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TERRORISM'S SURREPTIOUS CAMPAIGN
By Avi Davis
This week marks the third anniversary of the London Underground bombings, an event which shook up Britain and the West as no other incident has since the attacks on the World Trade Center in September, 2001. The impact of those events can be seen everywhere in England today, from the increased number of surveillance cameras on suburban streets to the debate on whether the number of days a terrorist suspect should be incarcerated without trial should be increased from 28 to 42 days.
Both Britain and the United States have experienced great success in penetrating underground terrorist networks and foiling numerous plots for attacks on Western targets. But the absence of a major incident has also lulled the West into a sense of complacency. It has allowed the West to ignore surreptitious and sophisticated campaigns which have passed with little publicity or scrutiny.
This is no more so than in our Universities. Over the past ten years, hundreds of millions of dollars and pounds have been accepted by Western universities from the Saudi Royal family to fund Middle East Studies Centers in the U.S. and Britain.
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, reputedly the fifth richest man in the world and a nephew of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, is one of the Western universities' greatest benefactors. Over the past ten years, he has given $10 million to the American University of Cairo, $5.2 to the American University of Beirut and $20 million to Georgetown. In 2003, King Fahd himself gave$20 million to found a Middle East Studies Center at the University of Arkansas. Duke, Howard, Cal State Berkeley, Syracause and Johns Hopkins have all been the beneficiaries of Saudi largesse.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the Saudis have been even more active. Over 43 Universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, have received gifts from the Saudi royal family amounting to close to £255 in total investment.
Naturally, both the universities themselves and the Saudi government claim that the gifts have no strings attached and are designed to promote harmony and understanding between the Arab world and the West. However, the true results of Saudi munificence are quite plain to see:
Almost nowhere, at least in any Middle East programs funded by the Saudis, can one find critical analysis of the Saudi Government's continuing support of terrorist networks and the Wahabi madrassas who spawned many of the 9/11 killers.
In none of these centers can one find a sophisticated and dispassionate examination of the link between Islam, jihad and international terrorism.
In Britain, a recent report by Professor Anthony Glees of Brunel University, found a direct correlation between Saudi funding and the rise Muslim extremist groups on campus. Professor Glees' report pointed out that Britain has 31 universities with hard line Islamic groups operating on campus.
The same report has pointed out that the British university has become the prime recruiting ground for would be Muslim- British terrorists.
In the United States, a University commissioned curriculum to instruct K-12 teachers on the Middle East is driven by Saudi funding and includes much anti-Western and anti-Israel propaganda.
The sharp spike in anti-Zionist and anti-semitic activity on campuses throughout the West has clearly been abetted by Middle East Studies Departments whose agendas have been twisted by Saudi funding to demonize the Jewish state.
I learned the extent and power of Saudi financial power first hand several months ago. When approaching a major Californian university about hosting our summer conference on academic freedom, I explained that one of the focuses of the conference would be on Saudi funding, I was told that one needed to distinguish between good Saudis and bad Saudis in discussing such a topic. Without such a distinction such a conference would be pointless. Needless to say, we did not hold our conference at that University.
But the exchange taught me a salutary lesson. In the high competition stakes for funding, Universities - whether they be conservative or liberal - will do almost anything to attract the kind of funding the Saudis, flush with the bounty afforded by a $150 a barrel price of oil, can provide without giving a donation of $20 million even a second thought.
We should all therefore be prepared to live with the knowledge that our universities can be bought; that the Centers for the study of the Middle East will be controlled by outside funders and that values inimical to our culture and civilization may be seeping into our educational systems.
No one should pretend that this development has no connection to the world wide jihadist campaign to undermine the West in its confrontation with the Islamic world. It is integral to the plan.
The less we do about it and the less we say, the greater will be the Islamists' penetration our own cherished institutions.
Avi Davis is the Executive Director and Senior Fellow of the American Freedom Alliance in Los Angeles.
NEWS: EUROPE AND AMERICA
‘Britain still doesn’t grasp that it is facing a pincer attack from both terrorism and cultural infiltration and usurpation.’
