Editor and Researcher Elisa Vandernoot

American Freedom Alliance Weekly Gazette

THE WEEK AT A GLANCE

This Week's Editorial

IN DEFENSE OF BRITISH PETROLEUM
By Avi Davis

Is it wonder that the oil conglomerate British Petroleum is not winning any popularity contests lately?  After all, this is the moment that our chattering classes have been eagerly anticipating for decades  - the whale-like oil companies finally surfacing and exposing a vulnerable flank to a host of upraised harpoons.  So successful has the media mauling and demonization of the corporate giant been, that you would think the company is the very re-incarnation of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, determined to blacken our seas and stain our sands with its slimy, viscous poison.

So anyone trying to build a case for the London-based multinational during its agonizing and protracted auto de fé, does not have an enviable task.  After all, who really wants to speak a good word about a company that has facilitated the worst oil spill of the past 40 years –  an episode that may be on its way to becoming the most calamitous man made environmental disaster in history?

Well, frankly, I do. 

Because British Petroleum, whether appreciated today or not, has been one of the singularly great success stories of the world’s entrepreneurial classes, building an almost unparalleled  record of success as a spearhead of Western civilization.  It has brought wealth and prosperity, not simply to the West, but to those countries where it has located its operations and created models for how corporations can overcome institutional obstacles.  It has shown how an indomitable spirit , accompanied by bold vision can achieve results that those who complain endlessly about corporate rapaciousness, only dream about.

From its founding in 1901 by William Knox D’Arcy, and then through the skilful leadership of Charles Greenway and his successor John Cadmon, the Anglo- Persian Oil Company, (renamed Anglo-Iranian Oil in 1935 and then again British Petroleum in 1953) has undertaken exploration of a vital world energy source in countries largely hostile to either exploration or development.  

We shouldn’t forget that the discovery of oil in Persia in the early years of the 20^th Century did not occur after some Oriental counterpart of Jed Clampett, shooting buck skin on a desert sand dune, inexplicably struck it rich.  It took nearly a decade of painstaking and often fruitless exploration  before oil was discovered - and with those efforts  initially producing only pitiful returns.   That it eventually succeeded so well, is testament not just to the vision and acumen of corporate leaders, but the drive of the West to expand. For with that expansion was carried a value system that came to dominate the world and  spread the bounty and promise of Western civilization.

Of course even the mere mention of the name of “Anglo Persian Oil” can arouse the most acerbic vitriol from the left, who regard the fact that Europeans once sought to develop and exploit the Persian oil fields, as a badge of colonial shame.  Yet, whatever you want to say about the men who greedily eyed profits in the Persian Gulf, there can be no question that their undertakings had a transformative impact on the world, raising living standards wherever they went and making possible important advances in health, transportation and communications. 

Oil’s less benevolent impact on our world  -  the mark of environmental degradation- might stand as its deepest indictment.  But the industry, it should be remembered, did not produce the demand itself; it simply responded to it.  As Western technology developed and prosperity accelerated, oil, replacing coal, became a vital piece in achieving progress in almost all fields of human endeavor.  That our society has now identified oil as a major pollutant and as a threat to our long term survival, should not be thrown in the faces of companies such as BP.  They are not responsible for inventing our luxuries.  They only help to make them move.

Does any of this excuse BP from its responsibilities to facilitate the containment and clean up of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico?.  Of course not.  But the company does not deserve to stand accused as a scourge of humanity, to be hounded out of business for the obscene presumption of seeking to take advantage of our desperate need for a reliable source of energy.

Perhaps President Obama, in his apparently insatiable need to lacerate and lecture BP, should then consider something pertinent about his own past:  Neither Kenya , Indonesia nor Hawaii, all places that figure prominently in his curriculum vitae, would have produced societies capable of giving either him or his father the education and opportunities they had, without the  participation and even leadership of companies such as BP.

Lets hope that the endless gushing in the Gulf ends soon.  But lets also hope that the same endless anti-corporate gushing in Washington, offering a different, but no less contaminating level of pollution, ends even sooner.

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Avi Davis is the President of the American Freedom Alliance in Los Angeles. His writings and blog entries can be found at The Intermediate Zone and the Los Angeles Jewish Journal Blog  On The Other Hand.

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Avi Davis can be contacted at adavis@americanfreedomalliance.org

NEWS: EUROPE AND AMERICA

Supreme Court upholds law barring "material support" to terrorist groups-AP
The Supreme Court has upheld a federal law that bars "material support" to foreign terrorist organizations, rejecting a free speech challenge from humanitarian aid groups. WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has upheld a federal law that bars "material support" to foreign terrorist organizations, rejecting a free speech challenge from humanitarian aid groups. The court ruled 6-3 Monday that the government may prohibit all forms of aid to designated terrorist groups, even if the support consists of training and advice about entirely peaceful and legal activities. Material support intended even for benign purposes can help a terrorist group in other ways, Chief Justice John Roberts said in his majority opinion. "Such support frees up other resources within the organization that may be put to violent ends," Roberts said. Justice Stephen Breyer took the unusual step of reading his dissent aloud in the courtroom. Breyer said he rejects the majority's conclusion "that the Constitution permits the government to prosecute the plaintiffs criminally" for providing instruction and advice about the terror groups' lawful political objectives. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor joined the dissent. The law allows medicine and religious materials to go to groups on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations. (Foxnews)

