouring of the most outlandish conspiracy theories and blood libels; whose policies and actions are obsessively condemned by the international community; and whose right to exist is constantly debated and challenged not only by its Arab enemies but by segments of advanced opinion in the West. During the past decade or so, the actual elimination of the Jewish state has become a cause célèbre among many of these educated Westerners. The “one-state solution,” as it is called, is a euphemistic formula proposing the replacement of Israel by a state, theoretically comprising the whole of historic Palestine, in which Jews will be reduced to the status of a permanent minority. Only this, it is said, can expiate the “original sin” of Israel’s founding, an act built (in the words of one critic) “on the ruins of Arab Palestine” and achieved through the deliberate and aggressive dispossession of its native population. (Commentary)
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‘NAKBA’ NONSENSE
How 'Nakba' Proves There's No Palestinian Nation-Steven Plaut  Over the past few years, the term nakba (also spelled naqba) has become the favorite nonsense word of the Anti-Israel Lobby. Meaning “catastrophe” in Arabic, it has been embraced by anti-Semites all over the planet to refer to Israel’s creation, which supposedly imposed a “catastrophe” upon the “disenfranchised Palestinian Arabs.”
Of course, the real catastrophe that befell the Arabs in 1948-49 was that they failed in their attempt to annihilate Israel and exterminate its population, and for that they paid a price.
Meanwhile, Nakba Nonsense has been spreading. Google finds over 85,000 web pages referring to Israel’s creation as a “nakba,” and a Yahoo search finds even more than that. The anti-Israel web magazine Counterpunch cannot mention Israel without using the term. Even Israel’s leftist minister of education, Yuli Tamir, has ordered that the nakba be taught as part of the curriculum in Israeli schools, where Israel’s schoolchildren can be taught to mourn their own country’s existence. (Jewish Press)
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ANTISEMITISM:
THE OLD HATE THAT NEVER SLUMBERS
Simmering Anti-Semitism Mars a Vibrant Hungary-Michael Kimmelman
“Hungary is a deeply traumatized society since the First World War, and the Holocaust, of course,” Mr. Gyorgy said. “After the early years of Hungarian Communism, to be Jewish was one’s private affair. Then after Communism, in the early ’90s, when the multiparty system started, we missed our chance for a public discourse about this situation. Now there’s a confluence: the instability of the government, the hatred for the prime minister and the fact that Jewish culture has become more conspicuous. A new generation of Jews has emerged, which behaves like Jews.” He was talking especially about young Jews, not necessarily religious, but also not shy about identifying themselves culturally as Jews. “To be Jewish today is a question of one’s public culture,” Mr. Gyorgy went on. During the Communist era, he explained, many Jews grew up hardly knowing they were Jewish; he was among them. “Before, I was defined in a way I could influence,” Mr. Gyorgy said. “Now, as happened in Germany and Austria, that’s over. In today’s political atmosphere, there’s less space for autonomous self-definition. You are forced to address your own Jewishness, to see it as a problem.” (NYT)
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ON CAMPUS-THE USUAL ANTI-ISRAEL SUSPECTS
The MSU's Hate Week- Reut R. Cohen and Jonathan Constantine Movroydis
It is a well-chronicled fact that modern academia is no friend of Israel. Even in this generally hostile environment, however, the University of California at Irvine stands in a class of its own.