Sleepwalking into Islamisation-Melanie Phillips
Three years after the London Tube and bus bombings, it is alarming beyond measure to record that Britain is even now sleepwalking into Islamisation. Some people will think this is mere hyperbole. However, that’s the problem. Britain still doesn’t grasp that it is facing a pincer attack from both terrorism and cultural infiltration and usurpation. The former is understood; the latter is generally not acknowledged or is even denied, and those who call attention to it are pilloried as either ‘ Islamophobes’ or alarmists who have taken up residence on Planet Paranoia. Certainly, the police and security service have been foiling plot after plot and are bringing to court a steady stream of Islamist radicals –an improvement without doubt from three years ago. And so, particularly within the British elite, people think that things are broadly under control. They fail to realise that the attempt to take over our culture is even more deadly to this society than terrorism. They are simply blind to the ruthless way in which the Islamists are exploiting our chronic muddle of well-meaning tolerance and political correctness (backed up by the threat of more violence) to put Islam on a special — indeed, unique — footing within Britain. As a result, the steady Islamisation of British public life is either being ignored or even tacitly encouraged by a political, security and judicial establishment that is failing to identify the stealthy and mind-bending game that is being played. The official counter-radicalisation programme illustrates the problem. The Government wants to tackle radicalisation within Britain’s Muslim community by winning hearts and minds within that community. Its strategy is based on isolating the extremists and encouraging the moderates. The problem, however, is that it doesn’t understand what Muslim extremism is. Believing that Islamic terrorism is motivated by an ideology which has ‘hijacked’ and distorted Islam, it will not acknowledge the extremism within mainstream Islam itself. (melaniephillips.com)
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HONOUR KILLING COMES TO GEORGIA
Police: Arranged marriage led father to kill daughter-Kathy Jefcoats
A Pakistani man, apparently upset his daughter wanted out of her arranged marriage, strangled her with a bungee cord, according to arrest warrants revealed Monday afternoon in Clayton County Magistrate Court. Chaudhry Rashid, 54, is charged with murder in the death of his daughter, Sandeela Kanwal, 25, at the family's Utah Drive home in Jonesboro. Rashid's wife, Gina Rashid, 49, called police just before 2 a.m. Sunday and told them she had been awakened and heard screaming in a language she could not understand. Gina Rashid, who is African-American, left the house out of fear and called police from nearby. Rashid is being held without bond in the Clayton County Jail. His first court appearance was continued until Tuesday afternoon when Chief Magistrate Daphne Walker learned his primary language is Urdu. Walker said an interpreter will be brought in to help with the judicial proceedings. (ajc.com)
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President of Milan wants fines for Muslims who pray on the streets
Italy: Proposed fines for Muslims sparks controversy
Milan, 7 July (AKI) - The President of the northern Italian city of Milan, Filippo Penati, has triggered widespread debate with a controversial proposal to fine Muslims who pray on the streets outside the city's mosque.
According to authorities, the number of people praying on the sidewalk creates traffic and obstacles for pedestrians in the area surrounding the Viale Jenner mosque, a converted garage. "Article 190 of the law regarding the obstruction of streets should be applied immediately," said Penati. "I do not know or understand why the law has not been applied before," he said. "The municipality of Milan should apply the law and fine transgressors, not to limit their freedom of worship, which should be guaranteed for all, but prayer carried out on the sidewalk is forbidden by the laws of our country." The Viale Jenner mosque, or cultural Islamic centre, can only hold 4,000 faithful. Those who cannot fit inside bring their Islamic prayer mat and lay it on the street outside the mosque and close to passing cars.
Talks are underway to move the prayer hall to the larger 'Vigorelli' stadium and cycle track. (AKI)
Boys reprimanded for not ‘bowing’ to Allah
 Schoolboys disciplined for 'refusing to pray to Allah'-Nick Britten
Two schoolboys were allegedly disciplined after refusing to kneel down and "pray to Allah" during a religious education lesson.
It was claimed that the boys, from a year seven class of 11 and 12-year-olds, were given detention after refusing to take part in a practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped. Yesterday parents accused the school of breaching their human rights by forcing them to take part in the exercise. One, Sharon Luinen, said: "This isn't right, it's taking things too far. I understand that they have to learn about other religions. I can live with that but it is taking it a step too far to be punished because they wouldn't join in Muslim prayer. "Making them pray to Allah, who isn't who they worship, is wrong and what got me is that they were told they were being disrespectful." (telegraph.co.uk)
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Police dogs forced to wear ‘bootees’ as not to cause offence to Muslims
Sniffer dogs to wear ‘Muslim’ bootees-Stuart MacDonald
Police sniffer dogs will have to wear bootees when searching the homes of Muslims so as not to cause offence.
Guidelines being drawn up by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) urge awareness of religious sensitivities when using dogs to search for drugs and explosives. The guidelines, to be published this year, were designed to cover mosques but have been extended to include other buildings. Where Muslims object, officers will be obliged to use sniffer dogs only in exceptional cases. Where dogs are used, they will have to wear bootees with rubber soles. “We are trying to ensure that police forces are aware of sensitivities that people can have with the dogs to make sure they are not going against any religious or cultural element within people’s homes. It is being addressed and forces are working towards doing it,” Acpo said. Problems faced by the use of sniffer dogs were highlighted last week when Tayside police were forced to apologise for a crime prevention poster featuring a german shepherd puppy, in response to a complaint by a Muslim councillor. Islamic injunctions warn Muslims against contact with dogs, which are regarded as “unclean”. (timesonline.co.uk)