Iranian National Pleads Guilty to Attempting to Export Munitions from the United States-DOJ
Omid Khalili, an Iranian national, pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama to attempting to illegally export fighter jet or military aircraft parts from the United States to Iran. The guilty plea was announced by David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Kenyen R. Brown, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama; John Morton, Department of Homeland Security, Assistant Secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); and Sharon Woods, Director of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS). Khalili along with defendant "Masun," whose last name is unknown, was charged in a nine-count indictment returned on Jan. 28, 2010, with conspiracy, money laundering, smuggling, as well as violations of the Arms Export Control Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Khalili was arrested by federal agents in March 2010 upon his arrival in Miami. Masun remains at large. According to Khalili’s factual proffer and the documents filed in court, Khalili, along with his co-conspirator Masun, have been actively working with the Iranian government to procure military items for the Iranian government. In November 2009, Khalili and Masun contacted an undercover agent (hereinafter known as "U/CI") seeking parts for the military aircraft for export to Iran and, thereafter, began having regular e-mail contact with U/CI regarding the requested aircraft parts. (DOJ)

EXCLUSIVE: 10 of 17 Afghans Who Deserted U.S. Air Force Base Remain Missing-Jana Winters
Ten of 17 Afghan military deserters who walked away from a training program on a U.S. Air Force base in Texas remain at large, sources close to the situation told Fox News on Friday, and seven of the men have been accounted for. en of 17 Afghan military deserters who walked away from a training program on a U.S. Air Force base in Texas remain at large, sources close to the situation told Fox News on Friday, and seven of the men have been accounted for. The 17 deserters went AWOL from Lackland Air Force Base, where foreign military officers who are training to become pilots are taught English, according to a "Be-on-the-Lookout" (BOLO) bulletin issued on Wednesday. Sources said that as of November 2009, one of the deserters was in Canada, one is now a lawful permanent resident in the U.S., one has left the country and another four are in federal custody and in removal proceedings. The other 10 remain unaccounted for. On Wednesday night, the BOLO bulletin listing all 17 deserters was distributed to local and federal law enforcement officials and joint terrorism task force members across the country. The Afghan officers and enlisted men have security badges that give them access to secure U.S. defense installations, according to the lookout bulletin, "Afghan Military Deserters in CONUS [Continental U.S.]," written by Naval Criminal Investigative Service in Dallas and obtained by FoxNews.com. (Foxnews)

Inside the Muslim Eton: 20 hour days starting at 3.45am with the aim of producing Muslim elite of leaders-Edna Fernandes
The clock strikes 11am and boys spill out of classrooms into the corridor to move on to their next lesson.
There is no noise and no jostling. Instead they walk in an orderly manner, heads bowed respectfully and eyes downcast to avoid my gaze. The boys, all aged between 13 and 19, are dressed in ankle-length white salwar kameez and white skullcaps. Their feet are bare. For this is no ordinary school. This is Darul Uloom, a Muslim madrassa or religious school, set in the pretty Kent village of Chislehurst. It is one of 166 Muslim schools in Britain today. Of those, 26 are Darul Ulooms, religious seminaries rooted in the Islamic orthodoxy of sharia. According to an ICM poll, almost half of British Muslims wish to send their children to Muslim-only schools. ‘Our parents represent the cross-section of British Muslim society,’ the mufti – an Islamic scholar – of one leading school in northern England told me. These parents include teachers, doctors and shopkeepers. Secretive and protective, Darul Uloom schools have been operating in Britain for 25 years. But since 9/11 they have faced closer scrutiny by police who fear they may be academies of radicalism – something the headmasters deny. Now, for the first time, a Darul Uloom has opened its doors to a British newspaper and allowed The Mail on Sunday exclusive access. Most Britons may have never heard of such schools. But their significance in the Islamic world is paramount and it is shaping young Muslims in Britain today. Islamic experts regard Darul Uloom as the second most important Islamic academic institution in the world after Cairo’s Al Azhar university. The schools aim to create new leaders of the Islamic world. In terms of its significance, Darul Uloom is no less than the Eton of Islam. The first Darul Uloom or ‘House of Knowledge’ was set up in Deoband, northern India, in 1866. (Dailymail.co.uk)

Norway: Sharia courts a possibility
possibility.html#more In the UK, local Sharia councils have been operating for many years, but in 2007 the Muslim Arbitration Tribunals (MAT) were established. Recognized by the UK's justice ministry and the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Sharia councils were officially allowed to judge in civil - not criminal - cases, based on the British Arbitration Act of 1996. They judge cases relating to economy, divorce, domestic violence, inheritance and forced marriage - with the framework of British law. "It's probable that this will exist in Norway. It wouldn't surprise me if it already exists. Imams counsel Muslims today, and it's natural that they use Sharia because it's the legal tradition they're accustomed to," says director Tor Langbach of the Courts Administration. In the spring he visited the Muslim Arbitration Tribunals in London. There more and more Muslims solve conflicts using Islamic law instead of going to British courts. The headquarters are in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Bradford and Nuneaton. MAT say they're working on setting up a new branch in Scotland. Currently they have not received inquiries from Norway, but were visited by Muslims from both Belgium and the Netherlands. On their website, MAT assures that they offer 'a real and true opportunity to settle disputes in accordance with Islamic Sacred Law with the knowledge that the outcome as determined by MAT will be binding and enforceable'. This requires that both parties want it. (Islamineurope)

Dutch court convicts five Somalis of piracy
A Dutch court has convicted five Somalis of piracy and sentenced them to five years in prison in the first case to come to trial in Europe.
The five were convicted of attacking the Turkish-owned freight ship Samanyolu with automatic weapons and rockets in the Gulf of Aden in January last year. Prosecutors asked for a seven-year sentence, but the judge, Klein Wolterink, said he took into account the difficult conditions in Somalia that led the men to piracy. “It is a lucky coincidence that nobody was killed or wounded in the attack,” said Mr Wolterink. The five men, aged between 25 and 45, each pleaded not guilty. Other Somali piracy suspects are being held in France, Spain, Germany and America. Kenya has convicted 18 pirates since 2007. Sayid Ala Garaar, 39, one of the men convicted, protested against the verdict from the dock.He said: “The Netherlands does not like Muslims. We know that … it’s not legal.” (Telegraph.co.uk)