Witness the school’s tradition of allowing the campus chapter of Muslim Student Union (MSU) to hold events whose sole aim is to denounce Israel and America, while supporting Islamic terrorist groups. Past events hosted in this mold have been titled “Hamas: the People’s Choice” and “Israel: The 4th Reich,” and have featured far-left demagogues like professors Norman Finkelstein and Ward Churchill, as well as Amir-Abdel Malik-Ali, a black imam notorious for his anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and his open championing of Hamas and Hezbollah. This year is no exception. From May 7 to May 15, the MSU will host a series of programs that will demonize Israel as a Nazi state. Titled “Never Again? The Palestinian Holocaust,” this year’s hate-fest will include speakers like Imam Amir Abdel Malik Ali and Norman Finkelstein. If past experience is any guide, this year’s event will be give Israel’s enemies much to cheer about. (Frontpage Magazine)
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JOHANN HARI’S BLOOD LIBEL
Israel is suppressing a secret it must face: How did a Jewish state founded 60 years ago end up throwing filth at cowering Palestinians? Johann Hari
 When you hit your 60th birthday, most of you will guzzle down your hormone replacement therapy with a glass of champagne and wonder if you have become everything you dreamed of in your youth. In a few weeks, the state of Israel is going to have that hangover. She will look in the mirror and think – I have a sore back, rickety knees and a gun at my waist, but I'm still standing. Yet somewhere, she will know she is suppressing an old secret she has to face. I would love to be able to crash the birthday party with words of reassurance. Israel has given us great novelists like Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua, great film-makers like Joseph Cedar, great scientific research into Alzheimer's, and great dissident journalists like Amira Hass, Tom Segev and Gideon Levy to expose her own crimes. She has provided the one lonely spot in the Middle East where gay people are not hounded and hanged, and where women can approach equality. But I can't do it. Whenever I try to mouth these words, a remembered smell fills my nostrils. It is the smell of shit. Across the occupied West Bank, raw untreated sewage is pumped every day out of the Jewish settlements, along large metal pipes, straight onto Palestinian land. From there, it can enter the groundwater and the reservoirs, and become a poison. (Independent)
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SELF RIGHTEOUS-SELF HATING JEWS
We're not celebrating Israel's anniversary
In May, Jewish organisations will be celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. This is understandable in the context of centuries of persecution culminating in the Holocaust. Nevertheless, we are Jews who will not be celebrating. Surely it is now time to acknowledge the narrative of the other, the price paid by another people for European anti-semitism and Hitler's genocidal policies. As Edward Said emphasised, what the Holocaust is to the Jews, the Naqba is to the Palestinians. In April 1948, the same month as the infamous massacre at Deir Yassin and the mortar attack on Palestinian civilians in Haifa's market square, Plan Dalet was put into operation. This authorised the destruction of Palestinian villages and the expulsion of the indigenous population outside the borders of the state. We will not be celebrating. (Guardian)
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THE ZIONISM AS NAZI LIE
An evil state that will disappear one day-By Khalid Amayreh in occupied East Jerusalem
Just as Israel inaugurated its misbegotten birth with genocidal ethnic cleansing sixty years ago, the evil brat of Zionism is marking its 60th anniversary with yet another spate of bloodletting. On Sunday, 27 April, the Israeli “Defense” Forces (a more appropriate appellation would be the Jewish Wehrmacht) murdered a mother and her four children in Beit Hanoun, a northern Gaza suburb…Well, I know that Israel has produced good scientists and built good hospitals and made impressive achievements in science, technology and other fields. But this doesn’t mean much in moral terms. Nazi Germany, too, produced many good scientists, built many good hospitals and made impressive achievements in science and technology…Indeed, what is the point of building a prosperous state on a foundation of oppression, mass murder and ethnic cleansing? Israel may appear modern, vigorous and democratic to much of the outside world. But for us, the Palestinians, Israel is and will always be a murderer, a thief and a liar. Israel stole our country away from us, ethnically cleansed our people, destroyed our homes, bulldozed our towns and villages, poisoned our water wells lest we return, and then expelled the bulk of our people to the four corners of the globe…these are the very people Israeli leaders and spokespersons now shamelessly call “terrorists.” (The Palestine Information Centre).
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FREEDOM OF SPEECH USA-EUROPE
DESPITE PROTESTS ISRAEL GUEST OF HONOUR AT TURIN BOOK FAIR
Italy: Muslim official backs president in Turin book fair spat
Turin, 6 May (AKI) - Italian president Giorgio Napolitano is right to inaugurate the Turin book fair on Thursday to affirm Israel's right to exist, according to a senior official from one of Italy's Muslim groups. "I express my complete solidarity with Italy's president of the republic, Giorgio Napolitano, on behalf of COREIS, and also with the Turin book fair's director, Ernesto Ferrero," Italian Islamic religious community vice-president Yahya Pallavicini told Adnkronos International (AKI)… To mark the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state on Thursday, the Turin book fair - Italy's most prestigious - has made Israel guest of honour at this year's event, drawing criticism from the Italian left and some Muslims. (Adnkronos)
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MIDDLE EASTERN PROSECUTOR WANTS INTERPOL TO ARREST DANISH EDITORS
Editorial: Islamic injustice
It looks like a big joke: A leading prosecutor in a Middle Eastern state is preparing a case which has as its goal to convict 10 or 11 Danish editors. The plan, in his exotic brain, is that the Danish editors shall be arrested by Interpol, turned over to the Middle Eastern state, and suffer the punishment which has been decided by the Islamic court of law.