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Rehabilitating terrorists, the ‘Club-Med’ way
 A Betty Ford clinic for jihadis-Shiraz Maher
PlayStations, new kitchens and art classes are part of Saudi Arabia’s softly, softly approach to rehabilitating terrorists
It has been called the Betty Ford clinic for jihadists and within minutes of arriving at the Care Rehabilitation Centre on the outskirts of Riyadh, you can see why. The small complex, where the Saudi Arabian government is exploring a new way of reforming its wayward radicals, feels more like an exclusive boarding school than a Saudi jail. Inmates have access to swimming pools, table tennis and PlayStations. In the evenings, guards and prisoners play football. An air-conditioned tent sits adjacent to the sports field, serving as a dining hall and common room where, when I visited, the prisoners were tucking into rice and lamb with fresh fruit for pudding. In return for this privileged treatment, the prisoners – Islamic extremists, some of whom are convicted murderers – are obliged to attend lessons based around Islamic law and the jurisprudence of jihad. A team of psychologists teaches detainees how they should manage their emotions, particularly when reacting to world events. Art therapy classes help inmates to “reveal their softer side”. And it is not just the artwork that is surreal. It is quite a sight to see men in flowing robes, with unkempt beards and their trousers hoisted above their ankles, sit down with a pack of crayons to express themselves. “The unconscious mind holds a lot of things,” said the therapist. The Saudi government insists all this is necessary to promote genuine rehabilitation and foster a meaningful relationship with the jihadists. But in the easy-going atmosphere of the “resort” – nobody calls it a prison – where inmates are referred to as “beneficiaries”, it is easy to forget the seriousness of some of their crimes. The centre is divided into six areas, four of which hold Saudi nationals who fought (or tried to) in Iraq. The other two hold returnees from Guantanamo Bay. (timesonline.co.uk)
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"I think most people would agree that if you ask Muslims today what do they feel like, they feel like the Jews of Europe
Are British Muslims Treated Like Jews in 1930s Germany?-Adrian Morgan
On Jews, Muslims and Hitler
Yesterday - Monday July 7, 2008 - was the third anniversary of the suicide bombings on London Transport. Mohammed Sidique Khan, Shehzad Tanweer and Jermaine Lindsay blew themselves up on underground trains, while Hasib Hossain boarded a Number 30 bus and detonated his rucksack in Tavistock Square. Fifty-two people were killed and hundreds were injured. On British television, a documentary was broadcast on Channel 4, entitled "It Shouldn't Happen To a Muslim." This was produced by Peter Oborne, and it asserted that Muslims have become demonized in British society. In an article in the Independent newspaper, Peter Oborne argued that Islamophobia is the new "British disease." He follows the line that Muslims are being oppressed, and states that "Surveys show Muslims have the highest rate of unemployment, the poorest health, the most disability and fewest educational qualifications of any faith group in the country. This means they are vulnerable, rendering them open to ignorant and hostile commentary from mainstream figures." If Muslims are poorly educated and unable to find good jobs, is this the fault of Britain? Recent mass immigration from Poland has proved that even without language skills, there are jobs available in Britain for those who are willing to work. Muslims' health issues are similarly of their own making - after all, in Britain, even illegal immigrants have access to full free-on-the-point-of-delivery healthcare. And I wonder what these surveys class as disability - work-related accidents, or even congenital disabilities, caused by inbreeding, a by-product of arranged marriage customs? (familysecuritymatters.org)
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The truth about Islam and its designs on Europe
Islam is religion and politics by Alf Ronnby, Associate Professor, University of Gothenburg
Europe was been invaded by Muslim armies and Muslim civilians for hundreds of years.
Therefore it is not strange that there exists a great deal of mistrust towards Muslims. Muhammad created the doctrine of holy war, jihad, in 610. His successors succeeded with holy war. Ten years after the death of Muhammad in 632 the Muslim armies lead by Abu Bakr had conquered large parts of the old Roman Empire in North Africa and the Middle east. Islam became a world power. In 711 the Muslims crossed the strait of Gibraltar and conquered huge parts of the Iberian peninsula. By 732 they had advanced deep into France, but were defeated by Karl Martel’s army at Poitiers. The Muslims established the khalifa al-Andalus (Arabic Spain). It had its best days in the 10th century. In 1100 the Christians began to reconquer what had been lost, and in 1492 the last Muslim bastion in Spain, Granada, fell. A ‘reconquest’ of al-Andalus stands as a wet dream for certain Muslims today. Islamic violence in Spain has to be observed in this light. In the east, Byzantium was under constant attack from Muslim armies for 800 years until Constantinople fell in 1453 and the whole of southeastern Europe was Islamized. The Islamic expansion continued in Europe, but the Muslim siege of Vienna in 1683 went wrong. It became a turning point, and after that Christian armies forced the Muslim empire in Eastern Europe back. Even so, however, Islam is dominant in certain regions of the Balkans. Of the whole Ottoman Empire only Spain, Portugal, and Hungary (as well as some Balkan states) are no longer Muslim. Islam is described as a religion that prohibits violence. But that is either a truth with some modifications, or else pure hypocrisy. The Quran forbids violence, but hails holy war. It is a double standard, as Muhammad showed himself when he defended the violence that benefited his own interests and conquests. Allah is described as the mighty killer of the infidels. (gatesofvienna)
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ACADEMIC FREEDOM
Juan Cole's immoral myopia
Juan Cole’s Jihad Against Israel By Cinnamon Stillwell
One can always count on University of Michigan history professor Juan Cole to excuse violence and hatred directed at Israel. At his blog, Informed Comment(which, judging by the references to the mythical Jenin “massacre” and the USS Liberty canard in the comments section, is read avidly by anti-Israel conspiracy theorists), Cole takes pains to explain away last week’s horrific bulldozer attack in Jerusalem.