ACADEMIC FREEDOM

Dust Bowl Dust-Off-Ashley Thorne
Oil in the Gulf has gripped America with questions as to the causes and effects of environmental disasters. A New York Times article this weekend contemplated where the current crisis ranks among America’s worst such disasters. The Times quoted Donald Worster, who has been deemed an expert authority in environmental history. Worster’s 1979 book Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s is considered the definitive text on the severe dust storms that plagued the Western United States in the 30s. In 1980, Columbia University awarded the book the Bancroft Prize for American History. But another environmental expert sees errors and bias in Worster’s acclaimed work. UCLA geography professor Stanley Trimble is the author of “If the Science Is Solid, Why Stoop?” (PDF) in the latest issue of Academic Questions, where he lists five ways that Climategate illustrates a double standard in environmental science. He has an article this week in The Chronicle of Higher Education with Mark Bauerlein, Mohamed Gad-el-Hak, Wayne Grody, and Bill McKelvey, “We Must Stop the Avalanche of Low-Quality Research.” And this month, he published an important commentary in the journal Aeolian Research (subscription required), reviewing the 25th anniversary edition of Dust Bowl. When the book originally appeared, Trimble recalls, it struck him as a “political tract.” As he notes in this review, the new edition compels the same verdict: his essay cites a similar plethora of errors and pervasive ideological bias. Worster’s thesis, he says, “is that the Dust Bowl was created by a bunch of mostly ignorant, greedy, gullible, unethical (but “Puritan”) yokels, driven by the American capitalistic ethic of acquisition.” (NAS)

MEDIA BIAS

UN Screens Anti-Israel Flotilla Film, Israel Denied Response-Maayana Miskin
The United Nations Correspondents Association recently screened a film for foreign journalists that purported to show Israel attacking innocent activists. An Israeli request to show a second film that would put the events of the first in a more accurate light was originally granted, then denied at the last minute. . The screening was organized by the president of the Correspondents Association, Giampaolo Pioli, who invited correspondents to see an “Israeli attack on human rights activists.” The film shown was shot by one of the passengers on a Gaza-bound flotilla that aimed to break Israel's naval blockade of the Hamas-controlled region. Israeli commandos boarded the boats after they refused, when asked peacefully, to turn aside and dock in Ashdod. On one ship, the Mavi Marmara, soldiers were violently attacked by Turkish activists wielding knives and blunt instruments, leading to a clash in which nine passengers were killed and several passengers and soldiers were wounded. (INN)

How the British media get their kicks-Julie Burchill
In Britain, tabloids get excited about roistering royals, fickle footballers and sex maniac MPs. But broadsheet papers only really get excited about Israel.
Over here in Britain, the tabloid newspapers get excited about roistering royals, fickle footballers, priapic pop stars and sex maniac MPs, among other things. They get excited about celebrity love-rats, three-in-a-bed romps and cocaine hells. They’re pretty excitable all round, bless ’em! But some of the broadsheet newspapers only really get excited – really excited, parasexual excited – about one thing: Israel behaving badly! Of course, one hack’s bad is another hack’s baaad, and of course my first reaction was, “Ooo, which part of ‘don’t mess with Israel’ don’t these bed-wetters understand?” On the phone later with my equally philo-Semitic gentile friend, she predicted that “if there’s any English on board, one of them will have a hyphen. You wait and see!” I must point out here that unlike the situ in your gorgeous country, having a hyphenated name here doesn’t mean you’re the proud son of someone, i.e. Ben-Whoever. Rather, it means that you’re an upper-class, peasant-exploiting, in-bred half-wit. (Jpost)

New IHH incitement Video: ‘We Will Throw Them into the Sea’-Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
The Israeli Foreign Ministry exposed another video from the Mavi Mamara ship Friday, this time showing IHH leader Bulent Yildirim inciting followers, “If you [Israel] send the commandos, we will throw you down from here and you will be humiliated in front of the whole world. If they board our ship, we will throw them into the sea, Allah willing!" The footage, discovered among the possessions of one of the passengers, also catches an Egypian legislator joining others to chant, “Martyrs marching into Gaza by the millions.” The film adds more proof to incriminating evidence that the hard core of 40 terror activists on the top deck of the ship conspired and incited to assault and kidnap Navy commandos. It further contradicts edited videos by the IHH and Free Gaza activists depicting the commandos' self-defense as if they were initiating the attacks. (INN)

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

One year on Iranian opposition pays tribute to Neda Agha Soltan-Martin Fletcher
Tomorrow will mark exactly one year since Neda Agha Soltan ignored the pleas of her anxious mother and joined a million other Iranians protesting against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s theft of the presidential election eight days earlier. She had no idea that she would win global support at the cost of her life. The pretty young student was shot by a government militiaman. She collapsed on a Tehran pavement, eyes wide open, blood spewing from her mouth, those around beseeching her not to die. Mobile telephone footage of her death was posted on the internet and flashed around the world. Ms Soltan, 26, instantly became a global symbol of the opposition’s courage and the regime’s brutality. Her name was invoked by President Obama and other world leaders, while her portrait appeared on T-shirts and placards at demonstrations outside Iranian embassies. She inspired songs, poems and films; her fame a measure of the damage she caused to a regime that purports to champion Islamic values but butchers those who oppose it. The other is the extent of its efforts to suppress Ms Soltan’s story; redoubled in the run-up to tomorrow’s anniversary. The regime has repeatedly sought to jam satellite broadcasts by Voice of America’s Persian News Network of a new HBO film about Ms Soltan’s life featuring interviews with her family. When it failed, it simply switched off the power in whole areas of Tehran, according to Antony Thomas, theBritish director of For Neda, which had its first London screening on Thursday night. (Thetimes.co.uk)