The whole scenario is so idiotic that it initially brings about a mere quiet shake of the head — maybe also in the Danish Foreign Ministry. (translated from Jyllands-Posten)
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RACHEL’S LAW SIGNED!
The Libel Terrorism Protection Act, also known as *RACHEL's LAW, signed by Governor: By Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Queens) and Senate Deputy Majority Leader Dean G. Skelos (R-Rockville Ce Albany, NY (May 1, 2008) -- New York State Governor David Paterson yesterday signed the "Libel Terrorism Protection Act" (S.6687/A.9652), which on March 31 passed the state's Assembly and Senate unanimously.
Also known as Rachel's Law, the bill sponsored by Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Queens) and Senate Deputy Majority Leader Dean G. Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) will protect American journalists and authors from foreign lawsuits that infringe on First Amendment rights. The bill also received unprecedented support from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. "New Yorkers must be able to speak out on issues of public concern without living in fear that they will be sued outside the United States, under legal standards inconsistent with our First Amendment rights," said Governor Paterson. "This legislation will help ensure of the freedoms enjoyed by New York authors." (Acdemocracy)
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CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS’ SEEKS TO PROSECUTE BRAVE ISRAELIS FOR DEFENDING ISRAEL
Leftist Lawyers' Campaign Against Israel-Joseph Klein
As Israel celebrates its sixtieth birthday, the extreme left Center for Constitutional Rights (“CCR”) continues its attempt to use our federal courts to punish Israelis who have helped keep Israel free against terrorists determined to destroy it. CCR’s calculus is purely ideological. Israel is defined as the enemy because it is one of the closest allies of the United States and is in the foreground of the war against the kind of terrorists whom CCR loves to represent. CCR is the same loony organization that represents al Qaeda suspects in cases against the United States government. Not content with advocating on behalf of America’s terrorist enemies, however, CCR decided to get the U.S. courts involved in rebuking Israeli policies and military operations in its continuing fight for survival. One of CCR’s key allies in its judicial war against Israel is the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, an anti-Israel propaganda mill.As NGO Monitor reported, “CCR consistently disregards the context of terror, denies Israel’s right to self-defense, and accuses it of deliberately targeting civilians.” The following are examples of CCR’s cases that fit this description. (Frontpage magazine)
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Issue#1 Vol. #1 Researcher & Editor Elisa Vandernoot
HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE
Historic First: IDF Chief at Head of March to Auschwitz-Ezra HaLevi
IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi visited the Warsaw Ghetto and a Jewish cemetery in Poland ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day, which begins Wednesday night. The top IDF commander visited the Jewish cemetery in Warsaw, Poland where the Jews who died in the Warsaw Ghetto were buried. Ashkenazi reportedly stood silent for a few moments and then said: "The answer to what we see here is us, the State of Israel, the IDF and victory." Ashkenazi met with Jews who continue to live in Poland and visited the Nozyk synagogue. He also visited a memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, located at the site of the home used as a command center by Mordechai Anielewicz, the local commander of the Jewish uprising against the Nazis. (IraelNN.com).
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Prince Charles opens Krakow Jewish community center-Jonny Paul
 On a visit to Krakow in 2002, Prince Charles was moved by the plight of the remaining elderly members of the Jewish community and vowed to act to change their lives for the better. On his return to the UK, he contacted World Jewish Relief (WJR), a London-based charity that helps Jewish communities around the world at risk or in crisis, and the plan to build a community center came alive. "Many people come and promise us a future, but the prince and World Jewish Relief promised and today's ceremony shows that they also deliver, and we are so very grateful for this," said Tadeusz Jakubowicz, president of the Krakow Jewish community. The center is next to the Tempel Synagogue in central Krakow and will host social, educational and religious programs for all members of the community. It will also host exhibitions and be open to the thousands of
tourists, Jewish and non-Jewish, who visit Krakow each year. "Thanks to the vision, dedication and support of the prince, we know that this center will be valued by all members of the community and make a huge difference to their lives," WJR chairman Nigel Layton said. "His support of WJR has been truly exceptional, and we owe him a huge debt of gratitude. The anticipation of the center's opening alone has already served to begin the rejuvenation of a community that has suffered so much over the years. We hope it will enable the rich history of Jewish life in Krakow to be rekindled and nhanced." (Jpost).