Cole apparently sees no contradiction between his perfunctory admission that “Violence against innocent civilians is always condemnable and deplored by IC,” and his claim to add “context” to the attack by trying to justify the alleged motivations of the perpetrator, Palestinian construction worker Husam TaysirDwayat.
Citing Al-Jazeera International (one of his favored sources), Cole asserts that, “the bulldozer operator had been working on a controversial rail line connecting West Jerusalem to Arab East Jerusalem, which many Palestinians feel will further disadvantage them.” He then launches into a litany of Israel’s supposed sins, including demolishing illegal buildings in East Jerusalem, what he calls “rapid encroachments on the Palestinians in the West Bank,” the so-called “violence of Israeli colonists (many of them Americans) against native Palestinians,” and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) use of military action to protect Israeli citizens from their genocidal neighbors.
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Arabic classes at Harvard along with Arabic ‘propaganda’
Teaching Arabic and Propaganda-Joel B. Pollak
At Harvard, the star of Arabic A is a girl named Maha. Maha Muhammed Abulaal, to be precise. She's the pouty protagonist in the melodrama that runs throughout "Al-Kitaab," the standard beginning text in Arabic classes at Harvard and other American universities. We are taught to speak our first Arabic sentences by expressing Maha's incurable angst. We learn in Chapter 1 that Maha is desperately lonely. In later chapters, we are told that she hates New York, has no boyfriend and resents her mother. Soon we encounter her equally depressing relatives in Egypt -- such as her first cousin Khalid, whose mother died in a car accident and who was forced to study business administration after his father told him literature "has no future." Like Maha, Khalid is loveless; his only romantic prospect ran away with a rich engineer. The family eventually intervenes with plans to marry the cousins off to each other. This makes everyone equally unhappy. Then the story ends. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the number of Americans studying Arabic has more than doubled. Nearly 24,000 U.S. students enrolled in Arabic classes in the fall of 2006, the Modern Language Association reported in November. In 2002, 264 colleges offered Arabic; as of the 2006-07 academic year, 466 did. Young, ambitious Americans are responding constructively to our country's new challenges by demanding Arabic classes. But there are not enough teachers to meet this demand, and the available textbooks are suffused with the stale prejudices and preoccupations of the pre-Sept. 11 Middle East. To study Arabic in America today is to be inducted into a world of longing, abandonment and regret. And that's before you even touch the political issues. Most maps of the Middle East in "Al-Kitaab" do not include Israel, though a substantial minority of Israelis, both Jews and Arabs, are native Arabic speakers. Alongside simple Arabic poems, students read about anti-Western heroes such as Gamal Abdel Nasser. (washingtonpost)
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University of Michigan cancels anti-Israel academics
Pluto Press, Outlet for Anti-Israel Academics, Scrapped by the University of Michigan [incl. Joel Kovel, "Overcoming Zionism," Edward Said]-Lee Kaplan IsraCampus
The impact on university systems by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been greater than most people who pay their taxes to support such institutions will ever know. Since universities are places that are supposed to promote the concept of new ideas, academic freedom and freedom of speech, they are also the perfect locales for indoctrination by presenting false information that would normally be proven false by scholarly research of the facts. Such false information today, however, is given equal weight against the facts as opinions and agendas replace serious scholasticism and research in educational materials such as books and by professors with an agenda. In turn, that false information gets disseminated over and over again later by graduates who know no better (or don't want to know better) and move into future teaching positions until the false information replaces facts for the following generations to come. This system serves to not just misinform future generations in general, but to also indoctrinate students of certain faculty members in a mindset of those who wish to indoctrinate rather than just educate their pupils. A case in point is the late Edward Said, who is one of Pluto Press's published writers. Said encouraged people in the Palestinian movement to "Write your own history" and that "Facts don't matter, only emotions matter." When history becomes a fabrication to support an opinion or agenda, then true academic scholarship is lost. Sadly, this is happening in the American university and college system due to indirect payoffs to administrators and department heads of Arab oil money. European and Israeli universities tend to try and emulate what happens in America, so the same tendency follows (Unfortunately, the Israeli system doesn't get Arab oil money as a side benefit, only some professors do indirectly through the European Union). (campuswatch)
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FREEDOM OF SPEECH
Muslims under 35 want Sharia law in certain areas
A plurality of Muslims under 35 support there being areas of the UK where some elements of sharia law are introduced-James Forsyth
A friend of Coffee House is in touch to point out that the numbers from the ICM poll for Peter Oborne’s Dispatches programme last night, show that a plurality of Muslims under 35 are in favour of there being some parts of the UK where elements of Sharia are introduced. Here are the numbers:
"Would you support or oppose there being areas of Britain in which some element of Sharia Law is introduced?"
All 34 and under 35 and over
Support: 38 44 30
Oppose: 46 39 54
These numbers are worrying. As Paul Goodman, the Tory shadow minister for Communities and Local Government, said in a Spectator interview last summer: ‘Moderate Islam has as its core not wishing to see different people living under different law. Not wishing to see sharia incorporated into British law.’