Back Channels: Boldly confronting the problems of Islam-Kevin Ferris
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a big believer in freedom of speech. So she practices it daily, fearlessly, and at great personal cost. "Every important freedom that Western individuals possess rests on free expression," she writes in her new book, Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations. "We observe what is wrong, and we say what is wrong, in order that it may be corrected."
What Hirsi Ali wants to correct most are certain aspects of Islam, the religion and culture she practiced growing up in Somalia. The religion and culture she abandoned in order to escape an arranged marriage. The religion and culture she says often conflict with Western values. And in order to make the necessary corrections, she outlines the wrongs in Nomad: "Islam is not just a belief; it is a way of life, a violent way of life. Islam is imbued with violence, and it encourages violence." "[A] strict interpretation of Islam is preparation for bigotry, violence, and oppression." "It is part of Muslim culture to oppress women ...""All human beings are equal, but all cultures and religions are not. ... The culture of the Western Enlightenment is better." (Emphasis in original.) There is a price for speaking one's mind about Islam, as Hirsi Ali is aware. She wrote and coproduced the 10-minute 2004 film Submission (a translation of the word Islam) about the treatment of Muslim women. Three months after the film aired on Dutch television, coproducer Theo van Gogh was shot eight times while cycling to work. His jihadist killer, Mohammed Bouyeri, tried decapitating the filmmaker and then plunged two knives into him. One knife pinned a five-page note to the body that, among other things, threatened Hirsi Ali's life. She has been in hiding, or under 24-hour guard, since. Violence, threats, and fear take their toll, she told me during a June 3 interview before she spoke to the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia at the Union League. (Philadelphiainquirer)

Muslim states push for action on 'Islamophobia'- STEVEN EDWARDS, CANWEST NEWS SERVICE
Muslim governments on Wednesday pressed the United Nations to step up investigations of Western countries to root out what they call "Islamophobia" -- defined by them as discrimination against people of the Muslim faith. Delegates from Islamic countries, such as Egypt, Iran and Pakistan, drafted new guidelines for the UN's freedom-of-religion investigator that say Western diplomats aim to shield Islam from commentary Muslims might deem derogatory. During a debate in front of the UN Human Rights Council, they also charged that the UN's anti-racism investigator -- in a report he tabled about his activities -- had not focused enough on what they called the rising incidence of discrimination against Muslims in Western countries. According to the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the anti-racism investigator should focus on what it called "contemporary" racism, "particularly in Western societies." The group said Islamophobia was growing "particularly in the countries of the North." Egypt and Libya also charged that Muslims were targets of racism and discrimination in Western countries. "People of foreign descent, such as Africans, Arabs, Muslims and Asians, do face derogatory stereotyping and stigmatization in an environment of victimization and xenophobia and, at times, violence," said Ahmed Ihab Gamaleldin, the Egyptian delegate. From Ottawa, Canada called for a "constructive approach" to ensuring the right of freedom of religion. (Canada.com)

ANTISEMITISM

New Latma Video on Way to Record Hits-Hillel Fendel
Latma, the satirical group that brought you the wildly-popular “We Con the World” until Youtube attempted to remove it from its sites, has struck again. It has produced another shoe-string budget musical video entitled, “The Three Terrors: Jihad is Sweet, Jihad is Fun” – based on a famous musical production of the The Three Tenors (Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo and José Carreras) singing “Funiculi, Funicula.” The clip has already garnered 400,000 hits, in its various versions, in 48 hours. Excerpts from the lyrics, sung by characters depicting Iranian dictator Ahmedinajad, Syrian dictator Assad, and Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan:
I [Ahmedinajad] wish to thank Obama for his patience, for playing dumb, so now I have the peace of mind to build me the nuclear bomb... Terror, terror, that’s my cup of tea; terror gives us love and sympathy - to beat the West…”
The clip has been uploaded in several versions, including one with an Arabic translation, so that if one is removed, the others will still remain. One of the versions includes the full weekly Latma “TV news broadcast” satire, in which a European Union representative is quoted giving the “real” reason why terrorist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was allowed to walk freely in Dubai before being apparently assassinated by the Mossad, and why the EU has come down hard on Israel for apparently forging passports to this end. (INN)

Support Israel: if it goes down, we all go down-José María Aznar
Anger over Gaza is a distraction. We cannot forget that Israel is the West’s best ally in a turbulent region. For far too long now it has been unfashionable in Europe to speak up for Israel. In the wake of the recent incident on board a ship full of anti-Israeli activists in the Mediterranean, it is hard to think of a more unpopular cause to champion. In an ideal world, the assault by Israeli commandos on the Mavi Marmara would not have ended up with nine dead and a score wounded. In an ideal world, the soldiers would have been peacefully welcomed on to the ship. In an ideal world, no state, let alone a recent ally of Israel such as Turkey, would have sponsored and organised a flotilla whose sole purpose was to create an impossible situation for Israel: making it choose between giving up its security policy and the naval blockade, or risking the wrath of the world. In our dealings with Israel, we must blow away the red mists of anger that too often cloud our judgment. A reasonable and balanced approach should encapsulate the following realities: first, the state of Israel was created by a decision of the UN. Its legitimacy, therefore, should not be in question. Israel is a nation with deeply rooted democratic institutions. It is a dynamic and open society that has repeatedly excelled in culture, science and technology. José María Aznar was Prime Minister of Spain, 1996-2004 (Timesonline.co.uk)