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FREEDOM OF SPEECH
FOREIGN LAW AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT-Floyd Abrams
In recent years, English libel law has come to have a disturbing impact on the right of Americans to speak out. England has become a choice venue for libel plaintiffs from around the world, including those who seek to intimidate critics whose works would be protected in the U.S. but might not in that country. That English libel law has increasingly been used to stifle speech about the subject of international terrorism raises the stakes still more. The case against Rachel Ehrenfeld in England by Saudi banker Khalid Bin Mahfouz is illustrative. Her 2003 book "Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Funded and How to Stop It" dealt at length with one of the most significant (and difficult and dangerous to research) topics – the funding of terrorism. The conduct of Mr. Bin Mahfouz as a possible funder of terrorism was one of the subjects discussed in the book, which was published in New York.She sought a declaratory judgment in New York determining that the English judgment was not enforceable here, and that her work was protected under American law. But the New York Court of Appeals determined that her suit could not be heard under state law. Any change in that law, the court concluded, was up to the New York legislature. To the surprise of those who denigrate the ability of the New York legislature to act decisively, both the Assembly and its Senate have unanimously passed a bill that would give Ms. Ehrenfeld and other citizens who are sued for libel abroad the right to obtain a declaration here that their works are protected under American law. (WSJ)
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An Anatomy of Surrender: Motivated by fear and multiculturalism, too many Westerners are acquiescing to creeping sharia –Bruce Bawer
The elite media regularly underreport fundamentalist Muslim misbehavior or obfuscate its true nature. After the knighting of Rushdie in 2007 unleashed yet another wave of international Islamist mayhem, Tim Rutten wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “If you’re wondering why you haven’t been able to follow all the columns and editorials in the American press denouncing all this homicidal nonsense, it’s because there haven’t been any.” Or consider the riots that gripped immigrant suburbs in France in the autumn of 2005. These uprisings were largely assertions of Muslim authority over Muslim neighborhoods, and thus clearly jihadist in character. Yet weeks passed before many American press outlets mentioned them—and when they did, they de-emphasized the rioters’ Muslim identity (few cited the cries of “Allahu akbar,” for instance). Instead, they described the violence as an outburst of frustration over economic injustice. When polls and studies of Muslims appear, the media often spin the results absurdly or drop them down the memory hole after a single news cycle. Journalists celebrated the results of a 2007 Pew poll showing that 80 percent of American Muslims aged 18 to 29 said that they opposed suicide bombing—even though the flip side, and the real story, was that a double-digit percentage of young American Muslims admitted that they supported it. u.s. muslims assimilated, opposed to extremism, the Washington Post rejoiced, echoing USA Today’s american muslims reject extremes. A 2006 Daily Telegraph survey showed that 40 percent of British Muslims wanted sharia in Britain—yet British reporters often write as though only a minuscule minority embraced such views. (City Journal)
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No Jihadis Here! -Robert Spencer
Last week the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counter Terrorism Center issued new guidelines forbidding personnel from using the words “jihad” or “jihadist” in reference to Islamic terrorism and its perpetrators. A Homeland Security report tellingly entitled “Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims” explains that this initiative comes from a concern not to offend moderate Muslims. By calling the terrorists “jihadists,” American officials could be “unintentionally portraying terrorists, who lack moral and religious legitimacy, as brave fighters, legitimate soldiers or spokesmen for ordinary Muslims.” Using the term “jihad” may not be “strategic.” Why not? “Because it glamorizes terrorism, imbues terrorists with religious authority they do not have and damages relations with Muslims around the world.” American officials “should not concede the terrorists’ claim that they are legitimate adherents of Islam.”Unfortunately, other illegitimate adherents of Islam, at least by Bush Administration standards, include some of the most prominent scholars of religious law in Islamic history -- many of whose writings remain influential in the Islamic world today. One Islamic jurist, Ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani, declared that “jihad is a precept of Divine institution” -- and he didn’t mean the struggle to avoid sin that the State Department envisions. Religious war was the only thing he had in mind: “It is preferable not to begin hostilities with the enemy before having invited the latter to embrace the religion of Allah except where the enemy attacks first. They have the alternative of either converting to Islam or paying the poll tax (jizya), short of which war will be declared against them.” (Human Events)
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EUROPE
ATTACKS IMMINENT?