Now, obviously not all these people who would like to see elements of sharia introduced are extremists. Many are probably thinking of sharia-compliant mortgages and the like. But it does show just what trouble the Archbishop of Cantebury and the Lord Chief Justice are stirring up with their ill-thought out remarks on the subject
UNHR quashes mentioning Shari’a law in reference to human rights violations
UN Declares: Islamic Shari'a Taboo in Council Debates-UN Watch
Geneva -- From now on, all references to human rights violations related to Islamic Shar’ia law are prohibited in the chamber of the UN Human Rights Council. So ruled council president Doru Costea after a dramatic debate in the recently concluded June session.
It all started when veteran rights activist David Littman -- undaunted by the repressive regimes who only last month sought to expel him from the UN -- tried to deliver a speech on violence against women and what Islamic scholars can do to prevent it. Egypt's Amr Roshdy Hassan repeatedly interrupted, aggressively challenging the council president: “Regardless of the result of the vote — I couldn’t care less if I will win or lose this vote — my point is that Islam will not be crucified in this council!” The president ultimately gave in, declaring: “Statements should refrain from making judgments or evaluations of a particular religion. . . I can promise that at the next evaluation of a religious creed, law, or document, I will interrupt the speaker and we’ll go on to the next one.” The new ruling follows an Islamic-sponsored text adopted by the council in March that turned its mandate on freedom of expression upside down. Instead of investigating the actions of governments in order to protect individual freedom, the expert is now charged with investigating individuals -- those who "abuse" their freedom of speech through religious or racial discrimination, i.e., by saying anything deemed offensive to Islamic sensibilities. Everyone in the world is now potentially subject to the UN's new speech control. What does all of this signify? An iron curtain has descended across the world's highest human rights body. Behind that line lie all the human rights violations committed in the name of a certain religion, about which no one dare speak: suicide terror attacks, honor killings, female genital mutilation, forced child marriage, violence against gays, stonings, state censorship of free speech, jailing of bloggers, prohibitions against freedom of religion, and much, much more. UN officials, diplomats and even major human rights figures have been afraid to take on this new regime, which now exercises an almost total control over the Human Rights Council, as well as increasing measures of influence over other forums of world opinion. "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil," said Edmund Burke, "is that good men do nothing." Would that more people showed the courage of Mr. Littman. (unwatch)
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Careful, your toddler might be ‘racist’
 The agency on a mission to root out 'racist' toddlers-Steve Doughty
Nursery teachers should inform on youngsters such as these if there is a 'racist incident', says a Government-funded advisory group Toddlers should be taught about racism and singled out for criticism if they have racist attitudes, a Government-funded advisory group said yesterday. It told nursery teachers, playgroup leaders and childminders to record and report every racist incident involving children as young as three. These could include saying 'Yuk' about unfamiliar food. Even babies should not be ignored in the hunt for racism because they can 'recognise different people in their lives', a new guide for nurseries and child care centres said. The instructions for staff in charge of pre-school children in day care have been produced by the National Children's Bureau, which receives £12million a year, mostly through taxpayer-funded organisations. The NCB, which describes itself as 'an umbrella body for the children's sector', has long used its resources to campaign on controversial issues, for example in favour of a legal ban on smacking by parents. It also runs the Sex Education Forum, a campaign for more sex education in schools. The new 366-page guide, Young Children and Racial Justice, warned that 'racist incidents among children in early years settings-tend to be around name-calling-casual thoughtless comments, and peer group relationships'. It said such incidents could include children using words like 'blackie', 'Pakis', 'those people' or 'they smell'. Children might also 'react negatively to a culinary tradition other than their own by saying "yuk".' (dailymail)
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ANTISEMITISM
‘Over the past eight years of the jihad against Israel, among countless examples, three instances of open media collusion with Israel's enemies stand out for their strategic impact on the course of events’
The media and enduring narrative-Caroline Glick
Last Wednesday's terror attack in Jerusalem was unique. Due to the fact that Husam Taysir Dwayat bulldozed his victims outside of Jerusalem Capitol Studios where many of the foreign television networks have their offices, his was one of only two attacks to have been caught live on camera. The only other attack which was filmed was the lynching of IDF reservists Yosef Avrahami and Vadim Novesche at a Palestinian police station in Ramallah on October 12, 2000. That attack, which showed the mob basking in the blood of the two men, was filmed by an Italian camerawoman from the privately owned Mediaset television station. The attack last Wednesday was filmed by the BBC whose correspondent Tim Franks witnessed the carnage from the outset through his office window. Their film documentation is not the only things those two attacks share. The lynch in Ramallah and the attack last Wednesday are also the only attacks that elicited abject apologies by otherwise arrogant media giants. In the aftermath of the lynch, Riccardo Cristiano, Italy's state-owned RAI network's correspondent in Israel, wrote a groveling apology to the Palestinian Authority in which he went to painstaking lengths to explain that it was not his network, but his competitor that published the footage. In the letter which the PA published in its Al Hayat al Jadida daily, Cristiano fawned, "We always respect the journalistic procedures with the Palestinian Authority for [journalistic] work in Palestine and we are credible in our precise work. We thank you for your trust, and you can be sure that this is not our way of acting. We will not do such a thing." ON FRIDAY, the BBC published an apology for broadcasting the footage of Wednesday's carnage. The film showed an unarmed, furloughed IDF commando climb onto Dwayat's bulldozer just after Dwayat murdered Batsheva Ungerman by crushing her car. It showed the soldier grabbing a gun belonging to a security guard who was unsuccessfully trying to restrain Dwayat and shooting Dwayat three times in the head. The film did not show Dwayat or any of his victims dying. What it showed was the terror of the wounded, Dwayat's murderousness and the soldier's heroism. Yet, the network declared, "It's not normally the BBC's policy to show the moment of death on screen. These are always extremely difficult decisions to make. However, on reflection, we felt that the pictures featured on Wednesday's News at Ten did not strike the right editorial balance between the demands of accuracy and the potential impact on the program's audience." (jpost)
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"I Want To Salute Husam Dweidat, Hero of the Jerusalem Bulldozer Operation"
 In an Al-Jazeera TV Program on Palestinian Terrorist Dalal Al-Mughrabi, Al-Mughrabi's Sister Salutes Jerusalem Bulldozer Terrorist-MEMRI
Ghassan bin Jiddo: "What made Dalal Al-Mughrabi ready to carry out this operation? Let me ask you outright: Did she realize that this was a suicide operation? Did she go there knowing that she would die, in what we call martyrdom-seeking and others call suicide, or did she go there hoping that she would return?"