Israel and the Surrender of the West-SHELBY STEELE
One of the world's oldest stories is playing out before our eyes: The Jews are being scapegoated again.
The most interesting voice in all the fallout surrounding the Gaza flotilla incident is that sanctimonious and meddling voice known as "world opinion." At every turn "world opinion," like a school marm, takes offense and condemns Israel for yet another infraction of the world's moral sensibility. And this voice has achieved an international political legitimacy so that even the silliest condemnation of Israel is an opportunity for self-congratulation. Rock bands now find moral imprimatur in canceling their summer tour stops in Israel (Elvis Costello, the Pixies, the Gorillaz, the Klaxons). A demonstrator at an anti-Israel rally in New York carries a sign depicting the skull and crossbones drawn over the word "Israel." White House correspondent Helen Thomas, in one of the ugliest incarnations of this voice, calls on Jews to move back to Poland. And of course the United Nations and other international organizations smugly pass one condemnatory resolution after another against Israel while the Obama administration either joins in or demurs with a wink. This is something new in the world, this almost complete segregation of Israel in the community of nations. And if Helen Thomas's remarks were pathetic and ugly, didn't they also point to the end game of this isolation effort: the nullification of Israel's legitimacy as a nation? There is a chilling familiarity in all this. One of the world's oldest stories is playing out before our eyes: The Jews are being scapegoated again. (WSJ)

In an England Suburb, Teaching the Kids Jihad and Jew Hatred-Carol Gould
Recently I spoke at a British school conference on world terrorism in the suburb of Bushey. In the current climate of worldwide Israel-hatred and America-bashing, it registered as a rather frightening experience.
At the evening opening of the conference, I was in the audience. Outspoken Muslim activist Inayat Bunglawala, who once wrote to the Jewish Chronicle [1] that the creation of Israel was one of the great mistakes of the past century, was one of the speakers. On this occasion he railed against the Jewish state and the U.S., as did pockets of audience members sitting near me. He made it appear that America had been attacking Muslim cities, hence the 9/11 al-Qaeda attack. I was jumping out of my skin. He spoke a stream of inaccuracies in front of this large, mostly young audience; many of them were toddlers when 9/11 took place and have no historical perspective about thedecades of radical Islamic terror [2] that culminated in the attacks of September 11, 2001. I wagered that if I had said “Klinghoffer [3]” to the crowd, they would have laughed.There were several Israelis and Jewish students in the front row who got into a shouting match with the jihadists sitting near them, and the front rows engaged in a kind of verbal mini-pogrom. Every manner of invective was promulgated, including from one audience member the mantra that “a bunch of Ukrainian and Russian Jews converged on Palestine after the war who stole the land.” (Pajamasmedia)

The lesson of a Jewish cemetery-MARK STEYN: The ‘sanctity’ of this burial ground in Tangiers speaks volume
Thanks to the wonders of globalization, I’m writing this in a fairly decrepit salon de thé off the rue de la Liberté in Tangiers, enjoying a coffee and a stale croissant grilled and flattened into a panini. What could be more authentically Moroccan? For some reason, the napkins are emblazoned with “Gracias por su visita.” Through a blizzard of flies, I can just about make out the plasma TV up in the corner on which Jimmy Carter, dubbed into Arabic, is denouncing Israel. Al Jazeera doesn’t so much cover the Zionist Entity as feast on it, hour after hour, without end. So here, at the western frontier of the Muslim world (if you don’t include Yorkshire), the only news that matters is from a tiny strip of land barely wider at its narrowest point than a rural Canadian township way down the other end of the Mediterranean. Notwithstanding saturation coverage of the “Massacre In The Med” (as the front page headline in Britain’s Daily Mirror put it), there are other Jewish stories in the news. This one caught my eye in Canada’s Shalom Life: “No danger to the Jewish cemeteries in Tangiers.” Apparently, the old Jewish hospital in this ancient port city was torn down a couple of months back, and the Moroccan Jewish diaspora back in Toronto worried that their graveyards might be next on the list. Not to worry, Abraham Azancot assured Shalom Life readers. The Jewish cemetery on the rue du Portugal is perfectly safe. “Its sanctity has consistently been respected by the local government that is actually providing the community with resources to assist in its current grooming.” (Macleans.ca)

Methodists set to clash with Jewish community in UK-Jonny Paul
Board of Deputies of British Jews says Methodist document could damage relations.
LONDON - The Methodist Church of Britain is on a collision course with Jewish community leaders after being accused of producing a document against Israel to debate the conflict at its annual conference in Portsmouth later this month. The church, the fourth largest Christian denomination in Britain, is set to have a “debate on Israel-Palestine” then vote on whether to implement a boycott of products and services from the West Bank. Written by group of Methodist clergy, academics and peace activists, the document, titled “Justice for Palestine and Israel,” has been accused of being selective and “full of historical distortions and bias.” The Board of Deputies of British Jews has expressed concern saying the document could damage Jewish-Methodist relations in the UK. Board chief executive, Jon Benjamin, has written to the president of the Methodist Conference to ask for an urgent meeting. “This deeply disturbing paper is full of historical distortions and bias,” Benjamin told The Jerusalem Post. “That's unsurprising, given that its main sources appear to be anti-Zionist campaigners. Especially troubling is the suggestion that the Methodist Church will investigate expelling Zionists. “If it passes, the paper will be damaging to Jewish-Methodist relations. We are seeking an urgent meeting with Methodist leaders to make our objections clear and to seek a resolution.”
The 54-page document has been distributed to all Methodist churches, circuits and regions throughout the UK in order to “resource them in their understanding of and engagement with the issues,” the document described. (Jpost)