German Islamist Appears in New Jihad Video - Matthias Gebauer and Yassin Musharbash
Two short films have appeared on the Internet featuring the German Islamist Eric B. in which he calls his "brothers" to join the jihad. The authorities have been hunting him for weeks, fearful that he could be preparing a terrorist attack in Kabul. The video messages are fanning those fears. The news spread like wildfire through the offices of Germany's intelligence agencies. Two new terrorist videos had turned up on the Turkish-language Web site "Time for Martyrdom," which has become an important mouthpiece for Islamist propaganda. And once again there were was a clear connection to Germany. German terrorist investigators are alarmed at the new videos. After an initial assessment, it was clear that the two short films feature the German Islamist Eric B. from Neuenkirchen in Saarland. For the past few weeks, a publicity campaign in Kabul has focused on finding him and his presumed accomplice Houssain al-M. (Der Speigel Online)
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Freezing assets of terror suspects 'unlawful and unconstitutional'-Nick Allen
The Government’s anti-terrorism strategy was dealt a devastating blow today as the High Court ruled that its powers to freeze suspects’ assets were unlawful and unconstitutional. A judge said the measures, introduced when Gordon Brown was Chancellor, had not been thought through properly and Parliament had been “bypassed”. ..Their solicitors said the ruling was “of the highest constitutional importance” and showed the Government had ignored Parliamentary safeguards designed to protect the fundamental rights of British citizens.They said the asset-freezing regime was “absurd and draconian”. In a statement the men’s solicitors said: “The Government have dishonoured their pledge of accountability and oversight through Parliament.“The men are subject to unprecedented levels of intrusion and control without end or review. “We have the madness of civil servants checking Tesco receipts, a child having to ask for a receipt every time it does a chore by running to the shops for a pint of milk and a neighbour possibly committing a criminal offence by lending a lawnmower.” Mr Justice Collins said of the freezing orders: “Frankly they are yet another example of an immediate reaction without it being thought through properly, which is rather the pattern of the anti-terrorism measures.” The Treasury said it was “disappointed” by the ruling and would appeal. (The Telegraph)
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The War on Brigitte Bardot- by Jacob Laskin
In the 1960s, Brigitte Bardot was France’s national icon, a pouty-lipped poster girl for the glories of her home country. So it is a sign of how radically times have changed that yesterday’s silver-screen darling is today’s enemy of the people. Bardot’s “crimes,” such as they are, are straightforward: She has committed the sin of speaking frankly and unapologetically about her country’s hostile Muslim immigrant population and – what is evidently worse – questioning the compatibility of some Muslim religious practices with Western society. Common sense, one might think, or least subjects fit for fruitful debate. Not in modern France. Last week, the erstwhile cinema siren went on trial on the charge of inciting “racial hatred against Muslims.” If convicted, she could face a two-month suspended prison sentence and nearly $24,000 in fines. The basis for the charge is utterly bogus. It stems from a letter that Bardot wrote to President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2006, in which she complained about the practices of Islamic immigrants. In particular, Bardot was put off by the ritual of Eid al-Adha, a Muslim feast in which sheep and goats are slaughtered by having their throats slit. A longtime animal-rights activist, Bardot found the practice abominable. Her mistake was in thinking that she had the freedom to say so. But as France struggles to control a large (Muslims make up nearly ten percent of the country) and increasingly radicalized Muslim population critics of Islamism are finding themselves more actively persecuted by national authorities than the Islamists themselves. (FrontPage Magazine).