PLA Colonel Rashida Al-Mughrabi, sister of Dalal Al-Mughrabi: "We belong to the Islamic nation, which does not accept the killing of oneself. The human soul is precious, and we do not accept killing ourselves. Suicide is unacceptable. This is a matter of principle. However, defending our rights to the point of martyrdom is something we should do."
[...]
Former Fatah commander Anis Naqqash: "Let the Arabs know that they should prepare themselves for a new Middle East without Israel or Zionism. Let all the free people in the world know that the decisive battle with Zionism is approaching, and that its sign is this prisoner exchange."
[...]
Rashida Al-Mughrabi: "I want to salute all the martyrs, and send a very special salutation - and whoever wants to be mad at me is free... I want to salute Husam Dweidat, the hero of the Jerusalem bulldozer operation. I salute his soul."
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Israeli-Arab Terrorists Threaten 'Unprecedented Attacks'-Nissan Ratzlav-Katz
(IsraelNN.com) An Israeli-Arab terrorist group calling itself the "Free Galilee Brigades" (FGB) claimed responsibility for the deadly bulldozer attack in Jerusalem last week. In an interview with a London-based Arabic daily this weekend, a purported leader of the group claimed that FGB committed several other terrorist murders, threatened more attacks to come, and added that they are holding a female IDF soldier hostage.
In an interview conducted by way of third-party email, a journalist for the London-based Arabic daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi posed a series of questions to someone claiming to be the commander of the FGB. In his replies, the
The FGB spokesperson hinted that they are holding Dana Bennet.
unidentified terrorist claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and murders of IDF soldier Oleg Shaichat in July 2003 and of Michael Ronkin in August 2007, as well as for the shooting attack that killed eight students in the Merkaz HaRav Yeshiva in March of this year. The group also claimed that a man who was shot dead while carrying out an attack in Jerusalem's Old City in 2007 was the perpetrator of the Ronkin murder.
In the interview, appearing in the Al-Quds Al-Arabi weekend edition, the FGB spokesperson hinted that they are holding Dana Bennet, 17, who was reported missing in August 2003. The group made a similar announcement in 2005. Asked why Israel has thus far refused to acknowledge the FGB's claims that they are holding a hostage, the spokesperson said, "because it is causing considerable embarrassment to them." (israelnationalnews)
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TERRORISM
Mosques, a breeding ground for terror
Undercover city detective finds hints of danger among mosques-PATRICE O'SHAUGHNESSY DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
A young undercover city detective spent four years in the shadowy world of terrorist wanna-bes - taking part in jihadist discussions and training in parks in the dead of night - to get a handle on the homegrown threat.
At great personal risk, he participated in everything from prayers at a mosque to martial arts training under cover of darkness to watching jihadist videos, with many of the activities laced with talk of killing, according to a source familiar with the undercover's investigations. His experiences paint a vivid portrait of the potential for local terror. While the picture is in no way indicative of the city's Muslim population as a whole, it provides insight into its most radical element. The detective spent his time interacting with informal groups of youths and men who shared extremist views - and his experiences illustrate what police say is the potential for radicalization of some elements in the community. He reported that after prayers at a neighborhood mosque, there were often private classes that included discussions about bombing different areas. The men discussed violent jihad in bookstores, private houses and on buses en route to paintball and shooting-range events. He was invited to join in "bonding" activities like working out at a gym and martial arts training in parks at night, during which the group discussed ideological justifications for killing Westerners. He also watched military movies and jihadist videos with groups of young men in private homes. During one such evening, one man got so excited he punched a wall. (nydailynews)
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NYPD travels the globe as it gathers intelligence on terror
 NYPD gathering intel, on lookout for terrorists around the world-PATRICE O'SHAUGHNESSY DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
This is the second in a two-part series looking at the NYPD's efforts to keep the city safe from terrorists. The NYPD says it has never been more prepared - but also warns the city can never let its guard down. Sunday's installment focused on an undercover officer who dug deep into the potential terrorists in our midst. Today's installment looks at ongoing global terror recruitment by Hezbollah and other groups.