Obama and the War against Israel-DAVID HOROWITZ & JACOB LAKSIN
If President Obama had been trying to undermine Israel’s security — and ours — he could hardly have done a better job.
No other country in the world faces an array of existential threats such as the nation of Israel confronts daily. The world’s only Jewish state is also its most precarious. Geographically tiny, Israel is surrounded by theocracies that reject its very existence as a “nakba” — a catastrophe — and call for its destruction. To carry out this malignant ambition, anti-Israel Islamists have mobilized three rocket-wielding armies, sworn to wipe Israel from the face of the earth. First and most aggressive among them is the Gaza-based Hamas, a fanatical religious party committed in its official charter to obliterating Israel and killing its Jews. Hamas is the creation of the Muslim Brotherhood, the inspirer of al-Qaeda and the global Islamic jihad, whose official motto declares: “Death in the service of Allah is our highest aspiration.” In Gaza, Hamas has created a terrorist state and a national death cult whose path is martyrdom and whose goal is openly proclaimed: “O, our children: The Jews — brothers of the apes, assassins of the prophets, bloodsuckers, warmongers — are murdering you, depriving you of life after having plundered your homeland and your homes. Only Islam can break the Jews and destroy their dream.” Given that hatred for Jews is the animating passion of the Hamas militants, their response to Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 was not surprising. Far from greeting this as a gesture of peace, Hamas regarded the Israeli withdrawal as a surrender to its terrorist attacks and an opportunity to escalate them. In the days and months following the withdrawal, Hamas launched 6,500 unprovoked rocket strikes on towns and schoolyards in Israel before the Israelis decided to strike back. (Nationalreview)

TERRORISM, security and policy

Terror Target: Manhattan-Judith Miller
New York's police commissioner says it's a big mistake to write off failed attacks as the work of incompetents, and he's developed his own intelligence apparatus to make sure they don't succeed.
New York
What rankles Raymond W. Kelly? Two things, he tells me as we sip lukewarm coffee in his conference room on the 14th floor of One Police Plaza, the dilapidated police headquarters overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge. The first, New York's police commissioner tells me, is "incompetence," an inescapable fact-of-life, or so it would seem, in any large bureaucracy (he has 50,000 employees). A second is the media's tendency to downplay New York's hard-won victories against terrorism—the failure or foiling of some 11 serious plots against the city since 2001—by describing the would-be perpetrators as incompetent or stupid. Faisal Shahzad, who was indicted on Thursday for trying to blow up his SUV in Times Square last month, was not a stupid bumbler, Mr. Kelly says. "The people who interviewed, interrogated him said he is very smart, and has a very keen memory." Federal law enforcement officials say they are making good use of that memory, using information he's been providing to help target terrorist recruiters, handlers and facilitators in Pakistan, where Mr. Shahzad went for training. So why did Mr. Shahzad buy fertilizer that wouldn't detonate? "He was forced to do . . . things . . . that reduced the potency of his device," Mr. Kelly says, because "it's hard to get explosive materials in this country." That "led him to try to substitute materials." (WSJ)

Hamas's Web School for Suicide Bombers-Yohanan Manor and Ido Mizrahi
All states use education as a medium to encourage responsible behavior in their children, at least in part to develop a law-abiding, civic-minded citizenry. Authoritarian regimes have a history of distorting this trust, often turning schools into places of indoctrination for a state or religious ideology. The Palestinians have, for some time now, created an educational system exemplifying this indoctrinational approach: Their textbooks deny Jewish and Israeli legitimacy within historic Palestine, demonize Jews and Israelis, discourage compromise or negotiated peace, and glorify violent struggle to achieve what are often termed "Palestinian aspirations." Since coming to power through elections in early 2006 and following its military coup in Gaza in June 2007, Hamas has continued this path of indoctrination, utilizing its popular children's website, Al-Fateh.
Formal Education in Gaza
After a series of clashes, predating Hamas's parliamentary win in 2006 but intensifying thereafter, Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in a swift but brutal campaign, which lasted little more than a week (June 7-15, 2007).[1] Hamas now controls the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Authority (PA) retains almost no standing, except perhaps in the field of education: All the schools in the strip—the very small number of private schools, the public schools, and those run by the United Nations Works and Refugee Agency (UNRWA)—follow the official PA school curriculum and use the corresponding textbooks. (MEQ)

Al Qaeda: Its Future and Ours-Peter Probst
Introduction
During my more than 30 years with the intelligence community, I have followed numerous terrorist organizations. Few have been as innovative and resilient as al Qaeda. Rarely a week goes by that we don’t read about an al Qaeda or Taliban commander being arrested or killed. Our instrument of choice is often a predator drone and most of the intelligence is collected through state-of-the-art intercept operations, confirmed by Predator and other imagery, as well as through more aggressive collection efforts by friendly liaison services. Though we periodically read pronouncements that al Qaeda is on the ropes and its demise is imminent, it has been my experience that only a few months later we learn that the organization has reconstituted itself, like the phoenix rising from the ashes, and is operating in a new, mutated, and more lethal form. (Familysecuritymatters)