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ANTISEMITISM
HAMAS: JEWS PLANNED HOLOCAUST- Haviv Rettig
Jewish leaders concocted the mass murder of handicapped Jews in order to keep from having to support them, and this murder is what the Jews term "the Holocaust," according to a documentary special that aired on April 18 on Hamas's Al Aqsa television station. Palestinian Media Watch located and translated the contents of the footage, which it uploaded to YouTube under the headline "Hamas: Jews planned Holocaust." According to the documentary's narrator, Israel's first prime minister David Ben Gurion decided that Jewish "disabled and handicapped are a burden to the state," after which "the Satanic Jews" - the film cuts to a picture of a hassidic Jew - "thought up an evil plot to be rid of the burden of disabled and handicapped" - the film then cuts to piles of emaciated corpses - "in twisted criminal ways." (JPost)
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Wiesenthal Centre to Geneva Book Fair President: "It is Sad That, So Near to UN Headquarters' Debate on Racism, This Exhibit is Promoting Hate Literature"
Geneva, 30 April 2008
In a letter to Geneva Book Fair Organization President, Pierre-Marcel Favre (Fondation Orgexpo), the Simon Wiesenthal Centre's Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, explained his annual cooperation "with the authorities of the Frankfurt Book Fair to ensure the removal of hate literature that violates exhibitors' contracts and European provisions on incitement."The letter noted that Samuels, "while participating in the Preparatory Commission for the United Nations Durban Review Conference on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, took the opportunity to attend the opening of the Geneva Book Fair."He expessed astonishment "to find, among the speakers, a reported Holocaust revisionist, chief-editor of the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram, Mohammed Salmawy," adding that "as Egypt is the Book Fair's Guest of Honour, I visited the official Egyptian stand (Flaubert 1), where I was confronted with a Star of David covered volume entitled "Israel: its Actions and Words?" by Dr. Nahmet Ahmed Fouad, published by Nahdet Misr (Revolutionary Egypt), Cairo. The book claims to expose the conspiracy and provide advice for a solution." (Simon Wisenthal Centre News).
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The UN Stops Pretending: Can there be any doubt now?-Neal M. Sher
Richard Falk, a Jewish international law professor from Princeton, has made headlines over the years by unabashedly condemning Israel, going so far as repeating a favorite line of the hate-Israel crowd that equates Israeli treatment of the Palestinians with Nazi atrocities. Can there be any doubt where he's coming from and why he was so eager to join his ideological comrades at the UN?
Despite loud, and clearly justified, protests from the Jewish community, the UN announced that Falk will be the next Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories, with the specific charge of documenting Israel's violations of international law. Since Palestinian offenses are beyond its mandate and there is no comparable council or committee to report on those crimes, there is a built-in noxious bias to anything emanating from the rapporteur. Falk won't disappoint his benefactors. (INN.com).
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Why Europeans Should Support Israel - Fjordman
One of the most frustrating things to watch is the powerful anti-Israeli and sometimes outright anti-Semitic current that is prevalent in too much of Europe’s media. Bat Ye’or’s predictions about Arab anti-Semitism spreading in Europe as the continent’s Islamization and descent into Eurabia continues have so far proved depressingly accurate. This trend needs to be fought, vigorously, by all serious European anti-Jihadists. Not only because it is immoral and unfair to Israelis, which it is, but also because those who assist it are depriving Europeans of the opportunity to fully grasp the threat and understand the nature of the Jihad that is now targeting much of Europe as well… The Holocaust was an unspeakable crime. It also did massive damage to Europe’s own identity and cultural confidence, and is one of the major causes of Europe’s seeming inability to withstand the ongoing Islamic Jihad.
As Hugh Fitzgerald notes, “Fortunately for so many, and for the Arabs, the victory of Israel in the Six-Day War promptly provided a reason to depict Jews as villains, not victims. This found an eager audience of Europeans, who were already eager for psychological reasons to find fault with Jews so as to avoid thinking unduly about the behavior of many European peoples and states during the war. [...] The damage done to the morale of Europe because of the destruction of European Jewry has been great. If Western Europe, or the West generally, were after all that has happened to permit Israel to go under, Europe would not recover.”
He warns that those who believe sacrificing Israel would in any way stop the global Jihad are very wrong. On the contrary, “The loss of Israel would fill the Arabs and Muslims with such triumphalism that their Jihad in Western Europe and elsewhere (including the Americas) would receive a gigantic boost. The duty is to make sure that Islam covers the globe; that Islam dominates, and Muslims rule.” (GlobalPolitician).
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