Experts debate whether Al Qaeda or homegrown radicals are the biggest terror threat, but the NYPD says New York needs to fear both - and Hezbollah, too. City investigators have long been dispatched to far-flung posts such as the Middle East and Singapore to gather intelligence. Lately they've traveled within the Western Hemisphere, where radicalization is a growing concern. Teams of detectives were sent recently to South America's so-called Triborder Area, where Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay meet. That's where, intelligence experts say, Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based, radical Islamic guerrilla group backed by Iran, runs much of the area's gun and drug smuggling. "Hezbollah is an ongoing concern, and the investigators met with officials to get a sense of the threat level," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. And after the assassination in April of its third-in-command, allegedly by Israeli agents, "they are against Jewish interests everywhere," said Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence David Cohen Suicide bomb attacks were pioneered by Hezbollah, and Hamas and Al Qaeda have adopted their tactics. NYPD investigators also were recently dispatched to Israel to research Hezbollah guerilla attacks. "And on the way back, they stopped in Jamaica," Cohen said. The plot to blow up a fuel pipeline at Kennedy Airport that was disrupted by police and federal agents a year ago put the spotlight on the Caribbean as a source of radicalism. Four extremists, including a man from East New York, Brooklyn, were charged in a plot to blow up the airport and swaths of Queens by attacking fuel tanks and an underground petroleum pipeline. Prosecutors said the ringleaders were radicals with ties to Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago. Three suspects were extradited from Trinidad on June 25. Investigators said the defendants used their connections to present their plan to radical groups in South America and the Caribbean, including Jamaat al-Muslimeen, an Islamic militant group that staged a 1990 coup attempt in Trinidad and Tobago. "We've been focused on the Caribbean as a longstanding concern," Cohen said. "In Jamaica, you have Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal, the Caribbean equivalent of the Blind Sheikh." He was referring to Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the radical cleric who inspired the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center (nydailynews)
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Hamas chemical suicide attack foiled in May
A Hamas cell that was plotting suicide attacks inside Israel with chemical explosives was arrested in May by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and the IDF, security officials announced Tuesday.
The cell, the officials said, was involved in manufacturing a bomb belt that was discovered in a Tel Aviv apartment on Yom Kippur, last September, and was designated for use in a suicide attack in the city. The IDF arrested four members of the cell, all in their 20s and residents of Nablus. One member of the cell, Ayman Awad served a prison sentence in Israel for involvement in dispatching a suicide bomber several years ago. During their interrogation, the four cell members confessed to having built a laboratory in a Nablus apartment building where they experimented bomb building with different chemical materials, such as sulfur and nitric acid. The four said they used an instructional video that was prepared by a senior Hamas bomb maker who was killed in 2002 during clashes with IDF troops. Meanwhile, the IDF stepped up its crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank. Soldiers carried out an early-morning raid on a Nablus shopping mall that the army said was affiliated with the terrorist group, seizing the five-story mall and ordering the building's 70 shop owners to vacate the premises by mid-August. "Anyone found in this center after August 15 will be considered as working on behalf of Hamas and puts himself and his properties in danger," said an order posted in shop windows. "Profits made by stores are used to sponsor terror," a defense official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Tuesday's raid came a day after Israeli troops swooped down on other alleged Hamas targets in Nablus. They shut down a girls' school, a medical center and two other facilities of a Hamas-affiliated charity, witnesses said. Elsewhere in the West Bank, the IDF lifted a two-day curfew from the Palestinian village of Na'alin. The army imposed the curfew on Sunday after violent anti-security fence protests. (jpost)
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‘Terrorism as a culture- way of life, and death’
A Scholar Who Dares To Look Terror In The Face-Douglas Murray
Michael Burleigh is riding a career high. The author of the 2000 bestseller The Third Reich: A New History has just published the last of a gargantuan trilogy of books on religion and politics in Europe since the French revolution. Earthly Powers and Sacred Causes took us up to the war on terror. Now, with Blood and Rage: A Cultural History of Terrorism, Burleigh comes right up to date. Not that Blood and Rage is only about Islamic fundamentalism. As the 52-year-old former academic tells me when we meet at his home in south London, the new book is about terrorism as a culture — as a way of life, and death. ‘I wrote Earthly Powers and Sacred Causes because I was confronted by the prospect before I left academia of spending the rest of my life writing books on Nazi Germany and the second world war, and this was such a grim prospect for me. In a way 9/11 forced us [all] to think about the wider world. ‘The two religion books are in a sense my trying to look at what I think is a very neglected area of modern European history. Most historians are secular. They think there is just an onward march to universal secularity... The thing about the arrival of radical Islam in our midst is that it’s like a sort of sudden traffic-stop to people who think, “Oh well, we’re all going to get more and more secular and we’ll reduce these people to the same level of accepting all the tenets of liberalism”. And suddenly bang, that hasn’t worked out, that’s not the case. So now we have this terrific problem of how societies which understand themselves as becoming ineluctably more secular and more liberal, how they will deal with people for whom very strong religious belief is part of it.’But what links terrorist organisations across the decades? Nineteenth-century Fenianism, Russian Nihilism, the Baader-Meinhof brigades? ‘Undemocratic minorities, whether in dem-ocracies or in other systems,’ says Burleigh as he lights another cigarette. ‘Twenty-five members of the Baader-Meinhof group wanted to overthrow German capitalism. Well 25 people is not a great democratic caucus, so therefore they resorted obviously to extreme political violence. I wanted to look at these particular groups in various historical contexts and to look at the mindset of why people join them, how the dynamics of the group operate psychologically — that terrorism can become almost a way of life — and particularly to focus on the thing that everybody seems to slightly neglect, which is that the main thing they do is to kill people... I think it’s quite important to establish that and also maybe to say look, there are some terrorists that you can negotiate with... there are demands you can make which at least might diminish the support they might have within given communities, and there are other people whose objectives are completely insane. I mean, we’re not going to abolish Western civilisation on behalf of the jihadists.’ (spectator)
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TERRORISM-INTERNET
ISRAEL LEADS IN DEVELOPING COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY TO FIND JIHADIST WEBSITES
Analysis: Holy war on the Web: Israel and the cyber-battle against the jihadis by Yaacov Lappin
Al-Qaida is using the Internet to bypass physical borders and recruit susceptible Muslim Israelis and Palestinians for jihad.