Islam’s sisters of sacrifice-Mark Franchetti
(Registration now required to read The Times and The Sunday Times)
Videos made by the widows who became suicide bombers on the Moscow metro give a chilling insight into the radicalisation of women. Sitting on a carpet beside an AK-47 automatic rifle, her face concealed behind a black veil, Dzhanet Abdurakhmanova calmly addresses the shaky video camera. Her message is chilling. In a soft voice, broken only once by a heavy sigh, the 17-year-old tells how she has sealed a pact with Allah in return for a place in heaven. “I have decided to fulfil my pledge,” she says. “God willing, I will become a martyr.” Four days later Abdurakhmanova caught an early-morning train on the Moscow metro, more than 1,000 miles from her native Dagestan in Russia’s Caucasus region. Strapped to her waist was more than 4lb of explosive packed with metal bolts and screws. At a station in central Moscow she detonated the charge. The blast killed 14 commuters and wounded dozens more. She was decapitated. A second video, shot in the same place, shows another veiled woman who was identified by the security sources as Maryam Sharipova. On the day that Abdurakhmanova set off her bomb in March, Sharipova, a 28-year-old teacher from Dagestan, killed 26 people by blowing herself up at Moscow’s Lubyanka metro station. More than 100 were injured in the two explosions, the first such attack in the capital for six years. The videos, obtained by The Sunday Times, provide fresh insights into the indoctrinated minds of the two bombers. Both repeatedly call on other women to turn themselves into human bombs. “Sisters, I make this statement to open your eyes,” said Abdurakhmanova in her video. “If you really want to help Allah then follow in the footsteps of other women who have sacrificed themselves. “To those who will call me a terrorist and a shahid [martyr], I say, ‘Yes, I am a terrorist. Yes, I am a shahid’. Because I will bring terror to the infidels and can say with pride that I chose death while you chose life.” (Thesundaytimes)

Adam Gadahn: "Legitimate Demands Part 2: Barack's Dilemma"-NEA
The NEFA Foundation has obtained a transcript of a new video recording of most wanted American Al-Qaida spokesman Adam Yehiye Gadahn, titled "Legitimate Demands Part 2: Barack's Dilemma." During the video, produced by Al-Qaida's As-Sahab Media Foundation, Gadahn addressed President Obama: "I know that as you slither snakelike into the second year of your reign as a purported president of change, you are finding your hands full with running the affairs of a declining and besieged empire and -- in the process -- proving yourself to be nothing more than another treacherous, bloodthirsty and narrow-minded American war president. What with your overseeing of the hasty overhauling of America's compromised homeland security cordon, your brazen escalation of American aggression and interference in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, and your removal of our captive brothers from detention facilities scattered around the globe to Muslim-only concentration camps in Illinois, Bagram and elsewhere. All in the name of protecting the American people from the threat of Muslim retaliation for American crimes, or what you insist on calling the threat of al-Qaida and al-Qaida inspired terrorism." Gadahn added, "honestly, Barack, as a president who has proven himself to be incapable of keeping intruders out of his own executive mansion, do you really expect anyone to believe that you will be successful in your attempts to keep the Mujahideen away from an entire continent?" (Read Transcript Here) (NEA)

Hizb ut-Tahrir America Uses Social Media to Promote its "Emerging World Order" Conference-Madeleine Greun
The radical Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir America (HTA) will host a conference in Chicago on July 11 to hype the virtues of an Islamic state ruled according to the strictest interpretation of Islamic law. The group launched an online social media campaign to promote the event; one that serves as a prime example of how extremists are able to expose the mainstream to their ideology. HTA hosted a similar conference outside of Chicago last year, which drew about 500 participants. This year, the campaign to promote the conference is more comprehensive, and the group expects many more participants as a result; it has booked an 11,000-square-foot ballroom at the Chicago Marriott Oak Brook that can accommodate more than one thousand. HTA is part of a worldwide organization, Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), which works towards the establishment of an Islamic state (Khalifah) in a Muslim country. Once a government and a military have been installed, it intends to spread Islam to the rest of the world. HT condones violence against Western troops in Muslim countries and advocates the eradication of Israel, but has so far maintained a non-violent approach to its objectives. (Huffingtonpost)

Understanding Muslims’ Mindset-Amil Imani
Diffusing the present dangerous confrontation between Islam and the West demands rational impartial and cool heads to untangle facts from myth, understand the Muslims’ mindset, and redress any grievances on either side. The Muslims’ perennial complaint is that the imperialist West—all colonial powers of the past, as well as the United States of America—have victimized them for decades and even centuries and continue to do so in every conceivable way. The litany of the alleged wrongdoings by the West is encyclopedic. To begin with, the West has shown utter contempt for the legitimate rights of the Muslim nation by arbitrarily dividing much of the Islamic land into fractured entities, plundering its resources, and topping these crimes by installing in its midst its illegitimate stepchild of Israel—a huge thorn in their side, so they complain. “A grain of truth is needed to make a mountain of lies believable,” is an old saw. In fairness to Muslims, there is some substance to their claims against the West. For now, let us focus on the general mindset of Muslims which bears heavily on the hostility toward the West—a serious hostility that may bring about the dreaded Armageddon.
* Patriarchy and authoritarianism: The Muslim’s mind is imprinted with authoritarianism which starts with the supreme authority, Allah, through his one and only prophet, Muhammad, his Caliphs or Imams, and the high-ranking religious divines all the way down to the village clergy. This authoritarian mentality encompasses all aspects of life for the Muslim. The king and his dominion as the viceroy of God, the Amir and his despotic ways, the Khan and his unchallenged rule over the tribe, the village headsman and his extensive power, and finally the father and his iron grip at home over the women and children. All these authority figures are male. (Familysecuritymatters)

GLOBAL GOVERNANCE AND RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISM

Heartland Conference Establishes Post-Climategate Consensus- Marc Sheppard
“New scientific discoveries are casting doubt on how much of the warming of the twentieth century was natural and how much was man-made, and governments around the world are beginning to confront the astronomical cost of reducing emissions. Economists, meanwhile, are calculating that the cost of slowing or stopping global warming exceeds the social benefits.”
So spoke Senator James Inhofe on the Senate floor on May 17th, reading into the record the mission statement of the climate conference he was scheduled to be speaking at that very moment. Rather than addressing the Monday lunch session of Heartland’s Fourth International Conference on Climate Change, the Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works remained in Washington, responding to the prior week’s Kerry-Lieberman “climate bill” proposal. The Oklahoma Republican, who had assured attendees of last year’s ICCC on Capitol Hill that no cap-and-tax bill would ever pass the Senate, now stood before C-SPAN’s cameras doing what only one major news organization – Fox -- had done before him: acknowledging the existence and significance of the 700-plus scientists, economists, policymakers, and concerned citizens gathering some 600 miles away in Chicago. And their collective objective to “build public awareness of the global warming ‘realism’ movement,” so that “sound science and economics, rather than exaggeration and hype” might “determine what actions, if any, are taken to address the problem of climate change.” (Americanthinker)