The recent arrest of two Beduin from Rahat, who are accused of scouting targets for terror attacks, marking out the Azrieli towers in Tel Aviv, and gathering intelligence on IDF bases in the Negev, marks the latest known infiltration of al-Qaida into Israel, but also demonstrates that Israeli counterterrorism agents have followed the jihadis into the digital arena.
Ever since the destruction of its training camps in Afghanistan by the United States in 2001 following the September 11 attacks, al-Qaida has relied almost exclusively on the Web to indoctrinate, train and raise a global army.
Over the past decade, it has founded a virtual base of operations in the form of thousands of Web sites.
Since al-Qaida has no territory on the planet in which it can freely operate, the Internet has become a natural safe haven for it.
Israel has so far ranked low on al-Qaida's list of targets - jihadis have been preoccupied with striking Arab-Muslim countries they view as heretical, launching sporadic attacks in Western states and battling coalition forces in Iraq in a bloody bid to reestablish the caliphate there.
Recently, however, Israel has featured far more prominently in propaganda messages issued by jihadi leaders.
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Radical jihadists and web recruiting
Radical web of Islam's Terror-Marc Sageman, National Post
A new generation of Islamist terrorists is connecting through the Internet, not al-Qaeda. Their lack of central organization makes them even more terrifying than their forebears
The world's most dangerous jihadists no longer answer to al-Qaeda. The terrorists we should fear most are self-recruited wannabes who find purpose in terror and comrades on the Web. This new generation is even more frightening and unpredictable than its predecessors, but its evolution just may reveal the key to its demise.When British police broke down Younis Tsouli's door in a leafy west London neighbourhood in October, 2005, they suspected the 22-year-old son of a Moroccan diplomat of little more than having traded e-mails with men planning a bombing in Bosnia. It was only after they began examining the hard drive on Tsouli's computer that they realized they had stumbled upon one of the most infamous --and unlikely --cyberjihadists in the world. Tsouli's online username, as they discovered, was "Irhabi007" ("Terrorist007" in Arabic). It was a moniker well known to international counterterrorism officials. Since 2004, this young man, with no history of radical activity, had become one of the world's most influential propagandists in jihadi chat rooms. It had been the online images of the war in Iraq that first radicalized him. He began spending his days creating and hacking dozens of Web sites in order to upload videos of beheadings and suicide bombings in Iraq and post links to the texts of bomb-making manuals. From his bedroom in London, he eventually became a crucial global organizer of online terrorist networks, guiding others to jihadist sites where they could learn the deadly craft. Ultimately, he attracted the attention of the late leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. When British police discovered this young IT student in his London flat, he was serving as Zarqawi's public relations mouthpiece on the Web. (nationalpost)
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JIHAD-INTERNET
Hamas threatens Israel with ‘bliztkrieg’ if attacked
 Al Qassam Brigades: If enemy attacks Gaza, we will surprise enemy with unmatched operations
Al Qassam Brigades warned the Zionist occupation forces in case of launching military operations in Gaza Strip. The calm of the Zionist settlements will be ended and the rockets will back again as they were, as the unprecedented operations will be back also. Abu Obaida said in a statement ,to Al-Qassam website on Sunday, 6th July , said the statements and the documents which recommended to launch limited attacks on Gaza, show that the Zionist entity wants to make the situation difficult again in Gaza Strip, because the Zionist entity feared the ceasefire agreement, stressing that if the occupation chooses this, the ceasefire agreement will be futile and all options are opened for the resistance to respond to the Zionist occupation by all means. "We are ready for all options and our agenda are filled with the horrific scenarios for the occupation", noting that the calm came with a national consensus, and therefore its better for the resistance factions to leave the ceasefire agreement with a national consensus also", Abu Obaida assured in a statement. It is noteworthy that a military document was prepared in Research Branch in the General Command of the Zionist occupation recommended the occupation army to respond on launching the rockets from the Gaza Strip by implementing limited and focused military attacks .
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