Dept. of Energy’s Cathy Zoi: Still Flouting the Law, Still Stonewalling the Investigation (PJM Exclusive)-Chris Horner
From Tuesday’s Energy & Environment Daily story, “Lawmaker ownership in BP, Transocean, Halliburton stirs controversy” (subscription required [1]):
At least two dozen lawmakers own investments in the three companies tied to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill as Congress investigates the disaster and considers reforms. “This is a serious conflict of interest,” said Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen, a watchdog group. “Only Congress exempts [itself] from this type of conflict of interest. “They should not be making decisions that affect their own personal well-being,” Holman added. Documents obtained from the Department of Energy and elsewhere appear to present a prima facie case of a senior Obama administration official, Assistant Secretary of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Cathy Zoi, participating substantially in decisions impacting companies in which she is heavily invested. This flouts ethics requirements and would be a violation of U.S. criminal law. The Department of Energy has yet to provide additional requested documents regarding Zoi. Even more troubling, the designated ethics officer has so far refused to even acknowledge the request for records she is required by law to provide the public.Ms. Zoi’s conflicts of interest have been reported previously at PJM [2]. I also note her conflicts and involvement in questionable Obama administration activities in Chapter 3 of my new book (Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America [3]). That chapter is titled “Van Jones Was No Accident: The Obama Administration’s Radical ‘Green’ Activists.” (Pajamasmedia)

SCIENCE, SOCIETY AND CULTURE

Stopping schizophrenia before it starts-Israel 21st Staff
If administered in the early-onset stages of the disorder, drugs used to treat schizophrenia may have the power to prevent it, according to Israeli researchers.
New research from Israel suggests that it may be possible to prevent schizophrenia if it can be caught before it fully manifests itself. The study, from Tel Aviv University (TAU), shows that early intervention could prevent the mind-altering disorder. Prof. Ina Weiner of the department of psychology at TAU says: "The big question asked in recent years is if schizophrenia can be prevented." Her response is that drugs like clozapine that are used to treat schizophrenia might, if administered during a subject's adolescence, prevent the development of the disease in those predisposed to it. "Pharmacological treatments for schizophrenia remain unsatisfactory, so clinicians and researchers like myself have started to dig in another direction," she says. Their results provide hope. The onset of schizophrenia, which affects about 1.1 percent of the US population, is not easy to predict. Although it is associated with as many as 14 genes in the human genome, the prior presence of schizophrenia in the family is not enough to determine whether one will succumb to the mind-altering condition. The disease also has a significant environmental link. (Israel21c)

Elton's human jukebox-David Brinn
Singer plays his biggest hits in Ramat Gan.
With the sinister pomp-and-circumstance opening of "Funeral For A Friend" filling the stadium, Elton John stepped out behind the wings like a sequined-clad queen arriving to greet his loyal subjects at Ramat Gan Stadium Thursday night. As routine as a mega-superstar pulling into town should have been - and we've been blessed with quite a few, from Paul McCartney and Madonna to Metallica and Leonard Cohen - everyone was aware that something more was hanging on this performance. Simply put, Elton hadn't cancelled. Immediately after a revved up second song, "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting," he spoke for the first time - making reference to his musical brethren who have feared what they don't understand, and wittingly or not, joined the cultural boycott of Israel. "Shalom, we are so happy to be back here! Ain't nothing gonna stop us from coming, baby," spouted John with a pumped fist in the air. "Musicians spread love and peace, and bring people together. That's what we do. We don't cherry-pick our conscience."
The crowd of 45,000 exploded, and after that John could have performed an hour and a half of show tunes and they wouldn't have cared. But instead, he turned into a human jukebox for two and-a-half hours, generously delving into his deep catalogue of classic pop and rock songs spanning back to his self-titled breakout album in 1969. (Jpost)'

We felt that the valley of the shadow of death was upon us'
Andrea Gillies's award-winning book tells the powerful tale of her mother-in-law's descent into Alzheimer's.- Elizabeth Grice
Where is Nancy? Her husband, Morris, has raised the alarm half-way through supper. They had an argument and she seems to have stomped off into the night. As she suffers from Alzheimer’s and has no idea of where she is, the possibility of an escape is troubling news. Her daughter-in-law goes through the rambling mansion they share in remotest north Scotland, calling out. No response. “Then I hear a noise,” says Andrea Gillies. “Scraping. Coming from the library. Sure enough, there’s Nancy standing in the dark, tipping her supper into the bookcase. Sausages, potato, radicchio, off the plate and on to the tops of a row of novels. I’m only grateful there isn’t any gravy, though vinaigrette has already bled its way into Richard Ford and Edith Wharton.” Without its black humour, Gillies’s account of becoming Nancy’s carer would be almost unbearable to read. Not because Keeper is a wound-raw diary of daily lunacies countered with superhuman kindness and restraint (though it is) but because it gives an insight into what it must be like to lose your identity to this most thieving of diseases. Each day brings its new unfathomableness. Nancy is appalled by the face in the mirror. She seems to have aged 50 years overnight. The people who claim to be her husband and children are strangers. Worse, they are liars – out to steal her money. She is being held prisoner in the place they insist is her home, though nothing about it is familiar to her. (Telegraph.co.uk)

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